Greetings home audience! While there's been nary a peep from me about it I'd like you all to know that my second wooha relationship is incontrovertably drawing to a final messy close of a final messy ending!
Maryam, whom you may remember from previous articles, has just now left the building. I've curled up at the computer with a bottle and am currently on the road to EtOH induced bliss.
If trends are to be believed, I seduce people, trap them, and wear them down. How I do this, I don't know. I appear to be fairly good at it, though.
In concept I try to treat people like equals. Reportedly this doesn't work in the least bit. I am, as has been said "creepy."
We're experiencing technical difficulties, My mother has just shown up on a surprise visit! BRB
I open the door, I return to type "Technical Difficulties"
And now we're back... more than a day later
I am now 200 miles away from where I wrote those increasingly drunken lines above.
Conversation has been made. Objective logic has been applied. Decisions have been reassessed.
They have been found wanting.
My decision to come to and stay in Knoxville was based on a single reason. That reason is no longer valid. The logical house of cards that was keeping me there collapses. A decision has been made. I will withdrawl from UT. I will take the rest of the semester off. I will go again in the fall... or maybe the fall of 2001. To Knoxville? No. That era of my life must close. Perhaps Boston will still take me. Perhaps I will finally apply to Berkeley or Vanderbilt. Maybe I'll just go to Belmont.
Maybe I'll just get a job, learn a trade or three, and make what I can of my life.
My mother was talking to me about how difficult it was and has been for my father to express emotion
"All I want," she retells, "is one hug, one kiss, and for you to tell me you love me... each day."
"You. Don't. Know. How. Difficult. That. Is."
I then come back with the point that he says "I love you" at the end of ever phone call (and come to think of it just about every conversattion we've had)...
I must digress...
I have learned that my parents are far more supportive than I would have imagined. I must be kinder to them. I must understand te effort that it takes for my father to say three simple words. I must understand that he has been saying them to me at the end of every conversation we've had for several years now and I have made the point not to say them back.
Why?
Because I am just like him... and I do not want to be.
Back to the point at hand...
How could I have missed the inherent contradction in, on the one hand, expecting my refusal to say those three simple words to make it clear to my father that I disapproved of him but, on the other hand, expect my silence to be interpreted as a complete opposite by those I do love?
The logic has been found wanting, indeed...
But what can I do about it now?
I have been careful to burn my bridges.
I have said things in such ways to be purposefully cruel. I would rather she doubt that I ever loved her than to doubt her decision to break up with me. I do not want her to compare me to whomever follows and have it fall in my favor. I try to live my life with as few regrets as possible... and this is the gift I try to give... that they have none about me.
But that's far too altrustic for the hero of this particular saga. It's also to save myself from ever having to make a certain decision. I have my ideals. I have very high standards.
All of them will crumble with a single question.
Will I take her back?
I have ideals. I have very high standards. They are all meaningless without someone who has met them. So... I'd prefer that particular question never be asked... and I do what I can to ensure it.
When you first told me four months ago that you were no longer happy with me and that you wanted to move out I supressed how I felt and supported you in your decision. I was mildly disappointed when you did not leave at the end of that month.
You had your doubts.
I tried to help you remove them.
First one way.
You had your doubts.
Then the other.
Apparently my skill in this second method has been honed more sharply than the first.
An example that has been passed on to me as particularly effective, though I did not realize it at the time, nor would I have... though to be honest I would never have realized that I do any of this.
Wou turned to me and asked if I cared whether you stayed or went. My spoken reply was simple enough, "No, I don't."
Was this a Lie? No. You know me well enough to know that my only good quality is honesty. It could be called, however, a lie of omission. You never asked why I didn't care. I had no intention of volunteering the information.
But, so phrased, with only half the truth revealed, I could guarantee myself that you would make a decision you felt was in your best interests. I did not care whether you came or went... so long as you were where you wanted to be.
But, again, this is far to selfless for the protagonist of our story.
I do not like indecision. That's why I was disappointed when you didn't leave the first time. I had already come to the conclusion that I could not make you happy. I believed you had already come to it... yet you were not convinced
So, I convinced you.
I hope Alborz makes that move you want him to make. I hope he makes you happy. I hope you don't use him to buy alcohol. I hope you don't use each other for sex.
I hope you never realize.