In which a 35 year friendship is strained over some guy
Gail didn’t believe me:
here is how that went down
she called me up like oh did you break up with Randall and I'm like yeah he wasn't all that into me it seems, and she gets huffy like I'm feeling too sorry for myself and says, look I've never seen his Facebook profile pic get moody and his posts get dark in 20 years. Maybe you should talk to him? He felt something.
I’m like is that so? That’s pretty scary. Maybe go check on your friend? his gloomposting is not about me, the timing is off by a whole week. Plus I saw something nasty go back and forth on his and Jay's instagram stories and now they're not fb friends anymore. I think they got in a huge fight but idk what its about. He’s heartbroken about that. not me.
shes like Neysa, no way. you guys spent so much time together- how much did he really see Jay?
Idk I'm guessing not much. weird but true. listen, our last buncha “dates” he would invite me out and shove me at groups of people that he knows to make me social and either hover to make sure i could do it or go away.
what?? no way.
Yes. way, listen- last time I met a guy named Vincent, Dana’s friend. I look at him he looks at me immediately we start talking. Randall wanders off and hour later he's like I'm going home, I’m like oh can I walk you out? he's like nah
he got jealous.
sigh. no Gail. he was satisfied. relieved.
…oh. oh but that can’t be.
wah baby no nonono nononoooo (ball and chain)
All summer she doesn’t believe me. Occasionally comes at me like “he’s really suffering and I don’t understand why you won’t take any responsibility?? who r u??” so I hold my heart close and go in and I briefly talk to him and confirm, yeah. big falling out. I’m like “its real,” shes like “so what??? you guys had a rElaTiOnsHip- obviously that is what's hurting him.” Again I'm like "Go talk to your boy then. Find out for yourself."
Then she accompanies Jay to the Nick Cave movie and when Jay sees Randall they fall silent and stare daggers at the back of his bald head. Jay seethes all the way past. Gail calls me the next day. all awed and ashamed “im sorry, you're right. That is a big fucking deal whatever it is. Are you okay? Did he really take you out to push you onto other people?
yep. Even plopped my Saturday morning high ass into a group chat of women who apparently had been like Neysa who? “See? she was there- say hi.” “Hi. I was there. how tf did I get here?”
A nice gesture. But it felt like he carved out a big comfy space in his life and then *politely* made sure I didn’t get too comfortable in it. What of it.
Gail still does it. At the budgie tollhurst show “well, he DID say hi to you”
But when I get a straight answer out of him he wants me “around” and all solo poly relationship libertarianism aside, doesn’t want to do intimate things like visit my childhood apartments and museums, or you know, Date. Okay but that's emotionally why I'm here; to go to those places and feel those feelings. Aside from thinking we were gonna sustain being sweet on each other.
Oh but he also had a couple dates in his 20’s with this one girl he really liked and if she became miraculously available he’d monogamously marry her. And he’s looking forward to being in the same room with them later this year, at a party he is planning.
Meanwhile I unpacked and decorated my new apartment in anticipation of having people over, including the guy I thought I was seeing. I’m the crazy one.
His point in telling me about ‘the one that got away’ was that its ME he is not into, not what I supposedly want. jfc point taken yet again. Good! Be about that then! Not about how *I'm* an unselfaware secret monogamist, because that’s what I've been wasting my time arguing about.
So now the sweet, adoring, adorable, emotionally neglected young man who got smitten the first time a woman paid attention to him- who chased and cried all through his 20’s, and had one “real relationship” in his thirties that ended abruptly- has gone all the way to the dark and militant side of solo polyamory- no ‘wants’ allowed, nobody can expect to be accommodated or reassured- you either flow together organically or not. Asking is pressure. All defined relationships other than friendship are mononormative enslavement.
ANY experience of loss or fear of loss is henceforth enmeshment and an outrageous imposition on the freedom of another.
Love is so abundant that we should strive to be unmoved as people come into and out of our lives; as there’s always more people. Especially out of, because that might shame someone for exercising their autonomy. (I mean..yeah we can't stop people from leaving but it's not happening without heartbreak)
You can pretty much call any instance of expressed heartbreak and dissappointment “scarcity mentality,” and “entitlement” if you want to dismiss it badly enough. I can imagine why he would very much want to dismiss all those kinna feelings. I never thought my emotional experience was his to define and dismiss tho.
Its a stoic and zen spiritual bypass as far as I am concerned. A bypass of the holy messiness inherent in both giving and receiving rejection. In giving and receiving boundaries. In giving and receiving conditional, earthly love.
But really its just me. He doesn’t like how upset I get. or how I get upset.
(ONE MILLIONTY-ZILLION GIANT STEPS BACK)
She believes me now. She went and told him 'stop talking to her, you're hurting her.' She goes with me when I feel I gotta avoid him at the club. If I bring him up she asks about my last date with anyone else. She says, clearer than him, "he's never gonna be that person for you." and there's no bypassing that.