I told some people this would start up again after I went to law school. Well, it just so happens that is is the first real chunk of free time I've had since that happened. And lo and behold! The improbable occurs. I'd bring you all up to date, but I'm not sure where that would even start, so let's assume that because you're reading this, you probably know me. (This isn't edited and it's typed on a laggy, autocorrect-happy iPad with bad Internet, so either comment or just tell me sometime if it's awful. Grammar-wise, that is. I already know the subject matter is nigh-unreadable...)
That only leaves current events. Surprisingly enough, I've got a bunch of those too! Unfortunately, one of them includes my official newly single status. It sucks having to say I told you so when I know it means I'm going to be in pain, but I have to say I called this shot a month or two ago. I even went so far as to tell her mom not to get her hopes up. (Wow, that sounds really weird and depressing when I think about it. Trust me, there's context: she was saying how she was glad we were working through things and I was in the middle of feeling rejected, so, knowing that Rebecca moving away would be exactly the impetus required for her to end things, I said I wasn't so sure and that I couldn't make Rebecca do anything she didn't want.) Her mom just said she was sure we'd make it.
I'm still in a bit of turmoil over the whole thing, not only because I don't handle rejection well, but because I still don't quite understand all of the issues cited by the other party (I think I used to talk that way before I came to law school? Maybe not? It will all blur together soon enough I'm sure.) I suppose the second thing might easily be subsumed into the latter, so calling it a different problem could be a bit overreaching. Anyway, when one of the two people in a relationship doesn't feel "the spark" anymore, there's really nothing you can do. I feel justified in saying I tried, though there are certainly two sides to every story. From what I gather, from her side I am frequently underhandedly insulting, incredibly obstinate (no contention there), and simply uncomfortable to be around. I'm not sure how much of this is a product of me as a person or simply the way the relationship turned out, but there seems little point distinguishing between the two. Whether it is our history together that makes it uncomfortable to spend time with me or a fact about me as a person makes no difference in this case.
The biggest thing I took away from our most recent discussion is a fundamental difference in how we go about our lives. I (as I'm sure at least a few reading can attest) tend to make a decision after thinking about as many of the facts I can under whatever time I have to consider them and then stick to that decision as hard as possible. If new facts present themselves, I might briefly consider whether they weigh in enough to change course, but having taken a particular path carries its own weight (probably because I hate admitting I did something wrong, more than anything), and I rarely change. One advantage to this is that I almost never regret a decision. Having chosen to do something, when I look back I know I did it for reasons that at the time I felt justified it. The action may, in hindsight, not have been the optimal one, but I almost never feel that there's a good way for me to have known that at the time. The only things that I immediately regret when thinking back are things I was unable to consider rationally when I decided them. One of those things is quitting tennis in high school. The other is yelling at Rebecca that she didn't know what the $&?! she was doing (half the time). I think I said half the time. I don't know for sure.
To be perfectly honest, I feel more comfortable with the second example. Not because she just broke up with me (I hope), but because I had even less time to think before I said it. We were in the middle of an argument, as I hope would be obvious. If I were to go around yelling things like that out of the blue, I could hardly feel justified in my current unhappiness. I was incredibly frustrated because from my perspective I was correcting her out of concern for her safety, and from hers I was overbearing as usual. Obviously, my line of reasoning should have been a bit more refined than the shouting of expletives, but in hindsight, I said what I felt and had reasons in mind for saying it. I later explained these reasons (because that was obviously going to help the situation). That actually didn't help the situation. Odd, I know. She was forgetful about wearing her helmet, she flatted her bike often, had recently ridden recklessly through traffic, and on this particular occasion she was riding rapidly at night right at the back of a person I wasn't sure she had seen as we entered a pedestrian tunnel (which said to dismount if on bicycles). I told her to slow down. She did not enjoy that, as it comformed perfectly to her idea of me as an overbearing individual. From my perspective, I had let the past three things I noticed slide, and just really didn't want something bad to happen here. She said she had seen the guy walking and I didn't need to treat her like she didn't know what she was doing. After a bit of back and forth, kabaam, I blew it.
