Author and Columnist
Some say familiarity breeds contempt. I've never really bought that. Familiarity, to me, should breed more interest and enjoyment.
After the infatuation ebbs--which it inevitably does--it is a matter of deciding whether I like this person enough to wait until I love them. Until that point, I am always uneasy with their affection because I know that I am not fully emotionally committed to the relationship.
With long enough in someone's presence--if they do not annoy or bore me--I come to love them in some fashion.
Given that you are saying this to a nineteen- or twenty-year-old college woman, you are not speaking her language. This is not how Kate worked, and she had enough of your familiarity. At this time, she could love someone, but she didn't have to love them more just because she knew them better.
I could never get bored of such a person, and boredom, to me, breeds contempt.
There was a girl whose name I think better of mentioning. She was lovely and sweet. She adored you. However, she also didn't know what to say, so she never stopped talking about things that didn't matter to either of you. You didn't feel contempt for her, but you did feel pity for her and annoyed at yourself. You wanted to feel how she did. You knew that she could have been intriguing if she wasn't so nervous. Still, you couldn't pursue that relationship. You couldn't stay with her until you loved her enough, until she could become comfortable enough to relax into quiet.
I told Kate last night that I feel that I like her less when she is irritated with me without reason.
I cannot write this off by saying that this is her problem and not yours, because it is made your problem. I don't know that this honesty went over well, but I give you some credit for trying to address your needs. Her irritation was her trying to find reasons to leave for other experiences (consciously or not) and that you were acting like that girl you didn't love; you were saying too much so that you didn't have to say something that might be poison to your relationship.
Our ability to communicate this well is the reason we work so well together. We are a team! Go team!
Communication is essential for a healthy relationship, but I sense that you were both subtly passive-aggressive and awkward, calling it effective communication because you had yet to learn a better way.
I pray to the idea of us. I mean this honestly, I am not being poetic. I pray for her, her happiness. Guidance to make her happy. Content with me.
In the right relationship, this would be a sweeter sentiment. I can see how someone might find this overbearing. Even though Kate is your longest relationship to date at this point, you were frequently more invested in her than she could be in you.
If she ever felt that she was more invested in the relationship than you were, I don't know. I doubt you gave her much reason to examine or show this.
She seems so sad recently. Well, beyond sad. Sad is not the word for it, but I cannot think of what the word might be. I have tried to talk to her about this, only to be met with irritation.
Depression. That's the word. She has depression. It can make you irritable because your nerves are overexcited, and nothing feels pleasurable. You, my dear boy, also have depression, though you believe in it less than hers. You take her moods as gospel and yours as psychic. You are hormonal, mentally unsteady, late adolescents trying to find the identities you will cultivate into adulthood. That you managed to love one another as well as you did is a blessing.
Which just irritates the mechanism more; make her more irritated with me because I won't go away and even dare to try to sneak under the mechanism. I wish she did not need to use this mechanism against me, too.
I am sure that she wishes the same. When someone tries to push you away, you respond by walking forward and trying to cling. You somehow got the idea in your head that this was the "right" thing to do. It only makes it harder for her to process, to even take a breath.
But, yes, Kate is going through a psychosocial crisis of sorts. You are, too, though you won't call it that. You both will come out on different sides of it, and, with the benefit of perspective, I cannot say hers was the worse. She might say that yours was. Hers was more fun and allowed her more freedom to figure herself out, even if it had more danger implied.
I feel that it is isolating her, and the isolation is making her feel worse, thus she needs to use the mechanism more.
Depression. Seriously, that is what she is going through. It could not be more textbook, but you haven't read those books yet.
(funny note: I initially wrote "should give her paws" and pictured Kate with cat paws making cute meow noises and scratching at the air).
I choose to believe I am allowed one deep sigh and snark per response. This is the one I am choosing.
This is not cute. It is not helpful. It is obnoxious for me to read, you trying to deescalate the paternalism of this. I expect it annoyed Kate to read at the time.
She is the most important thing in my life right now. No, she will always be the most important thing in my life.
Oh, you kids and your absolutes. You should have been the most essential thing in your life. You should not make yourself believe that you are defined by the woman on your arm, particularly when the woman on your arm is tainting your life and limiting your growth. (By this, I do not mean Kate.) It is far better to be single than in the wrong relationship. Learn to walk without the crutch of a woman. You learn much about yourself when you do not feel that you belong to someone else.
On the back cover is says "Have you ever missed someone you never met?" I realized that for much of my life, I had this dull ache within me. A part of me that was always crying. And when Kate and I started to get to know each other, that ache disappeared.
Hey, you should look up the term "abandonment issues." You need to be the person you are looking for. You and only you can make yourself complete. You will have a long life (I assume; I'm twice your age). If you cannot figure out how to depend on yourself, you will be burdensome to those around you. You will resent it when this doesn't work out because fiction told you it should.
Even on our first date, I felt with her as I had never felt with anyone before. It wasn't a "Wow, this is the girl of my dreams feeling." (That came later) It was like a part of me came to life that I had never known before and I felt free.
I don't believe you. I remember that date, which you almost blew by kissing Kate too soon. What you felt is that you liked this girl. You didn't just lust for her (though she was cute), but thought that you got along better with her than you did your ex.
I know I sound like I am disparaging your relationship. I'm not. It was a significant relationship for both of you, but it doesn't compare to the relationships either of you has when you are older. If you were still having this sort of relationship in ten years, you would need intensive therapy.
She didn't make you feel free. She let you feel liked, something your ex didn't. She knew you. You were not always on eggshells with her, being made to feel less, and she liked being around you. Yours was the first nascent adult relationship either of you had--though it was not what most would call an adult relationship.
I started coasting through life, through action again. Pain was the only stimuli that urged me on. Either I was in pain, or avoiding pain.
You are lucky that I already used up my one snark, bucko. That's all I'm saying.
It was alive, a vibrant two year old, and I stuck a pacifier it his mouth and trapped him in a playpen.
Hey, let us look up psychosocial crises!
Two-year-olds are going through Autonomy vs. Shame and Doubt. If your toddler is supported, they will feel increased independence, becoming confident and secure. If they are not, they will not think that they can survive independently, causing them to become overly attached to others to get these needs met. They doubt themselves.
So, massive gold star on this analogy, Younger Thomm. You do not feel you can be independent. You do not trust yourself to make choices on your own, always checking in on what Kate thinks. You did not allow yourself to explore your environment, to fail in things you tried. You felt criticized and reacted by pouting.
Now she is trapped in a cage too. I don't know what the key is. Whenever I come near enough to the cage to pick the lock, she claws at my hand so I stop.
So stop. When a woman tells you no, trust that she means it. Kate didn't need you to open the cage. If she wanted out, she knew how to pick her own lock.
I don't care if I lose a hand, I want to help her out of this cage that her defense mechanisms have put her in.
Not your pain, not your crisis to work through. You wait outside the cage, read a book. If she wants something, she will ask. You can offer her an orange, but she doesn't have to accept it.
I beseeched her to lower her defenses to me, because I need to help her. No good having my goddess pent up when there is a perfectly good pedestal (only as big as the one she carved for me, of course) waiting over there.
No. Pedestals are precarious. No one belongs on one. You can help Kate by giving her the space to figure out what she wants. In the meantime, figure out what you want. You won't get as many chances as you think.