I have a habit of writing a long and probably obnoxiously, uncharacteristically emotional letter to someone of significance when they reach the point of exiting my life. I did so with Sean, Allen, and now it's your turn unfortunately. In Seans case I spent nearly three days perfecting it, paranoid that he would pick it apart (which he did). I expected very little from Allen so I wasted no time on his and it was mostly two pages of "fuck yous". I'm afraid that I have not spent as much time on this letter as I did with Seans, partially because I doubt you will degrade me like he did and partially because I'm strapped for time. Please excuse any spelling or grammatical errors.
Make note that this letter is not intended to cause you distress, to insult you, to anger you, or to cause any further conflict. It is everything I feel you should know, summed up, from my point of view and I hope you don't take it as an insult because, I daresay, you probably won't like a lot of what is to follow.
It's a bit harder to know where to begin with this than it has been previously, purely because our relationship ran smoother than either of the others. The train of thought in this may very well confuse you, so don't bother reading if you are tired, drunk, stoned, hurried, or otherwise disposed. I tried to tie everything together as best I could but some things could've fallen elsewhere, and some things pushed to the front of my brain a lot quicker than others.
I have a lot of faults and I'm perfectly willing to fess up to those. I entered the relationship with you with many more than I now have. Some of them you were never aware of as they were easy to change, and some of them you addressed. I think I also entered into the relationship carrying a list of faults that did not belong to me, but that belonged to other girls you'd been with and that was a very difficult thing to rid myself of.
Everyone always compares their current lover to previous ones, and I cannot hold that against you because I know there were a few times I did it as well. From my previous experiences men are not to be trusted. My father cheated on my mother, he gave her an STD, and he smacked her and I around a lot. He was physically and emotionally abusive and usually drunk and/or stoned. One incident, among many, that I think characterizes him very well is when I fell off the top of a jungle gym at the park nearby and spranged my wrist, along with cutting up most of my leg. He told me to shut up and stop crying about it, then grabbed me by the wrist and forced me to walk home without any of the cuts even having been dabbed off. When we reached the house and my mom opened the door, asking what had happened, he told her that I was fine. She later suggested that I needed to go to the hospital and have my wrist looked at and he told her that I was being a pathetic crybaby. He came into my room later that night and threatened me if I did stop whining about it. Any sort of emotion, including affection, was met with the same regard. He never once complimented me, told me he loved me, or allowed me to hug him without pushing me away quickly. My mom began doing the same after a while, which is something that may have been coerced by him though I'm not completely sure of that. I spent most of my childhood and pre-teen years supressing emotions and observing only the negative ones. I did not learn how to compliment, only how to criticize. It's been an ongoing joke in the family that I never act excited, but the reason I never act excited is because I feel embarrassed and ashamed when I do. While feeling positive emotions is not foreign to me, expressing them is, and it always results in me feeling poorly, not feeling better about making someone else feel better.
Unfortunately I found that my notion of men being different from one another was naive.
Pat hit me twice, each time with the excuse that he was stoned and drunk, and I was stupid and forgave him both times. He pressured me into getting drunk and stoned and then took advantage of me, though I was still coherent enough to know better than let him. Still, my opinion of drinking and smoking became one of complete disgust after that and Sean furthered that with his complete hatred for those who smoke and drink (his father was similar to mine).
Here's where things get messy. In October of 2005 I dumped Sean, not because I wanted to, but because I felt that he was very unhappy with me and that was something that was reinforced by his friends and aggitated by mine. He and I maintained a very close friendship afterward because, unfortunately, I couldn't cut him off completely like I had intended to do. It was hard on both of us and in February of 2006 we had a very terrible and effective split.
I had been talking to a guy, Allen, that I had meet through a friend, for quite some time at that point and he was perfectly willing to be a shoulder for me to bitch on. We went on several dates, all of which went well, and I was convinced, in my rebounding state, that I was in love with him. On the fifth date he asked me if I wanted to go back to his place, and I agreed to it, thinking that things would progress slowly. He and I had had many conversations on sex and sexual activity, and he was aware of how I stood on everything.
