A Time And A Place For All Things; Shameful Behaviors
Today I took a small (or big, depending on how you see it) risk.
I opened at work, and just before I left, someone I met on tinder and slept with came in, and I was so embarrassed and twitterpated, but I made a decision today too: I'm gonna talk to the people who are on my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about this tinder hookup guy as I was working and he was there with all his gorgeous study buddies, and I knew he was on my mind because I pretty pointedly ghosted him. He reached out to me on multiple occasions after we slept together, and at first I was just a little anxious, but then I got a little annoyed, and then after a while I became apathetic towards him. I stopped caring altogether about this person I'd so recently been so intimate with. We did things he said he'd never done before, that he said felt amazing, and I then promptly disappeared, and in retrospect, like how they say hindsight is 20/20, I realize how shitty that can be depending on how invested the pursuer might be, and I felt so badly that I actually found him on Snapchat and sent him a message along the lines of, "Hi. I see you. Sorry I ghosted you, we're cool." I want to be able to speak freely if I ever see him again, and I had to come clean about my feelings, however trivial, before I felt I could do that.
Snapchat's read report informed me that, "This user would be able to see my messages once they add me as a friend." He and I talked on Snapchat quite a bit around the time we hung out. This meant that he deleted me as a friend at some point. I was barely phased by this, although my anxiety was in the background of my mind, shouting complains of the ways he could feel about me based on this tiny bit of information. But before I left, since I had already sent the apology and I knew where I stood on the matter of this person, I felt sure of myself enough that I went to get his attention--I went to his table, touched his shoulder gently, and told him, "Hey, I just wanted to say hi to your face. Also, I sent you a couple messages on Snapchat. That was all." He didn't say much, but seemed pleased, and when he responded to my apology, he was gracious and forgiving.
Beyond this encounter, another decision I made a long time ago but have yet to pluck up the courage to follow through on, is that I need to apologize to someone. I overstepped boundaries, and said things via means that made her uncomfortable enough that she had to reach out to stop me from saying more. This is a person I know very little about, someone I've hung out with literally once, someone I'm already convinced I'm not really all that compatible with, who might end up being a total asshole, but also someone I find on my mind all too frequently. It's beginning to make even me uncomfortable how often I think of her--and I'm realizing that the only reason I think of her is because I worry she hates me, or dislikes me, or thinks ill of me, especially based on the way I've been towards her in the past, especially in that period of about a month after I met her a year-ish ago, and when I sent the last poem via e-mail. If I want to move on, I need to do myself the favor of apologizing to her for being so immensely creepy, and I need to establish whether or not she's okay with me being around at all, considering that she works in a coffee shop I'm quite fond of.
This whole ordeal I'm coping with makes me feel worse about myself, and I've been on either side of these types of unwelcome advances, and passionate proclamations. I know that from the receiving side of these things, it can be easy to brush someone off and not care, and it can also be a source of significant, sometimes crippling anxiety. I can't possibly know what degree of severity this person suffers my existence, or my presence, until I ask about it, and I'm not really sure yet whether she might even want to hear about anything from me. We barely talked when we did hang out, and I did a lot of the talking non-verbally. I do a fair amount writing, certainly beyond this blog, and most specifically, I write a lot of poetry. It's a really cathartic therapy I have for myself, and I often appreciate the things I write enough to show them to people.
When it comes to poetry that's about someone, that's another game. Poetry aimed at, or simply about or revolving around, a person very quickly deteriorates into the realm of creepily watching someone from across a room without their knowing, obsessing and having conversations with a person who is not there, and making pledges of commitment and fidelity to someone who has never reciprocated. These are things that a vast majority of people would agree are Not Okay behaviours.
