Yesterday, I asked Zoë a crazy question. Something many might not consider putting in the hands of a child still immature enough to decide that she will not go to the bathroom because she just doesn’t wanna.
“Instead of a big birthday party in July, do you want to save up our money and go on a trip in August?”
I have this wild idea. It might be slightly controversial, in fact, but it’s on my mind.
Since I want to travel more, and I want her to travel, and I want to see the Museum of Modern Art, Times Square and many of you, I’m thinking of packing us up for BlogHer.
I wouldn’t attend much, if any, of the conference. I probably wouldn’t be able to dance the night away, or stay up all night with any of my fellow insomniacs like I did last year, but I could see you and hug you and show Zoë a new part of the world, for what looks like under two grand. We could see New York during the day, for two days, and then come home and try to get back to normal.
That might be doable. It might be the chance of a lifetime. All that weighs on it is financial responsibility, scouting for sponsors and Zoë’s interest.
One of those is taken care of already – I just had to say plane, hotel sleepover and Mr Lady.
But what about you? Does anyone wanna hang out with me and Zoë in New York?
In December, I ended a relationship.
In January, I ended another one.
You might think that this is some form of unhealth, but it’s actually not – it’s not symptomatic of me cleaning house to start another downward spiral, and it’s not because I felt that I would be better off without relationships – I simply examined what I needed from these two individuals, assessed what I wasn’t getting, tried to massage the deal-breakers and realized that they couldn’t be kneaded away.
The first one was a boy I was seeing. Had been seeing for a few months. He’s nice, funny, cute, intelligent, got along great with Zoë and seemed like a prime contender for something maybe more. We talked for hours on the phone, every night. He told me that I was beautiful and I listened. It was giddy and lovely and nice.
But there was something broken about the relationship, right out of the gate. We didn’t actually see each other – living on opposite schedules, with differing priorities – and even though we spent hours together, talking, our conversations went from the everythings and histories and dreams to the everyday and work and married life ramblings very quickly. The honeymoon period ended before it began, I could say.
So, instead of being in a relationship where I wasn’t getting what I needed – thrills and highs – I decided to end it on a friendly, I’m sorry this isn’t working for me level.
The second relationship didn’t end so nicely.
This was a friendship. The friendship. This was someone that I threw caution to the wind and trusted immediately, even though I don’t do that well. Trust, that is.
This was someone I joined myself to by pelvic girdle, becoming enraptured in their life and mannerisms and in turn, bringing them into mine. I adopted this person, even though signs along the way cautioned me that they weren’t someone that I would feel ultimately safe with. Even though I watched the person make judgments, mistakes and morally unjust decisions, I sat within this intimate relationship, refusing to let go of what I got to know after a time was toxic to me.
When you get to the place where someone says they’ll do something and your mind says yeah right, you can’t be a good friend to them anymore. When you find yourself analyzing every move they make, wondering why they would continually fail to make the choices that would make their life happier or successful, you have to ask yourself why you’re there, asking them the same questions over and over, making the same suggestions, providing (mostly unsolicited) advice.
This friendship made me feel small and dirty. Like I was always keeping a dark secret, like I was hiding in the wings, snickering with the other mean girls. This friendship made me wonder why I was in it.
But I still stayed. And I started fighting.
The always friendly, enthusiastic demeanour of our love started to crumble as I started to resent this person for making me feel a conspirator in her personal demise. I’ve mentioned before my deal-breakers: cheating, lying, lack of integrity, lack of follow through. And I stayed, bearing some brunt, or watching someone else (often unknowingly) bear those.
This doesn’t make me a good friend, or loyal, to the person I was friends with. This makes me ethically bankrupt, because I stood and said little to nothing until I was so personally affected by it, I lashed out in anger and frustration at my friend.
So we fought. It was a surprise to them, because they were self-absorbed and I was a good enough actor for them to think nothing was wrong. Promises were made and the friendship would be repaired.
But then these things kept happening – the lack of follow through, the I’m going tos that never get done or finished – and my whistle blew again. This fight was angrier, it was more hurt. I felt more victimized, and so I likely victimized them a little more than was necessary by spewing truths, hard and blunt, right in their face. Not all, but most, without sensitivity.
And then things were going to be okay again, because promises were made again, and this time they would be kept.
Because I hadn’t learned throughout the friendship, because I’m a glutton, because I was afraid of ending the friendship and thus losing a major person in my life, I believed that words said meant something and that we could try to work at the relationship and repair it.
Hurts and distrust and suspicion and judgments would be knitted back into the previous carefree ease we had.
It wasn’t. And I was even more angry than before, because I was more angry at myself for putting off the inevitable.
I wasn’t getting what I needed from this friend – a relationship that I could trust in, that challenged me and excited me, one where we both said I will and we did – and so for the same reason, and as a reaction to a final let-down, I ended the friendship.
There’s a problem with meeting friends online and incorporating them into your everyday. They stay part of your everyday. And if those people have differing ideals than you, if say, they don’t agree with you that tweeting about their relationship with you is offensive, impersonal and that some things should just be fucking private, you have a problem.
During a fight before ending the relationship, I made it clear that I had problem with them sharing (with 5000 of their closest friends) that they felt X about the argument – even though they weren’t saying who was making them feel so. It was in tandem with the argument, and it hurt and offended me that they had to publicize it. They didn’t agree, and I walked away from that portion of the argument with their word that they wouldn’t, even though they didn’t see the big deal.
Then, the friendship ended and the floodgates opened but I chose to not go the route so many do when they end an online friendship – the en masse unfriending across the Internet. I didn’t want to make that statement, to say that they were dead to me. But I did keep my own pain about the end of the friendship private – I didn’t tweet or really blog about it, and you won’t find mention on Facebook, either.
Because of that, the primary symptom of the friendship, now ended, came to light – self-absorption over-ruled the word this friend had given to me and I got to see days of tweets about their sorrow, remorse, quotes about forgiveness, and on and on. And still, I kept silent, and I didn’t make the great gesture of blocking this person from my periphery.
Then was the – what I imagine to be dark and stormy – night when I was being (namelessly) tweeted about, called judgmental and narrow-minded. When some of our mutual contacts were there for this person, soothing the soul, not knowing what, if any part, they had played in this catastrophe of relationship death.
And even though I had been hurting, too, even though I had never not felt saddened about having to end this friendship because it was hurting me to be in it, I was attacked.
Which is fine. I mean, come on, no one knows all of the sides to a story, right? And they were being good online companions by trying to make this friend feel better. Which is what we should all hope to have in our life – on and offline.
But I couldn’t see it anymore. I couldn’t be angry and feel attacked, and like the bad guy and hurt, and heart-broken. I couldn’t see this person talk about their wounds, and express how I was without any, to the fucking twitterverse.
So I blocked them. And it made me feel sick to do so. But I thought maybe it would send the message that enough was enough – that they should stop talking about me and our relationship – and at the very least, I wouldn’t have to see it, if they did.
Then, they told the world that I, @Zoeyjane blocked them.
So. Two relationships, both ended within the past two months.
One because it wasn’t what I needed; the other because the person is so self-entitled to their own demons and pain, they have to hurt me to publicize them.
I never walked away, thinking that someone’s dead to me. I stopped being their friend. I didn’t do it without feelings, and heartbreak, I just didn’t tweet about it. So, after all of these words about publication, and all of these years putting anything and everything out there, I’m not telling you the names of the person I broke up with, or the friend I ended the friendship with.
Because frankly, some relationships deserve to be treated with dignity. And I’d prefer to have some, myself.
