Tag: feelings

Friendship, Feelings and a Fool

I have started this blog post 3 other times, but I can’t seem to find a way to come from the right place. I have written angry, I have written frustrated and I have written hurt and none of them seem to include much objectivity. I have had about 2 weeks (longer if you count the last several months of insecurity, uncertainty and frustration) to replay events over and over and wonder if I was wrong or acting irrationally or just being plain stupid or selfish. I always find a way to make things my fault no matter who is actually at fault or if the fault is shared. I think that as a woman, I have become very good at that.

So here is the thing, I did something a couple weeks ago that I have been second guessing like crazy. In previous blog posts I have touched on the subject matter and my own difficulty dealing with it.  So, being frustrated, disappointed, a little angry, and a lot hurt, I pulled the plug on a friendship. I didn’t want to, but I felt that I needed some distance and perspective and dealt with it the only way I could.

The friend in question is the former object of my affection. I say former, but I am truly full of shit.  Those feelings I have for him never really went away and I was trying to convince myself that they had. Therein lies the problem. Feelings.  When I first became friends with “M”, I just thought he was awesome–he is an artist and he has his shit together (mostly) and we had some things in common and he was so easy to talk to. He is also smart and funny and has some amazing wisdom and perspective I don’t always see in people.  All of those very attractive qualities in one package are rare, but then you add the fact that he is good looking as hell and compassionate. I guess it was inevitable for me, but not so much for him. He does not see me the same way I see him.

When it became apparent that my feelings had evolved, he very firmly put me in the friend zone. He had absolutely no interest in any kind of relationship with me and after seeing his “type” that he gushes over, I can see why. I am nowhere near looking or acting like them. (it seems I am not nearly vapid, duck-lipped, pretty or thin enough). That is beside the point, but whatever.  He did tell me that he valued my friendship and our conversations and didn’t want this new development to change our friendship.  That is what he said.  I wasn’t sure how to act or what to think at that point. I wanted to be friends and hoped it could be more, but if friendship was all I got, then I would just live with that and appreciate his presence in my life.  While things weren’t supposed to change, they did.

I began to notice that he never texted me unless I texted him first. That went on for a couple of months. On very rare occasions, maybe 2 or 3, he texted me first and one of those was him lecturing me on my word selection in a response to one of his posts on facebook.  I am beginning to wonder if this is just a guy thing or what, because I have noticed a few men do this. Well, maybe more than just a few.  I think they view friendships and their place in them differently than those of us on the female side of things. If we value someone or consider them to be in our small circle of friends, there is generally a reciprocal, give and take type of situation that occurs. Sometimes I start the conversation, sometimes you start the conversation, sometimes we hang out and there is no need for conversation. But in this case, that is not the way it was.

I began to feel like I wasn’t such a welcome presence in his life, like maybe he was just placating me with words until he could move on to something or someone else, much more important than me. The conversations were great and I thoroughly enjoyed them, which really didn’t help the feelings issue, but when someone takes 3 or 4 days to bother themselves to read your message, chances are, you aren’t really high on their list or anywhere inside that small circle of friends they keep close. My insecurities got the best of me and I let them decide my value.

I attempted to include him in my life by inviting him and his son to meet me and my boys in Twin Falls for lunch and a visit to Shoshone Falls and he told me he would get back to me closer to the weekend. He completely blew me off and never bothered to let me know that he wasn’t coming. This is another thing I think guys view differently or maybe he was married so long that it didn’t occur to him that a simple text to let me know he couldn’t come would have sufficed. The second time that happened it was kind of a test, I guess.  I wanted to think I was important enough for him to take 30 seconds out of his day to text me and let me know that he was or wasn’t going to join our other friend and me for drinks and once again—not a word.

I tried to imagine what he would say, what advice he would give, to one of the anonymous  posters on a divorce support page we both follow, if they were in the same position I am.  With all of his insight and wisdom, he would probably tell me something I wouldn’t like. Something that I feared was true–that he really wasn’t interested in being in my life despite the words he said. Time to move on, he would say. Find someone who values you. I had invested so much of myself into my friendship with him and I didn’t really want to give that up.

But I was tired of investing so much into a situation that was so one-sided. I felt like I was investing and he was pulling away. Just to see if what I suspected was true, I decided to stop texting. Twenty-three days went by and he didn’t even notice I was gone. Not a word. I know he is a very busy person. He has a LOT on his plate, but, 23 days? I did finally text him when my boys and I were in Seattle. Then I texted him a couple weeks later to invite him to go out with my friend “A” and I. That was the test. I wanted to know I mattered and if he would make some effort to be there or at least let me know he wouldn’t be able to make it. I got my answer.

That was the moment I decided I couldn’t do it anymore. I care about him so much, but I needed to care about me more. So I unfriended him on Facebook and stopped texting him. Things were great until I caught feelings and it seems he just couldn’t deal with a person like me having feelings for him. I feel like such a fool for so much. Why don’t things get easier as you get older? The insecurities of a plain, nerdy 16-year-old girl should go away by the time you are in your forties, but there they are glaring at me and beating me into submission. Men are so good at making that happen. They don’t even have to try.

