Monday, November 21, 2016

Social Isolation

My parents have been staying with me for a long time, and when they left I felt a sudden slump in motivation which led me to reflect on social isolation as the cause of my recent sadness.

When I talked about being collateral damage in other peoples' mid life crises what I really was, in both cases was a victim of deliberate social isolation. Through some sort of weird power trip, through negligence or through sheer self-centredness these two feature relationships of 2016 had the effect of locking me out of something and making me feel shit about myself. Both built me up and then knocked me down.

But coincidentally, these particular scenarios apart, when I am socially engaged I feel more motivated. This I guess is just a hangover from our tribal roots. I need to feel part of the tribe. So whether this has anything to do with my relationship woes or not. At least it keeps me from brooding a bit and acts as a salve to my bruised ego in these hard days.

Tuesday, October 18, 2016

The functional face of love

www.childrensplace.com

Simon came from a family of four boys. It was a functional but undemonstrative family, and a family that didn't share its feelings.  The closest thing my mother in law got to sentimentality was to recall how at the start of each school year there were four sets of clean school shoes laid out (by her) on the bottom step. Yes, she did  a great job. She raised four polite and ostensibly functional boys.

George was also one of four boys, from a military family, sent off  boarding school with,  I imagine, a similar crisp sense of proper grooming and behaviour. Like Simon's family one or other of them have suffered with mental health issues from time to time.

Despite the intimacies George and I shared online the reality of him was one of functional, polite, respectful base-covering kindness with really no personal connection whatsoever, and it suited him to keep it that way. "I've left a bottle of cold wine in the fridge", "Stay as long as you like".

Somehow I see a common root in these two men with whom I tried to get close. A perhaps peculiarly English need to not show emotion and to soldier on. Both men are quite patently vulnerable inside but bury it so deep as to deny its existence. Further  they chose to somehow shut down when I show my own vulnerabilities. Even to the point of mocking me for the (to them) weakness of showing my feelings.  I first thought of this post back in August, but I was reminded somewhat of the sentiment again by Alain de Botton on "How to be warm".  A lesson they could perhaps both take.

Wednesday, October 05, 2016

A gift maybe

This is a stock photo of Rick Moranis from firsttoknow.com. I picked him because he's kind of a regular looking (if a bit goofy) sort of  a guy.

Anyway this couple I  know split up lately, And the guy who is goofy and middle aged is taking it very badly. He messages her all the time and she can't handle it so she took to ignoring him.

So he's started texting me to try to find out what she's up to. The trouble is I know he had a bit of a thing for me before they went out, and I don't fancy him. No not even  a little bit.

But I am caught in this little trap. It is rude to ignore him so I send non-commital polite little responses and he sends me more. He likes every darn thing I post on facebook. Even I feel a bit smothered and I am not and have never been in a relationship with him, And eventually I put him on a restricted list so he can't see what I post and I muted his messenger contact so he can't see when I'm on line.

Maybe this is a little tutorial from the stars. In fact it was followed by a tutorial from Alain de Botton which to my mind is pretty much on the same subject. When George said "You've put me on a pedestal" I swear I had not, but this is how he saw it.

I never tried to insinuate myself back into George's life by contacting his friends. And our friendship did start off quite a bit more promising than this guy (lets call him Rick) and I did.

But how I am feeling about Rick must at some point have been how George began to feel about me. Right. I can't handle this, she's goofy and way too into me and I am going to put her on semi permanent hold. But Ill try to be civil with her.

The funny thing is we never were lovers, Or friends either once he realized he didn't fancy me as much as .. let's call her Juanita. But in the interstitial space between love sex and acquaintance there was a time when he was there for me and took an interest in my life.

So I guess Rick is lonely. Probably looking for a replacement,

You would've thought if I was lonely and wanting someone to be interested in my life there would've been plenty of places to look. but female friendship doesn't quite cut it. My mum and my son's care and attention do.

So this I guess is the odd little gift. The gift of being placed in George's shoes.  I still hope for contact from George but, looking at Rick I know there is not one single thing he could say or do that would make me want to draw him into my inner circle. That's not because he's a bad guy, or that there is anything wrong with him. I just don't want to encourage him. The same applies to me. there is basically nothing I can do to change the way George feels even about friendship. That kinda stinks since we were never lovers. Its almost as though even having designs on him at some stage has ruled me out as a friend.


Tuesday, September 27, 2016

Unresolved Loss

This blog is almost 10 years old, and has been a private affair for most of that time. It has been almost like a diary. I recently took the bold step of registering for the Mumsnet bloggers network. There has been a modest increase in traffic since then. Hello new people! I have also really enjoyed reading your blogs, especially those in the sex and relationships category where, apparently, I0naFi0na belongs. However, I must apologize on one account. You have walked in on an interesting time in my life. There has also been an upsurge in my posting, but this has been all around an intense and frustrating love-affair which has resulted in unresolved loss. Before I go on though, a bit of history. This blog, and I have traveled an uneasy path through

Autism
Mental health
Infertility
IVF
Divorce
Infidelity
(Yep in that order)
Sex Addiction
Single parenting and now belatedly
Love and
Grief


I am concerned that my new audience will find a self-centred, preoccupied middle aged woman in the throes of a mid-life crisis over a ridiculous self-centred toff who somehow needed to exert power over her, or use her to massage his own ego, or as a stop-gap on the road to his own relationship nirvana.

