A little contemplation... and I need some help in love...
I feel like a horrible person.... If you've ever read my fanfiction at www.fanfiction.net/s/6628295/1/Behind_the_Scenes, I've felt so much like my version of Minerva lately it's insane. So here's the story: I have one of the most amazing, wonderful girlfriends ever, and we've been together for more than two years. We have our problems, of course, but we always manage to work past them somehow - until lately. She's Austrian (yes, really, and no, that isn't 'down under') and she went home during our Christmas break; she was gone for about three weeks or so. In this time, I shut down. I've been through some pretty hard shit in my life, and it makes things in our relationship sometimes harder than they should be, and basically one of my biggest problems is being too attached and too distant at the same time. While I can recognise this, at this point in my life, there's no way yet for me to change it. A) There are already too many things I am working on and B) we both agree that once I'm healthier in those areas, the other areas will get a little better too.
Anyways, while she was gone, I became friends with someone O.T.E. and thought - key word - that I was crushing on them. I eventually realised that I was just confused and was misplacing my feelings because of all the crap with myself and with my girlfriend. However (and this is the part where someone will undoubtedly think I'm awful besides just me), that all ended awhile ago. The real story here is all the problems I've been having with my girlfriend mixed in with the fact that I think I might actually be in love with someone else. Here's the problematic part for me if I were single: it's my (seemingly) straight professor. I say seemingly because my girlfriend loves to quote the L Word and though I never really believed it, I haven't been able to stop thinking it since this happened. If you haven't seen the L Word, what my girlfriend keeps saying is that everyone is straight - until they're not. She knows about everything because that's the kind of relationship we have, and she swears she doesn't like throwing it in my face, but sometimes it seems like she does. I don't blame her, but she was the one who told me to tell her if this sort of thing ever happened... I keep feeling like I should have just kept my mouth shut, but then at the same time I feel like if I do end up leaving her, wouldn't it be better that she knew the reason why and didn't think I was just flitting from one person to the next and that she actually knew how hard it was for me to do it?
I feel stupid (and crazy) because my professor's about fifty, straight (and has a boyfriend), and I'm 23. I feel like a jackass because I know I'm hurting my girlfriend and half of me still feels like I love her, but I'm of the mindset that thinking is cheating. Therefore, I am a cheater, in my eyes, because I've kissed my girlfriend and had sex with her and had thoughts about my professor. It was half-accidental, half-purposeful - meaning that (well, with the sex at any rate, which makes me feel more like a jerk because kissing is more intimate) it started and I didn't fight it. There was at least one or two days, however, where I kissed her and I wasn't thinking about her and it wasn't an accident and I feel like an ass because of it... and a cheater... and a liar....
The whole is, though, I feel like if I stay with her it's not fair to either of us; but if I leave her, then it's for this really dumb thing, even if there are other reasons as well... because those can go away eventually. I know relationships are work, and this isn't about instant gratification or meeting someone new, trust me. My professor and I had real emotional connections, and whilst there are people out there who have felt or said so before, I honestly do feel it's different with me. We both have a history with violent crimes having been committed against us, we both have relatives serving time for violent crime (those two things aren't necessarily related), we're both English nerds and writers, ex-Mormons and have similar current religious views, and we both believe that those taboos of talking about things such as prison or violent crime is bull and that doing so is necessary. We both have non-linear brains are kind of weird and get labelled 'adorkable', and have similar temperaments when it comes to expressing our anger.
Half of the time I feel like I'm in love with the idea of her, and I should just try to move past both of them and find someone who is like my professor except gay and single, or who is halfway between the two... Half of the time I feel like I don't want to go anywhere, like I'm afraid to move and that I love my girlfriend and I don't want to lose her, but she says she doesn't want me to stay with her only because I'm afraid she's going to disappear. So I'm basically stuck, and I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. All I know is that I can't get Tamara off my mind for more than three seconds.
Anyways, while she was gone, I became friends with someone O.T.E. and thought - key word - that I was crushing on them. I eventually realised that I was just confused and was misplacing my feelings because of all the crap with myself and with my girlfriend. However (and this is the part where someone will undoubtedly think I'm awful besides just me), that all ended awhile ago. The real story here is all the problems I've been having with my girlfriend mixed in with the fact that I think I might actually be in love with someone else. Here's the problematic part for me if I were single: it's my (seemingly) straight professor. I say seemingly because my girlfriend loves to quote the L Word and though I never really believed it, I haven't been able to stop thinking it since this happened. If you haven't seen the L Word, what my girlfriend keeps saying is that everyone is straight - until they're not. She knows about everything because that's the kind of relationship we have, and she swears she doesn't like throwing it in my face, but sometimes it seems like she does. I don't blame her, but she was the one who told me to tell her if this sort of thing ever happened... I keep feeling like I should have just kept my mouth shut, but then at the same time I feel like if I do end up leaving her, wouldn't it be better that she knew the reason why and didn't think I was just flitting from one person to the next and that she actually knew how hard it was for me to do it?
I feel stupid (and crazy) because my professor's about fifty, straight (and has a boyfriend), and I'm 23. I feel like a jackass because I know I'm hurting my girlfriend and half of me still feels like I love her, but I'm of the mindset that thinking is cheating. Therefore, I am a cheater, in my eyes, because I've kissed my girlfriend and had sex with her and had thoughts about my professor. It was half-accidental, half-purposeful - meaning that (well, with the sex at any rate, which makes me feel more like a jerk because kissing is more intimate) it started and I didn't fight it. There was at least one or two days, however, where I kissed her and I wasn't thinking about her and it wasn't an accident and I feel like an ass because of it... and a cheater... and a liar....
The whole is, though, I feel like if I stay with her it's not fair to either of us; but if I leave her, then it's for this really dumb thing, even if there are other reasons as well... because those can go away eventually. I know relationships are work, and this isn't about instant gratification or meeting someone new, trust me. My professor and I had real emotional connections, and whilst there are people out there who have felt or said so before, I honestly do feel it's different with me. We both have a history with violent crimes having been committed against us, we both have relatives serving time for violent crime (those two things aren't necessarily related), we're both English nerds and writers, ex-Mormons and have similar current religious views, and we both believe that those taboos of talking about things such as prison or violent crime is bull and that doing so is necessary. We both have non-linear brains are kind of weird and get labelled 'adorkable', and have similar temperaments when it comes to expressing our anger.
Half of the time I feel like I'm in love with the idea of her, and I should just try to move past both of them and find someone who is like my professor except gay and single, or who is halfway between the two... Half of the time I feel like I don't want to go anywhere, like I'm afraid to move and that I love my girlfriend and I don't want to lose her, but she says she doesn't want me to stay with her only because I'm afraid she's going to disappear. So I'm basically stuck, and I have no clue what the hell I'm doing. All I know is that I can't get Tamara off my mind for more than three seconds.