Birdie said a few weeks back that I was misleading "people" by saying that I was looking for long term while "sleeping with a bunch of people". This indictment confused me, because I wasn't sleeping with a bunch of people.
The problem, I now realize, was that when one person says or writes something, it means one thing, but when it is heard or read by another person, it means something else.
The only solution I can think of is to aim to be in a relationship with trust, where miscommunication can be corrected.
I am, however, still pondering this...
What does "a bunch of people" mean to you? Maybe to her it means more than one. Or two.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of the two people in my life at the time of the statement - her and the masochist.
ReplyDeleteMy first response and my "when I think about it at length" response differ though.
She could have been thinking of the (to her) "unknown" number of sexual encounters I had on vacation last month.
There could have been different definitions of "sleeping with", too... do I include failed handjobs from foreign masseuses?
The even bigger question is the context - why it mattered, what was the motivation behind the statement ... I might have understood it differently with background ... was she assuming this trip was indicative of my life, or expecting exclusivity, or worried about STDs, or...?
The thing is that all of these possibilities come as after thoughts.
If I were told today that I am sleeping with a bunch of people, I'd still be wondering how the *1* I'm now sleeping with is a bunch. And I could still see someone thinking 3 in the past few months (excluding the vacation for the sake of argument) is a bunch and thinking I was trying to fool them.
So... I may sit here thinking I've given an honest answer, and I'm not a slut, and at the same time my answer is a lie to someone who interprets the question differently.
It's pointless to worry endlessly about this, but one of my big emotional weaknesses is perceived injustice. If I think something is unjust, especially but not exclusively when in involved, it just spins around and around in my head...
Someone is judging you.
ReplyDeleteAnd sometimes it's hard for us to hear that because somewhere inside there is either some truth to it or we are not sure whatever we did was the right thing to do.
That's usually when I start pondering. When someone tells me a truth or something that rings true to part of myself.
Otherwise I don't give a shit since I own my actions..but there are times where I have done things pretending to myself I was ok with them and when I was called out on it..uhm, yeah.
Just saying. Not analyzing your psyche here. Self-analysis and comparison to why I start pondering shit.
In other news:She's judging you. it's none of her business and no one has a right to make you feel shitty. You know your truth. Maybe she is struggling with hers.
It's something I need to remember... just because someone thinks badly of me doesn't mean I have to take it to heart.
ReplyDeleteI'm ok with what I've done, even after thinking about it some more. I just need to make myself get past the external pressure, imagined or otherwise.
You summed it up with what I was going to say: If you're OK with your actions and you honestly don't feel you did anything wrong then that's what matters. Not someone's opinion of you who you will, more than likely, never see again.
ReplyDeleteI think it all comes down to a matter of opinion and a failure to communicate. I think she had something different in mind but didn't express that and just assumed.
If it were me and I was dating a guy I liked who said he was looking for the long term, and I found out that not only he was sleeping with me but also two other people, and then he went on vacation and had more sexual encounters with more people, I would feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteBut that's just me. I'm not judging you; I'm just saying I am sympathetic to where she is coming from.
As strange as it may seem, I agree.
ReplyDeleteThe puzzle to me is how hard it is to see things any other way once you've framed something. All I could think was, "but I'm not."
I'm sure all she could think was, "but you are."
I keep mentally going over the timeline, and the situation to figure out where I went wrong.
We never could see each other more than once a week, often going without even texts for some time, because she's very busy with work, and an unreliable live-in ex. In my mind, it was only something I would be involved with if it were casual. It was obvious she wasn't available for anything serious yet, at least in my opinion.
Once I framed it as a "this can only be a short time thing", it was harder for me to see her seeing it otherwise.
She knew I was seeing other people, we discussed that at the outset. I had difficulty with getting to the part about having sex with the other women as I had the sense she wouldn't handle it well.
The masochist and Mercury, in contrast, are quite aware of what I've been up to. That's not to say there is or is not approval on their part, but there's knowledge.
The fact that I felt as I did (that the topic couldn't be broached) was a warning sign I should not have ignored. It isn't a fault of hers, but I should have recognized that I wasn't going to be able to live up to my own expectations for myself - keep things on the up and up, show your cards, hands on the table...