2001-08-07 - 10:09 p.m.

Ah yes... like dust in the wind, so go the promises of our youth.

OK, I promised to update more frequently, and as you can plainly see, I have not. Damn. I just got a job, which had me working 6 days straight, so I was a little, to put it mildly, exhausted when I got off at night (arriving home at 11:00-11:30 after 7-8 hours of working on my feet). That stands as my feeble excuse. Note the feebility. NOTE IT!!!

Anyway, I had an interesting weekend, and then spent today working for 6 hours in the restaurant on the Lunch shift, and came away from it with a whole $19 for my trouble! Isn't capitalism wonderful? I'm starting to hate humanity again, so I really know I'm back in the restaurant game. Unfortunately, getting to work at 4 in the afternoon, and then coming home bushed at 11 has really thrown off my sense of the day. I get up at 10 in the am, but don't actually do anything until I leave for work, which makes all the time I do spend at home little more than a blur of sleepiness. I'm unhappy with it, so I'm gonna start getting exercise after I awake. I really mean it too. And no quoting from the first sentence of this update, thakyouverymuch.

But, I've gotten a tad ahead of myself. The weekend. I went up to Sarasota, hung out with friends, had fun, found out that my ex-girlfriend is significantly less happy with the breakup than I had previously believed. That's a problem, because I really do like her very much. We talked about said problem for several hours, and when we were finished, she made me admit that I didn't love her. Which sounds horrible, doesn't it? On the other hand, what do you do in a situation where someone you really care about asks you if you love them, meaning you would spend the rest of your life with them under the right circumstances? It kind of begs the question: when CAN you date someone? If you can't love someone until you've known them for a while (I would assume you can't, anyway), then Love shouldn't be a problem. On the other hand, if you've been dating someone for months, do you have the right to keep dating if you know you don't love them? What's the cut-off? It's pretty fucking confusing, I would say. Then, of course, we get to the problem of dating someone when you fancy yourself in love with someone else. Do you get to date someone if you're pretty certain you won't Love them? I guess not.

The funny thing is, that she's very hurt, and this hurt has been caused because I caused it. I caused it through actions I specifically chose to do so that I would not hurt her. That's a bit ironic, I think. Here's the low-down:

I'm going through a period where I find it hard to believe in Love at all, and I'm pretty pessimistic about the possibility of success in human relationships. So, in order not to hurt anyone (including myself) I decided to enter into a relationship in which I would not make ANY emotional commitments, I would not say things like 'I love you' unthinkingly, I would not put any more emotion into it than the situation warrented. I've had trouble with exactly that before, and the situation was pretty traumatic. Of course, all that did not preclude me actually falling in love, just convincing myself I was in love without a damn good reason. So I get into a relationship with a wonderful woman, and we have a lot of fun, and she occaisionally says things like 'I love you', but I (O mighty philosoph that I am) wisely refrain from echoing the sentiment. 'That', I thought, 'should keep either of us from getting too close.' I was wrong. She fell in love with me. I know this sounds like some page out of 'diary of a stud-muffin', some self-glorifying bullshit from an asshole in love with himself. But she did, and for all I know, it's the real thing. She wanted to make the relationship work, keep it going through the distance and what-not. I did too, but after a few weeks I couldn't do it anymore. So I broke it off with her.

And here's the lovely bit where I hurt her. Cause instead of talking to her about it, about where I was having trouble in the relationship, I just broke it off, told her that we had to, that the die was cast. Nice of me to cast the die without giving her warning, eh? And the ironic thing here is that I thought that that was the right way to do it. Instead of getting into a debate, where I'd probably let myself get talked into keeping going, I just dictated my position, and was strong. The act of a desperate man, maybe. Desperate, not because of what she'd do, but because I knew in my heart I was weak. Rather than do the right thing, let her know what was going on, let her know that I couldn't keep dating someone in college, on the other side of the state, I needed a break with my past and needed to start over, I simply told her we were broken up. But if I had done that, I KNOW I would have let her talk me into staying together, and it just would have prolonged the inevitable.

'And why, Padraig, was it inevitable? Why did you HAVE to break up with her?'

I couldn't keep dating her and keep sane.

'Why?'

Because I needed to move on.

'Why?'

I was unhappy.

'What with?'

Her. I was unhappy because she expected a lot from me, even though she says she didn't want anything from me. She expected me to love her. And I don't want to love her.

'Why not?'

I don't want to be in a serious relationship at all! I don't want someone else's happiness as my responsibility. And that's what love means, I feel like. And that means that every time I need time to myself, every time I don't have time to call, every time I'm not thinking about her is an accusation waiting to be made. Not by her, by me. I feel guilty, constantly, knowing that I'm stealing my time from someone else, that I'm hurting someone if I don't have time for them, all the demands of being a good boyfriend ganging up on me, vying for a little time in the sun with my three billion other worries, like I have no money, and I'm deeply in debt, and I need a job, and I need to get in shape, and I'm trying to become an actor and I'll probably not make it, and my family is breaking up, and I'm suddenly not in college anymore, and I don't know what the HELL I'M DOING!!!!!!!

I don't have anything to give, not right now. I can't take anything without feeling like a shit, and without feeling the pressing claws of guilt telling me to give back. I don't want to take. So, I'm pretty much screwed, aren't I? I can't even take care of my fucking diary, for God's sake, how am I supposed to be there for anyone else? She told me I treated her like a demand, like a class I don't have time for anymore, so I dropped her. And I think she's right. That's how I treated her. I don't think of her like that, but when it came down to it, I treated her just like that. And that means that I don't love her. And I don't. But I never said I did.

I didn't promise anything.

I feel like such an asshole.

�

�

previous - next

[ Previous 5 Sites | Skip Previous | Previous | Next ]

This RingSurf New College Diaryring Net Ring
owned by Pretentious White-boy Musings.

[ Skip Next | Next 5 Sites | Random Site | List Sites ]