Fatal Flaws

I admit that this recent episode was my fault, but at the same time, I don’t believe that I should take 100% of the blame.  Often I try to let things roll off my back and not dwell on them too much probably because 1) I’m afraid to confront the truth and 2) I know that if I don’t, my thoughts will be consumed by them.  I am very much prone to obsessing over things, which is why I try whenever I can to nip them at the bud. Sometimes I’m successful, and other times it’s a real struggle (see: Vicky).  Perhaps my two fatal flaws are being simultaneously overly passive and overly aggressive.

I visited my friend Lynn over the long weekend, which eventually led to a full blown, drunken argument at the end of the last night I was there. It was completely blown out of proportion on both our parts, but I was the one who committed the fatal fault of calling her a “fucking idiot,” which she held against and probably will hold against me for a while. Now, I think with my other friends, like Diana, they would probably forget the whole thing by morning time and write it off as a drunken, irrational argument where people said things they didn’t mean. At least that’s what I did. But not Lynn. She held it against for the last two days and made sure I knew exactly what she was thinking of me. I tried the best I could clarify my stance, apologize for my behavior, and to see things from a sober perspective. I felt that I had outlined my arguments clearly and fairly. The response I received was so intense, so rigid, and so… callous.  It was not a response you would expect from a friend who can forgive and forget and rise above a ridiculous, intoxicated situation. It has been bothering me for the last 12 hours, and I’m not sure why. It might actually be the first time in a long time that I’ve encountered an argument with a friend in which a sincere and heartfelt apology was taken in such a disregarded manner. I know she was furious with me, but my apology was obvious and deliberate, so I’m not sure what the problem was.  Maybe I’m a little taken aback by the fact that a person whose friendship I valued was unable to overlook 20 minutes of a drunken argument in favor of 2 years of a meaningful friendship. In my view, a true friend is able to look past a petty situation, take into account the mental state of said situation, mindfully accept a sincere and deliberate apology, and move on. By the end, I felt as if I were in the middle of a relationship fight, not a friendship fight, and I had no words left.

Although I think we’ve resolved our differences and moved past this particular episode, I have a feeling that I won’t be talking to or seeing Lynn for a while.  I walked away from the resolution feeling a bit… jipped. I know I had overreacted and hit below the belt with my comment, but what led me to that mental state wasn’t completely of my own doing. She had an equal hand in all of this. I am not going to try to analyze rationally and logically what went on during that argument because, honestly, drunken arguments aren’t meant to be revisited in a rational and logical way. They are meant to be tossed aside as momentary lapses of judgment. Regardless, even though I voiced these concerns and made clear what offended me in the first place, she cast them aside and focused on the end result of my comment. Fair enough it was a shitty and thoughtless comment, but how we got there deserves to be looked at as well, doesn’t it?  

This whole episode just reminded me of the temper problem that I am constantly struggling with. I hate blaming situations like this on PMS, but I think it really is PMS this time, as I got my period yesterday. It’d been a long time since I “saw red,” so this really caught me off guard. I was, of course, embarassed by my behavior, which is probably the sole reason I wanted this to roll off my back and to be forgotten with. I really have to work on being mindful of situations like this when I know that my temper can flare and I can say something that I regret. Things like this happened with Spencer all the time toward the end of our relationship, and I vowed never to let it happen with anyone else I dated. Even though Spencer was an asshole in the end, I still shouldn’t have acted the way I did with him. Friends are no different, but I need to remember times like these so that Brian, or anyone else I date in the future, doesn’t become victim to this sort of abuse. Because really, this is abuse — verbal and emotional abuse.

The Idea of Her

It’s hardest when I’m alone. She becomes the only thing my mind can think about. When I’m at work, out with friends, or being distracted by anything, the loneliness and the pain is bearable and barely noticeable. But when I come home, and I’m all alone in this room, she is all I can think about.

We traded 3 e-mails over the weekend. Dinner never happened, and I told her I just couldn’t plan on seeing her especially if she was going to do the same thing she always did before — not respond or not show up. She didn’t write back.

I’ve noticed a lot of similarities between her and Spencer. They are both very good at emotionally manipulating me. They both say one thing and do another, and that’s why I’m always so hooked. But now I need to unhook myself. I’m not going to write to her again. And I’m not going to attempt to contact her again. That was the last time. There is no point in trying anymore. If my mind thinks about her, then it is my own suffering and pain and I have only myself to blame. Because honestly, there is no reason why I should still be thinking about her anymore. She is not who I want her to be. I love the idea of her, and not her. Just the idea. I am fooling myself into thinking that she is more than she really is.

