An ugly, pointless rant in which I reveal myself to be an overly dramatic ass
(this is a direct cross-post from myspace, so it may not make much sense in certain places. sorry.)
SETTING: At home, one somewhat overweight, bespectacled, largely unattractive nerd sitting in a leather office chair in front of two computer monitors. His left hand and face are numb from driving through the cold with his windows down. He sighs heavily and you can tell from his movements that he either has deep, abiding contempt for his keyboard or is just finishing a really, really long and frustrating day.
This is going to be ugly. I'm going to exaggerate, whine, bitch, moan, etc. I'm writing as Phaedrus, rather than Arete - the anger of the righteously offended rather than the criminally insane. (Yeah, I still need to explain about that.. I know)
Okay, "righteous" is a bit much, but you get the point.
So's you know.
Okay.
I've been having a shitty week. Any of you who care (and several of you who don't) know that much already, so I won't go into it again here. Suffice it to say that I've been running on extreme emotional overload and not enough sleep for several days.
Well, there's another problem that I've discussed with some of you, and I think everyone else has picked up on it by now.
Me and Lisa.
I haven't exactly made it a secret, but I'm not sure everyone knows where I stand on this. I'm convinced that she's the most perfect person in the world. I love her very much, more than I could ever love anyone else, and more than anyone else could ever love her, and if anyone doesn't believe me I'd be happy to list off exactly why I can say this without any doubts whatsoever. (There are a series of things I realized that forced me to conclude this. I actually tried to pretend I didn't like her all that much, and it backfired and produced the opposite effect.)
This is not a silly crush, or a stupid fantasy. I'm done with that, and was never much for the romantic idealism thing anyway. Unfortunately, it is the first time I've felt this strongly about anyone (or anyTHING, for that matter), and I have never done anything like this before. Remember that I've yet to ask a girl out, and may never do so if things continue like this.
Also, I really don't want to go through all the drama associated with dating, particularly not someone I work with. Ironic, given the epic heights of drama happening now.
Also, she's dating someone already and is obviously happy with him or she wouldn't still be with him. I don't want them to break up, that would be stupid. I wouldn't want her to go through that without a really, really good reason (no, I don't consider myself a good enough reason unless she decides I'm worth something all of a sudden). Obviously I'd like her to be available, but not if it comes at the expense of her happiness or sanity.
Now, normally the romantic cliché is for the guy to say that he'd die for the woman he loves. Well, that's true. Unfortunately for the sake of my attempt to prove my seriousness, I would die for anybody I work with, all of my friends, and pretty much anyone I could conceivably meet including strangers.
So, here's what I say instead.
If, at some point in the future, I ever became so depressed that I decided to kill myself, and had actually set up whatever I decided to use to do it, Lisa is one of maybe three people that I would stop for. No matter what, no matter how bad it got, I'd live for her.
Overly dramatic, shoverly shmamatic.
I'd gladly spend the rest of my life making sure she's happy. This is why I keep saying I want to marry her - I'd get the chance to make her life better every time we saw each other.
One of the things I most want to do is make her feel better if she's feeling down.
So, I hear the reader asking, if she's such a source of sunshine and sweetness and light, if she makes or breaks your day depending on her mood, and if you worship the ground she walks on, why are all the cords in your neck standing out, and why are you gritting your teeth?
The answer is simple.
I've decided to stop being a doormat.
I've given her way too much control over me. And, consciously or not, she's taken advantage of that to ruin my well-being.
I still love her. I always will, even if I end up being 'just a friend', even if she ends up hating me. But if I'm to have any self-respect at all, I've got to stop this.
She tells me she'll call and nearly always forgets, or waits several hours, until after I've given up and gone to sleep. I'm enough of a worshipful, whipped moron to still be dancing with joy that she actually thought I was worth calling, so I don't care about the lateness so much, but I do mind the hours of frustration and waiting, knowing that I won't get anything done that night. The one time I called her on it, she snapped at me and said that she always calls people back when she says she will.
I don't mean to call her a liar, but...
Maybe it's that I don't qualify as 'people' in her eyes?
She insists that I'm not in love with her, she's pretty much stopped even giving me the hugs she gives everyone. And I'm not willing to undergo a nipple twisting as payback for trying to hug HER.