He lived out in the middle of nowhere, and I was silly and didn't take notice of where he was talking me. He lived in a small house with two other people supposedly, though I never saw them during the time I was there. Allen offered me a drink that made me feel a bit off, even though it was supposed to be an orange julius (without alcohol). I don't remember the drink tasting funny, so my guess is that he drugged me. It made me feel very sluggish and dizzy and everything after that felt disjointed. He and I started screwing around because, damnit, I was in love with him and ready to forget about Sean. Clothes came off for what I presumed would only be oral sex, but he wanted more. I told him no twice and he thought I was playing. The third time was firm and clear, but not what he wanted to hear. He was a quarterback when he was in high school and still maintained his body. I was no match for him, and to avoid the details, he got what he wanted. I never reported him. I was too scared of what might happen to me and I felt that most of it was my fault for leading him on. Of course, I regret this now, but I cannot do anything about it.
Now on to Kenny. He had popped back up on my radar around this time and we had been chatting. I used him as a distraction from everything. He was hot, he was familiar, I knew he was full of shit but he kept me distracted and entertained. I could call him at 2am and know that he'd talk to me, even if he was just doing it in the hopes of getting in my pants. He stayed up with me on nights that I'm sure, if I had been alone, would've been my last night. He and I went on a few dates and ended up back at his place on a date that marked the end of my spring break that year. He got me in bed, and at the time I was dead happy to be seeing him naked because I still had a girly crush on him that I had maintained for four years. He asked me if I wanted to have sex and I told him no, which I think he brushed off at first because we kept screwing around. He asked me again about fifteen minutes later and again I said no. He made direct eye contact with me and asked me a third time, and I said no for a third time. I didn't have to say it firmly, I didn't have to be loud or enforce my point. He got it, rolled off of me, and we talked.
My drugged out friend, Lauren, had implied to him what had happened to me because she had picked up on it. She never said anything to me about knowing, and he hadn't mentioned it either up until that point, but he told me that he knew and that if I ever needed to talk he was there for me. And he continued to be there for me for a long time afterward.
Given his history, and the fact that he cheated on me, I don't think Kenny is an upstanding person. However, he was there for me during one of the hardest times of my life and never pushed, never prodded, but offerred his help if I ever needed it. Sometimes I forget about that side of Kenny and can't help but mock him, because lets face it, having a mom that was reincarnated as a cat is really amusing, but I will never forget what he did for me. Seeing people, particularly your group of friends, continually poke at him for no solid reason other than for him being a "bad person" irks me when he was the only person that was able to give me exactly what I needed during the hardest period of my life.
Sticking to the subject of sex, after everything with Allen, my sex drive became nearly non-existant. I went on several dates once only, with the exception of Kenny, because it was easier to avoid the details than to tell them that I didn't want to have sex or screw around. A few people even propositioned me on the first date, which was a truely strange experience in the world of bad-date ettiquette.
I hope, at this point, I've shed some light on my emotional and sexual issues. It was never that I didn't want to make you happy, it was that I was overcoming many different obstacles to do so and you were the first person I've ever even tried doing that for. Sean never pushed me to do anything, and I think in the eighteen months that he and I dated he knew me only as well as he knew anyone else. He was content with that, and it was easy for me. With you I was treading in strange water and I was alone in doing so because I could tell that you didn't understand why it was hard for me to do what came so naturally to you and because I didn't want to burden you with details about things that couldn't be changed.
Moving on to interactions between you and I...
The first thing I think that needs explaining is the whole opposite sex friends thing. Given the fact that Pat, Sean, and Kenny (all semi-long term boyfriends) cheated on me, I'm disposed to have a jealous personality, but I tried incredibly hard and was fairly sucessfull in being patient with that sort of thing. While it bothered me to hear that you were hanging out with a girl, I realized that it was silly for me to assume that you would be doing anything with her unless I was given good reason. With Pat and Sean there was a high level of control that they required. I was not allowed to be alone with, or in some cases even talk to, a guy. After Allen my perspectives on just about everything related to dating flipped and I realized how unhealthy and unrealistic those terms were, so I pushed against anyone that held those sorts of expectations.
When you had the issues with me hanging out with another guy the first instinct I had was to push, and so I invited Lyman out for coffee. I let you know of the plans, then I called Lauren and invited her along. In reality Lyman stayed for only fifteen minutes or so, but telling you that and that Lauren was there would never have served its purpose. Unfortunately I think I gave you the wrong impression with it all.
