Mercury rising. In which I get to sound off about SO many things.

For the record. I don't share either.

Humans are animals. With survival drives. We have instincts that go against the grain of 'civilised' society. Sometimes when we react to something we forget to look at that bigger picture, and see what wasn't done. The lengths gone to, to avoid breaking the rules of society. We only see what was.

Caution: this is a demented rant, caused by specific incidents. I have left out the names, though I really hope that they recognise themselves in it. I'm angry, so it'll womble about all over the place.

It shouldn't really be news to anyone, and yet somehow everyone seems surprised by it when it rears its ugly head and causes trouble: being in a relationship doesn't stop other people from being interesting to you. This basic truism is at the back of so many relationship fails it's almost hilarious. If I hadn't been bitten by it myself, more times than I care to remember. If you're genuinely happy and comfortable in your relationship it'll probably stop you from doing any more than just looking. But if you happen to meet someone that you 'click' with it can all get quite tricky. I guess there's a lot of people who would say, when that happens you should just back away from this new person so things can't get awkward. I feel differently about it. Being a socially awkward (let's just not talk about that statement right now o.k., I'll be doing enough baring of my soul without adding my social dysfunction in) nerdy type with major trust issues, I don't 'click' with all that many people. So having found someone with whom I share common interests, someone who's company I enjoy - I'd rather work at making it into something that is acceptable, than throw it away just because stupid hormones are getting all up in my grill to begin with. With all the other things we can do with our brains and our 'hearts', turning a love interest into a friend shouldn't be all that much to ask.

Of course, there's this complication. Jealousy. Trust. Guilt: Stupid. Irrational. Emotions. This is what has happened to me, and two people I care about. Bringing new people into your life is normal. I mean generally normal, I never claimed to be normal myself. I have this awkward situation now: a nice man whom I generally get along with much better than I do with other folk wandered into my life. On top of enjoying his company and the lame-ass banter we engage in, I am attracted to him. The feeling is somewhat mutual. But he has a girlfriend, so we agreed that we will just be friends and began to work on that (which I derp'd up any number of times – socially dysfunctional, remember?). But like it or not it is fairly apparent to less casual observers that we have complicated feelings. I knew that. To a more denial riddled extent he knew that. But to others it probably looked a bit like we were dancing around each other (we were, just not in the way that many people would have assumed). We were working at being friends. Which, of course, I make very hard because I like being affectionate with the people I care most about.

I don’t know exactly what happened, and I can’t find out for fear of making it worse. But some combination of bad things has blown up in our faces, and I am left standing over here feeling cold and alone. And angry, which I feel justified in, merely for the lack of decent communication. Is it too much to ask that one of them actually tell me what happened? Apparently. I’m angry that it seems that bad things are being given more weight than good. Jealousy is a terrible thing, I remember when it would rear its ugly head with my last partner - I would fight with myself over the rationality of it all. Oddly, I often thought that it wasn’t really him I didn’t trust but other people. There’s so much wrong with that train of thought. Did I think he was incapable of saying no? Possibly, given that our relationship didn’t start all that tidily. All of the reason I will never be a part of someone cheating again is tied up in that time. Maybe I thought that if he’d stray for someone as boring as me, what chance did I have that some other bird wouldn’t pull him? Low self esteem is also a killer. I actually think that my crappy self esteem was behind my ‘stealing’ him in the first place. To prove I could. That’s pretty fucking LAME when it comes down to it. It’s not like that this time. I’m not interested in stealing him, I accept that this is not one I can have – which is why it’s kind of blown all my circuits to have it all ripped out from under me.

While this time I am kind of writing about something that has happened to me. Explaining to my friends why I’m being such a giant headcase at the moment. Getting the angry and sad thoughts out of my head, because I don’t want them in my head any more. I’m also using it as a tool for wanking on about a pair of subjects near to my heart (such as it is). Communication, and the ways we deal (or don’t deal) with infidelities.

