I’m not sure what I want to say so there may be a lot of blurting in this entry. I haven’t had time to organize what I’m thinking but after a day off full of contemplation I have decided I have to let this out of me. There are many things that I have started learning about myself at this late stage in life. Most of these things I’m learning because I am single, in the dating pool, and living alone. I have whole days to spend alone with just myself. I spend entirely too much time binge watching Netflix (I don’t have cable, internet is a necessity). I can split my attention between painting, facebooking, and Netflix. I sleep a lot and smoke plenty of cigarettes. One thing that I like about being poor, bored, and living alone is that I get to try recipes any time of the day. I want to make biscuits? It’s 1AM? Who cares? Let’s do that stuff! A thing I don’t like about being poor, bored, and living alone is the constant self doubt. There is no partner to be a sounding board. There is no one to aimlessly talk to and tell your thoughts to. There is no one to tell you you’re obsessing. No one is going to say, “Hey, you’ve picked up your cell phone and started to text someone like 10 times in the last so many minutes. Are you gonna text already, or what?!”
I’ve learned that I love attention. I find it to be the most unflattering thing about myself. Hi, my name is Mandi, and I’m an attention whore. I really had no idea how ridiculous this was. I mean, I can go for lengthy periods of time with no attention at all but when I need to be noticed I HAVE to have attention. I don’t like it because that’s not the person that I thought that I was. I am very much an observer of life. I’m am completely satisfied to sit sideline and just watch the world but I’m finding that I am only content to do so if I believe that someone is somewhere thinking of me. This is why I love being in a relationship. I don’t even have to have that person with me a majority of the time. I just have to know they think of me often and that I am their number one love. I crave adoration. They can be self serving and prone to roving. They can have many lovers as long as I am their first and last thought of every day. This paints a very obscene picture of my psyche but this seems to be part of who I am. So, why would I ditch my last partner in exchange for loneliness? I guess that a narcissist and egotist just can’t cohabitate. Maybe I’m not being fair to myself in that statement. One thing is clear, I’m telling on him a little bit.
Now, the story at hand: I have many hours to obsess about my current crush and how he relates to me. I feel like the girl on the back burner. As I have described, I don’t do back burner. I can play a supporting role but I have to be a present presence to play that role. That’s not possible at this point in time. We live in different cities almost an hour apart. We both work full time and he has children. While our interaction seems very meaningful and genuine I feel very left out. Feeling left out just doesn’t seem to work for me. The people pleaser in me is also very unhappy. He asks very little of me and he doesn’t need me. I am a mess. All I want is for him to notice me, every second of the day. I know this is all very childlike and it infuriates me. Next week I may feel all together different but today has been rough. All I think about on my day off is how I wish he would show up at my place and demand my time. He could text and tell me to come see him. He could just text anything and I would be happy. It’s been over twenty four hours since he sent or responded to any communication. It’s driving me mad.
We’re here to be honest though, right? Honestly, I would have ditched this whole thing over a month ago if he didn’t so sufficiently feed my ego when we are together. If there wasn’t a certain amount of worship for one another in our encounters I would have written this off and found someone to adore me. If I wasn’t so attracted and he so emotionally unavailable I would have given up. If I didn’t think he was capable of understanding me and accepting me it would have been easy to let go. I have a fear that I will be hurt quite thoroughly in the near future. However, I have this perverse belief that he is a good person and that I can trust he’ll do right by me. All the while, my subconscious is screaming at every turn trying to tell me I’m playing in the wrong league and I will be crushed at some point.
I have daydreams of future rendezvous. In them we go on a trip together and spend hours, days even, soaking in each other’s existence. I daydream that he meets my family and most of my friends. Then I think about our interactions so far and I wonder why He’s only briefly met one friend of mine. I’ve never met anyone that knows him. I met a girl at a bar that sort of knew him because he must have dated her friend. I saw him talk to a girl in a store once and I swear it must have been a chick he went on a date with or something ’cause I could see his instant hesitation and her apparent affinity for him. Come to think of it (actually, it’s not like I’ve just thought of this in this moment, I’ve contemplated this many times since) he disappeared right after that girl in the store approached him. He disappeared for a weird amount of time. I was just standing outside the store waiting for what seemed like forever.
When I play our little story in my head, as I’m oft to do, I am astounded at the huge gaps in actual communication. I start at the beginning and see the lack of interest on my part and his very active pursuit. Then the middle comes and I start pursuing to which he seems to respond to very nicely. Then sex happens and pursuit wanes….
Yup, ok. I know how this all looks. I mean, I’m reading it too. I am a CHUMP. What is wrong with me? Seriously, I can’t help myself. It’s very clear from a removed point of view. Without all the little highlight reels playing and just the basics this sounds like hogwash. All right, even if I did take the time to type out more detail to this story I don’t think it looks any better. So, can someone, anyone, PLEASE tell me why I’m ignoring what’s very possibly going on here? Can that someone also tell me why I am actively still thinking about how, when I’m done with this entry, I’m going to text him and ask how his day was? Sadly, this is my reality. If you’re going to tell the truth you might as well tell the whole truth. God, save me from myself…
Just to add a little something to this. All day a song, or rather a lyric from a song, has been playing in my mind. It’s from the band Muse’s song “Muscle Musem” it goes like this: “…I don’t want you to adore me, don’t want you to ignore me, when it pleases you”. Pretty much the whole song is a great score for the way I’m feeling. The part I haven’t gotten to yet is the lyric that says, “…I’ll do it on my own”. Man, I just don’t know how to do this on my own. Correction, I probably do know how to do it on my own, but I just haven’t found the desire to yet. I really don’t prefer to do things on my own all the time.
The Lost Art of Honesty 