It's one thing to act out recklessly and keep hurting yourself. You ignore sound adivce and obvious clues and tedious patterns and keep plunging into situations you had total control over avoiding but chose to risk it anyway. People do it everyday, and it's no big deal, because they're only hurting themselves. It's not so simple when you're sober. When you rely on other sober people to keep your head above water, sometimes it gets tiring for them to keep diving under to grab you and pull you back up AGAIN when they've got to worry about their own head and their other friends.
That's sort of what's been going on with Auden and me recently.
For some reason, I decided that two months was long enough to break the self-imposed sex embargo my therapist and I had agreed on, and I waded back into the online dating pool. My first exchange was a disaster. This guy on Scruff chatted me up. He seemed really sexy, great body, beautiful cock, seemed like at least some fun sex was in the works. Then he began cross examining me on my body, especially my stomach. I'm down to 156 lb, and have a pretty flat stomach. It's just that there's that puddle of loose skin. Well, his level of scrutiny left me feeling very dirty. So I went to the gym before our planned meeting, and the entire workout I just felt awful. Cheap. Dirty. Not just because he had so thoroughly objectified me, broken me down to my parts and nothing more, but because I had offered myself up for that scrutiny, practically contorting myself under a klieg light for his inspection. Eleanor Roosevelt's line about not being made to feel inferior without your permission stalked my thoughts. So I took the subway home and sent him a message, very politely, saying "Look, I think maybe we should postpone, meet for coffee or dinner sometime, get comfortable with one another and make sure we're really attracted to one another to avoid an uncomfortable moment in someone's apartment." He just responded, "Uhm... ok." I could practically see his theatrical eyeroll as he wrote that.
Anyway, next day I was at work when he texted me, being very sweet and flirty. I started to warm up and flirt back, and asked him what his schedule was like. He said he was free all day, had the day off. We flirted a little more, and I asked him if he wanted to meet up. He said, "Can't. Have to work." Riiiiight. Even though you JUST said you had the day off. SO I got pissed and texted him, "Dude, what is your deal? I didn't feel badly enough about my self last night you had to come back and finish me off?" This precipitated a long and nasty argument, and I really let him have it. I was articulate, verbose, and cutting. Honest, but cutting. I was miserable, but strangely comforted by the strength of actually standing up for myself.
I recounted it all to Auden. I needed to share my pain, and revel in the nugget of triumph within. But mostly, the pain. What has become a concern to me, and my therapist, is how at the whim of external events my mood has become. Every time I suffer a setback in dating and sex, especially, I plunge into truly frightening depression. I get suicidal. Sometimes the pain gets so great I just want to die. I'm so very tired. Auden, God bless him, talked me through it. Sometimes the only thing that keeps me from actually taking a walk along the George Washington Bridge is the promise I made to Auden. Because honestly, right now, even when things are good, I kind of feel done with life. It just seems fucking pointless to me right now.
But I couldn't do that to Auden.
So as I picked myself up, I met two guys, Will and Topher. (Not their real names.) Will reached out to me on Scruff, and we chatted online, somewhat flirty, but mostly just goofing, making actual conversation. He lived right around the corner from me, so we met up after I left work that night. He is gorgeous. My sexual ideal. And we had a nice time just talking and chilling out. We were up till 4AM talking. Then he said he was really attracted to me, but he just got out of a 3 year relationship and his head wasn't in sex. Honestly, I thought he was just sparing my feelings. I thought he liked my personaility so much that he had to meet me, but seeing me in person, I just wasn't cute enough. But I liked him so much I was actually ok with just being friends. We ended up hanging out three more times in the next week, talking for hours. He told me he felt like we were so much alike, and I felt the same.
In the meantime, there was Topher. A few nights after I met Will, Topher and I hooked up on adam4adam. He came over and we had wild, uninhibited sex. It was pretty awesome. And he seemed so sweet. We got along really well. We made plans to see each other on Thursday. He's a flight attendant, and would be in Indianapolis until then. On Wednesday, I texted him to make sure we were still on for the next day. No answer. After three hous, I sent another message. Still no answer. I'm in hysterics, trolling online, and found his LinkedIn account. He's from Indianapolis.
I started hyperventilating. Oh God, I got played. I had an overwhelming urge to die. Right then and there, no matter how messy or painful I just needed everything to fucking stop. I texted Auden through all this. After loving support, Auden tried to offer wise, sober support. I was beyond reason. I couldn't see outside the hole. I couldn't hear Auden. I wanted to. I knew he was right. I just couldn't hear anything anymore. I somehow sleepwalked through the rest of the day. I trudged home...
To find Topher at my door. He'd been called back to New York a day early. Since he was working at airports and in airplanes, his phone was off all day. He is from Indiana, but he definitely does live in New York, two blocks from me. We spent a nice night together, just kissing and holding each other. I texted Auden my news and how wonderfully happy I was.
I got a terse happy for you email.
The next day I texted Auden to see how he was doing. He told me he hadn't slept in two days. I expressed concern and offered support. After several hours, he texted me back like, "What are you talking about? I'm fine. Have a good weekend." It bothered me. But I decided Auden must just need some space. Mother's Day was approaching, and that's a tough time for him. So I rode out the weekend and texted him on Monday. No answer. Texted him on Tuesday. No answer. Left him a voicemail. No answer. He finally texted me to say that he felt played by me, like I had used him. For the sake of our friendship I didn't challenge him.
I've got some competing emotions about this right now. On the one hand there is a lot of guilt. I threw myself another pity party. My pity parties are getting longer and more elaborate. I'm pulling him deeper and deeper into my shit. I really don't mean to.
On the other hand, there is growing anger. I sometimes feel like I'm walking on eggshells around Auden. I feel like he dictates the terms of our relationship, and my choices are to either be on board or he's moving on. It feels like he's very selective of what he shares with me, but I'm supposed to be an open book. Sometimes even my words are criticized. When I finally had the exchange with him the other day, I expressed that I feel like he helps me so much but I don't do enough to help him. He replied that he didn't need my help. He needed a friend. That seemed to me a deliberate rebuke, like he was looking for a way to slap away my hand, and that's all he had to work with. It had nothing to do with my actual word of choice. It was a concerted, "fuck your hand of friendship" statement.
So these emotions are battling right now. And I have to ask myself the question of how much of my anger is real and just, and how much is just to offset my guilt. At the end of the day I love Auden so much. He has been there for me in deep tough times, and he's fun to talk to, and he's so smart and has a good eye for style (he pretty much is in charge of my wardrobe now.) Most of all I feel like he's the only person in the world who gets how my mind works. I miss my friend so much. My therapist thinks it may be time to reconsider antidepressants. I've been resisting them so long, but maybe the decision isn't just about me anymore. Maybe I have a responsibility to be on more of an even keel, if not a responsibility to myself, at least to Auden, and the other people in my life who have inexplicably come to count on the relative stablity sobriety brought to my mood.
I miss my friend.
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