I don't expect her to feel as strongly about me as I feel about her. I've explained in great detail my likely future as a friendless, lonely virgin for life. I have no reason to expect anything from her, but I would like recognition that I exist.
The last four days have been hell. Can you tell that I'm completely fed up with this situation?
She won't talk to me. Twice since this started she came in the store and pretty much ignored me, although she did stare at me for a few seconds and refused to say anything even remotely hinting that she wanted me to be there, or insinuating that she was aware I exist. I've called her, she refuses the call or doesn't call back. I send her messages here or via text message ("Please call me when you have a few minutes", that's pretty unambiguous..), no reply.
Obviously something is wrong. I know most of you know what it is, but I'm totally in the dark. She won't talk to me, her friends won't talk to me.. I know that's a female bonding thing and I won't pry into that to save my life, but whatever it is I did, or whatever's wrong with her life, it had better be pretty FUCKING SERIOUS to make me go through this.
The only thing I can think of is a misunderstanding between a few of us. Lisa was told that I had said some disparaging things about her, which is patently untrue, and she of course trusted her other friend over the obsessive Lisa-can-do-no-wrong fanboy and rounded on me, and got all upset, and she's probably still mad at me for something that DIDN'T EVEN HAPPEN. This supposed conversation never took place, and the only thing I can think of that might be exaggerate-able into a 'conversation' is a muddy recollection of a question that someone asked me, that I really didn't want to answer because defending Lisa means I get loud and dramatic and I really didn't want to get thrown out of Denny's at 2 am for being rowdy.
Anyway, she has been upset about this mythical conversation, although I've explained to her several times that it didn't happen.
That's fine. That's her prerogative, just like it's her prerogative to not want to date me, or whatever. I'm fine with that, and I've developed a nearly infinite capacity for patience when it comes to Lisa. I've already waited almost six years to tell her how I felt (not that I necessarily knew that I felt this strongly until the last ~six months or so), and I've put up with a lot of unwarranted abuse and some pretty shitty treatment lately.
But I can't just put up with this.
She's unhappy, and it's something so bad that she won't talk to me about it.
If it's something I did, her friends think it's too serious to tell me.
If something went wrong that's affecting her somehow, she doesn't trust me enough to even tell me that much.
You know, I didn't expect her to fall into my arms and ride off into the sunset with me just because I told her how I felt. In all honesty, I think it's stretching the limits of believability that I'll even get a single date with a woman, ever, much less something like marrying Lisa.
But fuck it, I still have feelings, guys. I know, big dumb android like me, must be pretty simple inside and easily dismissed as insignificant, right?
Nope.
I'll always have these feelings for Lisa. Even if she does nothing but hurt me, even if I end up getting walked all over and have nothing to show for it, even if she marries some drunken womanizer and spends her life in misery, that won't stop how I feel. I'd be disappointed for myself, but her life is hers and I'm surprised she even wants to be my friend.
And this is probably a really shitty thing to write about. To embarrass her like this. But I found out that whatever is going on between us is apparently public knowledge to everyone but me, so I've been embarrassed, and I've been ignored, and just before this started I made a joke about us never speaking to each other again and her eyes lit up like it was the greatest idea ever and the pain I went through for just that split second...
And now it's come true. That was the last time I spoke to her. Does she even realize that it was a joke? Does she REALLY think that I don't want to talk to her? That I would even think that was a desirable outcome?
Man. It's hard enough just getting to talk to her. When she's at work, every time I go to talk to her someone walks up, sometimes Jeff but mostly customers, and it fails. I talk to her in person and she's on the phone the whole time, or spends the night largely ignoring me unless we're at her house by ourselves, and then I'm too content just to sit next to her, close my eyes and know that she's there, to bring up something that might spoil that moment. I try to call her and it never works.
I hate to make a big deal out of this, since it's probably nothing. She's almost certainly going to be mad at me for being mad, and I'll feel like a moron for raising a huge stink over what turned out to be nothing at all. But I'm already pissed, and I feel like she's just abandoned me, even as a friend, and I don't care any more.
I sent her a text message today, and I'm not going to talk to her anymore until she decides to find me. I'm not trying any more.
Here's what it says.
"I don't know why you won't talk to me. At this point I'm too burned out to make myself care anymore. Do what you want. You can't make me feel any worse."
