December 8th 2009
email to Stefan
Let’s make some things clear. About this supposed “investigating”. About these “others” you are “hearing things” from. Unless you are using “others” as a euphemism for “internet”… I’ve no access to anyone in your life. <your brother> is my facebook friend, but he and I rarely ever interact. The only “other” person you could possibly have issue with, I imagine, is <your friend’s cousin>.
<your friend’s cousin> friended ME. <your friend’s cousin> then was the one who first messaged me, and inquired about my doctor stuff, and tried to see if she could help. It was probably the best thing in the world for my crazy-brain at that point, her kindness. There was some back and forth messaging about that, and I thanked her:
… Anyway, lame and weird as this sounds, I just wanted to thank you for… y’know, being friendly and nice and going out of your way in trying to help. All distraction, even the small bits of interaction through facebook comments, is appreciated.
(Funny, this is probably the most interaction I’ve ever had with any of Stefan’s non-roommate outside-world friends, which is nice. Makes a person a bit paranoid and conscious after a few years, y’know?)
Soooo…. thanks for being a nice person to me.
You are entertaining and interesting! Yay!
And I meant exactly what I wrote.
And she wrote back:
…Thanks for the message, it made me feel good. I don’t think you have to thank me though…..Stefan is an important person to me, so I feel like its only natural and right to care about the people and things he cares about…whether it be Stefan or other people I value. I don’t know anything about your relationship with him but I know he cares about you…and I think he also mentioned one time that we would get along. But thats as far as my knowledge goes.
And then SHE ASKED ME:
… What do you mean feeling paranoid and self conscious after a few years?
And, because I’m not ashamed of myself, or my emotions, I explained.
… It’s just… y’know… sometimes, you think that after so very long… with mutual favoriteness and devotion and stuff… that you’d meet some of the people who regularly appear in someone’s life (aside from at thier Halloween party). One starts to wonder why not…. feel like a secret hidden in plain view stuffed into a platonic disguise. Or think that you just don’t fit in and they won’t like you.
hence why it’s so nice to me that you’ve gone out of your way to be kind and friendly to me. 😀 Hoorah! a pariah I am not!
my relationship with him is…. whatever it is. I can’t speak for him. but. To me, he’s…. my most-important&everything-person, for lack of a better term, and I’m pretty head over heels for the boy, I’m not ashamed to admit. I figure that’s probably pretty obvious. Then, maybe that would explain why I’m never invited out to meet people. heh. Maybe I ooooze it out my pores, and it’s an embarrassment. Covered in girlie cootie slime of adoration.
Hah! And I suppose right there I explained all the paranoia and self consiousness that I try to avoid in my head.
None of this matters now, of course. I’m assed out on my back for the forseeable future. And it’s not like I’m usually feeling otherwise healthy, nor am I a party girl, I don’t drink or dance, I don’t live exactly nearby, I’m perpetually broke, and my idea of a fun evening is sitting and drawing or watching old horror movies or something so… right there are pretty solid reasons for not ever meeting people, or being terribly social, I guess.
All in all there were about six back and forth messages; the content of which that isn’t quoted here was not about you… and then it died back down to the random wall comments. In my attempts at being NOT MORE THAN FRIEND to you, I continued to appreciate the minor interaction I had with her, adapting the same outlook SHE expressed, of getting to know someone you are friends with. Because you and I are supposed to be friends, and I’m trying to remind myself of that.
She again messaged me, asked about how I was doing, and how things were going, and how my attempts with getting a computer were going. Which was nice and kind and I appreciated it. I not ONCE ever asked her a question about ONE GODDAMNED THING. Not one question.
Yesterday, she wrote this:
“when i first friended you…I did it because well 1. thought you would post neat things (i was right) 2. wanted to take a step towards the people stefan cares about ( i was right again…maybe 1 and 2 should be reversed) But I was unaware of whatever is going on between you two at the moment. I still am but that’s fine with me…its not like me to ask questions. I really don’t want to add to any of this though so….I guess to make matters less uncomfortable I’m going to de-friend. I wanted to let you know my reasons. i still hope you feel better…all around.”
Which really sucks. I mean, I understand, and she’s clearly a good friend to you in doing so, but it still made me pretty sad. Because we probably WOULD get along.
But as far as investigating goes… Would you like to see my statcounter, and the many times a viewer from Paterson went through my site, and my entire blog? Should I tell you how when she was friends with me on Flickr, every single photograph I posted that was friends-only and happened to have YOU in it would get more views than any other, which suddenly dropped off when I unfriended her (due to a routiine culling of the herd, mind you, not out of a paranoid frenzy).
I have no gripe with the girl. I like her, from what I know of her. She does seem like a nice and wierd person; someone I’d enjoy. And I’m actually rather upset that I’m not in contact with her, now. I thought she might attend a figure drawing thing with me, when I was feeling better. It seems you were probably right, and the two of us really would get along. She’d seemed a neat and entertaining person to do things with.
And I don’t blame her for being interested in who the FUCK I am, considering how very long I’ve been kept at an arms length from the rest of the people in your life for a number of YEARS now.
I feel like an asshole for quoting her in having to explain all of this to you. It really pisses me off.
But do NOT accuse me of trying to pry into your life. Of trying to investigate. When I have a question, I DO ask you.
I’ve been trying to NOT think about your life. I’ve been trying to get myself to the point where the way I am with you is not affected by the outside world. I’ve been trying to figure out the borders of how close and how emotionaly attached I can be to you to have it NOT destroy me that we evidently weren’t as into each other as I’d thought.
[ Let’s be honest here. You’ve mentioned maybe three times ever hanging out with <your cousin’s friend> to me, and yet, you are an important person to her whom she cares very much about, enough so that she wants to take steps towards people you care about, and doesn’t use the word “friend” to describe what you mean to her. She’s slept over your house, she comments on your photographs often about how attractive you are, you freaked the FUCK out when you thought I friended her on facebook, and have continued to be weird about it. I’d be reeeeaaaaally stupid not to think that there was at least the possibility of something there. ]
But I just can’t care. Don’t you see? I’m not allowed. If we aren’t exclusive to one another, I’m going to have to assume that you could be with anyone. Everyone. I to live with that constant possibility. I have to see how close I can be to you from THAT as my starting point.
I’m trying get OVER this heartache. i’m trying to blur everything, not magnify the ugly details. Not “investigate”.
If you have a problem with a conversation between two women, saying hello to one another, both expressing that they care about you…
or if you take issue with my honesty about how much….. I care for you. openly. to ANYONE…. is something that enrages you, then…
then I really don’t know what to say.
I still don’t know what you want. You don’t want to be Facebook friends with me, but you are bothered that others know things about me through facebook that you don’t. You tell me that our time apart from each other is our own business, but now, hearing things from others about me is angering you. You seem to still want to be the first person in my life, the one who knows me best, and you don’t want me to sleep with anyone else… but you don’t want to be exclusive with me. You miss the talking almost every morning before sleep (so do i, so do i), but that’s probably the most more-than-friends, devoted-romantically-entwined sort of thing we DO!
When you can tell me what it is that you expect us to be to each other, equally, let me know. I will continue to try and deaden the nerve endings and not care so much for you.
I do know that… for me to really be just “best friends” with you, I can’t be physical with you anymore. I’m not capable of being physical with more than one person, and especially being the way my feelings for you have grown, it will be far too imbalanced to know that you aren’t exclusive with me. And… you can’t be my everything anymore.
You are still my favorite person.
I want nothing else more than you.
It still bleeds.
I still miss you.