This isn't actually that big a deal in the whole grand scheme of things, but it is the most-cited example of hers for how she was unhappy, so it is quite prominent in my brain. And I deal with things in my brain by writing them down and hoping that makes them less of a problem. It rarely does.
Tennis, though! I have profound regrets to this day. I almost never think about what might have been. I love that about my system. But I had committed to tennis. I was getting good, it had only been a few years, and then I came to the "realization" I probably wasn't going to go to school on a tennis scholarship. This deflated my enthusiasm. Then my coach told me something I didn't want to hear, and rather than doing ANY OTHER THING IN THE WHOLE WORLD, I chose to say I quit. And because I had been thinking about quitting before the altercation, I let myself think I had made an informed decision (albeit impulsively), when in reality I just wanted to let everyone know I had other options and that they were lucky to have me playing their game. I ran varsity track instead of playing tennis. I was fine. I ran a 4:42 mile, cracked 4:40 once I think, and still felt like that justified quitting the sport I enjoyed far more. I sure showed them!
This is not unlike my decision to quit frisbee my senior year of college. Again, I wanted to show them a lesson. I wanted them to come and ask me to play, to offer to change something so I'd come back. Instead, they went on with their lives. I would have felt almost as bad about this as tennis except for the fact that Rebecca cheated on me over winter break with one of my teammates, and after that I wouldn't have been able to show up without doing something very irresponsible and likely would have quit anyway. So that mitigated some of the guilt for opportunity lost.
Perhaps this is why I can't handle rejection. It wasn't my decision. I don't carefully consider the factors and decide this relationship was over. I saw that it was over, acknowledged tht Rebecca wasn't going to be happy with what I had to offer but that doesn't make it hurt less, because it wasn't up to me. I just agreed to abandon the sinking ship, as any logical person would. Or in a more fitting analogy, I scrambled up the perpendicular deck of the sinking ship, perched myself on the bow, and kept waving and shooting flares until my toes, then ankles, then knees got wet, and finally found a life raft. Of course, I haven't quite gotten to the "finding a life raft" bit, but hey, I can tread water for a while.
All of this and I still haven't explained how my decision making is different than Rebecca's (again with the caveat that I operate with imperfect knowledge). She is much less confident about her decisions. And did you know the best way of remedying that ISN'T to tell someone to just do what you do and stop feeling anxious? Well now you (and I) do. Most recently this manifested itself when she said she felt like I was preventing her from being the person she wanted to be. I, of course, told her to be whoever she wanted and I would embrace it. She responded with the fact that she didn't want to do things she thought I would disapprove of because it meant I would think less of her. She knows I don't drink, for example, and being the frisbee player that she is, she attends a lot of parties where that is the norm. She has recently decided she likes alcohol. I have not reached the same conclusion because no new facts have been brought to my attention since I made my informed and logical decision years ago. Does this mean we could no longer be happy? I, of course, can say no, since I no longer have to abide by that assertion. I know plenty of people who drink copious amounts of alcohol, and I don't let that diminish my opinion of them. Of course I factor it into my opinion of them, but only to the extent that I know it's something they do that I don't relate to. What I did have a problem with was when Rebecca would lie to me about whether or not she had been drinking while away at tournaments or at other parties. Obviously she was trying to spare my feelings, but that only works when you can be sure I won't find about it.
The other thing she mentioned that she liked and I didn't was being part of a large group of people. I balked a bit at that, I admit. Strangers hold very little appeal for me. I was about to write that she could have just invited me along and I would have gone as long as she promised not to forget about me (true). But you know what? Perhaps she's right. Maybe I don't want to attend parties where I don't know people and everyone is drunk. If that's really the kind of person she wants to be, or is seriously considering that concept and not just looking for things that she thinks she wants to do just because she knows I don't want to do them and she feels I've been holding her back, I probably wouldn't be as happy as I would otherwise. I think in the back of my mind I wasn't quite giving her enough credit. I just assumed she wasn't going to be that person, that it was just an experiment she wanted to try before being the person I know her to be. But I obviously can't say that, especially after today. I have to accept I don't know her after all, and that it will just plain hurt for a while.
