Cryptoquote: We Will Walk Together Into The Dark
Sunday, October 3, 2010 at 8:26AM 
I'm a pretty private person. I know that may be surprising considering I write a blog, give my opinion just about everything and have written about intensely personal things, like my battle with Type II Bipolar Disorder, but I always have a virtual modesty wall up online. Sure, there's some windows in that wall. But those windows have blinds that I open and close. Still, writing is my favorite form of release and communication. So sometimes I want to delve into things very personal, but I have to mask them in cryptic language to create plausible deniability for the principles involved.
This is such a post.
I'm considering breaking up with a good friend of mine -- and we are very good friends. And he didn't do anything wrong. He didn't do anything to me. And maybe that's the problem. But for most people, if I broke up with this friend, they wouldn't even notice because I am so private. Most of my other friends don't even really know him, let alone have met him. I never talk about him online. I don't write blog posts about him. He is rarely, if ever, referenced on this site. I don't even think there are pictures of us together as I do my best to keep the people I love out of my work and my work out of the people I love.
A week or so ago I wrote a post about "Riding the Bench In Someone's Love Life." That post was prompted by something he did (namely, acting like my boyfriend when he is not, in fact, my boyfriend). He's not the only man in my life who acts this way, hence I actually had another male friend call me wondering if the post was about him. (The post was only partially about him and I'm a pretty honest person, so there was nothing in that post that he didn't already know because I had told him how I felt.)
In the comments to the post a lot of people got stuck on the "He's not that into you" phenomenon. But this isn't quite my situation. It's for, lack of a better term, complicated. I don't pursue people or relationships with people that aren't beneficial to us both. And post college, I don't really keep a lot of close male friends, mostly because if I like a guy enough to spend obscene amounts of time with him, I want to date him. Not be his road dog.
So I basically have this guy who knows how I feel about him, who just kind of lurks around. Who calls and writes and texts and tweets and status updates and checks in all the time. Who, for the most part, keeps things tight and non-emotional and that's kind of killing me. Mostly because I'm 90 percent emotion and often go back and forth between loving him and wishing him bodily harm for not figuring out that continuing to be so involved in my life, even as a friend, is unbearable to me.
I've had a bad habit in the past of becoming enamored with men who are emotionally unavailable. Who can't reciprocate, often because they're emotionally damaged in some crucial way. These aren't men who are juggling a ton of women or are players because I detest those kind (as friends or romantic partners). Nope. They're a gaggle of frustrated, but focused individuals who aren't dating anyone, or in some cases haven't seriously dated anyone in years, who are essentially using me as their no. 1 source of emotional intimacy. A friend of mine says they've made me their "emotional tampon."
The first time this happened to me I was in high school and I spent three years madly in love with a guy I called my best friend. Our friendship was highly intense, as in he might as well have been my boyfriend, but he, for his own reasons, never made me his girlfriend. I spent a ton of energy in this friendship from age 16 to 19 trying to turn it into a relationship. And I got a relationship, of sorts, but I wasn't his girlfriend and he couldn't/wouldn't let down his guard. When we eventually broke up, mostly because I couldn't take it anymore, it ended with both of us crying and screaming on the phone and him admitting that he was so afraid to lose me as a friend he didn't want to make me his girlfriend for fear that the exact thing that was happening (me breaking up with him) would happen. He was positive he would have ruined the relationship. And ... that was a self-fulfilling prophecy.
It didn't matter that he was in love with me or that he didn't want me to be with anyone else. He couldn't commit to me. And it didn't matter that he loved my family and credited me and my family with "saving his life" when he was struggling with a deep depression. I just couldn't be that girl anymore and not get a commitment back.
I couldn't be his friend.
I promised myself that I would never, ever repeat this situation again. And for the most part, I have not. I've met men I've liked, had crushes on, wanted something more with, but walked away once I saw another situation like the one from before forming. No matter how much I liked the guy, once I realized that he wasn't interested in committing to me, I walked away. I didn't want to be tied up in some dead end that wasn't going to lead to a serious relationship, keeping me from being available to someone who would be willing to open their heart to me.
It depresses me at times, being that I am someone who prefers to be part of a couple, that I have been in a serious relationship so few times. I've had one boyfriend, back in college, and we were long distance. I've been married, but I realize that relationship was more about control than love. I take relationships very seriously. I don't go into them lightly. I don't bounce back from heartache quickly, at all. It took me years to get over my trainwreck of a starter marriage and we were only married a year. (We dated for two.) I date and I get out and meet people, but post-college it's been very hard to maintain any kind of sustained romance with any man.