Also my recent post about how to get over a break up was unique to me, it was bespoke as it were. There are many more qualified to help you through break ups. But one element which I suspect is quite common in divorce in particular is, as I mentioned above, unresolved loss. This is exemplified by the case of someone who goes missing. The family are not able to grieve their death and continue to live in hope indefinitely which is painful.

My particular florid - but ultimately non existent  love affair is a case of this. Grief does not have to occur as a result of bereavement, there are many other life experiences that cause it. And there are also many great resources to help with grief. So the unique and heady mix of quasi-break up, unresolved grief and other unresolved issues I didn't know I had have resulted in a unique footprint which I have been moved to address in writing. In fact what I have been doing in the last 15 posts or so is, as grief recovery method advises, completing some unfinished emotional business  even the triggering reminders when I am trying not to think about this person are common in grief as well, and what I need to do is build an accurate memory picture. And again from grief recovery method


"We must grieve and complete our relationship to the person as well as to our relationship with the pain we generate when we think about or are reminded of the person. And, we must grieve and complete our unmet hopes and dreams and expectations. You must become willing to re-experience some of the painful events, and finally communicate what you would have said had you been allowed to, or if you had known how. It may seem frightening to root around where there has been so much pain. Perhaps it would be more helpful to be frightened of the alternative, a life of restriction and limitation caused by staying incomplete. The alternative of keeping the pain forever, of trying not to remember, of trying to avoid any circumstances or events that remind you of that person. Many people today talk of giving away your power. There is no clearer or more painful example of that then to have your life's actions and reactions ruled by the painful memories of someone who is no longer here."

As the author Russell Friedman says, even if the person you are grieving is still alive, you need to complete your part of the relationship, That living person won't change, they will probably carry on being just who they are, but you need to live a life of meaning not limited by painful reminders.

Clearly George was able to process and dismiss his role in the "relationship" quite easily, probably with the aid of  his own personal narrative which I can only guess at but might have been something like "Oh it was only a bit of harmless flirting, I didn't expect her to take it so seriously. I was only being gentlemanly when I asked her to come to stay. I thought it was better to tell her face to face about the real love of my life. Anyway I think she got the message she hasn't contacted me lately"

So my narrative which is emerging through months of tortured blog posts is something like "He was in a difficult place, he may even have not been in his right mind, he probably liked me at the time, he essentially got a better offer and was too cowardly to tell me, I think I massaged his ego and saw him through a difficult time. I also think from my point of view I imbued the friendship with a lot of other things I shouldn't have. Conflating all the things we have in common, even probably down to temperament, as implicit reasons that we are right for each other, getting my hopes up of righting some of the wrongs of my teens and early twenties and returning to my country of origin feeling a desperate need to keep this emblem of all I was looking for (or thought I was looking for) in a man, in my life. There will never be another like that. Well there may never be, but by his very actions he has proved that this particular emblem may not, in fact, be what is good for me. He was like a drug for me, and it has taken a long time to come down and process the withdrawal"

It was like anticipating a trip to a colorful market and finding it closed on arrival





Monday, September 19, 2016

What can't be cured must be endured


Between about the ages of 6 and 10 my dad was out of town studying, and my mother was working full time. My mum hired an old family friend to look after us for a very cheap price. She was as old as my grandmother and full of homespun wisdom. She smelt of tea and talcum powder and she looked something like a wizened old version of this Disney character. She had set of neat but ill fitting false teeth. My feelings towards her were neutral. You might think the tea and talc remark implied motherly cuddles and nurturing but it wasn't like that at all. My older brother was her clear favorite and they would gang up on me to make me do things (or that is how it felt). She was full of home spun wisdom and I couldn't stand it. She actually made my flesh creep a bit (unfairly really) but being the child of a rather down at heel family at the time I didn't want to hear about make do and mend. I didn't want my expansive world to be narrowed down with platitudes about "what can't be cured must be endured". Hell No!! what can't be cured must be the catalyst for change. Or the trite and superficially diplomatic assertion that "it takes all sorts to make a world"...when I ventured a less than complimentary remark about a friend. It all just seemed so cloying and unimaginative.
But since my world has now narrowed so utterly as I said before I am beginning to have more sympathy with this woman and her cliches. She was one of those who never married because all the available men were killed in the war. She had lived in Nazi occupied France on the 1940s and contracted polio which had left her with three permanently curled fingers, but still she managed to knit. She lived in a very meager fashion and was really dirt poor and doing us a favour. So I have to give her  posthumous pardon for her apparently small thinking. She was just surviving. She really did have to make the best of a bad lot and remain cheerful, and stay on good terms with people,  and if that annoyed me for its narrow mindedness well, I guess I had a lot to learn.

Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Bold Lavender and Camomile



I'd put my bag down and unpacked
mindlessly
returning to the humdrum life
ceaselessly
But early one morning
wordlessly,
my clock opposed to yours,
I opened a drawer
and from it emanated the smell...
[well thank you Procter and Gamble]
the smell of your laundry
I was transported
to your home
your bed
a time of expectation
and hope
a time where I loved
more freely than I had
before
prompted by nothing
but the ticking clock
that smell
evoked the un-lived promise of
decades of
separation
from myself.

