Bleh

Even surrounded by people I'm feeling more alone. Point of fact, the more people, the more alone I feel. It's getting to me. Write soon.

The Sims

I love the sims. They make so much sense to me: easy to understand formulas of hunger, fun, social. It makes it all rather easy to understand; it breaks down complicated life feelings to easy to visually interpret bar graphs! Could you really ask for more?

I don't know why I didn't think if this earlier but it recently was asked of me: are you getting your submissive needs met? I had never in my life considered that. The answer, clearly, is no. But I'm in love with this question. 

Not only does it clearly identify the problem but it allows for there to be a solution. Its like when people talk of alcoholism. If it is truly a disease than it should follow that there is a cure. There should, in any problem, contain a solution. More on that to come. 

I spent the evening with Dave the other night and we had sushi even though we had talked at end about not doing that. it was nice. Too nice to be honest as it made me start to think about things that really shouldn't be in my head. This has become ever more clear to me with each passing minute. With every turn people make decisions that will enhance or detract from someone else’s day, someone else’s life. We chose with each waking moment how to impact everyone else. With every horrible thing I have done to chris, with every stupid decision I have made, I am making myself. I am effecting his bar graph just as dave effects mine.

That night was about when I understood yet another reason it was probably good I haven't had sex and why I'm not poly. I become too emotionally attached. This seems a bit strange as this was not how I used to be. I used to be the one that would get up instantly and run to take a shower after sushi. I wouldn't even entertain the idea of cuddling and hugs and crap. Hated it. But maybe that still meant I could be getting emotionally attached. But, for me, it is a way to be vulnerable. Dave encourages me to try a million different things in sex and on the surface that sounded like a great idea but I am using it as something far different than he is. Or perhaps a bit too much the same. Regardless what I should be doing, I use sex as a way of being vulnerable, I use sex as a way to actually be more myself and let someone else see me. He is a service top, who he is is only ever who someone else wants him to be. That alone is enough to cause trouble for me as I want to believe that people are honest when I am being my most honest. That simply isn’t the case though.

That's part of why I don't think I could ever do poly. I was thinking about it last night a bit more with Daniel and in some ways it makes sense. It’s like dating in the fifties. No one went steady in those days. The point was to date around and see with whom you're compatible. I think the trouble is when you become serious about someone as I would then expect that dating around to end but for some it doesn't. And I don't think my feelings of attachment could live through that. I do get attached. I do grow close to people and want that person to be special. I want to be special to that person. I want to know I exist when im not naked in front of them. And don’t feed me the bs about how I don’t understand poly. I do. It means getting what you want without compromise.

Part of the reason I was upset the night I went out with Dave was that I had been told I was just like this mean character from this tv show. As I've asked other people about who they thought I was and it was funny. I got different answers when I started asking people which seemed a bit odd and I thought that perhaps this was because I was different around those people, the character they equated me with was simply the person I became when I was around them: the version of lara they contain in their minds. I talked to more people and people had such a clear version of who they thought I was and it differed vastly making my idea change. When I ask someone how they see me, they aren’t able to answer. Its not about rose colored glasses or the image they have of my in their brain; the character they are describing isn’t a type of me, it’s a type of us. The character they see, the person they equate me to, is simply put, them describing our relationship together: it’s the two of us.

So when I go out and feel awkward and want to stand in a corner and simply watch people everyone in that bar could view me as the same character because that would be how I am acting but instead that’s not what happens. They all view me as a different character. Some view me as the peppy, pretty cheerleader that I will never measure up to being, ill never be that happy, ill never be that included, but based on me and based on her and based on our interaction that is our relationship, that is the image that is displayed. While the next will view me as the loner geek with crooked teeth and frizzy hair that gets slushied when she walks through the hall, and that will be just as accurate because it has nothing to do with the person who sees me, and nothing to do with me, it is exclusively the product of us.

The nice thing is that this has given me some short clarity into whom it is I am looking to date. As far as I could tell I had made some rather gruesome mistakes in my dating life for very little reason. We could start with chad. There is no reason I should have ever wanted him. He was a douche bag. Hes not attractive and lets be honest he certainly was kind and I still don’t think he was ever all that intelligent. Years ago, straight after I broke things off with Jules I made a list of the attributes I wanted in a man I would date. The list was multiple pages but consisted of the usual: good looking, funny, confident, all that nonsense. So I look now at the people I am attracted to and the ones I should be but am not. I asked Daniel what made some of the people work and others so easy to forget and he offered that the ones that I seem to go after seem to be people who are smart, specifically smarter than me, and people who are capable of taking an analytical look at the past which allows me to better explore myself and other people’s motives and thoughts. Apparently introspection is a key quality that I want but its not something I necessarily want in my partner, its something that I want to have in our us. Hope that makes some sense.

