"I really don't know what I'm doing here..."
--Open, The Cure

Night of the 8th, morning of the 9th. 2:44AM. Sasha is asleep on the bed behind me. It takes her minutes, sometimes seconds to fall asleep - for me, it's always hours. Might as well put the time to good use, though I might not get this finished now.

The debate occurring in my mind at the moment is whether this trip was a good one, even a good idea in general. This is a lot more complicated than it might seem.

Quick part first: interestingness. It was a definite improvement over AU, so a definite good thing in the short run. However, I'm looking forward to going back tomorrow (later today, technically) with a family-sized, 33% more free! amount of dread. So it remains to be seen whether it will go down in the annals of history as a "well earned vacation," or as "glimpse of freedom, after which confinement is that much more tortuous." The bright side is, I figure I should know one way or the other by the end of the week.

I'm quite sure that by now, a good portion of you have guessed the topic of part two. Cookies for all. For the unenlightened, the correct response was "Who is Sasha?" Moving on. I'll take "Confused Feelings About Ex-Girlfriends" for $600, Alex. Daily Double? I'll wager everything.

(Before I start, a sort of disclaimer. Very little, if any, of this is Sasha's fault, or the result of her quote-unquote ignoring my feelings. Most, if not all, of this is Justin's fault for being a quote-unquote world class idiot.)

Some of you from back home have been introduced to a book entitled The Ethical Slut. Long synopsis short, it's a primer for nonstandard relationships. There was one idea in particular that grabbed my attention wholeheartedly, which is that a standard monogamous relationship is based on the idea of a starvation economy. This means that there is an assumption somewhere that when your partner shows love/affection/attention to someone else, there is less available for you. And that's bullshit. It's the kind of game that kids play, where they think parental attention = parental love. Not the way it works.

And so, Sasha and I had this sort of enlightened Friends With Privileges thing going on. And it worked fairly well, to the point where I rooted for her to get the guys she wanted, knowing that it didn't change anything between us. This goes completely down the crapper when she gets a Boyfriend, as she did the day that I showed up here in Philly. Especially when they're infuriatingly monogamous (infuriatingly because it's something they're trying out short term, like, till not long after I'm gone).

And now I feel extremely strange. I still know that Sasha loves me and cares for me and wants me, but I rarely feel it. See note above, re: me being an idiot. So I'm feeling envious, jealous, and awkward, all at once. Twice I slept on the floor of Boyfriend's room with the two of them in bed. They weren't fooling around or anything, but the idea that they had and could kept me awake most of the night on the verge of tears. Seeing her touch him makes me leave the room, and her sitting on a random boy's lap makes me angry because if it's not the boyfriend, why can't it be me? And her casual mentioning of sex with him is enough to crush my mood for extended periods of time.

Sasha is in all actuality the only female that I am even slightly interested. She is also the only person who has the ability to really hurt me, or more accurately, the only person I can use to really hurt myself. I've managed to turn almost everything she has done this visit into some kind of attack on me or our friendship. I fucked up extremely badly today, which went from both of us being angry at each other to me being angry at myself and her being annoyed at me for it. And even better, it seems to me that the only time I both know and feel that she cares for me is during physical contact (holding hands, hugging, sleeping together). So I've been pushing towards hooking up, knowing full well that Sasha can't/won't, basically just to torture myself.

Here's the part where I cement my place as a complete fuckup: Sasha asked me to go out with her a few months ago. And I said no. My reasoning was that I liked what we had, which was basically an open relationship without the title. And here comes a relationship with a title, and I go to pieces because of it. Good for me. For all I know, it's suddenly a "wanting what I can't have" issue.

One last thing to keep in mind: I'm writing this for two reasons. One is that I'm a Hopeless Romantic, and somewhere deep inside of me I believe that by being sacrificing and open and heartfelt I'll get The Girl. The other is that I'm a sick, manipulative bastard who knows that pity and sadness are the two best weapons I have to work with.

Did I mention the part where I hate myself?

*Six o'clock Addendum - Still haven't slept yet. She woke up, started with me, stopped, sent me for something to drink. Then went back to sleep. I don't understand. I don't understand what the rules are here, what she's thinking, what she wants. I am frustrated in all senses, afraid, and extremely confused. Someone please help me. I don't know what to do.

And then there was a riot.

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