more of this 30 day shiz while i put off tidying before work.
Day 01 - Introduce yourself
Day 02 - Your first love
well, this one is going to be difficult to write about without coming across as though i'm trying to excuse myself or write off the feelings involved. my first proper love was a bloke called chris, when i was about fifteen/sixteen, in my last year of mandatory education. i do believe you can love someone at that age, yes, even though you 'haven't lived' and 'aren't a grown up'. i met him through friends, he was in fact, the ex of a friend, which is a theme i pursued a fair bit in those days, not meeting people off my own bat due to rarely leaving the house of my own accord (it was probably the beginning of the worst period of my mental difficulties, as i previously mentioned, i did my gcse mocks at home after significant non-attendance at school and periods of hospitalization).
i met him at a christmas party my parents were having, when becky, the friend i previously mentioned, came up to stay with a bunch of her mates and her new boyfriend, alan. i'm struggling to remember his age, but i think he was like, 19, maybe 20. i can't remember. it was the usual teenagers at a grown up party fare, drinking in a room away from them, listening to music, banding together in a group away from the adults.
it ended up with chris and me being up later than most, and drunker than most, and heading up to my room from there. typical natural teenage progression, although, something i've come to notice is typical of a lot (not all, but most) of my sexual encounters, was that i had more experience than him and consequently had to do a lot of explaining, reassuring, and so on. that still leads me to a lot of chicken and egg style wondering, about whether i am attracted to inexperience, whether inexperience is attracted to me, whether it's something that's always been there, or whether i set the pattern myself.
anyway, we ended up in a relationship. one of those sickening us-against-the-world affairs, that are par for the course for teenagers, naturally, although obviously at the time it felt like something bigger. he lived in cheltenham, so we'd go and see each other pretty much every weekend. chris was as down about things as me; just a lot quieter about it, and a lot less willing to try to get to the root of a problem. my problems manifested in anger a lot of the time at that stage, but most of the time at school and at my parents (at my dad, at that point in time. i look back on that and realize it's because we were both hurt by the fact we didn't understand each other, and were lashing out). going to see chris provided me with an escape. and he and i tended to spend most of our time away from the world in each other's rooms, not even really doing anything. i've developed a fear of sitting around inside doing nothing in a relationship these days, or of using sex as a substitute for getting to know the other person, because of what happened with me and chris.
i'm not even going to pretend it was a healthy relationship; there isn't any point. we were both very clearly very damaged people, but i was seeking help for my problems through school and the hospital, and trying to get better. i ended up withdrawing from what little life i had into this relationship, it actually seemed to me at the time to be the only reason to live, and i think that's responsible for my anxiety today about not putting all my eggs in one basket, and being very wary about co-dependence in a relationship.
it was a fairly average teenage relationship other than that. talk of never leaving each other, staying up late getting excited about shared interests, that sort of thing. when we had arguments, chris would cry and say he was scared i'd leave him, and things like that. at the time i interpreted it as him really caring about me, but now i see it as a form of emotional blackmail.
it's weird that the two things i remember most about the whole thing are how much his family liked me, and our breakup. i got on really well with his mum and his brothers, and probably even his dad. but yeah, it is the breakup that i remember the most. we went on two successional holidays with each of our families. firstly, to greece with my mum. the whole time i felt like my attention was being fought for, my mum wanted to spend time with me and not chris, and vice versa. it got to the point where i ended up self injuring to the point of being in corfu town hospital getting stitches. i was there with chris, and when it transpired that he had no way of getting us back to the hotel and wasn't going to use his initiative to think of a way in a hurry i had my doubts about whether i'd picked the right person to take me to hospital out of the two people who were fighting over who cared about me the most. this was all made worse by the fact it was followed by a holiday to cornwall with his family. on the first day, the change in atmosphere gave me an asthma attack and i went off and found a bench and tried to ride it out by myself, deep breathing round ice cubes to focus my attention and try to give my bronchi a shock, because chris wouldn't wake up. i again thought about what i was doing, and why i was putting my family and friends at arm's length for this. the time we spent in cornwall was stupidly drama-riddled. not just ours, it seemed like there were conflicts going on left right and centre, and i ended up being the person most people confided in, mostly because i spent most of the time on my own, not doing much, and trying to get some headspace. i returned home and my mum and i sat and talked about the fact she thought i was never coming back, which made up my mind even further that i needed to get rid of this relationship and it's emotional blackmail to be healthy, and that what i had thought was helping was making me worse.
i ended up breaking up with chris the week i started sixth form. that week itself was hell but i was pretty determined to stick it out, and his talk of not doing sixth form and getting a job down at his was the last straw. i think i remember he had the cheek to call me manipulative and i basically told him to get the fuck out of my house and that i never wanted to see him again. my mum gave him a lift back to the train station, and she made me go too, which i was peeved about. i didn't look at him as he left, and i've never seen him since. and i don't really care, to be honest. they say you never get over your first love, but i think barring a few long-lasting emotional scars, and the weight i gained in that relationship because he didn't want other men to look at me, i was over it the minute i was out of it. but, i did love him, and it was all very serious at the time. there's no point trying to pretend otherwise.
whew, what a downer. i get the feeling this meme is not going to be hugely upbeat. it is on livejournal though, so, yeah.