On the other hand, I am absolutely a romantic. I'm heavily oriented towards my emotions, and the emotions of those I care for, and I love poetry deeply. I also love to be looked at and watched by the person of my affections. I have some mixed feelings about commitment, but given that there's room for a conversation, I want to discuss the depth and the grandeur of whatever affections are felt, I want to know how long you think you'll be around, I want to know how far you'd travel to see me, or what makes you think of me, or when I've been on your mind a lot. The little things add up, and when those little things get all clumped together, it becomes something Big, and sometimes... that's just plain old scary. Sometimes, the person you want to give that Big thing to, just doesn't want it. And that's fine.
But here is a perfect example of the dichotomy between the things I know, and the things I believe: I know that not everyone will like me, and that it's okay if someone doesn't like me. I know that not all pairs of people are compatible or healthy for one another. I also know that there are consequences if you overstep someones boundaries under the false assumption that they want and like you--and yet! According to my behavior, historically, if someone doesn't like me, I can't not care about it, and it's Not Okay with me. In the event that I'm the only participant in a one-sided relationship, I will beat a horse until it's dead, and then some, and I am capable of obsessing pretty insidiously if I am left unchecked. And when I go unchecked, in the midst of an obsession, I slip.... I, and the entire planet of emotions and metaphorical gore I bear every day, will come crashing down on an individual in an apocalyptic way. However, on the receiving end of these events, I seem like some anonymous stalker, hidden behind my technology, making proclamations of my undying love and commitment, shaking my tiny electronic phone fists not-so-dramatically at the sky. That's... not exactly who I want to be.
I think there are some relationships where a muse can inspire and be appreciated as a whole human being all at once. I do believe that's possible. I also think it's a stretch. But working towards that kind of relationship and in this particular scenario, as an artist myself, could be commendable! But also, the very concept of a "muse," could arguably be dehumanizing and corrupt unto itself. But who knows. Once I've made a couple more strides towards living authentically, maybe I'll be able to have that without too much compromise. Here's hoping--and bottom's up for the day I ever get around to apologizing to the object of my now dying obsession. The risk I took today was going to her work to see if I could catch her attention to make my apology, but she wasn't there. Sometime, maybe, I'll do what I want to do in that regard. Maybe.
I opened at work, and just before I left, someone I met on tinder and slept with came in, and I was so embarrassed and twitterpated, but I made a decision today too: I'm gonna talk to the people who are on my mind. I couldn't stop thinking about this tinder hookup guy as I was working and he was there with all his gorgeous study buddies, and I knew he was on my mind because I pretty pointedly ghosted him. He reached out to me on multiple occasions after we slept together, and at first I was just a little anxious, but then I got a little annoyed, and then after a while I became apathetic towards him. I stopped caring altogether about this person I'd so recently been so intimate with. We did things he said he'd never done before, that he said felt amazing, and I then promptly disappeared, and in retrospect, like how they say hindsight is 20/20, I realize how shitty that can be depending on how invested the pursuer might be, and I felt so badly that I actually found him on Snapchat and sent him a message along the lines of, "Hi. I see you. Sorry I ghosted you, we're cool." I want to be able to speak freely if I ever see him again, and I had to come clean about my feelings, however trivial, before I felt I could do that.
Snapchat's read report informed me that, "This user would be able to see my messages once they add me as a friend." He and I talked on Snapchat quite a bit around the time we hung out. This meant that he deleted me as a friend at some point. I was barely phased by this, although my anxiety was in the background of my mind, shouting complains of the ways he could feel about me based on this tiny bit of information. But before I left, since I had already sent the apology and I knew where I stood on the matter of this person, I felt sure of myself enough that I went to get his attention--I went to his table, touched his shoulder gently, and told him, "Hey, I just wanted to say hi to your face. Also, I sent you a couple messages on Snapchat. That was all." He didn't say much, but seemed pleased, and when he responded to my apology, he was gracious and forgiving.
