All the rage

Getting close to two years ago now, I exchanged "I love you"s with someone. Sometimes in literature that is called reaching an understanding, but we did not. I misunderstood the next thing he said, and we parted very quickly -- not on bad terms, but not having resolved anything.

When I realized how badly I had misunderstood what I thought was him saying he needed to go, I blamed myself a lot. Over time I have come to believe that it was necessary, and a protection for both of us. Based on our needs and abilities at the time, if we had tried to have a relationship then I think we could only have caused each other hurt and disappointment, causing a bad rupture. There has still been plenty of pain and disappointment, but not from each other. I believe that because of the delay, what happens next can be good.

You may be skeptical of my interpretation of events. That is fitting, because this post is about my anger at the skepticism of my friends.

I did write a little about this on the blog when it happened, but there weren't details, including identifying information. I did share details with some people closer to me, and I am only starting to feel recently how angry I am with them.

I acknowledge that there are a lot of things to feel angry about now, so my seething rage is probably not exclusively theirs, but these are friends and people I love so it feels worse.

Two were quietly skeptical. The one reaction feels really condescending now, but at the time it was just disappointing. One friend was supportive, and I am grateful for her.

(There are people whom I could have conceivably talked to if the opportunity had come up when I needed to talk about it, but if you aren't included, don't feel left out.)

Otherwise, it was disbelief. "Are you sure he didn't mean platonically? You must have misunderstood."

Thank you for reinforcing my deepest belief that there is something inherently unlovable about me.

Forget the fact that at other times you have tried to set me up with people, or told me that the things that I worried made me ineligible for love didn't really matter. Forget that you have seen people hitting on me, and sometimes I picked up on it and sometimes I didn't, but it has happened. When push came to shove, you had to tell me that this thing that was really positive and affirming and meaningful for me was not real.

I have never done that to you.

And the reason I haven't done that to you is not that you are so much smarter or insightful or spiritual or self-aware that nothing you said could reasonably warrant putting some brakes on, but because of kindness and respect.

You could have been happy for me. When I was kicking myself for not understanding, you could have reassured me that one mistake doesn't have to ruin your life, and that things can still work out. You could have reminded me that this phase of my life won't last forever. That might have been wrong because I am still broke and stuck and now we might all die of Coronavirus before any of that resolves, but it still would have been better.

You could have had some faith in me that I can understand a direct statement, and that it was not an unreasonable statement. You could have asked more questions about what led up to it if you had concerns.

You absolutely could have done better than telling me you didn't want to hear it, then gossiping about it to other people, then periodically taunting me with ways to prove it. That should be obviously crappy enough that you would never do that to anyone, or feel anything but shame over it.

So I have a lot of anger, and it is close to home.

But also, I know that I have kept hopes and dreams to myself enough that no one really had any practice in how to handle that.

I mentioned yesterday that I hate writing feedback groups. That is the criticism thing but it is also too much sharing. Yes, I don't do that much, but also I have my reasons. Every now and then when I go outside of that, I am reminded why I don't share.

Add to that the saying that you teach people how to treat you. It's kind of a cruel victim-blaming, really, but also, what do I need to do differently?

For all of the anger I have, these have been some pretty good friends, who have come through in other ways and we have shared good times. To some extent, I think they are so used to seeing me in one way that they have a hard time imagining anything else. Lately the only times I have really felt seen have been with strangers, another things that makes self-isolation difficult. I don't know how long it will be before I can see anyone new again.

I don't have a solution for that. Tomorrow I will start out with another startling true confession, and see if I can get anywhere from there.