Lisa, if this is your way of telling me to go fuck myself, well, I'm sorry that I did whatever I did to piss you off. Four days of this shit is taking a toll on me, and I can't keep on pretending like it's okay.
You know, she came in the store with Aaron today and I can totally understand if she doesn't want to deal with me while he's present. I wouldn't, in her position. But 'hello' is simple and easy. I think, as much of myself as I've put into this obsession of mine, that I rate a simple 'hello'.
I don't have the faintest clue how she feels about me. I imagine that if I were an attractive young woman with the love and support of everyone in the world, and a big hulking stupid ogre came up to me and swore that he loved me, I don't think I'd be all that flattered. I would probably call the police.
However, she's told me that she finds me at least marginally attractive, and her two comments that, given the chance, she'd 1) date me and 2) marry me were what convinced me to lift the dampers I'd put on my thoughts and examine them in detail.
I take my mental sounding hammer and tap it against the block that says "Lisa" on it, and it rings triumphant and true, second only to the ring I get from tapping my "God" block.
If I ever tap it and get a dull thudding noise, I'll swear off contact with her and disappear.
(Yeah, I'm waxing metaphorical. Do not care.)
This is starting to turn into a rant, and I've rejected about fifteen titles for it so far. But here's a final thought. I've wanted to say this to Lisa for months, but never had the chance while I was thinking about it.
(Since most of my friends here are girls, I'll put this from the female point of view.)
Say that you suddenly meet this guy, and he's possibly the physical incarnation of God. He's that awesome.
Say he's dating someone, but you don't care. You spend months trying to convince yourself that it won't work out between you, it's a passing fancy, everything in your brain is screaming at you to stop, stop, just let it go and you'll be happier in the long run.
Then, by whatever means, you find out that - surprise! - he sort of likes you too, or at least acknowledges your existence as a female.
So you spend a long time wrestling with THAT.
Finally you go up to him and tell him how awesome you think he is and that you're madly in love with him... whatever.
And he does not care.
Not only does he not care, he suddenly stops being your friend for a while. Eventually you go back to the way things were, and you even end up being closer friends, but that first week was really awkward.
Then, every time you see him, he's with other girls and/or his guy friends, so he obviously has time to hang out. And when he's with other girls he's flirting, laughing, enjoying himself. Won't talk to you except on rare occasions, but then will suddenly express a desire to spend a whole day with you.
He tells you to call him, you do and are repeatedly asked to call back later. Speaking over the phone requires you stay up late for several hours, only to be asked to call back at an impossibly early time the next morning. You get up early to follow up on that, and don't get an answer, and finally have to call his house to find out what's going on.
Or you plan to get lunch together, and he won't even wake up to do that. And you end up driving out to his house, across town, just to have lunch with this guy you think is so awesome. And he's asleep, and his mom wakes him up, and you just barely have time to eat lunch before you both have to leave for work, and you never actually get to spend any time together. And then his mom thinks you're crazy for doing something like that.
And something is obviously wrong with him, something upsetting, but he won't tell you, and turns everything that matters so much to you into a stupid joke, and laughs at your frustration.
Say you get to hang out with him and one of your other friends, and you go to his house, and he spends the whole time flirting with your other friend and pretty much ignores you. Worst of all, he accepts the return flirting, but the few times you've tried to goof around like that, you've gotten a nasty, snapped response telling you that you are in no uncertain terms never to do that kind of thing again.
And all this goes on for months.
Then imagine that this whole situation, complete with the bizarre and impenetrable silence, descends on you like a ton of bricks during a shitty time of your life. Imagine that you're on your period (not that I menstruate, but..), you're in danger of failing your classes, and you just got a shitload of bills and have no money, your parents are having health issues (one nearly dies) and your whole home life is disrupted, you're dealing with the recent death of a family member, your closest sibling is moved away and you can't talk to them, you have no friends nearby you can talk to, and when you finally,
FINALLY
F I N A L L Y
can't stand it any more and ask one of his friends why the hell he's treating you like shit, you get a cryptic answer: "I know exactly why he's upset with you, but I'm not telling you."
I guarantee - GUARANTEE - you that if this happened to one of you ladies, you would all band together on the warpath, hunting for blood.
