state of the me
Feb. 23rd, 2007 10:46 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dragonlady7This is long and fairly boring and overly academic, and is my followup to the post of the other day wherein I flipped out. I wrote this while waiting for work to start, and I tend to get horribly introspective and useless at times like that.
I will precede it with a follow-up to my most recent post, in the form of a brief snippet of dialogue from this evening. (This evening after work Z and I went out to dinner and had a nice time.)
Me: Are you giving anything up for Lent?
Z: *shrugs*
[background: last year Z randomly gave up booze without warning me, which sucks because I hate to drink alone. So I was mad.]
Me: I was thinking of giving up sex.
Z: *smirks*
Me: You'd think that was hilarious, wouldn't you.
Z: *says nothing for a moment* *smirks again* OK, actually that would be pretty funny.
Me: You'd laugh your ass off.
Z: ... Yeah.
Yeah, he would. I need it way more than he does.
Anyhow, my long essay from this morning. warning you, it's way way long, and not all that interesting. Uh, 2500 words.
So the thing is, I'm not a kid anymore. All my life I've resisted making commitments to things, resisted making decisions that couldn't be unmade-- like, growing my hair long. You can always cut hair short, but you can't un-cut it, so the temporary decision means you leave it long. You can always get a tattoo, but removing one is harder, so the temporary decision, or un-decision really, is not to get one. Throughout my youth I've never committed to anything, not even really buying a real car. It's hard for me to make major purchases because doing so would be making a commitment to something. It's hard for me to make commitments. I always defer decisions.
But I'm not a kid anymore and I can't live like that forever. It's fun, and gives you a feeling of freedom to think that you could just change everything in a moment. But it also means you've got your life pretty much on hold; it means you're not achieving anything, and time ripples by leaving you theoretically unchanged. But it doesn't; I'm getting older. Life is still something I do for fun but I am starting to feel the need to do more serious, permanent things. And these sorts of life goals involve deeper investments of time, money, and self than the less-intensive activities of youth did. I am starting to make long-range plans and begin to do things that require me to make decisions that aren't easily unmade, and to put down roots and commit myself to things.
For instance, even furnishing a house. I've never seriously purchased furniture because I was always anticipating that I would soon be moving, and so making an attempt to accumulate things that matched one another or fit precisely into an intended space seemed futile.
But I am beginning to feel a desire to have, say, a living room set, including matching furniture, carpets fitted to the particular floor of the room, and curtains that precisely fit the windows of that room, and match the paint, and suit the architecture. I want to be sure I won't move before I make this sort of investment.
I want a cat, but I have to be sure I won't be moving somewhere that doesn't allow pets, or somewhere distant to which transporting a pet would be problematic. (Having a fish has thusfar been more commitment than I would have made if the fish weren't given to me in the first place.)
I want, more ambitiously, to make improvements to the space where I am-- adding an office / study / library upstairs, for example. That would involve hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of materials and labor. It would be futile to do that if I am not staying in the house, and indeed most people I mention it to say it would be rather stupid to do it to a house that does not belong to me.
As I have progressed through my twenties I have come to understand myself a great deal better. This has not been easy, and it has only come about through my increasing involvement with other people. I have gradually learned that I prefer to have the option of not being alone; I function at my best when I have at least one close companion, preferably someone with whom I am sexually involved. I do not need a great deal of affection or closeness, and do not require constant attention (in fact it's better if I don't have it), but I do need to have approximately daily conversations, and more than occasional reassurances of my closeness with this person. I used to think I was a much clingier person but, again, as I have matured I have realized that much of my neediness was born of my feeling that I ought to be that way, rather than any innate desire to be that way. Indeed I am at my best, creatively, when I have frequent periods of solitude, but they must be broken up by fairly frequent contact with outsiders, both my normal companion and by the society of less closely-involved people.
I am happy in my current situation because I have a companion who gives me plenty of space, and also engages me in frequent conversations of exceptional quality. He amuses me, enlightens me, and inspires me, and I could ask for no better conversation partner. I find him extremely attractive but not overly-distracting. I am, indeed, deeply fond of him, and feel a far deeper emotional tie to him than I ever have for a romantic partner of any description-- it would certainly not be out of line to say that I was in love with him.