I have to stop thinking about her. I have to.

Cold Feet

If you don’t want to believe in love, live in New York.

The events of yesterday raised numerous doubts about whether I want to stay in New York for more than a year from now. First, I had lunch with my old RA, who has probably been my most reliable confidante since the first day of college. We think on the same wavelength and have similar perspectives on life and people. She graduated last year but since then she’s been living this whole Bohemian lifestyle of sailing around the world and being an au pair to a rich family. She’s thinking about moving to New Zealand for a year and working next year. I’d never been interested in living a Bohemian lifestyle even after knowing about her adventures until yesterday when I realized that I really wasn’t done exploring the world. The main reason I wanted to get this job was because I needed to save up money and because my LSAT score wasn’t good enough to apply during this cycle. I couldn’t just pick up and move to Australia now even if I wanted to. I have absolutely no money. But now I’m beginning to think that I’ll work for a year and then use whatever money I have from that to go work in Australia for another year. I just don’t think I’m ready to commit my entire life to New York just yet.

Another reason why has a lot to do with the person I randomly met on the LIRR last night. On my way to Anne’s bachelorette party, I sat next to this clean cut, white collar guy. He seemed kind of cocky and selfish, and it was all confirmed when he told me about the five girlfriends he had. It dawned on me that I had met an amplified version of Spencer. Even though I wanted nothing more than to punch him in the face and where it mattered, I couldn’t help but ask him tons of questions about how he went about keeping the girls from knowing about the other ones and how he thought it was fair to make them think the relationships were really exclusive but they weren’t. The way he spoke about them was just so degrading and despicable, and it brought back all the mistrust and insecurities that I thought I had gotten over five months ago. I am now more than paranoid about dating in this city. Here are some interesting things he said to justify these fears:

• “It’s New York; it’s easy to get away with this.”
• “____ is clueless. _____ is clueless. _____ is clueless too. ____ is suspicious, but whatever.”
• “She’s not the love of my life anyway.”
• “I did tell her, but then I told her I was joking. But I told her.”
• “I never lie. They never ask if we’re exclusive. If they asked I would just dodge the question or change the subject.”
• “I just tell them I’m working late, studying for the LSAT, hanging out with a friend, whatever.”
• “I met them all on match.com.”

He said more than these things, but I think this was enough to rekindle all the fears and doubts I had about getting into another relationship any time soon. In this city, at least. This is why I think I need to get out of here before I’m too old to actually seriously date. I’m not some conservative loser, but I do believe in love and marriage, and I do want to get married before I’m 30. This city is too filled with people who are selfish and preoccupied with selfish desires, so much so that they become immoral and evil. And I just don’t believe in that kind of lifestyle. If people are like this here, then I’ll never find anyone I could possibly marry here. This is why I think the best time for me to leave the city and find someone who I might actually be able to marry is when I go to law school. I need to either go to a smaller city or a big town. I just can’t stay here for this phase of my life. I’ll come back when I have a decent job and can afford the better things in life and when I have someone I’d like to share my life with.

I’m not expecting some major relationship any time soon, and I’m not going to be looking very far anyway. If I meet someone I like, maybe we’ll start dating, but I won’t be expecting anything spectacular any time soon. This city does nothing but suck your faith out of love and humanity. It’s sad, isn’t it?

Love and Revolutions

Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about my life and where it is heading. At the moment, it’s honestly all just a blur. Maybe it’s due to the fact that I haven’t actually started my adult life yet, and am still just sitting at home. While I enjoy the monotony a lot, because it is quite a change, at the same time, I can’t help but feel empty. It also occurred to me that it’s been a very long time since I’ve written an entry focused just on my thoughts and feelings about my life and myself. I’ve spent far too much time analyzing and re-analyzing the failed connections between the people I’ve met and tried to maintain contact with in the last year and a half — namely Spencer and Vicky. In the end, they mean very little in my life. And I have no doubt that I mean very little in theirs. While that saddens me, and I did think about how much of a waste of time it all was, I’ve decided that it’s time to put it all behind me and to just focus on myself.  And yet, before I put it all behind me, there are still some things I’d like to figure out, so that next time, I won’t repeat these mistakes.

Passion and love. I want these things. I want them so badly, but the way I’ve approached these things have been wreckless, naive, and plain ignorant. The methods I’ve used and clung to are sure to fail, and have failed.  I must recognize them before I can prevent myself from using them again in the future when the possibilities of passion and love present themselves to me.