It's not often you get to see a person pass through the stages of their emotions on the written page, but I think it just happened in that last paragraph there. Now I'm just bitter. I'm bitter because I still don't know what I did wrong. I'm bitter because I'm smart, clever, ambitious, athletic, determined, responsible, logical, and hopefully one or two other things I can't think of at the moment, and I don't know what she's looking for if it isn't me. I'm the one who got her started biking, then playing frisbee. I had her read my books. I put myself into the relationship, like I do with everything I decide to try at, and I failed. And I hate failing.
So there's the bitterness. I'm bitter because I did try. It may not have looked like it. In fact recently she said she didn't like the fact that I wasn't nice to her dad when he didn't understand frisbee. The funny thing is, I was about to cite that as an example of when I was nice! See, he had no idea what he was saying, but he yammered on anyway. He said things like, "they can't let that guy throw, he keeps turning it over!" when the turnovers were caused by other factors (handlers not making good cuts, receivers dropping the disc, unexpected miscommunications, etc. Or "come on, don't let him throw that!" to throws on the force side when it was a breakdown downfield. The examples were endless, trust me. And I didn't chime in (as I am so wont to do) with a snide actually... You're an idiot, and here's why. I just grimaced to myself (I even made sure he couldn't see it! (though apparently Rebecca could)) and watched the game. The point is, my efforts at nicety were probably not obvious.
Wait.
Hold it.
That's it!
I think that's what she's looking for. After two years with me, I can't even blame her. She's looking for a nice guy. Not a guy who will do things for her because he wants to make an effort and likes to see her smile (how I flatteringly characterize myself for this self-pitying diatribe), but a guy to whom that stuff comes naturally. I honestly can say I can't give her that. Being nice isn't easy for me. I'm probably just too arrogant or something. What else, then, can I honestly not do? I can't overlook mistakes. I've never been able to do that. I can forgive them, but by golly do I point them out. I do this for two obvious reasons. The first is that I don't like inefficiency. If there's a way to do something better, I want you to know about it. The second is that I want to let you know what to change if you don't want to unwittingly repeat whatever mistake it may have been. A corollary to both of those things is that I know if I don't say something, it will only lead to more frustration in the future, because although I can bottle things up pretty well, I am pretty darn good at dwelling on them. Source: the part where I exploded about her bike stuff. Another source! This whole post! (Citing sources is very important in the legal profession. More on this later.)
So, and I've jabbed at her regarding this very thing, she just needs a nice guy who either overlooks her mistakes or doesn't realize she's making them. I'll do myself the nicety of imagining her with an unintelligent hillbilly for the time being. (This will naturally make it hurt all the worse when I see her playing frisbee with the best, most beautiful boyfriend the world has ever known, but I can only hope it helps enough in the short term to compensate.)
My sister just called and derailed my train of thought. Luckily, we didn't talk much about the current state of depressing affairs. We almost went down that road, and I actually felt myself choking up a bit, but she did me the good service of asking about school, which I was able to answer with only a minor hitch. (Sarah, thanks for calling. I know you mean well. Sorry I wasn't up for a heart to heart. I don't know if you could tell how close I was to crying, but that wasn't what I wanted to do, especially not on the phone with my little sister (big sister if you insist), so thank you.) It seems I can't quite muster up the bitterness required to maintain the velocity of this tangent. So without further adieu, or segue for that matter, here's everything about law school:
Just kidding! I didn't really realize how long this already was. So that stuff is in a new post. So you didn't even have to read this if you wanted to avoid depressing things and only here about my new life at school. Haha. Fooled you, sucker.
But really, thanks for reading. It means a lot. Hopefully I'll gradually move back into some creative writing in addition to autobiographical angst, but this is what I needed at the moment.
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