i’m exhausted, hello diary blog.
i broke up with my cishet male partner the first week of january, fulfilling my joking resolution of no more sex with cis het men. he was lying to me for who knows how long about where he was, and has since sent me pictures every single day … and his family members have been more active on facebook as well, apparently now unburdened by me not knowing where he was. really fucking cool.
that was a seven-year relationship.
my best friend of sixteen years stepped in after when i said i wasn’t sure what i was going to do, since i need some kind of structure imposed by another person in order to function and not go out and do stupid shit. i joked i was only staying with my ex for so long because i’d go feral otherwise. it wasn’t really a joke. i harbored internalized issues with that relationship for a long time, but i still hold no ill will to my ex. we are friends. i love him very much still as my friend. (perhaps i am too forgiving.)
regardless, my best friend stepped in and offered that structure. we were queerplatonic partners to some extent for years before this, but we operated under the fact that my ex would not allow them into our relationship due to him, once again, being straight (of course cishet men often disregard AFAB NB people’s gender in their sexuality, my friend being transfemme in many ways was still unacceptable to him); regardless, we had shared finances and an unbreakable bond. we’ve talked daily longer than our youngest siblings have been alive.
understandably, i was unwell so i was quite quiet with friends who are not as close. my friend, who i’ll just name as ellie here so it’s easier for me to talk this way, is my family and was my partner in many ways that my ex was not. of course i spoke with them. they are my best friend!
apparently, though, i needed to be more clear to people about my fucking exclusions list. apparently, i was supposed to say, “hey, sorry, i’m not feeling well and may not be talking much to anyone but my mom and my best friend okay?”
is this not implicit? for fucks sake, the people i’m about to get into are older than me. one is almost forty. why are we acting like this is middle school? the fuck is wrong with you people?
but, i’m getting ahead of myself …
over the time that ellie and i worked within a new dynamic, it became clear that we needed to formally state ourselves as partners. not due to romantic attraction (we are both aro), but because it was obvious we would be operating as a “couple” going forward. note: we are not monogamous, but are the stereotypical transish queer people who would be in a communal polycule of gay.
this was good and helpful and they have been absolutely amazing! i love them so much <3 and through their help, i have been able to slowly start reaching out again.
let’s start with subject one: the “convention guy” (CG).
i met cg at a mlp convention. he is pleasant and very nice! but very into me. which is okay, i am always very forward about being poly and being comfortable with casual sex outside of that. when we met, he knew i was in a long-term, committed relationship (i generally referred to my ex as my fiance), and this was fine. at the airport, i gave him a poker chip that said “1 fuck” on it as a joke and to signal that I wouldn’t mind a bang session. i thought i made it very clear i wasn’t interested in a relationship with him outside of being friends and fucking occasionally. apparently not.
he reached out to me and has been very kind as i’ve been struggling. i cannot overstate enough that his part of this hurts me more than the other person’s, because i value him as a friend and he is genuinely such a kind person. but he was really confrontational a couple days ago when i told him ellie and i are more formally dating. he seemed angry! he demanded to know why i talked to ellie instead of him… i’ve known him for less than six months. he was clearly upset i wasn’t talking to him.
i apologized and said it wasn’t personal, that ellie has been my friend for almost twenty years, but apparently this didn’t matter. he was upset. i feel so bad. i do. i feel like i have fucked up as a person, sent mixed signals, got his hopes up… i… i hate this. i feel like i could have lost a friend. it hurts.
but also the audacity. the audacity to think he is on the same level of someone that is family to me? he doesn’t know me. he doesn’t know half of what is wrong with me. i keep so much of myself hidden because it’s nasty and hard to deal with — ellie has seen it. my ex has seen it, and i even was talking to him during this period which set CG off. he isn’t entitled to my time or my attention, and he has scared me from being open with people with this behavior. it hurts.
the other person is a guy i met off whisper, and i’ll just call him W.
W & i met shortly after CG and i met. we’ve never met in person like CG and me. W & i had a purely sexual relationship through shared kinks, etc., but we didn’t talk normally all that much. at the time i met him, he knew i wasn’t single. he talked to me three times before the end of the year, then started talking to me more and more after i told him i broke up with my ex.
he’s an interesting person. broken in many ways, but i think he’s cool. i never insinuated that i was interested in a long-term relationship, especially since he’s monogamous. we talked about a sex holiday, though. god forbid i talk about fucking people, i guess.
he’s cut all contact and said it was because i was in a relationship and clearly didn’t want to talk to him. i explained it wasn’t personal, i just didn’t know him that well (and, seriously, we barely talked for months) and that i really wasn’t talking to anyone much. much like CG, he got mad because i was talking to ellie and not him. clearly that meant i wanted nothing to do with him.
i told him i understood and respected him cutting contact, but explained that i did want to talk to him and had been, in fact, talking to him more than some other people. i just still wasn’t feeling well, it wasn’t personal, and that i wanted him to understand that.
i feel so horrible that my lack of contact has clearly hurt people. i never want to hurt anyone.
at the same time, it feels like these two have just been trying to talk to me to be in a relationship with them. it feels predatory. and the fact they both thought they were owed my time during one of the hardest things i’ve gone through as an adult? are you fucking kidding me?
i just want friends. just friends. please.
i’m not sorry i’m a slut. i just need to figure out how the fuck to get it through people’s skulls that sex doesn’t mean anything of importance to me, and if it is something important to them, then don’t fuck me? isn’t it that simple? don’t fuck your friends you don’t want to fuck?? don’t just get involved with someone because you want to fuck? this isn’t rocket science. it still feels like my fault, and i’m still so guilty and hurt that i apparently hurt others.