I don't have a band of supporters. It's just me, and I don't WANT to be angry at Lisa for this crap. It's all stupid, minor stuff, and I'm really more annoyed at the situation than at her - again, do I really think she's just going to launch me to the top of her priorities list just because I think I'm in love with her? I'd be concerned if she did change her behavior on my account.
But this whole situation has augmented my other problems and the stresses of life, and compounded them, and I keep trying to fix all this and it just keeps not working, and dammit Lisa, if you're really that determined to let me fester alone like this, have the ovarian fortitude to say "I'm sorry, I just want to be your friend, please let's just pretend that this never happened and you'll never find someone else and you can just spend the rest of your life alone."
Just fucking say it already. If that's how you feel. I'd be unhappy, but I don't want to keep harassing you if it's pissing you off.
She accuses me of being a drama queen. I accuse her of instigating emotional upset in my life for her own amusement.
I'm going to repeat this one more time. I know I'm being unreasonable on at least part of this, maybe all of it. I'm still resigned to dying alone. As painful as it is to admit, I don't think she's ever going to see enough of value in me to consider me as even a temporary boyfriend. She's started saying things like "I think you're a great guy..", and I can just HEAR her thinking "....for someone else." I can hear it, even if she doesn't say it.
So I know. I KNOW, okay? I know that I'm wasting my time and making a friendship go through a lot of strain and complication for no good end. I still want her more than anything else in the world, and yes I would drop my car in an instant if it meant she would stay with me, BUT
I don't want to push her. I don't want to make her uncomfortable, although I already have. I don't want to be upset at her for living her life, and I'm trying really, really hard to tell the amorous fool in me to shut the hell up.
I recently found out that I can change myself in certain ways, remove parts of my personality, conjure up new attitudes. I found that I didn't like myself that much and figured hey, if my ultimate goal is to eventually maybe convince Lisa that I'm worth thinking about, maybe I should make myself slightly more attractive. So I've been retraining myself, dropping bad habits that she's called me on, and the result has been my inexplicable good mood.
Today that mood finally failed me. I still feel it, cheerful, trying to bubble up and tell me to let go of these minor worries, they don't mean anything, you're being upset over a girl that you didn't have a chance with anyway, just enjoy your life. In short, the voice of Phaedrus, distilled and concentrated.
But now that I'm good and angry, it'll take a while for that to happen.
I'm annoyed, I'm depressed, I'm pretty much blaming her for not being there for me when she didn't need to be and I had no right to expect her to be, and I'm severely overreacting to nothing at all.
I slipped past the stage where I'd be capable of doing something rash, like breaking things or what have you, and now I'm just in the all-consuming cold anger phase. This is the state of mind where I can let anything go, where I can be a flippant jackass to the ones I care about most (my mom once got upset because she thought I was going to kill myself, and when she left I clapped sarcastically, prompting my dad to tell me that I was cold-hearted. That is how bad this gets.) This is the state that I failed most of a grade in, because I just did not care. This is the state arsonists have to be in, to just let the fire take it all and be done. This is the state of all those people who committed suicide in ways that seemed accidental. The people who drove off of overpasses, "fell" from balconies..
In this state of mind I am capable of anything and everything. I'm stressed about the way this week has gone, I'm stressed about this drama with Lisa, I'm stressed at myself for being so stupid that I let myself get stressed about the drama with Lisa....
It all compounds, and builds, and I don't have vents for my energy, and my usual tactic of erasing the negativity entirely is not working because there's way too much of it, and I just really, really want to talk to Lisa, hug her, apologize, and maybe die.
This might sound like I'm planning suicide. I'm not. Although lately I don't think there's a whole lot left for me on this planet, and that I'm mostly a burden on people, I can't even handle talking to Lisa without being intensely aware of how incredible she is. I can't imagine how I would react when faced with the very presence of God. Worse still would be God upset at me for basically slapping him in the face and saying I deserved to die.
No, I'm not going to do anything that idiotic.
I'm going to post this on my other site, too. I need the opinions of people who know me, and nobody else in this story, and who have observed or lived in the real world long enough to offer relevant advice.
For those of you who skipped to the end: I'm not mad at Lisa. I'm mad at this situation, and I know that I'm overreacting. Now stop being a lazy ass and re-read it.