Thursday, September 08, 2016

Summary 1 How to deal with rejection/break up

I dont know if I'm an authority from having gone through this latest "break up" at such a late stage in life. I know it was at least as emotionally impactful, if not more so, than those where I have been in a sexual relationship.

A few things have comforted me along the way which I would like to summarize. In the order they came to me.

(1) I'm not mad. The worst thing that you can do is turn it in on yourself. Blame yourself. Make yourself ridiculous. There was something there, you did not imagine it.
(2)You only had the information available to you at the time. How could you make decisions on partial data?
(2) Sometimes a good cliche can work wonders.
(3) Find a metaphorical place to put things if they get too much for you. As they come in, just pack 'em tell yourself you can look later
(4) Sometimes in love (and life) you are just in the wrong place at the wrong time and become collateral damage
(5) Give yourself time
(6) You expected something lovely and you got a shit storm no wonder you are angry/lost/disappointed/hurt
(7) Referring back to (1) don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. Just because you hate what happened you don't hate everything around it
(8) And today's new one "Honor It" It relates to (1). People will say Bah! it wasn't love, it was infatuation, he's a wanker/bastard/fool etc, but the fact remains it meant something to you. To say "yes that's right it was an idiotic folly" is to make yourself ridiculous. And I had never felt that way before about anyone even my husband. So be it mid-life folly, delusion, or weird mind control from a capricious overlord.You are allowed your feelings.

Saturday, September 03, 2016

A fly in the ointment




George, I was thinking to send you a birthday message in a few days. It is customary to like birthday greetings on Facebook, in the past you have done this, but lately you are ignoring me.

It is not only a sign of a defunct and non-viable friendship but I take it as a sign that you actually don't  like me.

My idea was to make one final test of the water. If you liked everyone else's birthday greetings but not mine I would de-friend or relegate you to limited  and hence forth give you not a further thought (pointless, impotent, posturing on my behalf) but anyway at least I would feel I was taking control. But why put myself out there for one more rejection?

I think I have to write you off regardless, for my own sanity. I hate it when this happens to friendships. I would rather they fizzle out, or die a natural death. About two years ago I contacted an old uni friend because I was visiting her country (neighbor to mine) and I thought we could do coffee. She said no, she did not want to see me, and that too much water had gone under the bridge yada yada... I was indescribably hurt by this rejection. I couldn't understand it. Likewise now.  But the time has come. I have done my 100 days of mourning.

First though I tell myself this one thing. I was conflating you with a whole lot of other stuff. Which is why I am disproportionately sad. Because I can't stand what you did to me, that doesn't mean I can't stand the places and people of my youth. You are the fly in the ointment. I need to just carefully pull you out and rebuild the other stuff.

Soon I will have been writing this blog for 10 years. I realize with some horror I have not lived with a man for about 8 of them. I'm not sure if it is just my current weakened sense of self esteem (I feel like this about work too) but I have lost confidence in my ability to actually co-habit with an adult male  - all that negotiation about shopping, what to do at the weekend, my friends vs your friend, the work life balance..

You have just cemented in me the mid-life tendency apparently common in women to really give less of a shit.

Friday, August 26, 2016

Ages, stages, and broken fairy tales

A new meme known as "love your husband" has emerged on Facebook with people posting pictures of themselves and their partners over the years. It is galling like baby pictures are to the infertile. But is also underscores for me how mid-life women need their partners for affirmation, it is a time of life more than any other when having a partner is a security blanket. Ah well.

Maybe this is another home truth about my crush on George (well since reciprocated at some point maybe a little more than a crush). I knew deep down it was my last hurrah. It is very hard for me to find the "love your husband" sort of love at this stage. It is hard not to become discouraged.

For the first time this week George posted about going out with his best friend/girlfriend this week. I cried a little (absurdly) when I read the post. But there it is, proof positive, finally. I obviously want him to be happy. If this is a great as he thinks it is, let one (or two) more people in the universe be happy. Let them. I don't want that not to happen. I guess what I would like is not to be sidelined/disappeared myself. The one thing I do find galling is how she has held out  on him and tormented him for so long. If this is a strategy of feminine guile, I deplore it. But again Ah Well.

The fairy tale that tells it best

George is Price Eric to my little mermaid but there will be no happy ending. I wanted to be where the people are. I wanted to see them laughing, but I got sent back I couldn't find my voice, and George/Eric took the next beautiful princess that crossed his bow. Prince Eric is an antihero he is basically a jerk. But Ariel really wanted the lifestyle not the prince didn't she? Which is what I told myself at some point, I wanted a catalyst for change


Wednesday, August 17, 2016

100 Days

When we met in town in January I was staying at the Hilton. I am still immature enough to steal the bathroom condiments, and so I took this bottle of shower gel back across the world with me.




Although nothing happened between us, each time I used that shower gel it somehow brought back that lovely evening we spent together. So 100 days passed, as you assured me that we had a connection and that I had nothing to worry about. And as you seemed just as keen to see me again as I was you. I mentioned the shower gel one time and you said, "to think I could've come back to your hotel room and used that shower gel"

By coincidence this thing was still in my wash bag when I met you again 100 days later. When I met the inert you. The one who humored me,  and somehow implied it was all in my mind "I would never have done that" you opined " I would never have had a one night stand" and as for the connection "but you hardly know me!' what did you think would happen? that we would walk off into the sunset!"

