Thursday, May 31, 2007

Too late

Dear I,

This is my way of communicating to you everything I haven't been saying those past few days, but have been reflecting in the way I am treating you. You are complaining that I am treating you badly and giving you lots of shit over what you've done, but you have it all wrong: It's not you that I am punishing, it's myself, and that's for caring too much. Let me elaborate...

I have known that you were self-destructive from the beginning, or at least had the tendencies, but you had demonstrated through words and actions that you are done with screwing yourself over, that you are tired of being self destructive and that you are finally taking control of your life and responsibility for your actions. For that reasons I was proud to be your friend and allowed myself to get closer to you, to the degree of calling and regarding you as my bestfriend at the moment. Your history didn't matter to me, because I wasn't going to judge you for the mistakes you've done if you were done with them. And you were, but you needed help and support in order to stay on the wagon as you've put it, and I was more than willing to be there for you. I even gave you a choice early on on whether you would like to be an A friend or a B friend, and you chose A, with all what it would entail. This was going to be one of the most rewarding friendships that I've had in a long time, because you are loyal, brilliant and funny, not to mention a little mischievous, which is exactly the combo needed to win my friendly affections.

And then last week happened, and I found out what you've done.

Now let me explain to you what made me so mad.

It wasn't jealousy, I wish it was that easy. That somehow I am in love with you and this is nothing but the reaction of a jilted lover. Had that been the case, I would've just not spoke to you again. Been in enough relationships to understand that little trick. No, unfortunately to your ego, I had no love for you beyond that of deep friendship, which is what makes this so very complicated.

It wasn't that you lied to me, even though that pisses me off to no end. It maybe part of it, the part that adds the insult to the injury, and that prevents the trust from coming back. You are a very good liar and I knew that from the beginning, but I thought that there wouldn't be lying between us. It wasn't necessary. I learned your entire history and didn't flinch and you know it. But now I understand why you've done it, and I now know that it will be a part of our dynamic whether I like it or not, or whether you promise me you wouldn't do it again or didn't. I now know that you will lie to me, that you would have to for the main reason for which I am mad at you. It's because you will continue finding ways to be self destructive, to fuck yourself up, and you will try your best to hide that from the people that care about you.

It's not who he is kiddo, even though you know I despise him. It was that you weren't protected, every single time, and you know better. You know how dirty he is, and you know what you could catch and what you could put yourself in, and yet you went and did it anyway, time and time again, while telling me that it was only the one time, or that it was a few time but a long time ago, or any of those other lies you would tell me to justify what you did. And the thing is, nobody talks about the important of being safe in that department more than you, and yet there you go. You went for it anyway despite all of your speeches about it. And then you go and tell me that there is no such thing as safe-sex anyway. Yakhy A77a! Had I done what You did with someone of equal dirtiness that same amount of time you wouldn't even shake hands with me. Hell, I wouldn't shake hands with me.

But alas, it's done, and what is left are the repercussions for both of us. I am not condemning you for getting some from a manwhore, I am mad as hell at you for not protecting yourself when doing it, over and over again. And it wasn't till later on that I realized that this had nothing to do with the sex and everything to do with making a big mistake. With being self destructive. That you were not done by a long shot, and this puts me in a very awkward position, because I took an oath to myself that I wouldn't care, truly care, for anybody who is self destructive. That such a relationship would cost you time and effort and emotional investment, but at the end it wouldn't be worth it. The problem is, I already care for you. I am already close to you, which puts me in quite the predicament.

You are my bestfriend and worst enemy at the same time, because you deliberately hurt my best friend - whom I am very protective of- and there is nothing that I can do to stop you! If I continue being your bestfriend I will either have to fight with you every time you do a similar act, or would have to be content with the fact that you would be doing such things and lying to me about them, and both options suck. My other two options are either to scale down our friendship and move you to category B, which would mean I would make deliberate efforts to distance myself from you and no longer really care about you and what you do to yourself, or I would have to not know you anymore, just kick you our of my life and leave you to your self-inflicted misery and self-destructive tendencies, chalk this up to another lesson learned, and become like my friend E and not let anyone in the A category anymore. She tells me that caring for people, truly caring for people, is an unnecessary risk taken for usually unworthy candidates, and I am starting to think that she might be correct on that one.

So as you can see, all of my options suck, either always fight with you, or let you lie to me, or put an effort to back off or get rid of you all together. There is always the 5th option, which involves you promising not to engage in such self-destructive behavior again, but we both know you can't do that, and even if you did, I wouldn't believe you because of how good of a liar you are. It's a 5-sided trap with no way out and I don't know what to do, but my defense - mechanism seems to know, because it's been kicking into motion option # 3, and I can slowly watch it forcing me to distance myself from you, even when I personally don't want to.

And this is why I am mad at myself. The great heartless bastard can not just toss you aside like he does to anybody that even threatens to upset his cozy existence or ruffles his emotional stability. I am trying to fight it as hard as I can, which is why I am so grouchy, why I am giving you so much shit, hoping to see some sort of an emotional reaction from you: some anger, or some regret, anything that shows that you care about yourself. A glimpse of hope that let's me believe that you are worth it, and that I shouldn't back out of your life like I am doing right now. But so far you've given me nothing, hell, you just told me that if we are going to hang out tonight we shouldn't talk about this, because it would just upset you. And I was planning on telling you all of this today, but since you don't want to get into it, I guess I won't go there. You want this topic closed, and so does my defense mechanism, so I will oblige you and not tell you any of this. Your wish is my command.

It's just, this is the saddest of moments, because you are arriving very soon, and I know that the person you will meet will not be the same person who is writing those words. That the person you will sit with and talk to who will look like me and will tell you my stories and crack my jokes is not the same person that you've got to know and care about, because that person will be dead by then. This is, in many ways, his eulogy.

Best of luck sweetie, and take care now, and know that until the last minute I had nothing but love for you!

Goodbye,

SM

Saturday, May 26, 2007

A prayer

I hope that God saves you, because I don't think I can!

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Self's the man

Oh, no one can deny
That Arnold is less selfish than I.
He married a woman to stop her getting away
Now she's there all day,

And the money he gets for wasting his life on work
She takes as her perk
To pay for the kiddies' clobber and the drier
And the electric fire,

And when he finishes supper
Planning to have a read at the evening paper
It's Put a screw in this wall -
He has no time at all,

With the nippers to wheel round the houses
And the hall to paint in his old trousers
And that letter to her mother
Saying Won't you come for the summer.

To compare his life and mine
Makes me feel a swine:
Oh, no one can deny
That Arnold is less selfish than I.

But wait, not do fast:
Is there such a contrast?
He was out for his own ends
Not just pleasing his friends;

And if it was such a mistake,
He still did it for his own sake,
Playing his own game.
So he and I are the same,
Only I'm a better hand
At knowing what I can stand!

Philip Larkin