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I eat a ripe, hard, cold, green apple as I write this. Only she knows why.
Don't be cryptic and coy. I have no idea what you mean, though I comprehend that this conveys a message to Kate. What message? I can't imagine, but I am sure it was nothing good.
Kate once -- or maybe several times, but I remember once -- accuses that you had made this entire site out of a fixation on her; that this was not "Xenex" but more "Xen's ex." It wasn't the case, and her saying this startled and affronted you, occurring as it did months into your next relationship. I can't say I wholly blame her for the perception, though. You do puzzle her out with too much depth and frequency.
I spoke at great length, depth, and breath with Miss Katherine last night.
The word you are looking for is "breadth," though I gather there was heavy enough breathing.
Perhaps it is a mistake in your eyes, maybe in mine as well, but I did and there is no use regretting doing so with those I love for they have no choice.
You are right. In my eyes, it is a mistake, something I have diligently been trying to get you to see for five months.
You can love her all you want -- though I wish you wouldn't -- but those you love have every choice whether to enjoy your love.
She worried she was responsible for my happiness.
Gosh, where would she ever get this idea?
I reassured her that she need not worry; my happiness does now and shall forever depend upon me, solely. Others can certain make my life nicer, but ultimately it is my choice.
If this is so, why are you so hungry for a relationship? That would not necessarily be Kate (and absolutely should not be Kate, if I was somehow unclear), but it is still in part pinning your happiness to some woman. Codependence does not work out.
I suppose I should tell you that I asked Kate to dinner a few nights ago, as this proposal undoubtedly catalyzed most of this conversation and thus journal entry.
Do. Not. Ask. Your. Ex. On. A. Date.
Why are you like this?
I mean, I know why you are. I'm you, and I've been through therapy and introspection. I simply wish that you weren't.
Anyway, she felt bad because she was at college, surrounded by people, and I (the social butterfly) sat at home, alone. I informed her that I was comfortable with my lot, expecting that there was something to learn from it and that I was making the best of it.
You learned that you wish you had been at college, surrounded by people. You envy those who were and feel for years incomplete that you did not have this experience.
She complimented that it was a very impressive attitude to have.
Yes, if you actually had it and didn't pay it lip service.
Then she decided to press the issue of why I had asked her to dinner. I was hoping that she would just accept it, but was rather cognizant that she would be asking that sooner rather than later.
Because she understands that this is an attempt at a date, and she does not have any interest in the sort of dating you want. She might sleep with you if you took it down a dozen notches -- not that you wish this -- but she would not be your girlfriend again.
Again, I regret that none of your other dates resulted in something serious so that we could avoid this pain and what comes after.
You love Kate because she is smart and understands you. That cuts both ways here, though it doesn't take a great deal of intuition to know your game. You put it in black and white text on the internet.
At first I answered by way of flattery, explain to her that I think she is a wonderful human being and it would be rather delightful to have a nice dinner with such an lovely example of humanity. This was not a lie, of course. I try my hardest not to lie. I was merely hoping she would take this answer for that inherent truth and not probe deeper. And the thing about hopes are, they get dashed quite easily.
You, however, persist in pretending that you do not understand Kate. Maybe you do enough that you think you can take advantage of a chink in her armor to wheedle a date out of her because you've been, in some senses, unsuccessful with your other dates and attempts. However, you ignore that she has been clear (though perhaps not as straightforward as you are in your desires) that she doesn't want what you do.
She persisted that it made her nervous to be asked to dinner by me, because she just wanted to be my friend, which I doubt is wholly true.
Guess what? It is not your call. A relationship exists at the lowest comfort level of the participants. You would be comfortable with passionate love. She is comfortable saying she is your friend -- even if she might have sex with you under the right conditions. That means that you are only friends.
You cannot spend over two year of your life with someone, stay on good terms with her, and not retain some more than friendly warmth for her. At least I do not think so, but Kate is the only one I ever managed that with.
Figure it out. Piece together how one deescalates that to only friendly warmth.
Years from now, your girlfriend -- a woman whom I will insist is the first I ever loved without reservation -- will leave you. Granted, it is because she admits that she is a polyamorous lesbian about to graduate from college and thus New York, so there isn't much wiggle room there. There is one bizarrely intimate meeting weeks after that breakup, but it isn't like this situation with Kate. The poly lesbian and you retain a warmth, but you let her go. She persists in being someone I love ten years later. Your life would have been better if you had the maturity to do this with Kate, but your friendship was too mushy for that, too prone to bleed. If she could have moved to the Midwest and then gone to Europe for a while, if she could have told you flatly that she was sleeping with other people, if she could have just cut you off (or you could have cut her off, which was markedly less likely), you could have been friends far sooner. Instead, she remained a part of your social calendar. She continued to be someone you could ask on a date and anticipate that it might happen within the week.