Hanging out with the opposite sex was completely okay with me, but finding out about it weeks or months later made me highly uncomfortable. The fact that you mentioned most of what you did to me, but didn't mention hanging out with a girl seemed really off to me. I think it really got to me one night when you mentioned that you had hung out with Liz and had gotten stoned and/or drunk. You mentioned it weeks afterward, and I felt like I was pulling the information out of you instead of it spilling out like it normally did when you'd talk about hanging out with someone. Again, this made me incredibly skeptical, and anytime you mentioned her or something you did for her I bristled. The small bits of her I had heard about in high school were not very upstanding, and she had spent much of her time with the girls that Pat and Kenny had cheated on me with, so my opinion of her was never very high, which may have skewed my perception of things greatly.
Now, moving on to the most important (at this moment) subject; Shannon. She and I met on the trip over to the UK and my first impressions of her weren't very great. She actually seemed to snub me for the first week, but then we built up a fairly good friendship. Throughout this friendship she and I have maintained a decent amount of contact and I have observed her directly and indirectly.
I have recounted to you all of Melissa's stupidity. Her selfish, self-absorbed nature, the way she went after Sean, her complete ditsyness. Melissa pales in comparison to Shannon, and unfortunately I have been learning that Shannon is very manipulative. I wouldn't be surprised if she could pwn me in a match of skills.
On my birthday last year you set yourself up for a rough time. It was hard to forgive your sneakiness, and once I did I couldn't forget it. Calling me a cunt on my other party really didn't help your case any. When I found out that you were hanging out with her, and not telling me about it, I felt hurt. I was still viewing you as very sneaky, and the fact that you were having her over was difficult to deal with, particularly since neither of you said anything to me about it before or afterward. I was feeling threatened because she spent the night there, because you offerred her a drink, and because you had divuldged what I considered information kept between us only. I felt uncomfortable drinking period, and she felt just fine with it. She could stay the night without having to worry about the familial repercusions, while I would have to worry about what my mom would say and what Sadie would think. And then she was brought into the world of our relationship, and I couldn't help but wonder what else you had told her. I stopped feeling like everything I said to either of you could be said in complete confidence.
Of course, after a lot of assurance, I figured it was nothing and moved on. I asked both of you to please say something to me if you were going to hang out again, and you and I had many conversations about how I just wanted to be informed if you were going to spend time with any of my friends. I thought this request applied to our general friendship, not to the relationship only.
Shannon and I continued to talk afterward. She asked me about you a lot and I always took it as general interest. Some of the questions she asked me were really odd, such as whether there were any places that you preferred to be touched, or she would ask for detailed descriptions on your interests. She even asked me what you went for in women. I began complaining about you to her a lot as I slowly started wondering why she was so interested in you, interested enough to turn every conversation into something about you. It made me uncomfortable and I was worried that her opinions were a bit too positive for a friend.
After you and I went on a break she continued this sort of conversation. I had stopped trusting her at that point because of other things she was telling me about herself. She, apparently, went out with many men at once and often screwed up relationships. She had been dating one guy on what he thought were exclusive terms whilst going on dates with others.
She started telling me about a guy she had a thing for and would ask me questions on where to go with this or that, what to say for this or that. I would advise her the best I could, unfortunately now I think I may have been advising her on what to say to you as she never would specify who she was referring to. There were cases in which she would ask what I would've done if you had done ___, or she would ask me what I would do to get you ____.
After we broke up I told her about you and I going out together, possibly having sex, always in a fairly cold manner because I really didn't trust her enough to tell her anything beyond that. She would always say something like "Should you be seeing him still?" or "I think you should stop seeing him, Blair." I thought she was scolding me because she was under the impression that I was using you, but now it's pretty obvious that she was trying to get me to stop because she had a vested interest in you.
I was silly enough to heed some of her suggestions. I had no intent to manipulate you in any way, but she suggested that I say I was dating someone to see your reaction. I told her I didn't want to, but said she could do it if she wanted, and she did. When she messaged you with "concern" about how you were since I had started dating she wasn't concerned, she wanted to find out your reaction. She tried to cover it up, and then made me angry and nervous by telling me that you had said I was jealous and putting her in the middle. I was ticked off enough by that, and by the fact that you had hidden that you had a new girl, that I told you I was dating someone when in fact the guy and I had never made plans up until yesterday after class.