So there’s this theory, I’m not going to get into the boring details of what led to me thinking in this direction – here it is, the way I think maybe I see it. Civilisation happened because of women. Male survival imperative (you know, sleep with ALL THE WOMEN so your genetic material ‘goes long’) (yeah, I do love to throw in an inappropriate sports metaphor from time to time, what of it?), anyway, male survival imperative is not well suited to the way our society works. Buying a house, settling down with one partner, turning into a jealous monster every time anyone so much as looks at your partner, that’s all female survival imperative (find the best source of genetic material you can and hang on to him for dear life). Sometimes I wonder how any man manages to stick with it. And sometimes I feel bad for the ones who fail and are hung up to dry without any thought about what really happened. Cheating seldom happens in a vacuum. The whole thing would make a great deal more sense to me if civilisation had grown from a matriarchy. If women owned the homes and men could wander from place to place satisfying their seed spreading desires. The idea of where that might have led interests me a great deal. What would society be like if we had started on that footing. Different.

From the perspective of community structures and social nicety, fidelity: marriage: altruism, even love make sense. In a society where property ownership and stable family equal status it makes sense to settle down with one person, build a family, have a legacy to pass on. But our animal instincts sometimes rebel against it. Sometimes the wolf inside me sees an ‘upgrade’ and just wants to go get me some of that genetic material. It’s a decision based on community ethics to not go nail him. When you’re faced with your partner tripping at that hurdle it’s next to impossible to see past your own pain and sense of betrayal to realise that it probably doesn’t mean what you think it means. It’s easy to get caught up in the ‘you bastard’ (or bitch, whatever) part of it and not go looking for more. Who wants to take the time to disassemble when it’s still a raw wound? But after you’ve told him to ‘get the fuck out’ it’s probably a bit late to bother. Do it anyway, it'll help you next time.

A long time ago, I did a small study into boundary setting within relationships. I had a feeling that people were ‘doing it wrong’ and I wanted to see if I could come up with plausible explanations for some of our stupider failings. A lot of people don’t really talk about the boundaries in their relationships. It’s sort of tacitly assumed that if you cheat you might as well not bother coming home and that’s all you need to know. But if you also assume that we have to fight our programming to NOT cheat then doesn’t it make sense to have actually TALKED about this? I realise that serious conversation with your partner is a hard concept to wrap your head around. But I have this feeling that if you actually love them then it’s in your best interests to know what your relationship is about.

The results of the study I did were interesting, well interesting to me, in that the way  men and women felt were quite different. I guess D’uh is the thing to say here. I mean it’s pretty obvious really that men and women have different interests within a relationship. As much as it’s a terrible generalisation that I wish wasn’t even a bit true, men are less interested in the emotional side of the relationship. I have to say I have a strong suspicion that a lot of that is nurture rather than nature. Boys don’t cry, right? And boys aren’t huggy (or they’re a poof) and boys don’t say I love you (or they’re a poof) and boys don’t make spontaneous romantic gestures (or they’re a poof). Sorry, but apparently I prefer my men a tad ‘poofy’. (As an aside I’d like to note that I find this whole ‘or you’re a poof’ bit very weird. My gay friends have basically the same range of behaviours as my straight friends. The only difference is the direction of their sexual attraction. Feel free to call me gay. It isn’t an insult.) All my best male friends, they’re all emotionally kind of broken. They find it difficult to express their ‘nicer’ feelings openly without feeling embarrassed. It’s ok to be an angry stupid douchebag, but telling your best friend you love them is totally out of order (unless you’re both really fucking drunk). That makes me sad for them. It’s nice to be able to tell someone that you care about how you feel, it feels nice for you AND it feels nice for them. The worst part about it is that I don’t tell them that I love them very often, because I know it makes them feel awkward. Except Mr. Chips, I can say I love you to him as often as I want. He's been repaired.

