You're just... amazing. You're in Sevilla learning Spanish and taking Flamenco lessons while chatting about poetry and sharing introspect. You're amazing. Nobody else can do that.
(it's part of why I am pretty sure I'm not good enough for you!)
In my entire life, you are the only man with whom I've ever been somewhat kind of, sort of possibly romantically involved that I felt was not a compromise in any way, shape or form. I just feel lucky to know.
I'm lucky to know you as well Connie, truly. I think the world is a better place with you in it. Hell, I'll go a bit more than that and say you've changed my view of the world a little bit. I had more or less given up hope that anyone existed who was as bright, as clever, as versatile, as good-hearted, as useful and as interesting as I think you are. The fact that you're god's gift to conversationalists hasn't gone unnoted.
I do feel I would be doing a disservice were I not to address the "involved" issue. It's hard for me to do so because I know how you interpret anything but a yes, as a rejection. I also know you're uncomfortable in conditions of ambiguity or processes the outcome of which is unknown. These, of course, fate not lacking a sense of humor, are precisely the conditions in which I'm most natural, conditions so ubiquitous in my natural habitat that I'm unlikely even to notice them unless I'm specifically on the lookout. Going all the way back to the frog-and-scorpion analogy of long ago, it's like I don't notice the broad expanse of dry, heated rock where I live. But a frog would notice the hell out of that. I must, and do, constantly remind myself that I place you in conditions you find uncomfortable, and it vexes me, and often makes me worry that I'm doing the wrong thing. *I don't know what is going to happen*. I seldom if ever concern myself with such questions. I honestly have no idea and don't much care. Were you and I both to perish in an asteroid collision, one of my several last thoughts would be "damn, was it ever a lucky break to meet and get to know Connie," and I wouldn't feel like I missed a damned thing.
But I know that's only my perspective, and I know you could indeed feel that something was missing, and though I would never yield to the temptation to *behave* dishonestly with you, I do acknowledge that I am, in my honesty, failing to deliver something you desire.
I remain, vexed and honestly,
Yours, John
John,
Damn--I need some booze to have this conversation, preferably on a fire escape.
I said "Some what kind of sort of possibly." I know that we don't have any set path for what we're doing. I think the only unspoken commitment we've given each other is to be open about wherever we are. And if we happen to have a fight, I hope we'll work it out and not just disappear on the other person. And if you are clear that nothing can work with us, you'd give me a pat on my head and tell me to see other people. And if I came to that realization, I'd do the same.
I don't know what's going to happen either. I do feel that you and I are meant to explore something together. *But I don't know what that something is.* Maybe we'll end up billing each other for therapy sessions and turn into each other's shrinks. (Do you think our medical insurance would cover it? I could quit consulting!) Maybe we will decide to date and after 3 months, it will turn out something else crazy means we just can't do it. I turn into an albino and develop an allergic reaction to testosterone, or we're just on completely different pages. Maybe if we ever kiss, it will be like in Back to the Future and feel like we're kissing our siblings. And we won't have much to do with each other for a year until we're both really involved with other people so that we don't sabotage our chances at romance with others and then we'll be godparents to each other's kids. I think there might be other possibilities too, but I know damn well there isn't a set path. If I'd wanted a set path, I would have gone to
I would ask that you let me consider what is good enough for me, however. And know that I will let you know when I'm upset, and that you talk with me when you're upset with me till we've worked things out because I have my little perfection complex.
I think, for some reason, that my insecurities and your insecurities bump up against each other in the dark. I don't know if you realize what an incredible gift the personal intimacy that we have is to me. I never thought I'd find that. I used my blog to try and make up for the fact that I thought it was impossible to have with another human. That, combined with your incredible joy (sometimes devilishy, but nearly always joy) and vitality, is amazing. I never thought someone like you existed.
The fact that we are different (I hated that animated video--it was so violent--you hated the ice-skating--so what?) that's OK! The Ex was on parole for half the time we lived together and I kept saying "No--you can't commit felonies from our apartment." That was a really hard limit for me (for obvious reasons). I always wanted to be someone's "partner in crime" until it was real crime. But what should have been a hard limit was the way I just kind of numbed out inside to stay with him.
John, the fact that I find you incredibly special, the fact that I think you feel the same, that doesn't mean I want to get married tomorrow. I want to explore and see what happens. What is kind of sort of maybe possible.
I couldn't "just date" you, Connie. I don't know why, but I would not be able to do that. I would feel I was dishonoring you. I know the pain I would feel were I to mess things up for you, or bring you less than joy, would be too horrible to contemplate. It would be like finding a magical pool that restores vitality and brings enlightenment, and then accidentally peeing in it. Perhaps I risk analogyphilia, but you are like the curator has offered me a chance to touch a page from Audubon's hand drawings. I have a reasonable expectation that were I to touch that, I would do so with the utmost respect, the ultimate care. But then I know myself to be a careless person, a bit of a menace. You are one thing I would never fuck up, Connie. I would rather not touch such a sublime soul, than touch it at the risk of besmirching it.
Maybe this perfection thing you've been working on has been too successful. You're pretty perfect.
