He Loves Me, He Loves Me Not

Some hours after my last post Mr. S picked up the phone to talk things over. He said that he loved me. He said that he had been holding back because he didn't know where things with Mrs. S were going. He said he thought I knew how he felt about me. I told him about Not Really My Girlfriend, and the "I love you, but just as a friend". He genuinely thinks he never said such things. I almost told him how much his Valentine's Day gift hurt, but I chickened out. I had enough vulnerability for one day. He said that he loved me.

Endings are Beginnings Too

Tonight I broke things off with Mr S.

I am sick at heart over it, but I think it had to be done. The topic of my last post just would not get out of my head. Normally I am all for communication, but how do you ask someone to feel something they obviously don't?

He wanted to talk, I made him do it over IM so I wouldn't be a blubbering mess. He said he loved me, he said he considered us more than FWB. But he didn't fight it. He didn't ask me to reconsider.

That hurts as much as anything.

I want so much to be loved. I want a man to hold my face in his hands and smile at me. I want to hear I make him happy. After two years with Mr. S I never experienced anything remotely close to it. I was just the toy he played with when the one(s) he wanted weren't available.

At the very real risk of sounding self-pitying, I don't think there are going to be any more relationships for me. Of course I am going to throw myself out there (I am already alone, so I have nothing to fear) but I don't expect anything to come of it. This failed one took 27 years to find. If it takes several tries to find a good one, at 27 years a pop, I am likely to be 81 at the youngest or maybe 108 before I have even a chance of love.

Booty Call

Mr S. has bit a rocky patch in his marriage (his woman be crazy) and there was some vague talk from him about his plans and the future. I have never once said or suggested that I want to date him full-time, nor have I ever asked for even so much as a definition of our current relationship. And yet he came out with these gems:

"As I said... I like our relationship now. Not sure where it's headed tho."

And shortly after:

"I don't think it would be fair to keep you on as part of a harem, and take on someone else as a primary either."

So what am I, chopped liver? I was noticing the other day, after he threw Pretty Eyes at me (again!), that he's really never given me any other kind of compliment. I am not fun, smart, insightful, a good friend, a good fuck, just plain pretty, or possessing of any positive qualities worth comment.

Even a one night stand gets more ego-stroking than this.

Fifth Wheel

Or: Standing On The Sidelines

I am watching the marriage of Mr. and Mrs. S slowly disintegrate, and it is a sad thing to see. Mrs. S has for some time now (counted in years) had the notion in her head that she wanted to go to Africa through the Peace Corps; she has also had the notion that she was waiting for Mr. S to finish his degree before going. After much fence-riding, Mr. S finally told the Mrs. that he really wasn't going to uproot his life to live in a grass hut for two years afterall. She did not take it well.

Badness

I have had a certain misandry percolating in my brain for several weeks now. I know there are good men out there -- Mr. S is one of them, and I have met others.

Men can be sexy. I think there is nothing hotter than a man at work. Especially if it's physical, but really it can be anything. Brain-work is sexy too. But all that work and motion and effect on the world? So rarely a good thing.

Because, really, men are evil. Men from the lowliest officeboy all the way up to the men on top, they all make decisions that affect people in negative ways. It is men who destroy -- forests, rivers, mountains, air, and water. It is men who start and fight wars. It is men who rape, steal, torture, and kill.

There was a story on NPR recently that talked about a (American) woman who had been sexually brutalized by some Blackwater men. Women don't do that sort of thing.

Women don't strip the earth of its resources.

Women don't make or drop atom bombs.

Women aren't 90% of the prison population.

Women aren't perfect, not by any means. Women can be subtle and vicious, and when pushed can be even more dangerous than men. But women don't make a practice of destruction.

And so I think about these things, and I begin to dread the men around me. I dread their destructive ways, their thieving ways, their pure self-centered to-hell-with-you ways. And I wonder, what was so sexy?

Beauty

I finally have proof that *all* men are liars.

Wait! Before I get flamed to a crisp for that, let me explain.

Not all men are liars all the time. Not all liars lie even some of the time. But eventually, all men utter at least one lie.

I know this because even Mr. S lies. He called me beautiful. Now most women take compliments like that (deserved or not) as a matter of course. Some women are pleasantly surprised by them from time to time. There are a few women, though, for whom the word just doesn't apply. I am one of them. Always have been.