Sometimes the decisions we make when judging a situation don't make a lot of sense. Sometimes when we see someone we care about do something that hurts us we assume that we are the victim, and therefore someone else has to take the blame. Someone else is responsible. Sometimes it's a lot more complicated than that. And more often than not, where we put the blame isn't the only place it can go. Actions can have far reaching consequences, and the decision you make in the face of hurt and anger can lead to exactly the thing you want to avoid.

I'm not going to name names, I'm going to point a finger or two but without names most of the world can bugger off and get their gossip somewhere else.

Finger pointing: If you're going to distrust your partner, how about doing it properly and not then just believing whatever line of BS they feed you to get themselves off the hook. Either you trust them or you don't, if you don't, there's probably a reason why not. Not necessarily because they haven't earned that trust, my trust is very hard to earn (these days) the baggage I carry around with me makes me untrusting by default. If I don't trust someone, it may not be anything at all to do with them, but just that the situation is raising old monsters. As Doctor House regularly says, people LIE. Most people will, if a quick lie gets them out of immediate hot water, just lie and hope you move on without questioning it. If you got as far as not trusting them in the first place: QUESTION IT. Because that feeling of distrust you had right there, it isn't going to go away when your love tells you it was all a misunderstanding. Something else will happen and the distrust that was lurking will jump up and have another go. Because that's pretty much how it works. The bit of you that loves your partner WANTS to believe, but the bit of you that distrusts them (for whatever reason, be it your hang up or their behaviour) doesn't. That bit wants PROOF. And it doesn't go away just because the loving part of you is all happy again.

My back up for this opinion is simple. I was stupidly, blindly, in love. And every time I felt distrust for him, I would ask him about whatever it was and he would tell me whatever would make me stop asking. He would be just contrite enough, mixed with just ‘innocent’ enough that I would back away from the whole thing. No matter what my screaming trust beast was yelling at me, because the love monster’s desire to believe in this all consuming love was louder than the trust beast. I should have listened to my instincts. Because he was a lying cheating miserable bastard who will ALWAYS tell the easy lie. (/bitterness) So I can still love someone, even in the moment that their betrayal is crashing down around my ears, even when I know it's stupid. Even when I know I want nothing to do with them ever again. I wish I had questioned that douchebag's bullshit much earlier than I did. I might have saved myself a lot of angst. And things would be very different now.

And your own douchebag’s bullshit might not be nearly so terrible. In fact I’m pretty sure it isn’t. As much I’m sure there are worse bastards out there than mine, he is kind of in a league of his own. And for the longest time he could do no wrong in my eyes.

So, these people behind this, here’s what I think is going on. One thinks she's confrontational, but isn't - not about the things that matter. The other knows he avoids confrontation and knows that it's stupid but does very little about it. Doomed. And not for the reason they think. But it doesn’t have to be. Getting angry about stuff is not the same as confronting it. Smoothing things over (especially with bullshit) is not the same as dealing with it. So I think that she got mad, and he placated her to avoid the fight. And chucked me under the bus, it would seem. Not just me actually, but I’m not dragging anyone else through the mud with me. I’m having a miserable time, fuck making someone else go there.

Oh looky, we’ve come back to my favourite bugbear. Fucking communication. So many people SUCK at it, and it is so very important. If you have a problem in your relationship your choices are: ignore it, which will lead to either a relationship ending or a relationship turning into a stagnant pool of enduring. Fun. Or you can talk about it. Hey I’m not suggesting it’s a panacea that will instantly cure your relationship. Hell, talking about it could also lead to the relationship ending. But if it does then it would most likely be because you realised the problem was insurmountable. But if it leads to compromise, or some other real fix then you’ll both be happier for it.

Peace. Out.

* I'm not meaning to suggest that only men cheat, I couldn't possibly {hangs head in shame}

** I was going to include a complete history of what actually did and didn't happen with this guy, but you know what - that's nobody's business but mine and his and hers, she can ask me if she wants. I will pull no punches and I think she'll feel better for hearing it. It dawned on me that anyone else who read it would only doing so in the hopes of juicy details (or because for some bizarre reason they enjoy my writing and hope that it might be a 'good' story). If you want juicy details you only have to search 'soft porn stories' and you'll find everything you wanted and a whole lot you probably didn't. The bonus of this is it cuts this diatribe down to about 2800 words instead of a somewhat brain numbing 5000. 