After I unfriended him, he posted something on facebook about it (there were 3 of us that week) and knowing how much I care about him, it didn’t occur to him that something he did might have actually pushed me to make that choice. He went on to say how something like that would have mattered a couple years ago and he might have asked “what did I do?”, but that question didn’t even come into play this time. Perhaps it should have. He then said I didn’t value HIS friendship and dismissed the situation with nothing more than “meh”. Our friendship, our conversations, my feelings all came down to one single dismissive “meh”. The comment stream that followed was so self righteous and hurtful. What the hell happened?

I don’t know if what he said is really how he feels or felt or if what I did actually hurt him. If I hurt him, I certainly didn’t mean to. The last thing I would ever want to do  is hurt someone, especially someone I care about so much. What started out as a really cool friendship devolved into I don’t even know what, all because I was foolish enough to catch feelings. Feelings ruin everything. I thought that unfriending him would be better for me, but it does not seem so. It was a struggle to have feelings and be friends (for both of us it seems), especially when you look at how it changed after my feelings became apparent. It’s not any better now. I feel like I lost one of my best friends and I am heartbroken. I miss him and our conversations so much.  I told him everything, things I don’t tell just anyone. He told me things that most men don’t tell just anyone as well. Just a fool for thinking that mattered I guess. A fool in so many ways.

Now I am feeling a bit lost. And broken. And so hurt. How did feelings become such a bad thing. Feelings for another human are supposed to be a good thing. They are for most people, just not me it seems. That lobotomy I joke about looks better every day.  Not feeling anything would definitely be better than feeling so much. Too bad it isn’t really an option.

Impulsivity and Irrational Responses

Even with 48 years under my belt, I find that I still make some of my decisions out of an emotional place rather than anything remotely resembling a rational, well thought out place. You might think that with all this life experience, all this relationship experience and some decent level of intelligence, I might think twice or even three times before making a choice, but somehow, there are some choices that are simply responses to being hurt.

Very recently, the object of my affection made it very clear that I am firmly cemented in the friend zone behind what feels like a steel wall  and bound in barbed wire. I am not moving any time soon. He was very honest with me but very kind in what he said. However, rejection is rejection and it’s nearly always painful. So while he made clear it wasn’t me, it was him, that somehow does not keep my brain and heart from telling me otherwise.  Having faced a lifetime of rejection after rejection, I have been conditioned to believe that it IS me. Every single time.  My internal dialogue goes over every flaw, every shortcoming, every single possible reason it could be me. My looks, my weight, my laugh, my eccentric personality, my crazy pink hair and my unfiltered mouth. I convince myself that there is something so wrong with me that it makes me unlovable and unwanted.

So, in response to that, I did something I swore I would never do again–I stepped back into the world of online dating by getting an account on Match.com. After the breakup with the last boyfriend, I wasn’t interested in meeting anyone, but then I met him, caught feelings and realized I really missed having a companion or love interest. His rejection caused me to make an irrational choice, one that I immediately regretted. But, since I had already made the stupid decision and paid for said account,  I thought I would just go with it and see what happened. Can I just insert a huge eyeroll here? OMG. I am not sure what I was thinking, or if I was even thinking at all. I had decided a while back that if I was to date again, it would be an organic process not something forced or fished. Dating sites are not organic, but I am finding that letting things happen naturally isn’t any easier because there is a rather pronounced shortage of good men, unicorns, if you will, anywhere in my vicinity.

So, I started browsing the site and the profiles and guess what—It kind of sucked. Big surprise, right? Yeah–I don’t think so either. Not one single unicorn so far, but I am really not interested so I am not seeing the potential if, in fact, there is any. I wish I had a switch that turned any potential for feelings off. I have found that my feelings always end up getting me hurt.  I have often joked that I would prefer a lobotomy to feelings, but let’s be honest, those feelings are intoxicating and I think we are all looking for that and looking to have them reciprocated.

So after going through the business of being hurt, angry, frustrated and whatever emotion happened to be mixed into the seething pot of feelings, I picked myself up and decided to do what I should have done in the first place. I prayed about it.  I was on my way to a Christian seminar today and told God I was simply looking for someone to go on adventures with.  My children won’t be in my charge for too much longer and I would love to see the world and go on a million adventures with someone.  I told no one about this prayer for someone to adventure with, so no one would have any reason to know.  When the seminar progressed into prophetic prayer, I began praying for God to give me some little sign that there was something to be hopeful for, some way to know he heard me.  Then the pastor looked and me and said that God wanted me to know that he had many adventures planned for me in my future, but that I had to wait on His timing.  He specifically used the word “adventures” so how could anyone know that if it wasn’t His doing? Now, the last time there was a prophetic prayer answer for me, the pastor told me that God wanted me to know that what He had in store for me was more wonderful than anything I had ever known. It took a while and a considerable amount of discomfort and pain, but I am seeing that promised “wonderful” happening every day of my life. It just keeps getting better. The only thing missing at this point is love, but there are now promises of that too. I don’t know where I will find it, but it will come.

So, while I wait for God’s timing, I will continue to work on me. I will take better care of myself and establish a workout routine because my goal for June of next year is to run the Spartan race and finish it. Right now, my boys and I are planning adventures of our own, both local and outside the state of Idaho.  I will relax, have fun, play and just enjoy the present and try not to think so much about the future and what I don’t have right this minute.