I felt that our history and friendship would mean the date would not be awkward and uncomfortable, as the date with CG was.
Except your history and "friendship" would make this exceedingly awkward. Without that history, sure, it could have been fun. Kate plus a close friend to whom she is attracted sounds like a great time. Kate plus her only significant ex who has proven he is desperate for her? A sure disaster.
I was not and am not looking for romance (well, much) or a long-term relationship.
Don't you lie to my face just because that is what you think I want to hear.
I was not trying to get back together with her.
What did I just say? You are obviously trying to get back together with her. Anyone could see that.
Firstly, we have both changed so much, even if I were with her as a couple, it would not be a reunion but a whole new creature.
You don't want a new creature. You cling to your taxa. Even if it could be new to her -- and it couldn't -- it wouldn't be for you.
By the way, you say below that she had not changed. You cannot have it both ways.
Also, funny how you follow up "I don't want a long-term relationship" by speculating on what it would be like to be a couple with her.
But I was not even looking that far ahead.
Are you ever not? You are given to overthinking, which is marvelous for a writer, but poison for a twenty-year-old.
I merely wanted to go on a pleasant date that wouldn't end with me being pressured to do things I wouldn't want to do (Kate is a chaste lady as far as I know) or feeling awkward and disappointed, because she was already one of my best friends.
Oh, my boy. "As far as I know" is doing heavy enough lifting in that parenthetical that it has a hernia. Chastity and Kate are not on speaking terms.
And you would do anything Kate asked and more. She could barely get her shoes off while sitting on a bed before you would be naked and prone.
Seeing that she was utterly confused, I told her that, should she get unconfused at some future date and actually desire to go out to dinner with me, the offer would be open.
You were wrong to ask, but you were right to back off. That is, if you backed off. Which I suspect is not accurate, but let's give you the benefit of the doubt for once.
I have no plans of entering into any sort of relationship anytime soon.
Not specific plans, but you would do it in a moment if Eileen called you and asked to give it a shot. Or, of course, Kate. I would greatly prefer the former.
I'm not sure about anyone else. I don't know that you would have dated Sarah or could have dated her long. Surely you had a better dating pool, but I do not believe you are aware of this fact.
I am responsible for my own happiness and I am happy by myself.
Do I have to keep wishing this was true, knowing that it isn't?
You are okay. You are happy enough. You would be happier by yourself if that is something your precious little heart actually wanted.
After all of this, she confessed that she was only being honest with me because she was drunk, which I do not believe. She was very lucid in her speech and thoughts. I do not doubt she had imbibed a few glasses of red wine, but I think she was just using this as an excuse to be clear with me.
I do not recall if Kate was a lucid drunk. She may well have been, but it has been some time since I have even seen her sober (in that we have not crossed paths or long shared a state in years).
So, it may be an excuse, but she needed one, and there are worse reasons that she could have given.
Also, "imbibed"? When you use a synonym carelessly, it is glaring. "Drank" is perfectly serviceable here, and "imbibed" contributes nothing but taking the reader out of the flow.
But she insisted that I should hate her for being so. I politely informed her that I did not.
For being drunk? I feel something is not being translated correctly, though there was a paternalistic imbalance in your romantic relationship that you abandoned because it made you uncomfortable and led to problems. In addition to much else in your former relationship, Kate wanted a parent, a conscience, a naysayer. You just wanted to be her boyfriend at the end.
Then she brought up this boy. We will call him Begbie, simply because we will. And she fawned on his numerous accomplishments and how he is a wonderful example of humanity. Blah, blah, blah, crushcakes. And she asked why I would damn him. I informed her that I did not like him because I was jealous that Kate fawned on him while she thought little of me. She state that is because I am old and she has a history with me. He is amazingly wonderful, because he is all new and shiny. I hate him, you know. But she said they "appreciated each other too much as human beings to risk any sort of relationship-y stuff."
The "relationship-y" stuff, but I assume not the physical. She is trying to tell you what is going on and likely intentionally provoking your jealousy, but it is still her attempt to put you in your place.
Then, to twist the proverbial knife in me, she stated, "He makes me honest, completely. And I am comfortable with him. That is rare. Too rare to risk losing."
So, she can have intimacy and passion with him without the burden of commitment. You do realize that she has far more than a crush on him.
Coupled with her statement that she is dishonest with me unless drunk, this was like a punch to the gut.
I get on your case a fair bit -- and with good reason -- and I will ding you that you are putting up with this, but I do sense she was intentionally being cruel to you to get a reaction. I am not about to tell you that you are wrong to be hurt, even if I wish you did not continually put yourself at striking distance.
Oh, but she wasn't done. She felt the need to further inform me that there are other boys that I should be more worried about, but that she wasn't going to tell me about them, so I shouldn't worry. Um... see... the thing is... she SAID I should be worried. Erm.