A matter of trust.

In the past I've had trust broken. Smashed. MUNTED. It's not been an easy thing rebuildng it, I still have a very long way to go.

I have also been a part of breaking someone elses trust. For which I am still unable to forgive myself. It's not a mistake I intend to repeat.

I'm borrowing heavily in quotes from Billy Joel's song "A Matter of Trust", because some of the lines are outrageously fitting.

Trust, if it's broken, it's the hardest thing in the world to repair.

Every positive relationship in your life is built on trust. From the relationships you have with your family, your friends, your co-workers right through to the relationship you have with your partner.

In the course of your life, it's pretty much bound to get broken a few times. If you're lucky it won't be the all-consuming 'oh my god my life is OVER' wangst overload of betrayal that many get to endure. Or maybe not, because I'm pretty sure that the rage filled angst of several years of recovery from such an event has made me a much better person. Certainly one who is infinitely less likely to be willing to inflict that feeling on anyone else.

Sometimes we walk into a relationship carrying the baggage of previous angst filled experiences. Trust is broken before we even start. Sometimes our new relationship doesn't deserve that trust (looks at the ground and turns slightly pink), but often it has nothing at all to do with the new but is all about the past. Hardly fair, but also hardly surprising. We are creatures built of our pasts. We are the sum total (and more) of our learning experiences. If some of those experiences left us raw, it's hardly surprising when that affects our future decisions.

"...You can't go the distance
With too much resistance..."

Too true Billy. It's ok to walk into a new situation with a certain amount of trepidation. Pretty normal actually. But if it continues to be an issue it will eventually become a thorn. At some point you have to relax and accept the new situation. If you can't trust someone, what are you doing with them anyway? Is it something they're doing or is it you?

"...I can't offer you proof
But you're going to face a moment of truth..."

In every new relationship there will at some time come a leap of faith. When you can jump with both feet from the precipice and cross your fingers. If you fail at this hurdle the time has come to ask yourself, why? What stopped me from jumping? I can't tell you to jump. I won't tell you to jump. But I will tell you that knowing why you didn't might just save you a whole lot of angst, hurt and time wasted. Time wasted? Yep. Because if you know that the reason why you didn't jump is because you just can't trust the other person, then you can pull the rip cord now. Get out now. Before it comes to the bitter recriminations part of the play. Here I really do know that of which I speak. I have been the one yelling 'well if you can't bloody trust me WHAT IS THE POINT?!!?' The one who has decided 'fuck it, if he's going to believe I'm betraying him right, left and centre I might as well at least be enjoying it.' Which is incidentally the point at which I should have left. Having figured out that he was never going to believe me no matter what I did, I should have pulled that rip cord and got the hell out of dodge. But I let 'but, I love you' sway me. He didn't love me, he wanted to trap me. He wanted me to belong to him, that isn't love.

"...Some love is just a lie of the soul
A constant battle for the ultimate state of control..."

If you need your partner to do it your way all the time, you are... DOING IT WRONG!
Your partner comes to you with their own needs. Their own background. Their own friends. Their own baggage. Trying to make them fit into your life and leave none of their own - well actually it makes no sense to me. By all means, involve them in things you do if they want to. But at the same time involve yourself in their life where they want you to. Sure I hope you like my friends. I also hope your friends like me. But making you trash your friends because YOU'RE WITH ME NOW! That's actually pretty sick. If you like someone, why are you so hell-fired to change them? Sure in every relationship there is a bit of giving up of stuff. In a reasonable world this works from both sides. Because: News Flash, NO ONE IS PERFECT. Those irritating little flaws of theirs? You have flaws equally as irritating. If you want them to be willing to give up something of theirs, doesn't it actually make sense to go to the table willing to give up something of your own? You don't have to be a selfish bastard. As much as we are kind of preprogrammed to it, we don't HAVE TO be dicks.