LOL--I literally laughed. I'm SO Not perfect. Would you like a list?
John, don't put me on a pedestal. I'm just as much a freak as you. That's why we clicked. How many other people do you know that don't have a television? We are both refugees from the morass of
John, my dad is a shrink. You would do me a great disservice if you were to seal me in a hermetic bubble to try to keep me from being hurt. Sooner or later, we will both hurt each other. I think it is inevitable. The only way to avoid being hurt is to not love, numb yourself with television, alcohol, prozac and a few joints. But It is part of living vitally and honestly and with integrity that we risk.
It is how we deal with it afterward that defines us. If I'm
You've taught me to be able to confide in someone. To trust someone, truly and fully. Someone I'm not even paying by the hour!
It seems to me like you have this view of yourself that you mess things up (and I'm sorry if I'm saying that wrong), and I have this view of myself that I'm ultimately unlovable as who I am, and have to pretend to be someone else. But I've never seen evidence of what you do that makes you think you break things you don't mean to break. But you've said something along those lines all the way back to pre-Fernando days.
Even though I'm really insecure in some areas, I'm really strong in a lot of other areas. I really am John. Let me take care of myself, and listen when I tell you what I need.
YOU are not perfect. Hahahaha, pardon me, hahahaha, pardon me for laughing. YOU are not perfect. You're brilliant, you're enlightened, you're intrepid, you're worldly, you're successful, you're humble, you're fun, you're stylish, you're adventurous, you're organized, you're brave, you're honest and you're cute as a god damned button.
Look. I'm intimidated by precisely zero things on this god damned planet. But you? Connie Chatterley? You should be in the fucking Louvre.
You just don't know me well enough. (Thank god--the Louvre would be SO boring!!!!!)
OK: You want the list?
I numb out on video games. I'm not living up to my full potential.
I get too excited by ideas. Obsessively, at the expense of human emotions.
I insist on "facts," sometimes at the expense of human emotions.
I cut corners at work.
I shouldn't be where I'm at. I'm so much smarter than my colleagues, but I don't finish things, so I haven't accomplished as much as I should. (I don't like my job, so that's part of why I think I should be elsewhere.)
Oh, did I mention I'm a snob?
I have way too much stuff.
My house is a mess. I don't like housework.
Fundamentally, I have a lazy streak.
I don't eat as healthily as I should. Lean Cuisine and too many sweets.
I have kidney disease.
I'm not in the socially accepted norm of "beautiful."
I don't actually fit in to almost all the socially accepted norms.
I'm impatient.
I'm too earnest.
I'm too demanding.
I make people uncomfortable.
I've never been in love and no one has ever been in love with me.
And that's the cliff notes version!
You just like the fact that we're both outside the socially accepted norms. But I'm a huge freak.
You only THINK you are, and the thinking you are is part, a large part, of why you are!
All of this, ALL of it, falls into the category of "failing to be even more superior to ordinary people"
John, you and I, I think, are both just outside the social norm. And what you think about me, I think about you.
Part of the reason I told you long ago that I couldn't be platonic friends with you is because I couldn't imagine anyone else living up to you, and I thought being friends with you would always mean I would compare other men to you and no one else could come close.
Sister, I ain't all that :)
You are on the things that matter most to me. Who else could share poetry and introspection and be SO fucking smart? And joyful and vital with light in his eyes?
I couldn't "just date" you, Connie. I don't know why, but I would not be able to do that. I would feel I was dishonoring you. I know the pain I would feel were I to mess things up for you, or bring you less than joy, would be too horrible to contemplate.
John,
I hope you can change this point of view. I hope like hell we can "just date" and see what happens! There's no way I can know what would happen unless we "just date" even if you magically did. And if 'just dating' goes well, maybe we start "not seeing other people" and then consider living together. And then, how knows? But I don't know that I could jump the step of just dating.
John, my ex hurt me in some ways--mostly, by trying to fit me into this ideal submissive he read about on-line who has no needs and lives only to please him and the occasional "good girl" was more than enough. But we were good friends and John, I'm SO glad I knew him!!! Even if I'm more messed up as a "submissive," I'm much more whole as a "woman." I am so much a more vital and whole person having lived with him. I'm terribly glad I didn't marry him. But I don't think I could have been enough together to actually be able to see someone like you if I hadn't met him.
In my opinion, we both feel like there might be a possibility, and I would love to play it out and see where it goes. Honestly, John, I would be much more able to get over you and move on with my life if we "just date" and it doesn't work, because I would understand why, instead of a little interior monologue that goes something liked: "What's wrong with me? I don't understand what is wrong with me, and why didn't he ever want to go out on dates, did I say something wrong? what did I do wrong that he didn't tell me, and it's because I'm not pretty enough, isn't it, yes that must be it, that's the only thing that makes, sense, why oh why, can't I be pretty? Maybe I should get plastic surgery. No, that's stupid" And then reread everything we ever wrote for the one sentence I said that was wrong.
