A Bad Night
asphyxiateit: I hate this paper
Baal159: Mine's actually not that bad, because it's something I'm pretty interested in.
asphyxiateit: I'm not interested in my topic enough to research it
asphyxiateit: I don't have any books. I don't care.
Baal159: None?
Baal159: How have you been getting your stuff approved?
asphyxiateit: he said I needed more material because my arguments were too superficial
asphyxiateit: well, he wrote that
asphyxiateit: on my outline thing
asphyxiateit: I just want it to be over with
Baal159: Yeah. I think as long as we hand something in that's semi-coherant, we'll do alright.
Baal159: It's Breslin.
Baal159: And there's extra credit like crazy fourth marking period. Hamlet quotes test.
Baal159: So I'm not going to worry too much.
asphyxiateit: it's not even just this paper
asphyxiateit: I just want everything to be done
asphyxiateit: I can't focus on school any more
asphyxiateit: I keep thinking about other things
asphyxiateit: I'm trying to stop hurting inside
asphyxiateit: how am I supposed to care enough about Jews in the New Testament enough to research the topic in detail when I can't even make myself really know how I feel inside because I'm too scared that what it really is will make everything I've been doing for the past months feel like a huge mistake I can't fix?
asphyxiateit: I can't even figure out the things that are affecting me right now; I don't care about something that barely affects me, that's part of two religions I don't even subscribe to
Baal159: The distraction isn't helpful?
asphyxiateit: no, because I hate doing this work
asphyxiateit: it doesn't mean anything t ome
asphyxiateit: I've been hovering in and out of that bad place for the past few days
asphyxiateit: I feel like I'm really close right now
Baal159: I'm really not sure if there's anything I can say, at this point.
Baal159: I think it's unwise to keep battling back and forth with away messages like you have been.
asphyxiateit: I don't even know if he reads them or has me on his list
Baal159: Because it sucks, but there's absolutely no way for him to be in your life at all without it being hell.
Baal159: The fact that you read his and put them up is evidence enough that he's not out of your life.
Baal159: And he has to be, or else this will never stop.
asphyxiateit: I don't even know how I feel towards him and that situation
Baal159: It was a bad situation for you.
asphyxiateit: I wanted to send him books on his birthday. I know it's a bad idea, though.
asphyxiateit: But I still want to
Baal159: That's one of the worst things you could do, I think.
asphyxiateit: I didn't even want to send a note or decorate anything, I just wanted to send a cardboard box with books. And I don't really know what I was expecting to happen.
asphyxiateit: I wanted him to know that he's not just gone from my life.
Baal159: He has to be, Danielle.
Baal159: This in-between thing isn't working out too well, is it?
asphyxiateit: not very
asphyxiateit: I don't feel like he can just be gone
Baal159: Why not?
asphyxiateit: because I still care that he isn't
asphyxiateit: and it makes me sad that I made him sad
asphyxiateit: and that he doesn't know that I'm still sad
Baal159: He made you miserable, and manipulated you to the point where you feel like this without him.
asphyxiateit: It really was never just being miserable. He made me happy, too.
asphyxiateit: It was miserable when he was the way he was before he saw what he did, and by then I had done what I did
asphyxiateit: I'm not saying he changed
Baal159: If I may be brutal, I think you fancy yourself a lot more mature than you actually are. A lot of people do. You obviously have a way with words and language, and you can hold an intellectual conversation with the best of them, but that doesn't mean you're any more emotionally mature than the average 17-year old. And because your intellect leads you towards someone on the same level (in this case, someone in his mid-20's who was far beyond you emotionally), you put yourself in a situation that's way over your head, that's not your fault, and you have no idea how to deal with it now.
asphyxiateit: But that's how it was. And the other times I was really happy. I knew that he loved me, and he showed me that even when other times he was very flawed.
asphyxiateit: what does that mean for him, if he is more emotionally mature?
asphyxiateit: if he was more emotionally mature then why did he act the way he did?