Well I spent 100 days pining for you and now I have spent 100 days getting over you coincidentally around the same 100 days that Sadiq Khan has been mayor of London.

The other day I walked out on my balcony and saw tiny shoots forming on the tree outside my window. That tree was being lopped one day as we chatted endlessly on Whats-app about our lives
and our plans and our excitement of seeing each other again. Well those tiny shoots are now a sign that I have moved on. They are the tiny shoots of recovery.



And another rather obvious thought came to mind. Beyond "I planned a gorgeous retreat with you and got a horrible rebuttal" the thought was three fold. One: basically you are all talk and no
trouser. It was all very well at a distance, and maybe you felt something for me at the time, but you didn't have the guts or the will to follow through with it. Two: I was nothing but a teenage
fantasy gone bad, or three: we are quits.  Yes we are. You got a Winter of interesting fantasies to warm your cold nights and I got some free accommodation in the Spring time. Very transactional is
point three.

But more obvious still, and in the real world, why did I ignore this particular fact of the case...?. You moved out from your marital home in September, you asked your lovely gorgeous perfect and
compatible-in-every-way friend to find a place with you in "oh I dunno around erm..October" (and she stalled you). I turned up in January and somehow filled a void. There is a real possibility that you left your wife for her and your new love didn't (at least not immediately) work out and you were sad and frustrated, and in walked me. I ignored this fact for days 1-100 because I didn't know it. It was drip fed to me on about day 130 after I came back to see you. I was so inclined to think the best of you, or to believe that you and I did have a connection and were friends that I didn't give it credence until about day 180. But, yes the transactional point three is probably the truth of the matter. I was caught in the vortex of your mid-life crisis. I have come out bruised and battered but increasingly less confused.

In a less monumentally hurtful and life rocking way this same thing happened with Seamus. He left his wife for a colleague who then didn't work out, and in walked me.

Which is why I simply laughed when I received an email from Ex23.


I think you are are the biggest missed opportunity of my life. No doubt, you hate this, but there it is.

and

I dream of no body but you

No No No I am way to fragile to go round that loop again.



Sunday, August 07, 2016

Reality check

Today I told myself a simple story that has been consoling about George. I know I have already said that I need to give myself time, and that he seems to have the need to come up smelling of roses and be beyond reproach.  However,  the simple fact of the matter is that I was looking forward to something lovely, and I got something horrible, and he did not accept his role in this. So I have been left holding this metaphorical baby of disappointment and hurt. Despite his superficially gentlemanly behaviour this was a cruel thing to do. 

Sunday, July 31, 2016

I wish I'd never met you

I wish I'd never met you

This is something Simon said to me after we split up, when he was happily ensconced in his rebound relationship. I really don't know where it came from, and at the time though it seems quite a cruel thing to say. It was like water off a ducks back.



I certainly didn't feel the same about him, as we had had a beautiful baby together who was and is the center of my world.

But I have felt it about George, only in that all that mooching, and swooning and longing was for nought really.  My time would've been better spent on work. In fact, at my own hand I may have done some career damage by taking my hand of the wheel and my eyes off the road.

And I got nothing in return nothing.  As I said in my last post but one, there wasn't even companionship, or long term friendship. He didn't take me out with his circle of friends. Although at the end of my visit he said  "I'm sorry, I haven't been around as much as I would have liked" really an equally plausible explanation was that he was actually rather embarrassed by my presence and keeping himself deliberately busy.  I could have reacted in that way in his position both of us possibly being inclined to avoid conflict. Though I hope I would've had the courage to be more up front about things.

I wonder what I stopped Simon from doing? Becoming a Sandinista in Nicaragua maybe,  or remaining productively and happily child free? or travelling the world like a sort of hobo Robin Hood taking from the rich and giving to the poor and living a very simple vegan life unencumbered bu worldly possessions? 

Collateral damage in other peoples' mid life crises

Maybe the Christmas Box worked, or maybe other crises took over because today I am feeling better about it. Maybe just the separation is working, the slow growing apart that has to happen. The acknowledgement that I never did, and still don't really know him and am not part of his inner circle or ever will be. Maybe even that apart from the structural things we are still unsuited. I don't really like watching sport in pubs for example, and I am not particularly motivated by money.

I had a little run in at work.Someone is telling tales about me, which resulted, through some sort of Chinese whisper process in me being accused of gossip. Career damaging gossip, by a person senior to me, who holds a great deal of power. My conscience is clear, I never said the things about this person that they suspect me of.  But still unsettling, and I honestly can't remember what I have said to anyone that might've brought this accusation on. 

At the base of both of these problems might be that the people in question are insecure. George was very vulnerable after his divorce and he sucked me into a sort of fantasy, or not entirely normal way of being which was ultimately damaging to my psyche. Same with this senior colleague. That colleague has very generally acted in some rather "sailing close to the wind" ways, and so for all the gossip floating around a chunk of it has been pinned on me. A sort of deflection if you will. I have become collateral damage in that persons mid-life crisis as well. 