I know we're very different. Maybe I don't know all the vast expanses of hot dry rock, but I do know some of it. I also know what we share is pretty wonderful, and yes, I would continue to have my own life in a wet, sticky pond, and you would continue to have yours on the hot rock, and we'd share something pretty wonderful in the time we're together, and hopeful that would start to be more frequent. And then we build a little house on the beach.
Connie, I’m sorry, and I reiterate that I'm worried about discussing the subject because I know you feel rejected, but it's the simple truth that I couldn't. It would be dishonest of me. It would be my playing along with something I didn't believe in. It would be... rude. I know it sounds like fun, and like it might even be possible for you and I to be less than serious with each other, but seriously can you picture anything light *and* deep happening between you and I? It's a contradiction in terms. To me the logic is both simple and inescapable. Were it to be light and not very serious, *it would not be you and I*. Not really, anyway. It would be a depiction.
It's no fault of any kind, much less a fault of anyone, that you and I have a highly pleasant but also dagger-deep and very highly serious friendship. That it remains fraught with peril has not escaped me. We couldn't play without playing for keeps, and I think, or rather believe, we have both realize that. We would not, as they say, be content merely fucking around. There are people, as Churchill might have put it, around with whom you do not fuck. It's a lucky thing, a very lucky thing, to actually meet one of these. But just as you're not someone I could take lightly, I'm not someone you could take lightly. And if things were heavy, there would be a lot on the line for both of us.
I know this hurts your feelings and I know you feel deprived. I hope you can see the great care and caution that I exercise when it comes to you.
No--I don't feel hurt or deprived. But I feel like you have me on a pedestal, and if it can only ever be "for keeps" it will never be, because that's a leap I don't think anyone can make. Maybe I'm wrong, but that's my gut feeling. I climbed most of a volcano today, and I felt like Frodo at the base of mount doom. I didn't make it to the top, but I made it about 50 meters from the top. One step at a time. It seemed impossible to make it as far as I did (and I feel like it was very risky, and if I'd known what I was in for, I'd never have done it!) But one step at a time.
But hey, whoever needs more time, always gets it--that's the cardinal rule, right?
A couple of afterthoughts--
I'm honored and touch and delighted that you consider me as you do. And I assume you know that I reciprocate in my own way.
I do want you to let go of the "what you think I deserve" issue. The only time I seriously reassessed our friendship in the last few months was after our little e-mail spat about me sending obnoxious links and then you kind of disappeared when you were upset and I felt horrible and a little frantic. But I told you, and you got it. You totally got it. And then, when you were upset with me for interrupting (another one of my faults, btw)--and then you phrased it in a way that I could deal with, and you gave me what I need.
What I have always been scared to want, because it seemed impossible to find, was someone willing to plumb the depths and also willing to do honest, really, engaged conflict resolution when it came up. And someone willing to support my dreams and let me support his. And if he didn't have a TV, that would be a really lovely bonus, although, I always thought, absolutely impossible to find, so I never even considered it as a possibility.
It is true--if I were to have a magic wand--I would make you quit smoking. (OK, I'd fix your bad back too--but only because I know it causes pain. And global warming too. Global warming first--so when global warming is solved--beware of magic wands in your direction!) But that is much more about greediness for the future. And I accept that that is a decision you, as an adult, have made. And I've dated men 15 years older than me, and never thought to wave a magic wand, and hopefully smoking is an issue of less than 15 years. And I'd rather know you for 35 years than anyone else for 50. I don't like the smoking, but I accept it.
But there's nothing else about you I would change John. Nothing at all. OK--if I could, without changing you one iota, I'd give you a happy childhood. And maybe give you a burning desire to see me perform once in a blue moon. But I wouldn't really, because I'd be scared it would change who you are. And who you are is extraordinary.
So, I totally understand that you have no idea what the future brings, and neither of us can say "for keeps" now. So please, unless you have any felony convictions, or future planned felonies, or you're actually in the mob and they will kill anyone you get involved with, don't worry about what you think I deserve. I'm a smart girl. And as I see it, you are far more than I ever hoped to find.
One last thing--when you say you think I'm perfect--it plays into my perfectionism issues. I so know I'm not perfect--I really do. And when you say that, I think if (when) you find out I'm not, you won't care about me anymore.
haha I said *pretty* perfect, not perfect :)
Well, you're pretty perfect too.
January 13, 2009
I want to address what you said in more detail. I'm not interested in the idea of exploratory dating. We have enough exploration behind us, to know enough to know enough. I enjoy spending time with you, and I don't mind keeping a finger in the air to see if the winds change
direction, but this is different from dating.
I'm sorry that sounds so blunt! I was trying to write for simple, direct clarity, but I know it makes me sound like a brute.
No--I appreciate your being straight forward. Just to clarify, right now, you enjoy being friends, but you don't see other possibilities, but if that changes you'll let me know? That's fine--I really do appreciate clarity. [n.b. I was in hysterics as I wrote that paragraph.]
Not entirely accurate - I do see potential (I would be blind not to see it)...
"When the wind changes" to me, that is language of Mary Poppins and magic. Of wanting things that you don't happen unless divine intervention appears and things change drastically.
I can't speak to drastically Connie. Sometimes I think to myself "All of the ingredients are there - why isn't this soup?"
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