A Discourse on Boyfriends
My most recent boyfriend and I dated for 4 months, and we've now been broken up for 2. For a while I've been looking back at our relationship and trying to pinpoint what went wrong, what he did and what I did, and how I can remedy the situation next time. I had come to some conclusions and gotten past the anger at myself for not dealing with some of the issues of our relationship that I could have done something about when I still had the chance, but then a particular event reopened the can of worms and shed a little more light on the situation and thus made me all the angrier.
This past Friday night he and his friend partied with me and some of my friends. When we all first arrived I started playing a friend's beebee gun, shooting the pellets high up on the walls so they wouldn't hit any body except after bouncing off the wall. I thought it was a lot of fun (I only did it a few times) and everyone was like whatever, although they probably found it vaguely annoying. Then, this ex-boyfriend of mine turns to me and asks if I'm drunk or on anything like I'm intoxicated and that's why I'm shooting the beebee gun. I remember noting that he had just asked a really stupid question but went back to what I was doing. Another friend, on the other hand, heard what he said and asked "Elizabeth is always like this- have you never noticed that?" (or something to that effect) He ACTUALLY told her he hadn't ever noticed it.
Now keep in mind that anyone who really knows me or even has just met me a few hours earlier KNOWS that I do things like that all the time around friends. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. So, when he answered that he had never noticed that I acted like that, I was shocked and completely surprised. And it left me with one question. How can you date someone for 4 months, especially ME of all people, and not notice how they act? I mean let's be honest, I'm a little off-kilter, but I like being this way. So, to NOT KNOW that I'm weird and do strange and slightly inappropriate things at time, you'd have to be pretty dense. Therefore, my ex is a fucking moron, to put it lightly.
After this incident, I began to think back to other things in our relationship that caused it to go wrong in a new light. One of our biggest problems, well I felt anyway, was that we couldn't talk to one another. On his end, he never wanted to talk about things that would help me to understand him and how he works: for example, how he feels about certain things, his past relationships, sex, ect. He actually asked me once why I would want to talk about past sexual experiences. A prime example of this is I didn't find out that he had never been in a serious relationship before me until after we broke up. On top of that I found that out from a friend of his, not from him. I never asked him that specific question because before we started dating he would talk with me about his ideas on love and relationships, and he went into an extensive philosophy on the subject. So I assumed he had had experience with the issue. Obviously I was wrong. Gradually over the course of our relationship and afterwords, I realized that not just with that issue but with his views on a lot of things, he doesn't hold those views because he actually has first-hand experience with them or alternatives but because he reads or is taught about them and likes them for one reason or another and decides to profess belief in them. His issue with not talking about things was also a problem because although I didn't ask him specifically whether or not I was his first serious relationship, I did ask him and try to talk to him about a lot of other things that he would usually brush off as insignificant or ignore altogether. I can't tell you the number of times I asked him something in the middle of a conversation just the two of us were having without any other distractions and he just wouldn't answer me, even when I repeated the question of couple of times or asked him why he wouldn't answer me. And whenever we did talk, it was always in one of two ways: he acted as the teacher or the student. He never talked with me as an equal, as two people trying to get to know each other. Rather, he always talked like he was teaching me something, assuming I didn't know it (or assuming I actually cared to know) or he talked like he was trying to learn something I knew about, like he wanted just the facts but not to know more about who I was.
You know, I did learn a lot about him, but it was all on the surface. What I wanted to know was not what he would do in certain situations but why he would do those things and what makes him tick. I know he knows a good deal of that type of thing about me because I TOLD him why I did things and how I felt about them, etc. I want people to get to know me and to understand me, but then I want them to reciprocate. He never did. Honestly, what I never could figure out (and I still haven't) is whether there is something more there- something more to him- that he just doesn't want to tell me about or doesn't trust me enough to tell me or if there's actually nothing else there and that with him what you see is not just what you get but also all there is. Some of the friends I've talked with about my frustration at the whole situation think the latter is most likely true, and I'm beginning to believe them. And that disappoints me more than anything. I'm disappointed at him for not being the guy I thought I had met and for being such a complete dumb-ass when it comes to relationships, but more than that I'm disappointed with myself for not stopping and taking a good look around and telling him we should slow down and get to know each other before jumping into a relationship.
If I had done that, I don't think I ever would have dated him. Don't get me wrong, I like him. Despite all I've said, I do think he's a cool and interesting guy, and I enjoy hanging out with him. As friends, we're great together and the differences make for a pleasant (although annoying sometimes) encounter, but as for being together, the differences in who we are and what we want and need in order to be in a full-out relationship are too many and too different for anything to possibly work out between us. And what's mildly amusing and ironic about the whole thing is that in our wanting/not wanting to be in a relationship I think we're more a like than either of us ever realized. When we first got together, neither one of us thought about what we were getting into. I don't think either one of us really wanted to be in a full-out relationship, we just wanted to be close to someone in that way, but with out the responsibilities of a real relationship. I think what we really wanted was something along the lines of casually dating, but we misinterpreted how we wanted to act on our attraction to one another and neither one of tried to talk about it at all.
My conclusions are that neither one of us actually know the other person. He doesn't know me because he's dense, and I don't know him either because he refuses to let me or because there's nothing to know. We both did wrong things that added to the downfall of our relationship, but there's no reason to wonder why I didn't do this or why he did that because it's honestly better this way. We're past the relationship and past the break up, and we get along now and we're friends again. So things are good, and that's all you can ask for. If I could just get past the spurts of anger at the whole ordeal that creep up on me from behind at times, I would be great. But then again, that's not something special to him, I have those spurts towards everything in my life at times, so it's just something I have to deal with as it comes.