I just need to spot this problem from afar off in future.


Monday, July 25, 2016

The Christmas Box

I had already decided to not read any of the emails or texts that had passed between George and I until Christmas. It is just too painful to read. Anyway. I still am haunted by disturbing thoughts despite being on anti-depressants, giving myself time, seeking out counselling, and sleeping and eating properly, taking exercise, getting out and meeting people. Still. I can't let it go. I read about mindfulness and being in the present and when you have a negative thought, label it, and let it float away.

Float away
I wish. I have to put those thoughts somewhere. So whenever I have a triggering thought I put it in a box to be opened at Christmas. The reason is, perversely thoughts of him still give me some kind of pleasure. But they are fruitless and ultimately hurt me and I am hurting myself. So if I can just put them on hold until I can deal with them. Perhaps they won't be important by then.


So here is what is in here so far. Sailing, twins, grand pianos, the shipping forecast, anyone called George, miniature schnauzers, the whole of London, the whole of Portugal, my old school and all the friends in it, the city of London, the stock exchange, anything to do with Risk or portfolio management, sheet music, mashed potato, sausages, brandy, Battersea, Marathon running, private banking, Norfolk,.. 

Friday, July 15, 2016

Privilege and Integrity







Did I learn anything about myself, or love? not so sure. But here are some mixed reflections on privilege


The old boy network
Part of feeling ripped off by this whole situation was that I realised, had I stayed in my COO like many of my friends I could've made use of my "old boy" network. Through connections via my family, my school I could've gained my access into I dunno, sailing clubs, the city, good and appropriate marriages.. But thinking on this for a while I find it quite repellent, and back then I was no different. I didn't want any easy course to success. I wanted to make it myself. which is why maybe subconsciously I landed up in a new country far far away with a clean slate. This instinct was much guided by my ex husband who probably felt this idea more keenly, or likely did not have the network I had.  So unlike George and his ilk, I rejected this world as elitist and snobbish. To my detriment or not? I mean as a woman a good marriage could be the path of least resistance, but I didn't want to play second fiddle to any man, I wanted to be successful in my own right.


George as a catalyst
I've been homesick for 25 years. When a gorgeous handsome articulate man in my COO showed an interest in me. My simple mind, without much conscious thought, took this as a balance tipping event. Now there was more to send me back than to keep me here. Now there was someone who I really liked and admired that I would love to form an allegiance with.


But after the weird lukewarm, dismissive behaviour he demonstrated. We never actually did anything together socially. In my darker moments I even think I was an embarrassment to him. Possibly he is a catalyst for staying away. Who wants to live in a class-ridden society surrounded by money obsessed self-centred toffs? even if it does end in granite top benches and holidays in Martinique. Yes. The old self speaks. Maybe this is a call  to appreciate what I have, where I am


Loving things that can't love you back.
But I still can't shake the notion that is was love of a kind. He baulked at this notion, but as you know I am quite practiced at loving things that can't love me back. Maybe this came from having an autistic brother, or losing babies. I knew quite emphatically that I loved them when I had never met or known them.  I so much wanted to be part of his life. To turn the clock back maybe a reconnect with the life I didn't have, the choice I didn't make. I felt completely at home in his home. He exhibited all the notions of good taste I had been brought up to admire. He was tirelessly gentlemanly and he was accomplished. He had a childhood in common with me. He was touchingly vulnerable. We had so many things in common. But in the final analysis he was a bit of a wanker to be honest. All this counts for nothing if you are not true to your word. Maybe I could write off his behaviour as that of a brilliant man, capricious, mercurial, driven by higher things. But that would be flattering him I fear. He messed with my head and only now am I starting to find healing.

Thursday, July 07, 2016

I'm not mad


I have got to the point where I am sick of myself over this. George has left emotionally probably in early May. I on the other hand am still nursing  a crush, an obsession even, It reminds me of a rather plain girl at school. I think she might even have been special needs, but she got the idea she was dating my very good looking teenage next door neighbor. She had his photo in her wallet. We all knew nothing was going on, and it was sad sad sad... who knows though maybe at some point he had encouraged her. Snogged her at a party or something.

 Anyway I am that girl.

I am deluded.





George has left the building, and I am completely unable to stop my learnt behaviour of constantly polling for messages from him. He largely ignores me, but if he ever does get in touch it is super polite. Today I finally cut myself some slack. After all, from Jan 12 through to May 1 (that's  101 days) I was actively being "courted" by George, and  I enjoyed it very much, It must've been a powerful drug because I came to depend on it. I felt someone was taking an interest in my life. He was texting me every day. It waxed and waned a little, but no more than one would expect with a busy person. Never more than 48 hours, and just before I left to go and be with him he was still saying things like "Not long now XX" or "are you excited? I am x" .So no wonder it is taking me a little while for it to sink in that there was, from my point of view, a sudden turn around. After initially leading me on, he announced the change in circumstances and kind of expected me to go "oh right" and disappear after he'd previously asked what it would take for me to move to his country, and pondering if I would ever be as into him as he was into me. He never unsaid any of those things. The turnaround was so dramatic it just took a little while for my brain to adapt. It was very heartbreaking too. People laugh at me and say "of course you weren't in love" of course you're not heartbroken, but I regret that I was. Maybe I did turn him off, By being emotional, unconfident, less attractive than he remembered.  I think the more likely scenario is that his other girl who is beautiful, confident and highly successful,  became, for one reason or another, more of a prospect. I am quite good at second guessing these things. Maybe even my presence made her keener.

