Personal Revelations
There is something that has been on my mind for several days now. I've decided to go ahead and write about it. If any of the more genteel members of my family have found this blog, I'll warn you right now you might want to skip this post as it may reveal things about me you'd really rather not know.
A few years ago I spent some time with a certain guy. I had just started dating again after breaking up with my boyfriend of over a year. I liked this new guy, but about the time I actually started developing feelings for him, he stopped returning my calls. I don't know that I ever found out why that was, but we see each other on-line from time to time and will chat and "catch up," so to speak. Last week, he invited me over to his place to have a little fun. The conversation went something like this:
| ralphinator: | So do you want to come over? |
| s007767: | Sure. |
| ralphinator: | You want it to be just me or should I invite my boyfriend to join us? |
| s007767: | You have a boyfriend? |
| ralphinator: | Yeah. |
| s007767: | Weren't you totally brokenhearted just a couple weeks ago? |
| ralphinator: | Yeah. Same guy. |
| s007767: | So you're back together now? |
| ralphinator: | Yeah. We have an open relationship. |
| s007767: | And you're okay with that? |
| ralphinator: | Yeah. If we can, why shouldn't we? |
I've been trying to get my head around that for days now, and I still don't think I've managed it. I wonder how someone goes from being devastated that his boyfriend has been cheating on him to seeming so cavalier about opening up the relationship...in the space of about two weeks. Something about that just doesn't compute for me. I can't help but think he could have been with someone who would have treated him much better than that.
Still, if they really do love each other, have been able to work through the problem and this is an acceptable solution for him, who am I to judge? I know of as many open relationships as monogamous ones. Just from my casual observation open or not doesn't seem to have much impact on the durability of the relationship. Expectations and communication seem to have much more of an effect. Still, I can't shake the feeling that I ended up in the middle of some sort of pissing contest.
So, yes, I did go to his place for some fun. I knew he would be good in bed and I was not disappointed. We had a great time—the two of us. It was some of the best "fun" I've had recently. And yet when all was said and done, as I lay there in the dark, unable to get to sleep (for a variety of reasons, some quite mundane), all I could think about was, "So, I'm good enough for a romp, but not good enough for love?" It wasn't so much about the events of the evening as it was about the frustration I've felt with dating the last couple of years that just seemed epitomized by the evening.
What really burns my shorts is that I always put the negative on me. Why is my first thought that I am the one not good enough? Why am I not thinking that he is the one who isn't boyfriend material? And I'm not talking specifically about Ralphinator, here. It doesn't matter what the situation is. If something isn't going well, my first assumption is it is something I have done wrong.
I'll tell you why. It's habit. I spent so many years believing something was wrong with me, that I was broken, or maladjusted or just plain freakish that it is still my first impulse, my first train of thought. It really bugs that it is so engrained in my psyche that after years of therapy and years of knowing better, it's a rut my mind still slips into so easily.