The only dissatisfaction I experience is that while we have enjoyed a long and mutually-satisfying relationship, replete with experiences both wonderfully pleasant and, shall we say, challengingly educational, I remain uncertain as to the exact nature of his investment in the relationship. As a younger woman this disturbed me for no reason, and as our relationship progressed beyond the initial stages I learned not to worry about it so much. But as I have grown still older I am increasingly preoccupied with the fact that I have set myself all these goals and begun to make myself all these long-term plans, that require so much investment, and all of them involve having a companion-- indeed, this companion.
But he has made no indication of any desire to be included in these plans, indeed avoiding any discussion more serious than idle speculation. My raising of the question of reproduction-- I have become slowly more convinced that I would perhaps like to raise offspring at some point-- has met with only joking dismay, and nothing more. I am left stuck with the quandary of either making plans around him or without him, and I am reluctant to do either-- and yet do not want to abandon my plans, as while I have enjoyed my youth, I would rather move on into my adulthood and no longer live quite the same way. I sort of feel like much that I do is seemingly in preparation for something, and I really would like to move to a more concrete phase of this (like, where I have a real goal in mind, as opposed to a general feeling that I'm just learning the necessary skills to face whatever it is my life is supposed to be), as accumulation of nothing but money is rather wearisome. I don't know if I said that well; I'll try again. I feel like my life up to this point has been preparation, learning how to cope with everything, and I'm supposed to be facing some particular challenge, making some particular decisions, to make my mark in the world. I really would like to be done with the learning stage and get down to the doing stage.
Quite apart from my own plans, I have become so fond of this person, and admire him so greatly, that I would like to be a part of his plans. I believe strongly that he is an exceptional person, and as such is destined to achieve some fascinating and wonderful things, and I want to be there, both as witness to them and hopefully as a participant in some role or another.
However, I must confront the fact that I am still not certain of the exact nature of our relationship. It has been four and a half years. Five years ago I was in another relationship, an open relationship with a man who was then polyamorous. In fact I began pursuing my current companion while still in the previous relationship, as the man was seeing other women and I also knew he was about to embark upon a career that would remove him from my presence nearly permanently. So when the man I am with now first sparked my interest I was free to pursue him, and did so-- nearly from our first meeting I knew I was interested in him, and let him know that.
Shortly after my current companion and I first became sexually intimate, he began to refer to me as his girlfriend, which was a term I found significant, as I had not been called such by previous partners. Half-joking questioning soon established that he considered us exclusive sexual partners. This pleased me, as I had realized that open relationships did not exactly suit me-- I have not the attention span nor the emotional freedom for multiple partners, not without considerable reassurance, and while perhaps I could grow used to it, I do not particulary desire to pursue that course. It requires too much attention and is quite risky and rather confusing.
At any rate, it was an exclusive sexual relationship and we were calling one another "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"-- which was quite a novelty for me, as I had previously had only one serious relationship, and that with a woman.
In the confusion of the emotions aroused by all this I began to tentatively make declarations of love to him, but quickly learned that he is not that demonstrative nor effusive a person, and I may have been being overenthusiastic. But I did quickly decide that I was much happier with him than staying in my mother's house, and so upon learning that he in his turn was happier with me there, I moved myself in to stay with him.
To this day he half-jokingly says that he just came home one day and there was all this furniture there and a woman living in his house. I am not certain how serious he is; I had assumed at the time that he was pleased by my being there, and he certainly did not seem overly dismayed at the time. Perhaps I was oblivious; I am not certain.
At any rate, when we got a new apartment he was quite willing to move with me. We even bought a few furnishings together, and he told his mother about my status. (Which was a bit risky, as she had earlier told his sister she was "no better than a slut" for living with her boyfriend.)
In due time when he decided to move back to Buffalo I resolved to come with him, as I did not much enjoy the place we lived then, and had little to no interest in returning to my native city. I had enjoyed Buffalo on my visits, and more importantly wanted to stay with him. I was lovingly accepted by his extended family and I cherish those relationships.
However it was natural that his family began to ask when he and I would marry. As years have gone by the questions have become more pointed, and my own family has joined in. (I was even given serious financial advice, from the brother-in-law who is a financial advisor, that it would make more sense financially to marry.) But my companion is less and less interested in discussing the matter.