"...Some love is just a lie of the mind
It's make believe until its only a matter of time..."

Sometimes we invent a relationship that isn't even really there. I'm a hopeless romantic, I invent stuff all the time. The trick is knowing that it's just an invention. Your partner is who they are, not what you pretend they are. If what they are isn't enough for you - or is just plain not right for you. Leave. Now. Yes, I am a cynical bitch. Now, LEAVE. Before everybody gets hurt. This has been your *rip the bandaid off* moment for today.
Sometimes we even invent feelings we aren't actually having. I have been known to wonder if, if we pretend long enough does it become the reality? Maybe sometimes it does. But I think more likely it just becomes the status quo. A stale relationship that doesn't even mean anything but is easier to be in than to get out of. Wow. I am just MADE of cynicism. Which leads me to...

"...Some love is just a lie of the heart
The cold remains of what began with a passionate start..."

Happens all the time. Fireworks in the sky, turn to damp squibs when left under the staircase. This is not a reference to Harry Potter. Not all staircases are ones the Chosen One has lived under, and not all squibs are the magically under endowed.

"...And they may not want it to end
But it will it's just a question of when..."

Relationships often sputter and die. Just as often we stick with the cold ashes, because they're comfortable. Or because chucking them out is really uncomfortable. Sooner or later you would be well advised to chuck those things away. Because you both deserve better. You remember that feeling of joy at just being with that someone special? Do you then remember the joy it gave you to know that you made the other person feel that way? Doesn't that other person still deserve to feel that way? Don't you? There is a feeling of 'giving up' about the whole idea, that I don't think is very healthy. Sometimes it actually IS better to give up, move on and try again. For everybody. Settling for OK is all very well and good I suppose, but can't I have AWESOME instead? Just chucking Miss Cynicism out the door for a sec, OK sometimes there is a time to stick with it too. Recognising the difference is another one of those save-you-a-lot-of-grief moments.

"...I know you're an emotional girl
It took a lot for you to not lose your faith in this world..."

I've wandered away from the issue of trust a bit. Gosh imagine, ME, wandering off topic. Pfft.
I actually DID lose my faith in this world. And it took quite a lot of unusual things for me to gain even a small piece of it back. It took a ridiculously decent man, a ridiculously shy man, and a lot of rediscovering the concept of fun. I am still extremely gun shy. It may not appear so to the untrained eye. But if you were paying attention you might notice that with very very VERY limited exceptions I am only letting people get close who were ALREADY close. Whom I already trust, and who have given me no reason to doubt them. There was a dark patch for a while there were even those (un)lucky few wouldn't have got close. I trusted no one. Except Kitty. At no point in any of this did I allow myself to fail my relationship with her. She is a fairly amazing kid. Yes, I know I'm duty bound to say that or some shit. No actually, even with my kid I call a spade a spade. She is an amazing kid. Possibly a little jaded in places - for her age, she didn't come out of the angst pit without scars either. In fact I should be saying an amazing young lady. A child she is, no longer. She has been a large part of the restoring of my faith in the people around me. And she's very very good for me. Because she too calls a spade a spade. She pulls me up when I'm being excessively dick-like.

"...It's hard when you're always afraid
You just recover when another belief is betrayed..."

It really is. And this is what it felt like. I was always afraid, of every new situation. And the slightest setback was like a whole new betrayal. I'm still a bit afraid. Just not as much, and I'm more willing to fight to overcome the fear. In certain circumstances anyway. In a couple of cases, I am quite deliberately letting fear drive. Because the alternative is. Not better. Thanks for that line Jorma.
So, what am I getting at? I don't fucking know. Think twice before you entirely ass up a relationship with your selfish disregard? Possibly something like that, but really I'm mostly just getting stuff off my brain. As is often the case with these outbursts.

"...So break my heart if you must
It's a matter of trust..."

The heart you fool around with belongs to another human being.
Don't be a dick.

Peace. Out.