I find it interesting that I'm a lot calmer now. Writing is therapeutic.
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Now playing: Massive Attack - Group Four
via FoxyTunes
SETTING: At home, one somewhat overweight, bespectacled, largely unattractive nerd sitting in a leather office chair in front of two computer monitors. His left hand and face are numb from driving through the cold with his windows down. He sighs heavily and you can tell from his movements that he either has deep, abiding contempt for his keyboard or is just finishing a really, really long and frustrating day.
This is going to be ugly. I'm going to exaggerate, whine, bitch, moan, etc. I'm writing as Phaedrus, rather than Arete - the anger of the righteously offended rather than the criminally insane. (Yeah, I still need to explain about that.. I know)
Okay, "righteous" is a bit much, but you get the point.
So's you know.
Okay.
I've been having a shitty week. Any of you who care (and several of you who don't) know that much already, so I won't go into it again here. Suffice it to say that I've been running on extreme emotional overload and not enough sleep for several days.
Well, there's another problem that I've discussed with some of you, and I think everyone else has picked up on it by now.
Me and Lisa.
I haven't exactly made it a secret, but I'm not sure everyone knows where I stand on this. I'm convinced that she's the most perfect person in the world. I love her very much, more than I could ever love anyone else, and more than anyone else could ever love her, and if anyone doesn't believe me I'd be happy to list off exactly why I can say this without any doubts whatsoever. (There are a series of things I realized that forced me to conclude this. I actually tried to pretend I didn't like her all that much, and it backfired and produced the opposite effect.)
This is not a silly crush, or a stupid fantasy. I'm done with that, and was never much for the romantic idealism thing anyway. Unfortunately, it is the first time I've felt this strongly about anyone (or anyTHING, for that matter), and I have never done anything like this before. Remember that I've yet to ask a girl out, and may never do so if things continue like this.
Also, I really don't want to go through all the drama associated with dating, particularly not someone I work with. Ironic, given the epic heights of drama happening now.
Also, she's dating someone already and is obviously happy with him or she wouldn't still be with him. I don't want them to break up, that would be stupid. I wouldn't want her to go through that without a really, really good reason (no, I don't consider myself a good enough reason unless she decides I'm worth something all of a sudden). Obviously I'd like her to be available, but not if it comes at the expense of her happiness or sanity.
Now, normally the romantic cliché is for the guy to say that he'd die for the woman he loves. Well, that's true. Unfortunately for the sake of my attempt to prove my seriousness, I would die for anybody I work with, all of my friends, and pretty much anyone I could conceivably meet including strangers.
So, here's what I say instead.
If, at some point in the future, I ever became so depressed that I decided to kill myself, and had actually set up whatever I decided to use to do it, Lisa is one of maybe three people that I would stop for. No matter what, no matter how bad it got, I'd live for her.
Overly dramatic, shoverly shmamatic.
I'd gladly spend the rest of my life making sure she's happy. This is why I keep saying I want to marry her - I'd get the chance to make her life better every time we saw each other.
One of the things I most want to do is make her feel better if she's feeling down.
So, I hear the reader asking, if she's such a source of sunshine and sweetness and light, if she makes or breaks your day depending on her mood, and if you worship the ground she walks on, why are all the cords in your neck standing out, and why are you gritting your teeth?
The answer is simple.
I've decided to stop being a doormat.
I've given her way too much control over me. And, consciously or not, she's taken advantage of that to ruin my well-being.
I still love her. I always will, even if I end up being 'just a friend', even if she ends up hating me. But if I'm to have any self-respect at all, I've got to stop this.
She tells me she'll call and nearly always forgets, or waits several hours, until after I've given up and gone to sleep. I'm enough of a worshipful, whipped moron to still be dancing with joy that she actually thought I was worth calling, so I don't care about the lateness so much, but I do mind the hours of frustration and waiting, knowing that I won't get anything done that night. The one time I called her on it, she snapped at me and said that she always calls people back when she says she will.
I don't mean to call her a liar, but...
Maybe it's that I don't qualify as 'people' in her eyes?
She insists that I'm not in love with her, she's pretty much stopped even giving me the hugs she gives everyone. And I'm not willing to undergo a nipple twisting as payback for trying to hug HER.