He has never said anything more definite beyond that very early conversation wherein he indicated that he intended to be exclusive. He has never claimed any particular depth of feeling for me, although he is quite affectionate and solicitous and is very concerned if I am ever in distress. Still he has made no declarations and no firm promises, and I have not had the courage or inclination to really press him on the issue. I have spoken at length of my own future plans but he only nods. Questions about his own future plans do not receive any definite answers. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with not having plans set in stone.
But on the other hand I have to accept that I cannot make plans with him without his permission and involvement. He has promised me nothing, and so I cannot expect anything of him beyond what has been made clear-- I am his girlfriend and companion, and he takes no other lovers and expects the same of me. I am happy to do that. I have never been so happy with anyone else. Our domestic arrangement, while stressful at times, is basically happy, and we have a pretty good financial system set up-- I may pay for more things, but I earn more, and it is no hardship at all, especially when you consider that for the first two years of our relationship, I paid for much less than half of our expenses, and was frequently unemployed. I did what I could to keep the house and fix the meals, but I was often distracted (especially with writing, which used to absorb me to ridiculous extents-- for a time I was spending over 100 hours a week just writing) and have never been much of a housekeeper.
But I do want to make more concrete plans, and they require a great deal of commitment on my part. I am going to have to choose to either make my plans around him as I can, or make my plans without him. I do not know how well either of those two options will work. Many of the plans I have will not work unless I have a companion, so I cannot simply say, well, I'll be here doing this, and if you want in, feel free to join me. No, I need him committed to it before I can do it. But I cannot demand commitment of him, and cannot command what he will not freely offer. If he does not want to make a formal commitment to me, if he remains completely disinterested in reproducing with me, then what is the point of my making a fuss over it? He is breaking no promises, for he has made none.
But that is why I am so liable to freak out at him over perceived slights. I am very happy with him and have complete faith in him not to break any commitments he has made to me: he would never be unfaithful, and if he has said he will do something, he will either do it or will have an excellent alternative or reason for not doing it. But I want it to be true that he wants the same things I do, and I want him to want to be included in my plans. It is irrational to become angry when he shows no signs of doing so, but I have never claimed to be a particularly rational person.
I will precede it with a follow-up to my most recent post, in the form of a brief snippet of dialogue from this evening. (This evening after work Z and I went out to dinner and had a nice time.)
Me: Are you giving anything up for Lent?
Z: *shrugs*
[background: last year Z randomly gave up booze without warning me, which sucks because I hate to drink alone. So I was mad.]
Me: I was thinking of giving up sex.
Z: *smirks*
Me: You'd think that was hilarious, wouldn't you.
Z: *says nothing for a moment* *smirks again* OK, actually that would be pretty funny.
Me: You'd laugh your ass off.
Z: ... Yeah.
Yeah, he would. I need it way more than he does.
Anyhow, my long essay from this morning. warning you, it's way way long, and not all that interesting. Uh, 2500 words.
So the thing is, I'm not a kid anymore. All my life I've resisted making commitments to things, resisted making decisions that couldn't be unmade-- like, growing my hair long. You can always cut hair short, but you can't un-cut it, so the temporary decision means you leave it long. You can always get a tattoo, but removing one is harder, so the temporary decision, or un-decision really, is not to get one. Throughout my youth I've never committed to anything, not even really buying a real car. It's hard for me to make major purchases because doing so would be making a commitment to something. It's hard for me to make commitments. I always defer decisions.
But I'm not a kid anymore and I can't live like that forever. It's fun, and gives you a feeling of freedom to think that you could just change everything in a moment. But it also means you've got your life pretty much on hold; it means you're not achieving anything, and time ripples by leaving you theoretically unchanged. But it doesn't; I'm getting older. Life is still something I do for fun but I am starting to feel the need to do more serious, permanent things. And these sorts of life goals involve deeper investments of time, money, and self than the less-intensive activities of youth did. I am starting to make long-range plans and begin to do things that require me to make decisions that aren't easily unmade, and to put down roots and commit myself to things.
For instance, even furnishing a house. I've never seriously purchased furniture because I was always anticipating that I would soon be moving, and so making an attempt to accumulate things that matched one another or fit precisely into an intended space seemed futile.