I guess I don't understand or get these men who try so hard to get my attention, then either freak out the minute I start paying attention or turn me into their BFF rather than date me. They all say the same things. The same things my messed up high school not-boyfriend would say. That I'm such a valued and important friend, in some cases the best friend. How they need me. How they can't imagine life without me. How the want my love and approval. How I'm the first person they want to tell things to. How they want me to be there for important moments in their life. How I'd become an emotional crutch for them and how they have insanely high standards of who they think I should be dating. How they get jealous of hypothetical relationships that don't exist. How they talk about me constantly to their family and friends, spend an insane amount of time with me, travel to see me, make time to see me when they don't have time, reject or exclude other people due to time or circumstance -- but never me.
Honestly, the only difference between the man I'm writing about now and my high school friend is that at least I got to make out with the high schooler. At least we had the passionate immaturity of teenagers, not the practical, formality of adults who understand how inappropriate it is to entertain romantic notions with someone you do not have the ability to commit to. So all my feelings are my own fault, or worse, just something I can't control. I've tried putting this person in a box. I've tried not talking to them. I've tried ignoring them. I've tried disengaging. But the feelings remain. And it really doesn't take much to suck me back in.
Another male friend, this one gay and therefore exempt, once told me that I exuded a certain charm and warmth that compelled people to want to possess it. That there was something irresistible about this urge and he doubted he was the only person who was drawn to me in this way. My mother has the same traits. I get them from her. Although I'd argue that her charm is stronger than mine. She's adored universally, by men, women, children and animals. They all get this urge to talk to her, protect her and be protected by her. She's just a very loved person. This friend also told me that I gave off a healing energy that attracted the emotionally stunted and damaged. Something that was also once told to me by a therapist and a friend who fancied herself an astrologist.
So, if one is to believe in people giving off "energy," (and sometimes I believe this is true and sometimes I don't), I wonder why it only seems to work on those who are fucked up on the inside? After all, I have a very easy time making female friends and the women who've come into my life have been a sliding scale of competency and utterly insane. Yet the men are all different versions of the same stoic guy, crying on the inside, bound by a mixture of fear and "it's complicated." All thinking the key to keeping me in their life forever is to be my friend, but can't seem to settle for a platonic, casual friendship, but want all the time and intensity of a girlfriend without the romantic portion.
At the opposite end of this are the men who recognize how much they like me immediately, like my ex-husband, and stop at pretty much nothing to get me to commit to them. If they have to lie, they'll lie. If they have to stand at my doorstep and reenact scenes from tragic romantic comedies, they will do it. They will risk it all and break their neck as if they're afraid that the minute they stop dancing I will notice how woefully ill-matched we are. These are the ones who want to get married after the first date and treat me like they just discovered water in a vast desert.
Unfortunately, I typically don't want these men either because they, more often than not, are incredibly emotionally damaged too and think I'm the sudden magic cure to the gaping holes in their hearts.
There is so much darkness in the world. It's understandable that you don't want to go into that dark alone. I don't like wandering alone in it either. But I want more. I don't want half a person or part of a person, or everything but that one thing. I want it all. And I'll unlock the doors and take down the walls and give you the keys to everything, but you've got to put in to get what I put out. I want to walk in the dark together. I want to face the fears together. I want to make the dreams come true together. I want to build, but you can't even follow through. So I keep struggling in the dark, alone, and I fight the war, alone and I walk, alone. And you keep saying you're there, but, let's be honest, you're really not. And I keep saying don't act like you care when you don't. And you ask me how I could say that, how I could accuse you about not caring when it's obvious that you care. But you really don't care. At least not enough to take that risk. And you worry about losing me, but my loss is a near guarantee the minute I meet the one who will walk into that darkness with me. And you'll end up alone anyway. The one thing that you feared more than anything. There will always be part of me that will care and part of me that will be there. But it won't be the same.
You can't pay me back for my everything with a polite thank you. And a stare. And silence. And, lastly, nothing. That infinite nothing I keep staring at, thinking you're a Sphinx when everything I ever wanted to know was there and obvious from the beginning. You're not deep, you just don't have anything to say. You're not that complicated, just afraid. You say you don't know what you want, but you do know and it's not me. So don't act like it.