Beyond this encounter, another decision I made a long time ago but have yet to pluck up the courage to follow through on, is that I need to apologize to someone. I overstepped boundaries, and said things via means that made her uncomfortable enough that she had to reach out to stop me from saying more. This is a person I know very little about, someone I've hung out with literally once, someone I'm already convinced I'm not really all that compatible with, who might end up being a total asshole, but also someone I find on my mind all too frequently. It's beginning to make even me uncomfortable how often I think of her--and I'm realizing that the only reason I think of her is because I worry she hates me, or dislikes me, or thinks ill of me, especially based on the way I've been towards her in the past, especially in that period of about a month after I met her a year-ish ago, and when I sent the last poem via e-mail. If I want to move on, I need to do myself the favor of apologizing to her for being so immensely creepy, and I need to establish whether or not she's okay with me being around at all, considering that she works in a coffee shop I'm quite fond of.
This whole ordeal I'm coping with makes me feel worse about myself, and I've been on either side of these types of unwelcome advances, and passionate proclamations. I know that from the receiving side of these things, it can be easy to brush someone off and not care, and it can also be a source of significant, sometimes crippling anxiety. I can't possibly know what degree of severity this person suffers my existence, or my presence, until I ask about it, and I'm not really sure yet whether she might even want to hear about anything from me. We barely talked when we did hang out, and I did a lot of the talking non-verbally. I do a fair amount writing, certainly beyond this blog, and most specifically, I write a lot of poetry. It's a really cathartic therapy I have for myself, and I often appreciate the things I write enough to show them to people.
When it comes to poetry that's about someone, that's another game. Poetry aimed at, or simply about or revolving around, a person very quickly deteriorates into the realm of creepily watching someone from across a room without their knowing, obsessing and having conversations with a person who is not there, and making pledges of commitment and fidelity to someone who has never reciprocated. These are things that a vast majority of people would agree are Not Okay behaviours.
On the other hand, I am absolutely a romantic. I'm heavily oriented towards my emotions, and the emotions of those I care for, and I love poetry deeply. I also love to be looked at and watched by the person of my affections. I have some mixed feelings about commitment, but given that there's room for a conversation, I want to discuss the depth and the grandeur of whatever affections are felt, I want to know how long you think you'll be around, I want to know how far you'd travel to see me, or what makes you think of me, or when I've been on your mind a lot. The little things add up, and when those little things get all clumped together, it becomes something Big, and sometimes... that's just plain old scary. Sometimes, the person you want to give that Big thing to, just doesn't want it. And that's fine.
But here is a perfect example of the dichotomy between the things I know, and the things I believe: I know that not everyone will like me, and that it's okay if someone doesn't like me. I know that not all pairs of people are compatible or healthy for one another. I also know that there are consequences if you overstep someones boundaries under the false assumption that they want and like you--and yet! According to my behavior, historically, if someone doesn't like me, I can't not care about it, and it's Not Okay with me. In the event that I'm the only participant in a one-sided relationship, I will beat a horse until it's dead, and then some, and I am capable of obsessing pretty insidiously if I am left unchecked. And when I go unchecked, in the midst of an obsession, I slip.... I, and the entire planet of emotions and metaphorical gore I bear every day, will come crashing down on an individual in an apocalyptic way. However, on the receiving end of these events, I seem like some anonymous stalker, hidden behind my technology, making proclamations of my undying love and commitment, shaking my tiny electronic phone fists not-so-dramatically at the sky. That's... not exactly who I want to be.
I think there are some relationships where a muse can inspire and be appreciated as a whole human being all at once. I do believe that's possible. I also think it's a stretch. But working towards that kind of relationship and in this particular scenario, as an artist myself, could be commendable! But also, the very concept of a "muse," could arguably be dehumanizing and corrupt unto itself. But who knows. Once I've made a couple more strides towards living authentically, maybe I'll be able to have that without too much compromise. Here's hoping--and bottom's up for the day I ever get around to apologizing to the object of my now dying obsession. The risk I took today was going to her work to see if I could catch her attention to make my apology, but she wasn't there. Sometime, maybe, I'll do what I want to do in that regard. Maybe.
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