So when he was leading me on, was he mad? was he on drugs? I think it is one of those things that I will never properly understand and I just have to say case closed. I just need to give it time.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Cliches serve me best

Well look its July!

And I'm still brooding. He said "I hope you won't be disappointed" I wasn't disappointed, I was actually hurt and felt a little betrayed. It would really have been better for him to spell things out much earlier on.

Maybe three months of believing I was in love and that love was being returned has left me with at least six months of unproductive time, obsessive thoughts and general malaise. I have to move on. This has been like no other love described on this blog. It is almost as though my very chemistry changed and my brain has ridges pressed into it as though it were a ball of putty which are taking such a long time to iron out.

George's behaviour when I was back in my home country was hard to understand, but it was not inconsistent with him really not giving a shit. Or giving very little of one. At worst I was an embarrassment,  at best I was kind of a gentlemanly duty. Even this last week he sms'd me

It has been stupidly busy..I am sorry I haven't around as much as I would have liked..see you tomorrow..x

I should've left him as a potential lover /left him wanting more rather than serving myself up as I did. Then maybe in the future when he was more free we could've revisited things. But I was crazy about him, had a small window of opportunity, thought he was single and in the end had a lot of trouble letting go of that. I am still in the hangover phase.

So it seems cliches serve me best in coping with it.

"Handsome is as handsome does"
"Words are cheap"
"Actions speak louder than words" there have been a lot of words, but the actions were eventually rather dismissive and uncaring
"Out of sight, out of mind"  it is actually best for me not to check social media for evidence of him. I am aware that I still get a weird kick out of just seeing him and observing his life, but it is ultimately mis placed.
"Least said soonest mended" managing to restrain myself from telling the whole sorry tale to whoever will listen, and perhaps this is helping me not to feed it.
"If is seems too good to be true, it probably is"
"What can't be cured must be endured"

That kind of thing...

Saturday, May 28, 2016

Ghosting II

I had forgotten I had written the first ghosting post on April 8th OMG I let this drag out. So eventually we got to Skype and all was well, and it was fine for me to come and stay and yes, he would meet me at the airport.

So I prepared excitedly and nervously. I sacrificed work time. And we met and he took me for a drink in a very expensive wine bar and we held hands, and he kissed me goodnight, and from then on it went downhill. He fell asleep on the sofa holding a wine glass.

For whatever reason, and because of whatever is going on in his life from that point on he thought the best way was to somehow scale me back

So in the morning he told me that he was in love with a friend of his, but it was (of course) complicated (she is still married, in name only, has three children and is possibly less into him than he is into her).  And if it doesn't risk identifying her she has a really high powered city job and her family is in one country and her "husband" in yet another. I have no idea how she conducts a life like this, but clearly she doesn't dissolve in her own grief like me.

He could just sleep with me and sod her he said, but he was being more of a gentleman than that. And for some reason I thought that since they were not actually  in a relationship (but honestly what do I know from that summary? - she is too nice for that kind of thing so it has been everything but - that's what is hinted at) I thought maybe there was still a chance for us. So I continued to be physically affectionate to him.

And slowly but surely he started to pull away. He spend a couple of nights away from the flat, but he maintained that I was absolutely welcome to stay.  Whilst this is a nightmare scenario, for some reason I decided to alternate weeks with him and weeks in AirBnB and that went OK and we had a couple of nice meals together. Then things seemed to come to a head with him and the "friend", and he was spending more and more time anxiously texting her.

About three nights before I actually left I became a little tearful. I think many people would when faced with this mixed message. He said "what did you think, that we would fall in love, walk off into the sunset and live happily ever after??" made me sound quite mad. But, if he had actually been properly single as he purported to be, at least we could've given it a go. As it stands I think a kind of half hearted "go" was had. in which he tried to work out if I was in any way a contender, realised I wasn't and then finally watched as I sealed the deal by being neurotic.

He chose this point to suggest that we should be friends - yes something that I had kind of held in mind as the possible outcome, and this being the case he thought that me cuddling him, or stroking his head (fairly non-sexual things really) were a threat to our friendship.  In fact what he said was "the worst thing that can happen is that we end up friends" which makes me wonder what the best thing was (that I would just disappear?) I didn't read this double entendre at the time though. And looking back there were a few of them over the few weeks I was there.

E.g

"I have a spare room, and you can choose where to sleep, but I know you will make the right choice every night" or
"One of us here is a really good piano player and the other is a try hard wanna be"

And this weird little reflexive way he had of echoing the things I said.  I would say " I was longing to see you and he would say "as I was you"  I would say " you have a nice arse" and he would say "as do you" almost as a sort of overly gentlemanly friendly impulse that was not meant at all


And now I have this horrible post non-relationship hangover where I can't do anything. I just want to sleep and listen to audio books and I am bursting into tears all the time. His last text to me was "lets chat later" and since then he has ignored all my messages, as if perhaps helping me out by sending a clear message.  Your contact is an embarrassment.

