Tonight’s soap opera episode

So an update (or a whine depending on your point-of-view) on the soap opera that is my love life.

For the first time ever, I decided I wanted to have my birthday acknowledged. Just in a small way, I didn’t want fuss, or presents, I just wanted someone to say it was my birthday and that was important. Actually that’s not entirely true, people have tried to say it before but I’ve always brushed it off, negated and ignored it. This last one, I decided I wanted to acknowledge that with someone.

So I asked Brian. I said I didn’t want anything big, or a present, but I wanted him to do something with me for my birthday. A drive out to Outram for an icecream, a walk along a beach. He said, sure, of course. At the time I thought I meant it when I asked. But now with hindsight I wonder if it was a test I knew he would fail, that it would prove how unlovable I am, how unreliable he is and let me pretend to be doing recovery work when in reality I was just finding a more sneaky way to hide from it.

In case you haven’t already worked it out, Brian didn’t do anything. Again, not entirely true, mid-afternoon he messaged me and said ‘happy birthday’ but seriously I don’t think I’m being judgemental when I say that hardly counts as doing something special. And the other thing now in hindsight I’m not terribly surprised. This is the guy that refused to go out in public with me, that always made me feel like his guilty secret. So did I really think he would change, just because I asked. At the time I told myself I thought he would, but then again, sometimes the easiest person to con is yourself.

I saw him a couple of days after that, he didn’t even mention my birthday. I told myself it didn’t hurt, but that was one con I couldn’t pull off, because fuck it it did. He talked about how he was waiting for the new year to change how he was, to make a commitment to having a real relationship with me. He said he’d been walking around with a contract in his pocket for weeks. When I thought I was going to get an agreement with Daniel months ago, the two of us worked out a contract before he disappeared. Brian said he wanted to see it, so I emailed it to him. I admit to being cynical and jaded when he said he was carrying a copy of it. I said the contract had no relevance to him (which is true it wasn’t written for him) and then I said he would never be that type of submissive, that it would require more than he was willing to give me. Which is all true, I would want to see someone I had contracted more than once every couple of months when they felt like it, but I was very… blunt about it. When he left I said have a good Christmas, he told me he’d see me before then. I haven’t seen him since.

I got a text from him on New Year’s Day saying Happy New Year, but that was the last and only time I’ve heard from him. I didn’t really expect him to change, to suddenly be able to let me into his life. But I will have to say, not hearing from him at all, kind of hurts. It touches on that raw nerve of being tossed away when I’m no longer filling a need. My friendship often feels like I am a commodity, that is used up and then tossed aside. Yes I know I have major personal issues, and probably contribute a lot to that situation, but it’s still there. If he suddenly turns up and starts messaging me again, will I talk to him. I’d like to say no, not that he’s a bad guy because really he’s not, but because I can’t keep doing that to myself, can’t keep saying use me. But at the same time, it sucks so much to be so alone, and I’m use to taking the scraps off the floor.

Meanwhile, there’s Holly, who is suddenly talking to me on messenger three or four times a day. She still frustrates and amuses me. She goes on about being horny and wanting a girlfriend, but she’s of the opinion that said girlfriend needs to track her down, turn up on her doorstep. She won’t go out, she won’t date, and although she says she gets hit on by straight chicks all the time, she doesn’t seem to actually try to find anyone. I find it amusing, and I tend to just laugh her off. There was a time when I used to try to tell her that if she wants a relationship she actually has to put some work into it. But I soon worked out I was pissing into the wind, she doesn’t want it, she doesn’t want to have to work, she just wants the fantasy.

And she likes the idea of me fulfilling her fantasy. She tries to get me to get dommy with her when we talk, to instruct her. She also tries to get me to tell her what I’d do with her if I was her dom. I don’t play that game, I refuse to be her cheap and safe fantasy. She also talks about having feelings for me, that I get inside her head. Again, bullshit. This is a woman I’ve known online for over 3 years and we have never met. It’s not like she’s in a different town, she says she’s in Highcliff which ok is across town, but this is Dunedin, so at most 20 minutes by car. If she was attracted to me, if she did actually think about a relationship with me she would have met by now. And yes, I have asked her to meet at least 3 times. She hasn’t turned me down, but each time I have said something about meeting in real life she’s shut down her messenger with some excuse. I still wouldn’t be surprised to find out she wasn’t a real woman, but that said, 3 years is a long time to play that game with one person.

She frustrates me so much. She always complains, about being alone, being bored, not having a life. But refuses to do anything different. Yes my life is boring, but some of those boring parts I actually like, the ones I don’t, well I try to change, as much as I can with my finances and lack of transport. I think that’s what annoys me the most, people who have opportunities available to them, don’t recognise how lucky they are. Ok, maybe part of this rant is she annoyed me today. I said I wasn’t fun, she refused to accept that so I tried to explain. I said I do enjoyable things, I enjoy my life for the most part (so don’t trust her with my trauma issues), but I have a serious demeanour, and my interests tend towards the cerebral, academic, staid. It wasn’t a put down, I enjoy those things, I don’t enjoy what most people consider fun, and I don’t generally like behaving in that free funloving way. It’s just me, I’m not complaining. She, however, told me I was wrong, that I really was fun. When I told her I didn’t like being people thinking they knew me better than myself. She responded by laughing and saying, see you’re fun. It just annoyed the crap out of me, I probably shouldn’t have expected more, and it did show how little she knows of who I really am. But fuck, and yeah it got me rambling.