I was expecting the Pretty Eyes chesnut, but then he threw that out there. What am I supposed to do with that? Pretend I don't notice that he couldn't be bothered to say it for the first two years he was fucking me?

Also, it's doubly unbelievable because right now I am literally as ugly as I've ever been. The Nexus of Evil endures and has wrought its toll on me, and everything has suffered. Skin, hair, weight, the works. So WTF is he doing saying that now?

Ghosts

I logged on to my IM client this afternoon, and who should I hear from but Mr. Marine?

The last I heard from him was his Great Flake-out a year and a half ago. Complete radio silence. Nada. Zip. Zilch.

He claims to have been doing two back-to-back tours (where, he didn't say and I didn't ask), which being a Marine and all means 14 months. So the math works. Except the internet is crawling with lonely and bored soldiers ... it doesn't strike me as beyond reason that he could have sent a message out. If not "Hey, I miss you" then at least, "Hey, I'm deploying, see you next year."

And, I'm still on his contact list after all this time.

So, wtf?

The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly (Or Weird)

The good: Mr. S found *two* new ways to make me happy. I have found that knives are not always stingy -- sometimes they give a burning sensation that is very, very happy. They also produce color-like sensations. Even though my eyes didn't see it, I *felt* the colors. My shoulders are pink, my ribcage is purple, my lower back is yellow then green, and my butt is blue. Go figure.

The bad: I think that for the first time ever there was bad sex. There was lots of good sex too, but the final time he just kind of did went at his own pace and that was that. He's never ignored me like that . . . I didn't want to call him on it because he seemed to be enjoying himself more than usual.

Then again, I've used his body for my pleasure more than once so maybe turnabout is fair play here. Especially since he gave me quite a bit of awesome attention before that.

The weird: Apparently my vagina was installed backwards. I do have a g-spot in the front that more or less works, but it's a very "sharp" sensation that I don't orgasm from. We found out tonight, though, that there's a spot on the back that is absolutely amazing! Even with just one finger, it provides a sensation I can only call "thick". Instead of being a handjob, it *feels* like fucking. The orgasms it produces, though, certainly are different. My clit orgasms are like a rollercoaster ride . . . a long uphill and then a big wheee!!! on the downhill. This, though, this was similar to (rare) intercourse orgasms: it's like a lightswitch flipping. There is no wheee!, only a smallish vaginal spasm, but all of a sudden the world is a better place.

It made me goofy, man.

Pretty Eyes: Redux

Mr. S keeps throwing the Pretty Eyes at me. Like, three of the last four times we've gotten together. Does he really think I'm not going to notice that he has *nothing* else positive to say about me?

I've considered bringing it up with him, but what am I going to say? "Hi, I noticed that you don't actually like anything about me, but I'd feel a whole lot better if you started lying about it."

Rake The Coals To Stoke The Fire

Or: It Burns Us, It Does!

Mr. S offered (apropos of nothing) to show me a Valentine's Day note he received from one of his other harem members. In a coup of personal brilliance, I allowed him to send the damn thing on.

Why, oh why, do I do this to myself?

It was *exactly* what I needed, reading about his emotional intimacy with another person. After a year and a half, I've still only got Pretty Eyes. I'm still Not Really A Girlfriend. She? She has "adoration", "fulfillment", "laughter and sharing", and (natch) "amazing sex".

It doesn't take a psych degree to see that I have my own baggage train of issues if I am sticking with a guy who isn't into me. In his defense, he did bring me a spiffy hand-made LED light-up V-Day card. However, I could have crawled under a rock and died when he casually asked me when the last time I received anything on V-Day was. I said, "It's been a while," and he asked "How long?" Ten years. I was 19 and a sophomore in college when Number One bought me two roses a week early because he "didn't believe in holidays." Ten fucking years. Ten years of fucking. And not one partner has thought to show me any generosity, on that day or any other.

I have always felt that it is better to be alone than in a bad relationship. But how do you call a relationship bad when it's the best you've ever had? For all his faults and failings (and there are many), no one in my life has been kinder to me than Mr. S. And yet ...

I don't think good things are supposed to feel like this.