That is why I am having such a difficult time with two of my friends who have recently entered into relationships. I wont for a second lie and say im not the jealous type. I am more than the jealous type. I can count the number of times I have single handedly assisted in the demise of multiple relationships. I have acted as the ultimate judge and executioner. Im not proud of those instances but I have let others live that have killed me as well. I did make evan cheat on molly. Lets be honest, ive made more men than I remember cheat. But those I like, the ones I actually love, are the ones ive also tried to not do that with. Ill leave those examples by the way side for, well, obvious reasons. But these two guys who have decided that they have found this wonderful blessing of love and deep, meaning that can only come with their one true soul mate. First off I want to gag every time they open their mouths. Nothing makes me look down on someone faster. Sorry. But it’s the fact that my character of them has been forced to change. They want to go from Puck to Blaine. There is no easy way for me to change the our that I have come to know. I don’t trust them because suddenly they are trying to introduce a different personality than the one we have created. Suddenly they are trying to convince me that they believe in things that the old version didn’t have in his vocabulary. Its why I scoff when I hear certain people talk of love. Its why I opt out of participating in conversations where people tell me of their deep committed relationships of six months. Its because there is no character. Its because their character can only come from the theft of another, if can only be born from stealing from something else. It can only ever mean that to give their new love a chance they are willing to kill off everything old.

Sadly, that was one of the more interesting parts of my birthday. Watching everyone from different social scenes interact, I got so many different character versions of people. On the one hand I have people telling me I should stick out  a friendship with one person and someone else saying he is only ever going to be a manipulative shit and another saying he actually has a lot in common with the man who started Satanism.

Let’s return though to the part I can talk of with more clarity: me. Dave told me if I was happy that I would need a stick to beat away all the men who would want me. I thought about this and thought about it. Its something ive been told a hundred times over by men who weren’t interested in me. The truth is. I like tragedy. The truth is that I like the beauty of sadness. I think its more pure. I think its more genuine. I don’t trust happiness entirely. Happiness is so easy. Its easy to be happy and continue it. It takes work and dedication to stay true to something that makes you sad, for the love of it, for the dedication to it. To me that is beautiful. its so easy to stick with a relationship that hasn’t had a fight and say it is perfect. Frankly, those are the ones I have no interested in. the ones I find inspiring are the ones that take effort, that try. If im happy I will have the people who can only deal with that. And the first sign of something wrong and well we all know where they will be. Doesn’t mean I shouldn’t try to be happier than I am. No one wants to walk into something that will make their lives worse. I think though that the truth of it is that I simply need to be in a place where I am able to have the our be a strong character.  Writing out what I want in a partner and thinking of who I want to be in the a relationship simply put may not be enough.

That means that I haven’t yet figured out a way to have my bar graph filled. It means that my sim(ple) version of me still has a need that has not been filled. I want to feel submissive. I actually, evidently, have that as apart of my basic needs to function to my best ability. It explains a decent amount. Simple change of view can accomplish so much. So what now? It is clearly been established that I do not have any relationship where that character is capable of being submissive. It is also apparent that I do become too emotionally attached when I am submitting to someone. This then suggests to me that I need to come up with a way of being submissive outside of a relationship. The trouble is I have absolutely no idea how to do that and my little tiny sim is grumbling and refusing to do much of anything else until I get this need met. Guess this giant game is a bit more challenging than a simple algorithm. 