Day 02 - Your first love
well, this one is going to be difficult to write about without coming across as though i'm trying to excuse myself or write off the feelings involved. my first proper love was a bloke called chris, when i was about fifteen/sixteen, in my last year of mandatory education. i do believe you can love someone at that age, yes, even though you 'haven't lived' and 'aren't a grown up'. i met him through friends, he was in fact, the ex of a friend, which is a theme i pursued a fair bit in those days, not meeting people off my own bat due to rarely leaving the house of my own accord (it was probably the beginning of the worst period of my mental difficulties, as i previously mentioned, i did my gcse mocks at home after significant non-attendance at school and periods of hospitalization).
i met him at a christmas party my parents were having, when becky, the friend i previously mentioned, came up to stay with a bunch of her mates and her new boyfriend, alan. i'm struggling to remember his age, but i think he was like, 19, maybe 20. i can't remember. it was the usual teenagers at a grown up party fare, drinking in a room away from them, listening to music, banding together in a group away from the adults.
it ended up with chris and me being up later than most, and drunker than most, and heading up to my room from there. typical natural teenage progression, although, something i've come to notice is typical of a lot (not all, but most) of my sexual encounters, was that i had more experience than him and consequently had to do a lot of explaining, reassuring, and so on. that still leads me to a lot of chicken and egg style wondering, about whether i am attracted to inexperience, whether inexperience is attracted to me, whether it's something that's always been there, or whether i set the pattern myself.
anyway, we ended up in a relationship. one of those sickening us-against-the-world affairs, that are par for the course for teenagers, naturally, although obviously at the time it felt like something bigger. he lived in cheltenham, so we'd go and see each other pretty much every weekend. chris was as down about things as me; just a lot quieter about it, and a lot less willing to try to get to the root of a problem. my problems manifested in anger a lot of the time at that stage, but most of the time at school and at my parents (at my dad, at that point in time. i look back on that and realize it's because we were both hurt by the fact we didn't understand each other, and were lashing out). going to see chris provided me with an escape. and he and i tended to spend most of our time away from the world in each other's rooms, not even really doing anything. i've developed a fear of sitting around inside doing nothing in a relationship these days, or of using sex as a substitute for getting to know the other person, because of what happened with me and chris.
i'm not even going to pretend it was a healthy relationship; there isn't any point. we were both very clearly very damaged people, but i was seeking help for my problems through school and the hospital, and trying to get better. i ended up withdrawing from what little life i had into this relationship, it actually seemed to me at the time to be the only reason to live, and i think that's responsible for my anxiety today about not putting all my eggs in one basket, and being very wary about co-dependence in a relationship.
it was a fairly average teenage relationship other than that. talk of never leaving each other, staying up late getting excited about shared interests, that sort of thing. when we had arguments, chris would cry and say he was scared i'd leave him, and things like that. at the time i interpreted it as him really caring about me, but now i see it as a form of emotional blackmail.
it's weird that the two things i remember most about the whole thing are how much his family liked me, and our breakup. i got on really well with his mum and his brothers, and probably even his dad. but yeah, it is the breakup that i remember the most. we went on two successional holidays with each of our families. firstly, to greece with my mum. the whole time i felt like my attention was being fought for, my mum wanted to spend time with me and not chris, and vice versa. it got to the point where i ended up self injuring to the point of being in corfu town hospital getting stitches. i was there with chris, and when it transpired that he had no way of getting us back to the hotel and wasn't going to use his initiative to think of a way in a hurry i had my doubts about whether i'd picked the right person to take me to hospital out of the two people who were fighting over who cared about me the most. this was all made worse by the fact it was followed by a holiday to cornwall with his family. on the first day, the change in atmosphere gave me an asthma attack and i went off and found a bench and tried to ride it out by myself, deep breathing round ice cubes to focus my attention and try to give my bronchi a shock, because chris wouldn't wake up. i again thought about what i was doing, and why i was putting my family and friends at arm's length for this. the time we spent in cornwall was stupidly drama-riddled. not just ours, it seemed like there were conflicts going on left right and centre, and i ended up being the person most people confided in, mostly because i spent most of the time on my own, not doing much, and trying to get some headspace. i returned home and my mum and i sat and talked about the fact she thought i was never coming back, which made up my mind even further that i needed to get rid of this relationship and it's emotional blackmail to be healthy, and that what i had thought was helping was making me worse.
i ended up breaking up with chris the week i started sixth form. that week itself was hell but i was pretty determined to stick it out, and his talk of not doing sixth form and getting a job down at his was the last straw. i think i remember he had the cheek to call me manipulative and i basically told him to get the fuck out of my house and that i never wanted to see him again. my mum gave him a lift back to the train station, and she made me go too, which i was peeved about. i didn't look at him as he left, and i've never seen him since. and i don't really care, to be honest. they say you never get over your first love, but i think barring a few long-lasting emotional scars, and the weight i gained in that relationship because he didn't want other men to look at me, i was over it the minute i was out of it. but, i did love him, and it was all very serious at the time. there's no point trying to pretend otherwise.
whew, what a downer. i get the feeling this meme is not going to be hugely upbeat. it is on livejournal though, so, yeah.