I feel unwelcome here, in the country of my birth and I see no pleasure at all in going back to my adopted country. I have stuffed up on the work I was supposed to do here. I have failed and this is the beginning of the end work wise. I can't think of   one thing I want to go back for. He pushed me into this hole. I was quite happy before, and yet I think you and I both know dear reader that this was at some level my doing. I became obsessed, and I am feeding off it long after it is over. I desperately need to move on, but it has precipitated a deep grief in me which is unrelated. I guess, but all those months he was my ardent fan, and took an interest in my life, and now he has just withdrawn it because he feels threatened by my keenness on him, I should've just treated him mean right from the very beginning. So now he is ghosting me again.

What aspect of this fake friendship do I really want?

Well this isn't a very well written blog, but in closing maybe all I can do is console myself that his life is so chaotic, and he is so strung up over this woman that he literally has to sideline me to survive. And he feels a little embarrassed about having lead me on and the eventual outcome on my mental health. And I should respect him by giving him space.

What I think is that one way you can deal with ghosting is to kind of re write history. Just write yourself a little explanatory note or text of what they should have said and then over time just replace the huge ghosting void  in your mind with this better story/

He should've told me, when we met, that he left his wife on the hopes of forming a relationship with this woman "who is really perfect for him at every level and he has a deep and lasting connection with" rather than let me somehow fill the sexual gap for a month or two, He should've said when he was "really fed up" or struggling about his marriage that there was nothing I could help him with because there was a third person involved. Maybe I could've consoled him about her, or listened to him, but I wouldn't have debased myself by sexting or talking in a romantic way to him. Here are some more freaky fakey things he said

"I would like to meet your family"
"what have you done to me"
"one day you might like me as much as I like you"
"what would it take for you to move back here?"
"you are lovely"
"you are amazing"

He could've politely declined to have me to stay, I think he expected me to move out after the first morning when he said "you have some thinking to do" and I said "I've done enough thinking" he also said "maybe you should take your friend up on her offer of a place to stay" which at the time was my boss who I hardly knew and frankly I would rather stay with him. Yes maybe in his polite English way he was trying to chuck me out.  He could've bought a camp bed and told me you can stay on the camp bed before I arrived.

There is one last little batch of things that are about me that this triggered.
(1) I want to move back to my country of origin, and this gave me an excuse - although now this country of origin is making me a bit sick I don't know where  I fit in

(2) I hated that school I went to in year 11, and he made it all OK by presenting as a friendly person from my past

(3) I didn't realise I was lonely, until I had someone who texted me daily and took an interest in my life.


Friday, April 08, 2016

Ghosting

Less than a month from seeing the love of my life again and he has become withdrawn. Reading back through our messages there was nothing to suggest this a month ago. He was so determined to meet me at the airport. Now he doesn't reply to my messages for whole weekends my history gives this a great big warning bell. It has happened to me at least three times before. Once at uni I went away on a rail trip round Europe and when I got back my boyfriend of two years had moved in with another girl. Well he ignored me for a month or two, and then that was what emerged. Hamish also started behaving strangely he was quite happy to sleep with me, but started getting text messages at unexpected times and shoving his phone back in his pocket. Then he gave me the old it's not you it's me speech. Seamus delivered the classic

http://i0nafi0na.blogspot.com.au/2014/02/other-peoples-damaged-kids.html

after a period of silence.

A period of silence is not a good thing. I am very worried. Well I not so much worried as in between just writing him off and gritting my teeth and trying to make other plans, demanding an explanation, or just not making it easy for him and waiting for him to come back to me. Why should I make it easy? apart from to know the truth. This I think is what psychologists call ambiguous loss such as when a person goes missing, and you live in hope. It is quite a common method for men to break up with you I have noticed. My first boyfriend did it. As far as I know I am still going out with him. We never split up, he just disappeared. It was harder in those days with only phone and letter as options.

So is it better to know? is it better to know your love(d one) is dead, or to live in hope. It is a bit like it is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved. I have always felt ambiguous about that one. These experiences and knocking the expectation of finding joy in new relationships out of me, and I am starting to think never having loved at all would've been at the very least more efficient

Or another one that I actually uttered myself. It's not you being unfaithful that bothers me, its the lying about it!! Yes again, not true. The unfaithfulness is very bothering. Of course it is. That one is nonsense. Anyone who does that needs to be kicked to the curb.

Can't really say that about George because we never had a relationship in the real world

Thursday, February 18, 2016

The One

Ok I am going to subject you to some more drivel about how in love I am.  Maybe I can look back in 5 years time and see just how addled by brain was. It is true when you are in love (which I presume this state is) levels of  adrenaline, serotonin, dopamine, cortisol .. you name it oh..  oestrogen, testosterone they are all up.  So it is like being on crack cocaine

http://www.youramazingbrain.org/lovesex/sciencelove.htm

Anyway having not even kissed this guy properly. I feel more certain (than I ever have) that he is "the one".

OK so winding back. In the past I have heard the words "I love you" quite a few times (just for the record not from  George yet)  and it is certainly stirring, and often I have felt something back.... but not like this.

