Life Happening, Pt. 2
I'm in a cranky mood. There's no particular reason for me to be, except of course for the usual ones, but I've been rather good about overcoming those for the past few weeks.
Let's just chalk it up to PMS, shall we? That should make everything much simpler for all of us.
::ahem::
So.
I had a good talk with Courtney Friday night after work. As expected, the subject of Former Friend now dating Other Friend (aka the Walking Tall section of my last post) came up. I sort of wanted to talk about it with her, but I knew that if I did she wouldn't see it my way, nor particularly care. Unlike me, she doesn't think anyone is obligated to do anything, least of all for the benefit of someone else. However, she was much more sympathetic than I expected her to be, not because she thought the treacherous pair had done anything wrong (I got my expected scolding for imposing my codes of conduct on other people), but because she knows me well enough to understand how very *sensitive* I am about everything, and how much pain that tends to cause me.
As screwed up and amoral as she is (from my point of view, anyway) she does tend to remind me everytime I talk to her that not everyone thinks and feels the same way I do. Therefore, I cannot expect everyone to treat me with the same respect and sensitivity that I treat them. It would be like expecting someone with an IQ of 85 to solve a problem as quickly as someone with an IQ of 160; it's not fair. I realize that so far this chain of ideas is making me sound rather self-righteous and elitist, but that's not my intention. I just realize that everyone is different, and I can't hold everyone up to my standards. I've always realized that The Traitors were not committing their crimes against me just to hurt me, or piss me off, or anything. I realize that their decision to date absolutely has nothing to do with me at all; I'm just an unfortunate side effect that is apparently not important enough to effect the outcome of the situation as a whole. In fact, I seriously doubt that either one of The Traitors could ever understand why this issue is so important to me. They know that it "hurts me" because I've told them so, but they could never understand *why*. If you look at it that way, then they've really not done anything wrong at all... they're simply two people who like each other. I'm the one complicating everything and making everyone unhappy with my silly feelings.
Courtney reminded me that he doesn't need my permission to do anything. If I feel hurt, or betrayed, or angry, then that's my fault. It's not his intention to affect me in any way, it just sort of happens because one year ago I allowed myself to be completely consumed by love, compassion, and worry for him. He didn't ask for that, it was my decision. I didn't ask him to change from a sensitive, compassionate person who would be careful with my love into a devil-may-care nihlist either, but what can you do? Nothing, apparently.
And so it is. Just like you said it would be.
I have to be reminded constantly that I am the one who hurts myself because I choose to care. Or maybe I don't. Maybe it's just a built-in part of me that I can't control, maybe I'm just compelled to care about everything against my will. All I know is, most people don't care as much as I do. Most people don't get hurt as easily or as deeply as I do. Perhaps that's just built into them too. What would be the purpose of imposing my over-reactive, overly sensitive psyche/worldview on everyone else? There isn't one. So, yeah, it sucks for me sometimes. A lot of the time. But it's not something I can't help. I can try to control how I behave and communicate with other people, but I'll never be able to control the love and pain I feel for them, or that they (however involuntarily) cause me. What also would be the purpose of feeling sorry for myself because I have an abnormally high depth of emotion? Once again, there is none. I can only hope that this sensitivity allows me to experience greater highs as well as greater lows, but so far I don't think this has happened yet. Maybe it will help me to be a better writer. In any case, it must eventually somehow be a positive thing to care about people so much; so far, however, it has only served to infuriate and alienate others.
Maybe I should just stop being so selfish. If my feelings are hurt, that's my problem. No one else asked to be burdened with my constant melodrama.
Let's just chalk it up to PMS, shall we? That should make everything much simpler for all of us.
::ahem::
So.
I had a good talk with Courtney Friday night after work. As expected, the subject of Former Friend now dating Other Friend (aka the Walking Tall section of my last post) came up. I sort of wanted to talk about it with her, but I knew that if I did she wouldn't see it my way, nor particularly care. Unlike me, she doesn't think anyone is obligated to do anything, least of all for the benefit of someone else. However, she was much more sympathetic than I expected her to be, not because she thought the treacherous pair had done anything wrong (I got my expected scolding for imposing my codes of conduct on other people), but because she knows me well enough to understand how very *sensitive* I am about everything, and how much pain that tends to cause me.
As screwed up and amoral as she is (from my point of view, anyway) she does tend to remind me everytime I talk to her that not everyone thinks and feels the same way I do. Therefore, I cannot expect everyone to treat me with the same respect and sensitivity that I treat them. It would be like expecting someone with an IQ of 85 to solve a problem as quickly as someone with an IQ of 160; it's not fair. I realize that so far this chain of ideas is making me sound rather self-righteous and elitist, but that's not my intention. I just realize that everyone is different, and I can't hold everyone up to my standards. I've always realized that The Traitors were not committing their crimes against me just to hurt me, or piss me off, or anything. I realize that their decision to date absolutely has nothing to do with me at all; I'm just an unfortunate side effect that is apparently not important enough to effect the outcome of the situation as a whole. In fact, I seriously doubt that either one of The Traitors could ever understand why this issue is so important to me. They know that it "hurts me" because I've told them so, but they could never understand *why*. If you look at it that way, then they've really not done anything wrong at all... they're simply two people who like each other. I'm the one complicating everything and making everyone unhappy with my silly feelings.
Courtney reminded me that he doesn't need my permission to do anything. If I feel hurt, or betrayed, or angry, then that's my fault. It's not his intention to affect me in any way, it just sort of happens because one year ago I allowed myself to be completely consumed by love, compassion, and worry for him. He didn't ask for that, it was my decision. I didn't ask him to change from a sensitive, compassionate person who would be careful with my love into a devil-may-care nihlist either, but what can you do? Nothing, apparently.
And so it is. Just like you said it would be.
I have to be reminded constantly that I am the one who hurts myself because I choose to care. Or maybe I don't. Maybe it's just a built-in part of me that I can't control, maybe I'm just compelled to care about everything against my will. All I know is, most people don't care as much as I do. Most people don't get hurt as easily or as deeply as I do. Perhaps that's just built into them too. What would be the purpose of imposing my over-reactive, overly sensitive psyche/worldview on everyone else? There isn't one. So, yeah, it sucks for me sometimes. A lot of the time. But it's not something I can't help. I can try to control how I behave and communicate with other people, but I'll never be able to control the love and pain I feel for them, or that they (however involuntarily) cause me. What also would be the purpose of feeling sorry for myself because I have an abnormally high depth of emotion? Once again, there is none. I can only hope that this sensitivity allows me to experience greater highs as well as greater lows, but so far I don't think this has happened yet. Maybe it will help me to be a better writer. In any case, it must eventually somehow be a positive thing to care about people so much; so far, however, it has only served to infuriate and alienate others.
Maybe I should just stop being so selfish. If my feelings are hurt, that's my problem. No one else asked to be burdened with my constant melodrama.
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