Erasure

Over the weekend, M. sent a cryptic e-mail stating he was withdrawing his offer of a flight to Vancouver. I haven't talked to him since, except to email a reply of "yeah, no worries". I have no idea what the "change in circumstances" consists of, though I can make an educated guess.

I am certain M has a girlfriend.

Now, I do not, and have never had any right to get upset over this. To be honest, I'm not all that upset, though I AM disappointed that I won't get a free flight to visit my sister. Mostly, I feel resigned. It was inevitable, and I have known that for ages.

I went down to the post office on Tuesday, bought a little bubble-pack envelope, and mailed him his housekey back. No note - there's nothing much else to say.

I took the wicked photo of the two of us down from 'the gallery' on my wall. I don't want to look at him anymore.

I removed him from my hotmail 'favorites' list. I don't want to have his name hanging around in plain sight.

I am considering changing my phone number. I have already erased his from my address book.

If he is not going to be in my life, then he needs to be all the way out of it. I want it to look as though he never existed. As though 'we' never existed. I do not want to see photos of us kissing. I do not want to be reminded of him at all. I do not want to see him or hear from him or really to even have to think about him anymore.

This is beyond closure...this is erasure.

Dysfunction Break

They say bad luck comes in threes. I should be okay for awhile, now, as I have had my three bad man news items this weekend:

1) Beavis (see last post)

2) M. appears to have found himself a girlfriend. This is purely an assumption on my part, based on the fact that he withdrew his offer of a free flight to see my sis, but I can't think of any other reason.

3) Mr UK can't get holidays to come visit until June, when his annual vacation with his family is booked. His family hates me for long, complicated historical reasons, so I don't imagine I will be seeing him much, if at all.

None of these things is all that bad alone, and I have to admit I was half-expecting each of them, but not all at once. Suddenly, I find I am all alone, which might be a necessary break, anyway. It will certainly cut the frustration level in my world, anyhow.

But dammit, it's hard to feel loveable and attractive when you get ditched three times in the same weekend...

The Hardest Word

I used to be a pushover. Many of my friends were the same way; easily guilted into things, or simply incapable of saying "no". It took me a long time to get over that, but here I am. I have carefully surrounded myself with people who are good at setting boundaries, and at saying no.

I find it easier to ask for something if I don't have to worry about that person saying "yes" out of some misplaced sense of obligation. Ironically, I never said 'no' because I was afraid people would like me less, but in fact, I have more and truer friends now that I freely admit it when I don't want to do something.

I have forgotten how frustrating it is to deal with someone who cannot or will not state their needs. I have forgotten so thoroughly that I miss all the warning signs, apparently.



My car is not working well. I spoke to Beavis tonight, and he mentioned that he would be driving to our hometown for Easter. I asked if I could come along, so I could visit Mom. He said 'sure', but then made a couple of half-hearted excuses...he didn't want my dog in the truck, etcetera. I told him I would call him back in an hour. I called Mom to make sure it was okay if I came, then arranged for a dogsitter.

I had a funny feeling about the way Beavis had agreed to the trip. Something about his tone of voice.

When I called him back, the first thing I asked was "How good are you at saying 'no'?"

"Not very good"

Damn. Right. "In that case, I'm not coming."

Suddenly all the things that confused and frustrated me about Beavis are crystal clear. He operates on guilt. He can't say 'no'.

Now, I'm just frustrated.

I already know I am not subtle enough to deal with someone who can't state their concerns, flat out. I am blunt, and honest, and it doesn't even occur to me to second-guess what someone has said. If I say yes or no, I truly mean it, and I have gotten used to the people around me being exactly the same way. I do not have the time or patience to try to figure out if someone means what they say. I cannot spend any significant amount of time with someone who cannot stand up to me.

Sorry, Beavis. If or when you call again, we will be having a conversation about this, and if you don't think you can learn to be blunt with me, then we're wasting both our time.

Assumptions

I have known Beavis for a long, long time, but I can't say I know him well at all. Unfortunately, conversation is not his forte, so all I have to go on for much of the time is behavior and history.

I tend to stick my foot in it from time to time.

This weekend, I asked him if he knew how many women he had been with.

Perfectly legitimate question - we may get physically involved, and this is the sort of thing I should be privy to. However, my wording was a bit...offensive. There's that assumption thing - Beavis is a very nice looking guy, and I know for a fact that both his best friends were in the three-digit range ten years ago. I backed up and re-phrased my question, but the damage had already been done. I therefore had no right to get pissy about his reply:

"Probably a lot less than you."

When we started talking actual numbers, it turned out that he was absolutely right - his count is around half of mine. Of course, he was wise enough to not ask a question he didn't want the answer to, but I can do the math all by myself.

This sort of shocked me on a couple of levels. First: I had made a judgement about Beavis that was dead wrong, and offensive to him. Second: Beavis made a judgement about me that was dead right, and offensive to me.

Hmm.

Onions

Every time I write Beavis off as a hopeless cause, he suprises me. I am not certain whether this is a good thing or another way for me to string myself along in hopeless relationships.

This time, there were a couple of things.

One: He really is acting like a gentleman. He always has, but it is easy to overlook, because he can be awfully rough around the edges at times. However, in terms of not pushing issues, not testing my boundaries, not questioning my choices...yeah.

Two: He respects the fact that I have a life. A girlfriend had a terrible week, and needed to just hang out. He offered to make himself scarce so that I could spend time with my friend. Again, the rough edges make it easy to overlook how thoughtful he can be.

Sometimes, it's like peeling back layers on an onion.

However, I really question whether I can cope with a relationship with someone as non-verbal as Beavis tends to be. He can get his point across, but he's not much for long discussions. As in, conversations of more than, say, twenty words...

And no, he most certainly didn't sleep in the truck...but he waited for my invitation. And that impressed me. A lot.