Game over
Here are some adapted bits from a conversation I had with a friend this evening that shows where I’m at now with respect to frysteev, whom I've not mentioned for a while and likely will less as time passes.
I still care about Steev and hope that he finds his way, but since he insists on it I'm going to watch him make his own mistakes. I’ll just kinda sit back and watch in bemusement. He's a big boy. He can sort out his own damned life. While I’m still interested in it, I am hands off. Who was I to try to help anyway when I’m having such a hard time on myself? And maybe that's part of the point.
I wanted to help him learn the social skills, but perhaps there was some element of me having wanted to control him in that honourable intent. Maybe... just a little? Of course. That's part of why I was so invested in Steev. I wanted to guide him, help him, and was offended when he said to butt out by running away while denying he was doing it. He’s an odd duck that doesn’t quite work with the social rules. I wanted to be right but I also didn’t want to be rejected. In the end what matters is that he’ll live his life and I’ll live mine.
I can forgive him for being such an ass-hole. I have a sense of why that is but really, it’s not all that important.
I'm still coming to terms with how Steev and Sweet Girl (aka darkestembrace) hang out in ways I’d wished for in the past. I spend time with them together here and there and see the difference in how they interact. I can identify what turned him off about me. I’m enjoying observing their friendship.
Most considered my relationship with him with disdain. Now that I’m not angry at him anymore I can stop letting it get me depressed. Having let go of him, and looking at it from a perspective in which I’m past it, I have to focus sometimes on not torturing myself with shame for having found something desirable there.
He’s got some sorta mojo that I responded to. He smelled nice. It’s always the scent that I fall for. It must have been hormones reacting. Fucking pheromones.
Now comes the hard part, which is forgiving myself for having had such poor judgement and letting it fuck with my life to the extent that it has over the past year. The chapter is over. The book is closed. If there is to be anything further in this story it’s to be with a clear boundary with him that won’t be crossed again.
I still care about Steev and hope that he finds his way, but since he insists on it I'm going to watch him make his own mistakes. I’ll just kinda sit back and watch in bemusement. He's a big boy. He can sort out his own damned life. While I’m still interested in it, I am hands off. Who was I to try to help anyway when I’m having such a hard time on myself? And maybe that's part of the point.
I wanted to help him learn the social skills, but perhaps there was some element of me having wanted to control him in that honourable intent. Maybe... just a little? Of course. That's part of why I was so invested in Steev. I wanted to guide him, help him, and was offended when he said to butt out by running away while denying he was doing it. He’s an odd duck that doesn’t quite work with the social rules. I wanted to be right but I also didn’t want to be rejected. In the end what matters is that he’ll live his life and I’ll live mine.
I can forgive him for being such an ass-hole. I have a sense of why that is but really, it’s not all that important.
I'm still coming to terms with how Steev and Sweet Girl (aka darkestembrace) hang out in ways I’d wished for in the past. I spend time with them together here and there and see the difference in how they interact. I can identify what turned him off about me. I’m enjoying observing their friendship.
Most considered my relationship with him with disdain. Now that I’m not angry at him anymore I can stop letting it get me depressed. Having let go of him, and looking at it from a perspective in which I’m past it, I have to focus sometimes on not torturing myself with shame for having found something desirable there.
He’s got some sorta mojo that I responded to. He smelled nice. It’s always the scent that I fall for. It must have been hormones reacting. Fucking pheromones.
Now comes the hard part, which is forgiving myself for having had such poor judgement and letting it fuck with my life to the extent that it has over the past year. The chapter is over. The book is closed. If there is to be anything further in this story it’s to be with a clear boundary with him that won’t be crossed again.