You will make me feel bad for you if you keep this up. Stop talking to Kate for a few months. These are not the actions of a friend, and you need to get her out of your blood.
She states that history scares her; there is too much pain in it. There is pain in the future too, but it is unknown pain. Oh, but she can't stand to tell me things that hurt me.
She is a twenty-year-old girl on a college campus with men. She is driven by her appetites and pushed away from things she does not want. It is not for you to decide what she means and what she does not.
She can absolutely stand to tell you things that hurt you. Given what you've written here, she will taunt you with them if it suits her. You ask her on a date, and she throws in your face that she is likely with other men. Transparent.
I was perfectly ready by this point to resurrect my Katie complex and vaguely resent her for not wanting me, when she had to ruin it by saying "Sometimes you are too right... I could almost say amazing. Please keep yourself wonderful and balanced. I do, always. Please remember 'always.'"
She doesn't know what she wants. We've covered this. Part of her wants you. And part of her -- a far bigger slice of the pie at present -- wants drugs, sex, and freedom. She loves you outside of those desires. I know it. If you could have been pen pals a world away for six months, it could have been a sweet experience. However, you both persisted in trying to be friends at once and tortured one another with the inability to get what you wanted from one another. By clinging to the idea of Kate, you stunted your possibility to heal and get to know other women better.
I remember that I asked her on that date because she was wonderful and balanced. That I am highly unfair in my image of her to protect my heart from remembering that the person I loved most in the world doesn't ever want to be with my romantically again.
I don't believe that is why you asked her on a date. I do think that you momentarily believe it, though.
She was a charming young woman, but she charmed you in another life. You think it is close, but that woman is a ghost now.
If you met this Kate without having loved Katie, I don't know if you would ask her on a date. You might, or you might think that -- far from being balanced -- she is too unstable and erratic to be more than a friend. She drinks, smokes, revels in drugs and sleeps around. You don't. She is not wrong to. You are not right not to. It is just your natures, and they might not be compatible.
I told Eileen, after she told me she didn't want to be with me, that she had not changed one iota to me simply because she could not foresee a relationship with me in the future. That was truth. She was still the darling Eileen who lately calls me sweet pea.
Damn, that "sweet pea" thing. I had forgotten all about that.
She might contradict this now -- though she won't read it -- but I sense you could have ended up in a relationship with Eileen with the proper mix of words and gestures, though you never make them.
You remained a possibility to Eileen.
Yet I persevered to believe that Kate had changed by leaving me.
Yes, she had. That was the point in leaving you. She felt that she was changing and could not emerge fully from her cocoon without leaving you.
You were right to believe she had changed and wrong to doubt it now.
She is a part of me and I, of her (though she draws pictures of that part of her that was me breaking off and floating away), to think poorly of her is delusional and unbalanced.
She literally drew you a diagram. How could she be clearer?
I remember that day in her dorm, where she showed you that picture. It dug into you. That she had done it, yes, but more that she thought that she had to show it to you.
You get to think poorly of her for a while. She is your ex-girlfriend, even if the woman underneath that label is someone worth knowing. You are correct in your fears of her life, but it shouldn't be your problem ever again. She is in you too much, under her skin, but you are not in her and won't be again.
I must be balanced and wonderful, for her. For myself. Both are the same, in a way, as I am pieces of all those I love.
Just for yourself. Stop doing things, even coincidentally, for Kate.
So, because of her stylistic choices, people think lowly of her. However, her uniqueness of dress drew me to her; was the reason I approached her. If you have received little more than scorn for being an individual, how do you react when I gregarious stranger takes an immediate shine owing to it? Certainly you are suspect, thinking said stranger must have a screw loose. Perhaps said stranger is some kind of creepy stalker! Well, he must be avoided! Something is very wrong with him, if he is trying to be acquainted with me! He may well be dangerous!
You came on to Irish Bird too strongly. I don't think it is more complex than that. It isn't predicated on her clothing, only that you got off on the wrong foot and never found the right one with her. Maybe if the two of you were hanging out with mutual friends together, it could have been different, but this never happened.
That you are still thinking of her means that you still wish to get to know her. I am grateful almost that you didn't do anything about that.
I feel I (like Sleeping Beauty) was given gifts by kindly fairy witches at birth. Eloquence, humor, charm, sweetness, kindness, and intelligence. But the fairy witch who didn't get her invite cursed me with an interesting life. Too bad for her I am going to make the most of it.
I'll just avoid spinning wheels.
It is a curse, I'll grant you. Your life has not been as interesting as some people's, but you have endeavored to write it well. It is often only in the retelling to new people that it occurs to you that most people have not sky-watched for UFOs as research for a novel or spent their anniversary in a notorious murder house.
Or, as you will find out, suffer lies and abuse because they are too busy trying to be fictional. Losing yourself too much to the telling is pricking your finger on the spindle.