I don't expect her to feel as strongly about me as I feel about her. I've explained in great detail my likely future as a friendless, lonely virgin for life. I have no reason to expect anything from her, but I would like recognition that I exist.
The last four days have been hell. Can you tell that I'm completely fed up with this situation?
She won't talk to me. Twice since this started she came in the store and pretty much ignored me, although she did stare at me for a few seconds and refused to say anything even remotely hinting that she wanted me to be there, or insinuating that she was aware I exist. I've called her, she refuses the call or doesn't call back. I send her messages here or via text message ("Please call me when you have a few minutes", that's pretty unambiguous..), no reply.
Obviously something is wrong. I know most of you know what it is, but I'm totally in the dark. She won't talk to me, her friends won't talk to me.. I know that's a female bonding thing and I won't pry into that to save my life, but whatever it is I did, or whatever's wrong with her life, it had better be pretty FUCKING SERIOUS to make me go through this.
The only thing I can think of is a misunderstanding between a few of us. Lisa was told that I had said some disparaging things about her, which is patently untrue, and she of course trusted her other friend over the obsessive Lisa-can-do-no-wrong fanboy and rounded on me, and got all upset, and she's probably still mad at me for something that DIDN'T EVEN HAPPEN. This supposed conversation never took place, and the only thing I can think of that might be exaggerate-able into a 'conversation' is a muddy recollection of a question that someone asked me, that I really didn't want to answer because defending Lisa means I get loud and dramatic and I really didn't want to get thrown out of Denny's at 2 am for being rowdy.
Anyway, she has been upset about this mythical conversation, although I've explained to her several times that it didn't happen.
That's fine. That's her prerogative, just like it's her prerogative to not want to date me, or whatever. I'm fine with that, and I've developed a nearly infinite capacity for patience when it comes to Lisa. I've already waited almost six years to tell her how I felt (not that I necessarily knew that I felt this strongly until the last ~six months or so), and I've put up with a lot of unwarranted abuse and some pretty shitty treatment lately.
But I can't just put up with this.
She's unhappy, and it's something so bad that she won't talk to me about it.
If it's something I did, her friends think it's too serious to tell me.
If something went wrong that's affecting her somehow, she doesn't trust me enough to even tell me that much.
You know, I didn't expect her to fall into my arms and ride off into the sunset with me just because I told her how I felt. In all honesty, I think it's stretching the limits of believability that I'll even get a single date with a woman, ever, much less something like marrying Lisa.
But fuck it, I still have feelings, guys. I know, big dumb android like me, must be pretty simple inside and easily dismissed as insignificant, right?
Nope.
I'll always have these feelings for Lisa. Even if she does nothing but hurt me, even if I end up getting walked all over and have nothing to show for it, even if she marries some drunken womanizer and spends her life in misery, that won't stop how I feel. I'd be disappointed for myself, but her life is hers and I'm surprised she even wants to be my friend.
And this is probably a really shitty thing to write about. To embarrass her like this. But I found out that whatever is going on between us is apparently public knowledge to everyone but me, so I've been embarrassed, and I've been ignored, and just before this started I made a joke about us never speaking to each other again and her eyes lit up like it was the greatest idea ever and the pain I went through for just that split second...
And now it's come true. That was the last time I spoke to her. Does she even realize that it was a joke? Does she REALLY think that I don't want to talk to her? That I would even think that was a desirable outcome?
Man. It's hard enough just getting to talk to her. When she's at work, every time I go to talk to her someone walks up, sometimes Jeff but mostly customers, and it fails. I talk to her in person and she's on the phone the whole time, or spends the night largely ignoring me unless we're at her house by ourselves, and then I'm too content just to sit next to her, close my eyes and know that she's there, to bring up something that might spoil that moment. I try to call her and it never works.
I hate to make a big deal out of this, since it's probably nothing. She's almost certainly going to be mad at me for being mad, and I'll feel like a moron for raising a huge stink over what turned out to be nothing at all. But I'm already pissed, and I feel like she's just abandoned me, even as a friend, and I don't care any more.
I sent her a text message today, and I'm not going to talk to her anymore until she decides to find me. I'm not trying any more.
Here's what it says.
"I don't know why you won't talk to me. At this point I'm too burned out to make myself care anymore. Do what you want. You can't make me feel any worse."