But I am beginning to feel a desire to have, say, a living room set, including matching furniture, carpets fitted to the particular floor of the room, and curtains that precisely fit the windows of that room, and match the paint, and suit the architecture. I want to be sure I won't move before I make this sort of investment.
I want a cat, but I have to be sure I won't be moving somewhere that doesn't allow pets, or somewhere distant to which transporting a pet would be problematic. (Having a fish has thusfar been more commitment than I would have made if the fish weren't given to me in the first place.)
I want, more ambitiously, to make improvements to the space where I am-- adding an office / study / library upstairs, for example. That would involve hundreds, even thousands of dollars worth of materials and labor. It would be futile to do that if I am not staying in the house, and indeed most people I mention it to say it would be rather stupid to do it to a house that does not belong to me.
As I have progressed through my twenties I have come to understand myself a great deal better. This has not been easy, and it has only come about through my increasing involvement with other people. I have gradually learned that I prefer to have the option of not being alone; I function at my best when I have at least one close companion, preferably someone with whom I am sexually involved. I do not need a great deal of affection or closeness, and do not require constant attention (in fact it's better if I don't have it), but I do need to have approximately daily conversations, and more than occasional reassurances of my closeness with this person. I used to think I was a much clingier person but, again, as I have matured I have realized that much of my neediness was born of my feeling that I ought to be that way, rather than any innate desire to be that way. Indeed I am at my best, creatively, when I have frequent periods of solitude, but they must be broken up by fairly frequent contact with outsiders, both my normal companion and by the society of less closely-involved people.
I am happy in my current situation because I have a companion who gives me plenty of space, and also engages me in frequent conversations of exceptional quality. He amuses me, enlightens me, and inspires me, and I could ask for no better conversation partner. I find him extremely attractive but not overly-distracting. I am, indeed, deeply fond of him, and feel a far deeper emotional tie to him than I ever have for a romantic partner of any description-- it would certainly not be out of line to say that I was in love with him.
The only dissatisfaction I experience is that while we have enjoyed a long and mutually-satisfying relationship, replete with experiences both wonderfully pleasant and, shall we say, challengingly educational, I remain uncertain as to the exact nature of his investment in the relationship. As a younger woman this disturbed me for no reason, and as our relationship progressed beyond the initial stages I learned not to worry about it so much. But as I have grown still older I am increasingly preoccupied with the fact that I have set myself all these goals and begun to make myself all these long-term plans, that require so much investment, and all of them involve having a companion-- indeed, this companion.
But he has made no indication of any desire to be included in these plans, indeed avoiding any discussion more serious than idle speculation. My raising of the question of reproduction-- I have become slowly more convinced that I would perhaps like to raise offspring at some point-- has met with only joking dismay, and nothing more. I am left stuck with the quandary of either making plans around him or without him, and I am reluctant to do either-- and yet do not want to abandon my plans, as while I have enjoyed my youth, I would rather move on into my adulthood and no longer live quite the same way. I sort of feel like much that I do is seemingly in preparation for something, and I really would like to move to a more concrete phase of this (like, where I have a real goal in mind, as opposed to a general feeling that I'm just learning the necessary skills to face whatever it is my life is supposed to be), as accumulation of nothing but money is rather wearisome. I don't know if I said that well; I'll try again. I feel like my life up to this point has been preparation, learning how to cope with everything, and I'm supposed to be facing some particular challenge, making some particular decisions, to make my mark in the world. I really would like to be done with the learning stage and get down to the doing stage.
Quite apart from my own plans, I have become so fond of this person, and admire him so greatly, that I would like to be a part of his plans. I believe strongly that he is an exceptional person, and as such is destined to achieve some fascinating and wonderful things, and I want to be there, both as witness to them and hopefully as a participant in some role or another.
However, I must confront the fact that I am still not certain of the exact nature of our relationship. It has been four and a half years. Five years ago I was in another relationship, an open relationship with a man who was then polyamorous. In fact I began pursuing my current companion while still in the previous relationship, as the man was seeing other women and I also knew he was about to embark upon a career that would remove him from my presence nearly permanently. So when the man I am with now first sparked my interest I was free to pursue him, and did so-- nearly from our first meeting I knew I was interested in him, and let him know that.