This past Friday night he and his friend partied with me and some of my friends. When we all first arrived I started playing a friend's beebee gun, shooting the pellets high up on the walls so they wouldn't hit any body except after bouncing off the wall. I thought it was a lot of fun (I only did it a few times) and everyone was like whatever, although they probably found it vaguely annoying. Then, this ex-boyfriend of mine turns to me and asks if I'm drunk or on anything like I'm intoxicated and that's why I'm shooting the beebee gun. I remember noting that he had just asked a really stupid question but went back to what I was doing. Another friend, on the other hand, heard what he said and asked "Elizabeth is always like this- have you never noticed that?" (or something to that effect) He ACTUALLY told her he hadn't ever noticed it.
Now keep in mind that anyone who really knows me or even has just met me a few hours earlier KNOWS that I do things like that all the time around friends. EVERYONE KNOWS THAT. So, when he answered that he had never noticed that I acted like that, I was shocked and completely surprised. And it left me with one question. How can you date someone for 4 months, especially ME of all people, and not notice how they act? I mean let's be honest, I'm a little off-kilter, but I like being this way. So, to NOT KNOW that I'm weird and do strange and slightly inappropriate things at time, you'd have to be pretty dense. Therefore, my ex is a fucking moron, to put it lightly.
After this incident, I began to think back to other things in our relationship that caused it to go wrong in a new light. One of our biggest problems, well I felt anyway, was that we couldn't talk to one another. On his end, he never wanted to talk about things that would help me to understand him and how he works: for example, how he feels about certain things, his past relationships, sex, ect. He actually asked me once why I would want to talk about past sexual experiences. A prime example of this is I didn't find out that he had never been in a serious relationship before me until after we broke up. On top of that I found that out from a friend of his, not from him. I never asked him that specific question because before we started dating he would talk with me about his ideas on love and relationships, and he went into an extensive philosophy on the subject. So I assumed he had had experience with the issue. Obviously I was wrong. Gradually over the course of our relationship and afterwords, I realized that not just with that issue but with his views on a lot of things, he doesn't hold those views because he actually has first-hand experience with them or alternatives but because he reads or is taught about them and likes them for one reason or another and decides to profess belief in them. His issue with not talking about things was also a problem because although I didn't ask him specifically whether or not I was his first serious relationship, I did ask him and try to talk to him about a lot of other things that he would usually brush off as insignificant or ignore altogether. I can't tell you the number of times I asked him something in the middle of a conversation just the two of us were having without any other distractions and he just wouldn't answer me, even when I repeated the question of couple of times or asked him why he wouldn't answer me. And whenever we did talk, it was always in one of two ways: he acted as the teacher or the student. He never talked with me as an equal, as two people trying to get to know each other. Rather, he always talked like he was teaching me something, assuming I didn't know it (or assuming I actually cared to know) or he talked like he was trying to learn something I knew about, like he wanted just the facts but not to know more about who I was.
You know, I did learn a lot about him, but it was all on the surface. What I wanted to know was not what he would do in certain situations but why he would do those things and what makes him tick. I know he knows a good deal of that type of thing about me because I TOLD him why I did things and how I felt about them, etc. I want people to get to know me and to understand me, but then I want them to reciprocate. He never did. Honestly, what I never could figure out (and I still haven't) is whether there is something more there- something more to him- that he just doesn't want to tell me about or doesn't trust me enough to tell me or if there's actually nothing else there and that with him what you see is not just what you get but also all there is. Some of the friends I've talked with about my frustration at the whole situation think the latter is most likely true, and I'm beginning to believe them. And that disappoints me more than anything. I'm disappointed at him for not being the guy I thought I had met and for being such a complete dumb-ass when it comes to relationships, but more than that I'm disappointed with myself for not stopping and taking a good look around and telling him we should slow down and get to know each other before jumping into a relationship.
If I had done that, I don't think I ever would have dated him. Don't get me wrong, I like him. Despite all I've said, I do think he's a cool and interesting guy, and I enjoy hanging out with him. As friends, we're great together and the differences make for a pleasant (although annoying sometimes) encounter, but as for being together, the differences in who we are and what we want and need in order to be in a full-out relationship are too many and too different for anything to possibly work out between us. And what's mildly amusing and ironic about the whole thing is that in our wanting/not wanting to be in a relationship I think we're more a like than either of us ever realized. When we first got together, neither one of us thought about what we were getting into. I don't think either one of us really wanted to be in a full-out relationship, we just wanted to be close to someone in that way, but with out the responsibilities of a real relationship. I think what we really wanted was something along the lines of casually dating, but we misinterpreted how we wanted to act on our attraction to one another and neither one of tried to talk about it at all.
My conclusions are that neither one of us actually know the other person. He doesn't know me because he's dense, and I don't know him either because he refuses to let me or because there's nothing to know. We both did wrong things that added to the downfall of our relationship, but there's no reason to wonder why I didn't do this or why he did that because it's honestly better this way. We're past the relationship and past the break up, and we get along now and we're friends again. So things are good, and that's all you can ask for. If I could just get past the spurts of anger at the whole ordeal that creep up on me from behind at times, I would be great. But then again, that's not something special to him, I have those spurts towards everything in my life at times, so it's just something I have to deal with as it comes.