Lisa, if this is your way of telling me to go fuck myself, well, I'm sorry that I did whatever I did to piss you off. Four days of this shit is taking a toll on me, and I can't keep on pretending like it's okay.
You know, she came in the store with Aaron today and I can totally understand if she doesn't want to deal with me while he's present. I wouldn't, in her position. But 'hello' is simple and easy. I think, as much of myself as I've put into this obsession of mine, that I rate a simple 'hello'.
I don't have the faintest clue how she feels about me. I imagine that if I were an attractive young woman with the love and support of everyone in the world, and a big hulking stupid ogre came up to me and swore that he loved me, I don't think I'd be all that flattered. I would probably call the police.
However, she's told me that she finds me at least marginally attractive, and her two comments that, given the chance, she'd 1) date me and 2) marry me were what convinced me to lift the dampers I'd put on my thoughts and examine them in detail.
I take my mental sounding hammer and tap it against the block that says "Lisa" on it, and it rings triumphant and true, second only to the ring I get from tapping my "God" block.
If I ever tap it and get a dull thudding noise, I'll swear off contact with her and disappear.
(Yeah, I'm waxing metaphorical. Do not care.)
This is starting to turn into a rant, and I've rejected about fifteen titles for it so far. But here's a final thought. I've wanted to say this to Lisa for months, but never had the chance while I was thinking about it.
(Since most of my friends here are girls, I'll put this from the female point of view.)
Say that you suddenly meet this guy, and he's possibly the physical incarnation of God. He's that awesome.
Say he's dating someone, but you don't care. You spend months trying to convince yourself that it won't work out between you, it's a passing fancy, everything in your brain is screaming at you to stop, stop, just let it go and you'll be happier in the long run.
Then, by whatever means, you find out that - surprise! - he sort of likes you too, or at least acknowledges your existence as a female.
So you spend a long time wrestling with THAT.
Finally you go up to him and tell him how awesome you think he is and that you're madly in love with him... whatever.
And he does not care.
Not only does he not care, he suddenly stops being your friend for a while. Eventually you go back to the way things were, and you even end up being closer friends, but that first week was really awkward.
Then, every time you see him, he's with other girls and/or his guy friends, so he obviously has time to hang out. And when he's with other girls he's flirting, laughing, enjoying himself. Won't talk to you except on rare occasions, but then will suddenly express a desire to spend a whole day with you.
He tells you to call him, you do and are repeatedly asked to call back later. Speaking over the phone requires you stay up late for several hours, only to be asked to call back at an impossibly early time the next morning. You get up early to follow up on that, and don't get an answer, and finally have to call his house to find out what's going on.
Or you plan to get lunch together, and he won't even wake up to do that. And you end up driving out to his house, across town, just to have lunch with this guy you think is so awesome. And he's asleep, and his mom wakes him up, and you just barely have time to eat lunch before you both have to leave for work, and you never actually get to spend any time together. And then his mom thinks you're crazy for doing something like that.
And something is obviously wrong with him, something upsetting, but he won't tell you, and turns everything that matters so much to you into a stupid joke, and laughs at your frustration.
Say you get to hang out with him and one of your other friends, and you go to his house, and he spends the whole time flirting with your other friend and pretty much ignores you. Worst of all, he accepts the return flirting, but the few times you've tried to goof around like that, you've gotten a nasty, snapped response telling you that you are in no uncertain terms never to do that kind of thing again.
And all this goes on for months.
Then imagine that this whole situation, complete with the bizarre and impenetrable silence, descends on you like a ton of bricks during a shitty time of your life. Imagine that you're on your period (not that I menstruate, but..), you're in danger of failing your classes, and you just got a shitload of bills and have no money, your parents are having health issues (one nearly dies) and your whole home life is disrupted, you're dealing with the recent death of a family member, your closest sibling is moved away and you can't talk to them, you have no friends nearby you can talk to, and when you finally,
FINALLY
F I N A L L Y
can't stand it any more and ask one of his friends why the hell he's treating you like shit, you get a cryptic answer: "I know exactly why he's upset with you, but I'm not telling you."
I guarantee - GUARANTEE - you that if this happened to one of you ladies, you would all band together on the warpath, hunting for blood.