I remember in the first few months with Neil, I heard him telling his friends that I was "the one" and I felt a mixture of flattered and uneasy. He was a narcissist and was in the early stage of putting me on a pedestal. Right up until the end he claimed he loved me, but it was a strange sort of love. He slept with other women!

When I met my husband I remember writing in my diary that "something quite magical is going on" because we had talked non stop for 1.5 hours. But I even remember as I wrote it, it felt contrived. Who am I at this distance to say for sure I didn't feel it, but I think I was so desperate to stop the chase and get married and settle down and he was the first man who came close.

But still, it was nothing like this...

I feel completely at ease with him even though we are so far away. I trust him. I fancy him like hell. He fancies me back and doesn't ever make me feel insecure or unwanted - well there have been times when I waited 48 hours for an sms but now that never happens. He always checks in with me.

I am so desparately looking forward to seeing him. For a while I couldn't eat. But I am ok now.

We seem to have the same values - though maybe not the same politics. I literally can't wait to be in his life and spend it with him. I never thought I would feel this way at this late stage in my life.

That's it. Lets see what the love rat can do

Tuesday, February 09, 2016

A man is not, and has never been a plan

Well the fairy tale continues. Daily Skype and messenger contact from George is pushing every romantic button in my body (as well as many other less romantic ones). Since our first polite email exchange of thank you notes, it has emerged that both of us had a terrible crush on the other and basically can't wait to rip each others clothes off. It hasn't really gone beyond that, obviously it can't because we are now on opposite sides of the world, but it hasn't stopped me having fantasies along the lines of I will go back to my country of origin and live with him whatever it takes, and I think he is the one..

I kid you not he looks like this ...


at 47 he is three years younger than me and I can't for the life of me imagine what he sees in me, except, he would remember what I was like at 18. Unattainable goddess of the six form common room.

So as much as I try to scratch the fairy tale it keeps on coming back. It is reaching the level of dangerous obsession but he is fueling it by contacting me each night and morning and being amorous towards me. 

This evening I had a thought. Whilst a man is not a plan I think what I crave is stability. So being a pretty much untouchable single mother who never went out and got pleasure from just running her own show and being around her child was one sort of stability, and another sort that I would really like would be a partner that I can trust who I have a lot in common with (shared history and interests) and profoundly love and feel attracted to. If such things still exist. So far his approach has been very different to anything I have encountered in the last 10 years.

I am startled by how ready I am to give up my life here. For someone I barely know. This element of it feels like internet dating era madness. But looking back a couple of posts, to be in my country of origin has never been off the agenda. I am just waiting for Connor to be old enough or to negotiate to take him too. It seems, and George has just added grist to the mill.


Wednesday, January 20, 2016

A Fairy Tale

Once upon a time a kind, funny, generous and  (in her own way) beautiful princess named Fiona (not that Fiona) was trapped in a country far far away by an evil overlord, Simon and a pair of golden golden handcuffs applied by the self-serving corporation to which she was indentured.

Day after day she worked without reward and in the evenings she tried to look after and nurture her  illegitimate son Connor. Connor was the son of he evil overlord Simon, but Simon contrived to ignore him as far as possible and take no part in his  upbringing. The villagers never knew whether this inattention was due to Simon's inner demons or a preference to spend his time with exotic asian princesses from other lands.
One year Simon released Fiona for six weeks so that she may travel back to her homeland across many seas to see the people she loved. He cautioned her, as he always did, that she had better return before the stroke of six weeks or he would remove the child from her and take her to "court"

So Fiona and Connor made the long and perilous journey back to the icy kingdom and spent Christmas with their extended family. One evening, Fiona being free from her duties wandered into town to meet an old school friend George. She did not know George well, but he had sent word that he wanted to meet her. He strode into the hotel lobby wearing a cashmere coat. He was tall dark and handsome, and as he kissed her on both cheeks as was the custom in that land the coldness and firmness of his cheek on hers was electrifying. They spent an evening together huddled in a local hostelry eating earthy food and talking about how their lives had gone. They had much in common, more than would be reasonably predictable Fiona thought. A love of music and sailing, oddly both had Autistic brothers.

When it was time to go they were reluctant to say goodbye but again with a gentle brush of the cheek he left through the revolving door. Fiona could not deny that she was smitten by this man. He was intelligent, good looking, generous, gentlemanly posh and sexy. Being the age she was she thought I have nothing to lose. I will write him a thank you letter and tell him what a lovely evening I had. By return mail he responded in kind calling her wonderful and the evening " the best in some time" and vowing to see her again when she was next in town.

He send a message to say he was "missing her already" but Fiona could not discern of this was a cute colloquialism or turn of phrase common to that land having been away for so long. Or indeed, in her darkest thoughts a cad like ruse to keep her on the boil.



When the six weeks was up a fairy swept her back to the country of the overlord and corporation. Fiona was lonely and confused, but she and George kept in touch and, in the fullness of time, she came to visit George again. This time he confessed his love for her and they lived happily ever after splitting their time between Europe and the Antipodes playing duets on a baby grand piano. Skiing and yachting, Supporting each other in whatever life threw at them and yet being fully independent and fulfilled individuals.
Fiona knew at last that love existed and she had found her soulmate.
The End


Scrattchhhhh........

And everytime I think of this man I remind myself that that is indeed what he is, a fairy tale concocted by my own imagination