aksiokersa

I hate this fucking disease.

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I was doing my dishes and I realized something.
I think I am coming to accept that this is what life is - just keeping my nose clean until the next epiphany or moment of joy.

So. Here's what I realized:
On the surface, I make a great girlfriend: I'm a fuckin' good listener, I accept you for who you are, I'm cool about sex, I never cheat, I make your friends and family laugh, and I have no problem entertaining myself for three hours every Sunday afternoon.

The thing is, while I'm busy being supportive and fun and giving super head, I'm always evaluating my partner's character. I reduce every mutual experience into just another way to judge whether or not they are a good enough person, whether their aim is really true.

So all this time I've been thinking I was doing everything perfect when, in fact, I have basically been denying the person I love possibly the most important and most necessary element of that love: trust.

Trust is so hard for me.

Even when my ex literally begged me to find a way to trust him, I wouldn't. I thought it was because he gave off clear, discrete signals that he wasn't trustworthy. I figured that if someone were honest, they wouldn't set off my alarms the way he did. But now, 7 years later, when I look at the successful relationships I'm surrounded by (what with all you bastards getting married and having kids), I see that yeah, he gave off some shady signals, but everyone does. And you can't identify trustworthiness using a taxonomic system.* What I'm looking for isn't at the root of some binary tree.

It's such a cliche, I know, but now I finally think I get it: I didn't know myself well enough to realize that I'd survive if someone hurt me. I was looking for some kind of proof that other people were "safe", when what I really should have been doing was finding ways to make myself safe. I didn't trust other people because I didn't trust me.

I hate that I sound like Dr. Phil right now, but sometimes that guy is right.

It's good knowing this.
It's good when you figure stuff out.

* Rodan makes a good point that the taxonomic system works, but it only works to an extent. For me, there has never been a set point at which a person qualifies as good or bad. Even when someone demonstrated over and over that they were good for me, I still refused to trust them, to stop evaluating their character on a very deep level. I have never just gone with my gut about people. I haven't trusted that I can take care of myself, that I can choose folks who won't hurt me and that if they do hurt me, I'll be okay. And if I don't learn how to do that, I'll never be able to enjoy intimacy...which is something I really, really want.