Baal159: That means he was able to pull strings.
Baal159: It doesn't mean he did the right things.
Baal159: I think you wanted to be accepted by someone with his intellect, and he got off on having a 16-year old girlfriend who he could manipulate.
Baal159: And it all just went to hell from there.
Baal159: With Laura, I wanted to just be accepted by someone, and so did she. I wanted the pretty girlfriend, she wanted someone she could get a self-esteem boost from. We were both using each other, especially towards the end.
Baal159: Not exactly the same, but I think each of you were more interested in deriving from the relationship something for yourself than the relationship itself.
Baal159: And that's Joe's pseudo-psychological analysis of the situation.
asphyxiateit: I don't know what to think. I thought he loved being with me because of me, not because I was a seventeen-year-old commodity. Your perspective makes a lot of sense, too.
asphyxiateit: and I thought I loved him because of him, and I was happy because I was with him
asphyxiateit: I really didn't expect to have one of those crying nights
Baal159: I know age isn't supposed to matter, but I have a hard time believing that someone his age would find fulfillment with anyone your age. It's creepy, as far as I'm concerned.
Baal159: Which I know is probably irrelevent.
asphyxiateit: should I question Mike now?
asphyxiateit: they're completely different people
Baal159: I don't know. At least you actually knew each other. And I don't see your relationship with him as a "for-life" type of thing. Two people with an age difference can certainly have a good time together, which is fine, but for Brandon to love you and want to spend his life with you... I'd question that.
asphyxiateit: my aunt said this to me, when I talked to her about it
asphyxiateit: she said that if Brandon really wanted to, he would have come down to see me during midterms even when I told him not to
asphyxiateit: that he would have come as a friend, if my parents were the issue
asphyxiateit: and that it was the grand gesture that mattered
Baal159: I'd agree.
asphyxiateit: It made me think, because I agree, too, but I personally would be afraid to show a grand gesture like that because if he told me not to, I wouldn't want to make things worse.
asphyxiateit: but I don't know if I"m just rationaliizng
Baal159: I don't think it works like that.
Baal159: Yeah.
asphyxiateit: rationalizing, rather
asphyxiateit: I feel really scared to just cut him off completely
asphyxiateit: It terrifies me to seriously consider taking him off of my lists, or deleting saved text messages I don't even look at, or not sending him something on his birthday
Baal159: Why?
asphyxiateit: I don't feel like I really know
asphyxiateit: I go back and forth between reasons, rationalizations, and counter-rationalizations to the point where it could be anything
Baal159: It's a lot simpler than you're making it, I think.
Baal159: He was bad for you.
Baal159: He continues to be bad for you.
asphyxiateit: isn't this me making him bad for me? He doesn't even contact me.
asphyxiateit: that's not saying he's good for me
Baal159: It's the influence you continue to allow him tohave in your life.
asphyxiateit: I don't know where to fit the idea that he really loved me in with all of this
Baal159: Maybe you shouldn't.
asphyxiateit: I shouldn't know?
Baal159: Shouldn't try to fit it in.
asphyxiateit: I guess they just coexist
Baal159: Not exactly what I meant, but, ok.
asphyxiateit: what did you mean?
Baal159: Maybe he didn't. At least not in the way "love" is idealized.
Baal159: I think there was a mutual need for what the other had to offer. And that leads to a sense of attachment, which lends itself to the feeling of "love."
asphyxiateit: I really loved him
asphyxiateit: I feel like he really loved me
asphyxiateit: I don't know any other way to confirm that, besides that I believed the things he said
asphyxiateit: I just want to know what was really true or real, and not just what I thought was real
asphyxiateit: I just want to lie down but I want to get this paper done with
asphyxiateit: longest seven pages of my life
Baal159: Yeah.
asphyxiateit: I don't want to go to school tomorrow
Baal159: Maybe you can stay home.
asphyxiateit: I don't think my parents would let me