Shortly after my current companion and I first became sexually intimate, he began to refer to me as his girlfriend, which was a term I found significant, as I had not been called such by previous partners. Half-joking questioning soon established that he considered us exclusive sexual partners. This pleased me, as I had realized that open relationships did not exactly suit me-- I have not the attention span nor the emotional freedom for multiple partners, not without considerable reassurance, and while perhaps I could grow used to it, I do not particulary desire to pursue that course. It requires too much attention and is quite risky and rather confusing.
At any rate, it was an exclusive sexual relationship and we were calling one another "boyfriend" and "girlfriend"-- which was quite a novelty for me, as I had previously had only one serious relationship, and that with a woman.
In the confusion of the emotions aroused by all this I began to tentatively make declarations of love to him, but quickly learned that he is not that demonstrative nor effusive a person, and I may have been being overenthusiastic. But I did quickly decide that I was much happier with him than staying in my mother's house, and so upon learning that he in his turn was happier with me there, I moved myself in to stay with him.
To this day he half-jokingly says that he just came home one day and there was all this furniture there and a woman living in his house. I am not certain how serious he is; I had assumed at the time that he was pleased by my being there, and he certainly did not seem overly dismayed at the time. Perhaps I was oblivious; I am not certain.
At any rate, when we got a new apartment he was quite willing to move with me. We even bought a few furnishings together, and he told his mother about my status. (Which was a bit risky, as she had earlier told his sister she was "no better than a slut" for living with her boyfriend.)
In due time when he decided to move back to Buffalo I resolved to come with him, as I did not much enjoy the place we lived then, and had little to no interest in returning to my native city. I had enjoyed Buffalo on my visits, and more importantly wanted to stay with him. I was lovingly accepted by his extended family and I cherish those relationships.
However it was natural that his family began to ask when he and I would marry. As years have gone by the questions have become more pointed, and my own family has joined in. (I was even given serious financial advice, from the brother-in-law who is a financial advisor, that it would make more sense financially to marry.) But my companion is less and less interested in discussing the matter.
He has never said anything more definite beyond that very early conversation wherein he indicated that he intended to be exclusive. He has never claimed any particular depth of feeling for me, although he is quite affectionate and solicitous and is very concerned if I am ever in distress. Still he has made no declarations and no firm promises, and I have not had the courage or inclination to really press him on the issue. I have spoken at length of my own future plans but he only nods. Questions about his own future plans do not receive any definite answers. On the one hand, there is nothing wrong with not having plans set in stone.
But on the other hand I have to accept that I cannot make plans with him without his permission and involvement. He has promised me nothing, and so I cannot expect anything of him beyond what has been made clear-- I am his girlfriend and companion, and he takes no other lovers and expects the same of me. I am happy to do that. I have never been so happy with anyone else. Our domestic arrangement, while stressful at times, is basically happy, and we have a pretty good financial system set up-- I may pay for more things, but I earn more, and it is no hardship at all, especially when you consider that for the first two years of our relationship, I paid for much less than half of our expenses, and was frequently unemployed. I did what I could to keep the house and fix the meals, but I was often distracted (especially with writing, which used to absorb me to ridiculous extents-- for a time I was spending over 100 hours a week just writing) and have never been much of a housekeeper.
But I do want to make more concrete plans, and they require a great deal of commitment on my part. I am going to have to choose to either make my plans around him as I can, or make my plans without him. I do not know how well either of those two options will work. Many of the plans I have will not work unless I have a companion, so I cannot simply say, well, I'll be here doing this, and if you want in, feel free to join me. No, I need him committed to it before I can do it. But I cannot demand commitment of him, and cannot command what he will not freely offer. If he does not want to make a formal commitment to me, if he remains completely disinterested in reproducing with me, then what is the point of my making a fuss over it? He is breaking no promises, for he has made none.
But that is why I am so liable to freak out at him over perceived slights. I am very happy with him and have complete faith in him not to break any commitments he has made to me: he would never be unfaithful, and if he has said he will do something, he will either do it or will have an excellent alternative or reason for not doing it. But I want it to be true that he wants the same things I do, and I want him to want to be included in my plans. It is irrational to become angry when he shows no signs of doing so, but I have never claimed to be a particularly rational person.