I don't have a band of supporters. It's just me, and I don't WANT to be angry at Lisa for this crap. It's all stupid, minor stuff, and I'm really more annoyed at the situation than at her - again, do I really think she's just going to launch me to the top of her priorities list just because I think I'm in love with her? I'd be concerned if she did change her behavior on my account.
But this whole situation has augmented my other problems and the stresses of life, and compounded them, and I keep trying to fix all this and it just keeps not working, and dammit Lisa, if you're really that determined to let me fester alone like this, have the ovarian fortitude to say "I'm sorry, I just want to be your friend, please let's just pretend that this never happened and you'll never find someone else and you can just spend the rest of your life alone."
Just fucking say it already. If that's how you feel. I'd be unhappy, but I don't want to keep harassing you if it's pissing you off.
She accuses me of being a drama queen. I accuse her of instigating emotional upset in my life for her own amusement.
I'm going to repeat this one more time. I know I'm being unreasonable on at least part of this, maybe all of it. I'm still resigned to dying alone. As painful as it is to admit, I don't think she's ever going to see enough of value in me to consider me as even a temporary boyfriend. She's started saying things like "I think you're a great guy..", and I can just HEAR her thinking "....for someone else." I can hear it, even if she doesn't say it.
So I know. I KNOW, okay? I know that I'm wasting my time and making a friendship go through a lot of strain and complication for no good end. I still want her more than anything else in the world, and yes I would drop my car in an instant if it meant she would stay with me, BUT
I don't want to push her. I don't want to make her uncomfortable, although I already have. I don't want to be upset at her for living her life, and I'm trying really, really hard to tell the amorous fool in me to shut the hell up.
I recently found out that I can change myself in certain ways, remove parts of my personality, conjure up new attitudes. I found that I didn't like myself that much and figured hey, if my ultimate goal is to eventually maybe convince Lisa that I'm worth thinking about, maybe I should make myself slightly more attractive. So I've been retraining myself, dropping bad habits that she's called me on, and the result has been my inexplicable good mood.
Today that mood finally failed me. I still feel it, cheerful, trying to bubble up and tell me to let go of these minor worries, they don't mean anything, you're being upset over a girl that you didn't have a chance with anyway, just enjoy your life. In short, the voice of Phaedrus, distilled and concentrated.
But now that I'm good and angry, it'll take a while for that to happen.
I'm annoyed, I'm depressed, I'm pretty much blaming her for not being there for me when she didn't need to be and I had no right to expect her to be, and I'm severely overreacting to nothing at all.
I slipped past the stage where I'd be capable of doing something rash, like breaking things or what have you, and now I'm just in the all-consuming cold anger phase. This is the state of mind where I can let anything go, where I can be a flippant jackass to the ones I care about most (my mom once got upset because she thought I was going to kill myself, and when she left I clapped sarcastically, prompting my dad to tell me that I was cold-hearted. That is how bad this gets.) This is the state that I failed most of a grade in, because I just did not care. This is the state arsonists have to be in, to just let the fire take it all and be done. This is the state of all those people who committed suicide in ways that seemed accidental. The people who drove off of overpasses, "fell" from balconies..
In this state of mind I am capable of anything and everything. I'm stressed about the way this week has gone, I'm stressed about this drama with Lisa, I'm stressed at myself for being so stupid that I let myself get stressed about the drama with Lisa....
It all compounds, and builds, and I don't have vents for my energy, and my usual tactic of erasing the negativity entirely is not working because there's way too much of it, and I just really, really want to talk to Lisa, hug her, apologize, and maybe die.
This might sound like I'm planning suicide. I'm not. Although lately I don't think there's a whole lot left for me on this planet, and that I'm mostly a burden on people, I can't even handle talking to Lisa without being intensely aware of how incredible she is. I can't imagine how I would react when faced with the very presence of God. Worse still would be God upset at me for basically slapping him in the face and saying I deserved to die.
No, I'm not going to do anything that idiotic.
I'm going to post this on my other site, too. I need the opinions of people who know me, and nobody else in this story, and who have observed or lived in the real world long enough to offer relevant advice.
For those of you who skipped to the end: I'm not mad at Lisa. I'm mad at this situation, and I know that I'm overreacting. Now stop being a lazy ass and re-read it.
I find it interesting that I'm a lot calmer now. Writing is therapeutic.
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