Years after my high school romance was dead and gone I wrote a poem/song about it. I've never performed it. (Back when I sang with a jazz musician in California most of the songs/poems I performed were more political than personal.) It very much mirrors my current situation and as I debate breaking up with my friend I'll share it with you.
It was called "Change."
I ran across the desert
I came across a fallen star
He was out there mourning
For a galaxy afar
He said he came from heaven
He was a satellite, you see
He longs to get back there
But he’s stuck here with me
We ran to the lights of Las Vegas
We gambled every dime
We won a million dollars
Then lost it all on number nine
I told him I build him a space ship
To take us to Galilee
But he lied, he was banned from heaven
For not believing in mercy
You want to say you love me
But I want you to change
But you can’t change a person
You can only rearrange
Your conflicting feelings
Tell me how you really feel
If this time is forever
How come it’s not real?
He said that he was thirsty
I brought him a glass half full
He drank until it was half empty
Then jumped in the hotel swimming pool
He shouldn’t have jumped in there
He did not know how to swim
He drank too much liquor
Now the water’s done him in
I ran into a Bob
He told me I was going to jail
I didn’t really hear him
Thought he said I was going to hell
I told him I almost saw heaven
Because I once loved a star
And now he’s back floating up there
Where ever the stars are
The books have all been read
And the library is closed
There is no next chapter
Only the end, I suppose
Look now, I’m no pessimist
But my glass is all empty
And I cannot fill it up
There’s no water left for me
I emptied out the oceans
I swept up all the sands
I dusted off the memories
I dried up all the land
I turned out the very last light
In the very last home
I’ve killed off all my little darlings
Now I'm finally alone
You want to say you love me
But I want you to change
But you can't change a person
You can only rearrange
Your conflicting feelings
Tell me how you really feel
If this time is forever
How come it's not real?
Reader Comments (5)
I onced loved a man like the one you describe. He gave me everything, but the very thing I wanted and needed -- committment. It was a long five years until I figured out that we were never meant to be. If he would've thought so, then I probably would have too. Shame on me for believing in us. I was just a fool like the rest of 'em.
Hope is a strange thing. It can make us give into an illusion. When I finally realized that nothing was real, it came to me that I had to go through it, so that I would never go through it again.
Hang in there My Sister.
girl..i feel ya pain. i have never been in your position, but i have been in the guy's. i was the one always throwing dudes in the "friend" category when they wanted more. it was most defintely out of fear of being hurt. it was a way of "breaking up with them before they break up with me" kind of thinking. however (as i got older) i realized life is about risk and taking chances. all that keeping people at a distance will just leave you alone.
maybe you should get some distance from him for a little while, maybe, then, he will realize what he is missing out on.
(LOVED the poem by the way!)
I always find myself in these situations. I am always questioning myself wondering why am I not good enough to get the girlfriend status. Im always showered with accolade... smart, beautiful, funny, savvy but never girlfriend. I understand how you feel on so many levels. I guess I am trying to get to the end of my rainbow. All the self help books in the world can't helpm and what I hate the most is when people blame me for the circumstance.... maybe they are right. We do set the boundaries in a relationship, but where is the responsibility for those who take advantage of our warm loving nature?
...its like you tore a page of my life walk :) Its a painful but necessary surgery that needs to be done for your own well-being....
It was not a coincidence that I came across this post today.. your interview on NPR is what lead me here and boy was I in for a treat!!! In response to this particular entry, I personally feel that I've "ridden the bench" (in a sense) for a friend of mine for the past two years. We are both highly-driven professionals with strong family values and both seem to light up like Christmas trees when we're around each other...but the time we've shared has mainly been in the company of just the two of us. Few of my family and friends even know this man exists and they won't unless he shows me that he truly wants me to be active in his life.
To make matters worse, we planned to meet this week at his home just before the holiday to catch up over a nice meal...then I get a text the day of our planned meeting saying that a relative of his was coming into town to stay over with him... could we reschedule. Hmmm? I wasn't buying it and even if it were true..the thought kept coming to mind..did he just say that he doesn't want me to meet his family (although he's constantly saying his family would love me)? So rather than pawn over it I respectfully made my own plans and expressed to him that I simply could not "reschedule". I may not have been 100% fair in that particular situation but I just felt in that moment, enough was enough. I've learned that we all as humans tend to make time for the things we truly want in this life and I've realized that I simply want more and the cycle of "good enough" simply has to stop.
Thank you Danielle for your courage and honesty in sharing your experiences with us. Because of your story those of us with similar situations -who can truly identify with you- never have to feel that we're walking alone.