Sunday, March 21, 2010

Honesty, Cowardice, Love, and Mea Culpa

If you read the comments on my postings you will see that T has discovered my bog.  I suppose "discovered" is not the right word, since at one time I told him about it, and just forgot.


He has posted a summary of some of the ups and downs of our relationship over the past 2 years at a blog of his own.  (the address is in his comment from yesterday.)


If you ready through it, there are lot's of places where he makes me sound like a total shithead.  Everything he wrote in there is true.  There are one or two places I may see the same event from a different perspective than him, but at it's core, it's all true.

I write this blog for a variety of reasons.  For the past 2 years I have been in a time of high turmoil and I use this forum to help me work stuff out.  Sometimes I just need to vent.  Sometimes I ask questions and some times I just kick around ideas. Sometimes I make up stories.  The point is I write for me and this is my place to say what is on my mind at the time I write it.  Sometimes I feel differently soon after I click "publish".

This blog is not a detailed transcript of my life.  It is a collection of thoughts, opinions, and feeling.

While I have still not spoken to him directly, it is clear he feels I have misrepresented him and perhaps myself in these electronic pages.  I don't want him to feel that way and I don't want anyone to think he is anything other than a really great guy.

If you ready his recap, you will see how he feels and I am not going rehash it or comment on every point he makes.  But as I said before, I think everything he said is accurate from his perspective.  There are some comments I do need to make.  These are in no particular order, just in the order I thought of them.

** I love T.  I still do and that love will continue... forever.  He is without doubt the first person I was every truly IN love with.  I did not even know what "IN love" felt like until I met him.  He loved me in return.  His place in my heart is permanent and unconditional.  Even if we cannot become friends, my love for him continue.  He was right that when we met for the first time, I did not expect to fall in love.  His family situation did not bother me at the time because I met him hoping to find something more like friends with benefits.  (At that time I could not imagine leaving K and coming out as gay.)  As my love grew, I got a lot more.  I got real love.

** One of things I love about T is his sharp clarity and stability.  Like everyone, when faced with a choice he will weigh the options, make a decision and stick to it.  He does not look back. He does not fret over it.  He makes the call and then accepts with the consequences.  Over the past 2 years I have leaned on his clarity and he has helped me tremendously.  I owe him a great deal and I am grateful, even though it may not appear that way sometimes.

** Honesty is important to T.  It is to me too. Sometimes things seem like dishonesty but they are really indecision.  T is very perceptive.  He intuitively knows things about people. In general, I think this is a good trait, but there are some times when he has assumed thing to be true that may or may not be true.

For example, I told T that I had been talking to Internet Guy.  He told me that I liked him.  I agreed.  He said, no, I LIKED him.  At that time I had only considered IG a friend and we talked about every other week or at most once a week.  I insisted that I did not think about IG in that way.  Fast forward a few weeks.  I then find out IG was interested in me.  This opened up an entirely new frame of thinking for me.  I suddenly considered things I had not considered before.  So later when T finds out that I do have feeling for IG, he thought I was deceiving him before.

Maybe he noticed something in my tone of voice, or something else that I did not notice.  Like I said, he is very perceptive.  The problem for me is that now he thinks I was hiding something from him.

**  It is true that the time we had together was very limited.  I was more limited that either he or I would have liked.  I take FULL responsibility  for that.  I know that T when out of this way to make sure that he was available when I could get away.  I also know that some of the time we were together I was pre-occupied with my own turmoil and not focused on where I should have been, on him.

**  I have said before in the this blog that I was a shitty boyfriend.  In the end, what he wanted (of was willing to do) was not compatible with what I wanted.  Which, despite my wishful thinking, we both knew would eventually end our romantic relationship.  If his family situation was different, thing would be different

**  Lots of times when we talked are did not get into the meat of topics.  Primary topics included my problems, things happening at his business, thing happening at my work, some family stuff.  Occasionally he would indulge me with a little talk of politics.  (Politics is topic I really like and he is indifferent, but he brought it up because he knew I liked it.).  Sometimes we would talk about the future and how nice it couple be to sit around the fire-pit he was building at his new house.

More than once he told me there were things we did not talk about.  Thing I did not know about him.  He said we did not have time to explore them, so he did not bring them up.  I wish he had.  I still do.  I want to know the parts of him that he has hidden from me.  I hope one day I will get to see them.

**  Finally, T put up with A LOT of shit from me.  I know that.  He dealt with the turmoil of my life and he absorbed the crap that came with it.  He did not have to do that, but he did.  Most would not have done that.  I may not have done that, but he did.  He did not ask that much from me, but he stood my be.  I think it's important that if I have misrepresented that, I correct the record.

There are many reasons that I love T, there is much to admire about him.  What I am not going to do is have a dueling blog conversation with T about this.  I am not interesting in manipulating anything or anyone, but I am interesting in saving a friendship.  I was thinking about reaching out to T and now he has reached out to me.  (at least I think he has).  I hope that one day we can have a friendship that works for both of us.   Maybe now that this is all out and the stress of trying to hold on to a romantic relationship, we can, over time, build a friendship.


Maybe.  


I have learned recently that we (as people) generally overestimate how much we think other people think the same way as we do.  When I am in my anger stage I need to talk it out.  I need to have the conversation as soon as possible to clear the air and then move on.  I projected that on T and that was not right.  When he told me good bye and then when silent, I really thought that was the time I would from him.  I hoped it was not, but I thought it would be. 

Perhaps when T is in his anger stage, he need quiet time to work it out for himself.

Here is my plan.  Even though this blog is not meant for T, I expect he will read it.  I will however write to him personally (and privately).  I want him to know that I still love and him, and if he is interested, I want to build a friendship with him.  A real one.  I understand that he may want to wait for a time, but when he is ready, I will be here.

1 comment:

T. said...

Thank you, Jim. You finally did something specifically FOR ME. I don't envy you for having found someone that shares a lot of commonality with you, who does bring you happiness. You do know I want that for you. I want and do sacrifice for you. However, as I told you before, you do not need me anymore. My closeted lesbian sister needs me more than ever. I just do have the heart to leave her dwelling in her own loneliness. I'd been through that. We've all been through that. It breaks my heart losing you. And it will break my heart seeing my sister wither away. She has been there for me with every step of my life. I hope one day she will have the courage to come out and find someone for herself. Until then, I can only hope that someone will see the good in me and accept my situation. I love you and always will. I will return as your friend in the near future. I am the type who verbalizes his anger. That is why I do not want to hurt you by directing it to you. I really don't want to invade your privacy. I just needed to see if you would care enough to be honest about our relationship. And you did. For that, I thank you. I promise not to get back on this blog any more so you can share your thoughts with your friends. From now, what they think about me will not matter. Take care, Jim.