Yesterday I went to class, feeling incredibly sick, and took a test that consisted of 12 essays, each having to be 2+ pages. I was physically exhausted from being ill and from having only 2 hours of sleep the night before, and was really on edge to begin with. Shannon messaged me, asking me how getting my stuff back from you had gone and had been generally nosy about you and me. She referenced losing her virginity and then she interuped the conversation with this:
Whitelilac13 (1:42:08 PM): God. I hate people sometimes!
Pallidity (1:45:35 PM): ?
Whitelilac13 (1:45:46 PM): nevermind. friend drama
Pallidity (1:45:57 PM): nooooo, I want to knooooow
Whitelilac13 (1:46:00 PM): lol
Whitelilac13 (1:46:24 PM): ok
Whitelilac13 (1:46:31 PM): Hmmm...names should remain nameless
Pallidity (1:46:46 PM): do I know the person(s)?!
Whitelilac13 (1:47:09 PM): ok my friend Shanequa fooled around with another of my friend's Barbarella's ex boyfriend
Whitelilac13 (1:47:18 PM): and now doesn't know if she should tell her or not
Whitelilac13 (1:47:39 PM): and I'm really not sure what to tell her
Whitelilac13 (1:47:55 PM): I mean, I guess it wasn't against any rules or anything
Whitelilac13 (1:48:03 PM): did you like my names though?
Whitelilac13 (1:48:22 PM): I think they're pretty cool. :-)
Pallidity (1:49:19 PM): If Shanequa is any sort of friend I think she would.
Pallidity (1:49:39 PM): Or if the ex boyfriend is any sort of good guy I would think he would
Pallidity (1:50:06 PM): And one of them is going to beat the other to the punch and the one that loses is going to end up having to deal with a lot more trouble from the ex girlfriend
Whitelilac13 (1:50:41 PM): Yeah, true
Whitelilac13 (1:50:53 PM): It just seems so stupid to me!
She changed the subject quickly after that, apparently assuming that I'm a total moron and didn't get it. She tried to make plans to go to a club and whatever. Of course, I got it, and found what she was doing disgusting. It seemed, to me at least, that the only reason she would come to me with that is because she wanted to get it off her chest. Had she been any sort of friend she would've told me earlier, or she would've been upfront about it, but instead she was vague and overally bizarre.
My first reaction was to flip out, and I did to a certain extent. I think Emo was traumatized by the horrible notes I plunked on the piano waiting for you to respond to my IM. When you didn't I called and waited. I spent the entire time trying to release my aggression so that when it came to talking to you I would be able to maintain a fairly calm conversation. I also wanted to offer you the opportunity to come clean with me.
You seemed completely unaware of what I was talking about, and I quite honestly did not and still do not buy it. Thanks to your history of skirting around an issue, I believe you knew what I was talking about, particularly since you stated firstly that you two "hung out" a few months ago.
I'm not sure how long ago this occurred, but you and I were still having sex up until late March, and the last time we had had sex you and I had talked about relationships and what one another was doing. You mentioned nothing about Shannon. If it happened before that I consider what you did lying by omission. I also find the fact that you stated just the other day that you love me really ironic since you could've put my health in jeopardy if you and she screwed around before the last time.
In your text you said that you were not under any obligation, not under any sort of agreement with me. If texts could be longer and if I hadn't been so unhappy with you I would've gladly countered that then. 1- You and I never said that the break was over, and until the girl from Boston popped up as far as I was aware it was still a break. Now, given, this break was supposed to give us free reign, which brings me to point number 2- You were fully aware of my feelings on you and Shannon, or should've been if you have half a brain. I had asked you to say something to me about hanging out with my friends, and you disregarded that in addition to screwing around with her and hiding it from me for months.
You brought up that I never considered your feelings, but why should I!? You didn't come to me with your loneliness, you went elsewhere. Given my history I think, during our relationship, I did a rather good job and I was there for you many times, yet you say I had no regard for your feelings. You didn't seem to have any regard for mine whilst screwing around with one of my friends nor whilst hiding it from me. You always told me that you are not responsible for my feelings, so why should I feel responsible for yours?
I can't be okay with what you did, nor the way you handled it. I don't know what else to say to you, other than that I feel like I've wasted nearly two years on someone that doesn't care for me at all.
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