Happy Birthday

Last night I celebrated my birthday. i had a lovely party out at a bar in west seattle and rather enjoyed myself. it was an odd little gathering of people from the alternative community, old co-workers, college friends, friends of friends and people from therapy. i like to watch my social circles interact so that they can all see how amazing and wonderful all the people i love are. i dont know, theres something nice about that.

in the end i had around twenty-five people come out and it was a great time. no one there seemed to ask but plenty of people i didnt invite but who had heard about my party had asked if it was for some milestone birthday: 25, 30, 35... the truth was it was a milestone just not since my birth.

it was my first birthday trying to move on. the point of a huge party, the point of going to so much fuss and bother was because i didnt want a birthday like last year, a birthday where i waited for him. stayed in my house waiting for him to ring the door bell, call me, email me, something. i didnt want to do that again.

so i didnt. i had a great group of people and a lot of conversations and one very tight car ride. it was nice that way. it was nice not waiting. the thing about it was that during the evening (and a few emails before) convinced me that i shouldnt be waiting at all.

looking at the photos i think my feelings, unfortunately, come across fairly strong. perhaps its difficult for me to hide emotions, least a few. but looking at the photos now and thinking about the party and thinking about the experiences ive had with the people there, it makes me think about something someone told me last night: that she wasn't up for dating just anyone. i have been pining away, perhaps not so secretly, for entirely too long with people who are entirely not interested and thinking back, while i adore them, i have no idea what i was doing. wonderful, amazing people that i dont need as anything but a friend. calling jake up and crying because he said he didnt think he could ever be interested in a relationship with me... well he should be and if hes not there's no reason i should wait around for him to see that. especially considering that i think if someone were to ask me i would say he was among my two best friends in the universe and if they were to ask him he would scarcely remember to count me.

last night was wonderful and i did ok with out evan. but now i want to find someone who want to be there, who would want to help me celebrate.

Christmas in July - Lent in September

The point of lent, to me, is to give up something in the hopes that you will be able to concentrate more on your relationship with God. If you give up something tangible, material, physical that you have become dependent upon, the release of that control that the object has over you, should make room for you to concentrate more on getting closer to God.

With that in mind i started thinking about the things that hold us back. I have a dear friend that i sincerely feel hides behind a wall that he has constructed so that he doesn't have to push himself harder, further. He doesn't have to be in those challenging situations and work through them because he is always able to take shelter in this safety of his own design. I also feel strongly that this is holding him back from getting some of the things he wants.

It was with this running through my head that i began to think about how easy it is to identify such things in other. I can look at most of my friends and relatively quickly make a judgement about what is holding them back. I think that's fair for most people right? It is significantly harder with myself.

I wanted this friend to try to give up the things he was hiding behind. The trouble was that for him it is a behavior, a mindset, and that can be much more challenging. So, i concluded, when better to give up the things we are clinging to than lent?! And hence... Lent in September.

My goal in all of this is to take one week and use it to try life the way we never normally live. Yea trust me i recognize how terrifying that is. So for me it might be living life as though i had confidence. or whatever. i actually could use input on what others think is the thing holding me back. but, none the less, it is a challenge to do it for one week. just to try it. just to try this insane experiment of all the types of life that you have convinced yourself isnt what you want. and yet, yet you admit, you aren't entirely happy in your own. its simply a challenge, a way to cross off a possibility on a checklist and ensure that you really do know better than that other crazy way. least this is how i am trying to convince myself to do it 100%.

so i will go a week changing my behavior in the ultimate hope that maybe it will help convince me to change my thoughts. my friend is going to try it to and i know hes a bit nervous. i invite anyone else to join in.

Lent in September begins on Monday, the 19th.

bad people

is it possible do you think for someone to be bad for you of no accord? i think about the people who have hurt me the most in my life and the list, honestly, is rather short. but even with evan... even with evan i didnt feel like this. there is one person in my life currently that is consistantly hurting me. i dont think he means to though. i honestly believe it is simply his personality, i honestly believe it is simply him being young. but it is with such predictable regularity it almost seems that he is turning a blind eye to things that one would have to know would hurt me. i read somewhere that it is not someones action but there thoughts, their intentions that make them evil. what are daves?

i think about everything thats happened this month.

you know when we kiss people it sends little electrical signals to our brains that tell us if the person is a good match for us. is it possible that people can just chemically, somehow biologically be bad for us?

and the clock strikes

its nearly one in the morning. i need to be up shortly. i am drunk out of mind and yet i have so few thoughts. i am pretty sure im going to be sick. im pretty sure i am jealous that my friend likes some girl. yet im equally sure that im now happy i am single. but im not sure if that means i am better or not. how do i know if im better? and when did i switch to just carrying why people think the way they do instead of trying to change their thoughts? and when did i lose track of both for myself? i havent any idea why i think what i do and i couldnt really care less.