So, what are they?

At first I didn’t know. At first I wanted to blame. My family. My past. My childhood. My naiveté. And maybe it’s a little of all of the above, but I knew I couldn’t blame. It was something that I had to recognize and stop. It was, plain and simple, desperation and gullibility. I trusted too much. I gave too much benefit of the doubt. And so I withdrew. I withdrew my trust from everyone and everything. I was stingy with benefits of the doubt. But then I realized that couldn’t work either, because I ended up shutting people and potentially good situations out of my life. I couldn’t possibly live my life forever in fear of getting hurt again. So I made myself vulnerable again. And with someone I thought I could trust and put my faith in. Someone who I thought sincerely was a good person but just didn’t have the skills to maintain bonds. But that was a bunch of crap, too. Because, really, I fell back into the same pattern of desperation and gullibility, of believing everything and not wanting to believe anything that I didn’t want to believe.

And so it dawned on me.

I was afraid of confrontation. It all seemed to make sense from past interactions with people, not only with Vicky and Spencer. I had a hard time confronting people about my own doubts, fears, anger, frustrations, etc. I had a hard time telling people exactly what I thought in person. On paper and online, I could do it easily and eloquently, but in person, I was tongue-tied and afraid of the immediate reactions I would receive. So in reality, these bitter and self-pitying moments of weakness that I expressed in my blog and elsewhere were the result of my own failings of confronting the situations at the time. Whenever I confronted Spencer, it was always online. Same with Vicky. I don’t think we ever had a real confrontation over what had happened with our friendship, save for that time at the coffee shop, but even that was half-assed at best. Spending some time with my mother has also made me more aware of this problem — she is also afraid of confrontation. I won’t go into detail, but I noticed this in her and I realized that this is probably where I got it. I have never actually seen confrontation done in a graceful, mannered way, so naturally, I didn’t know how.

And so here I am.

I have pinpointed the problem and now I need to work on this aspect of myself. I have to learn how to confront issues when they present themselves to me, whether it’s the person responsible or the situation itself. I have to be able to handle these things before I can move forward, recognize, and accept love and passion. Because to accept love and passion, you have to trust, but I’ve been doing it the wrong way. I’ve been doing it in a passive way that ends up hurting myself. To trust, you have to confront, even if they are things that you don’t want to believe. So many times I was afraid of the truth and I didn’t want to see/hear the truth so I just kept lying to myself, twisting the situation, warping my feelings, and bending the truth to myself. And in the end, I wore myself out and hurt myself.

God knows love is hard to come by. And at age 22, I’m already wondering if it’ll ever, truly happen to me. And whether I will recognize if it is the right kind of love. Recognition is the hardest and scariest part of it all. But God, I want it love and passion in my life so badly. And I just don’t know how to find it. And I feel lost and alone so many nights, and I just wish that there was somebody out there who I can depend on and trust and put everything into. I want to meet someone who I can pour every part of my being into and just be with him and share my life with him. I want to share. Very badly.

Principles

I think one of my major flaws is that I am too committed to my principles. I believe in what I stand for so much so that I ruin many relationships and situations because I am too stubborn to betray my principles. This is arguably a good thing — and a bad thing. Many times I believe that it’s a good thing, so I don’t compromise these principles, but then I end up getting hurt in the end. Or at least feeling vulnerable. And one of my biggest annoyances is to feel vulnerable. I think that’s why I lash out at people. Any time I feel vulnerable, I feel like I need to overcome these feelings with rash decision-making in terms of my word choice and actions. Vicky, undoubtedly, made me feel vulnerable after not replying with a grateful response. She basically made my friendship and my goodwill worthless, which in turn, made me feel worthless inside. And thus, to counter this vulnerability and weakness, I had to lash out at her in the most extreme way possible. The same thing happened when I broke up with Spencer; I sent him hateful and spiteful text messages over and over again because I felt hurt, betrayed, and above all, vulnerable. But throughout all of this, my principles have remained the basis for which I do these things. Emotionally, I feel vulnerable, but mentally, I believe that I am defending my general principles of humanity. Both Vicky and Spencer were dishonest, inconsiderate, and ungrateful, and for this, I had to attack them to make them realize just how unprincipled they were. That is simply how I work. I have to tell people exactly what I think of them before I disconnect our relationship once and for all. It’s not a pretty way to go down, but it’s the only way I know how to keep myself from feeling vulnerable still. I have to, at all costs, rid myself of this vulnerability, and unfortunately, this is the only way I know how — to lash out at and demean people based on their faulty principles.