So I keep hearing this song wafting from her room, just found it funny to re-post here. It's been playing all over the place and has those vague universally applicable lyrics that the overly romantic love fall back into.

Fuck this guy, his hipster artsy video, and his piercing green eyes, even if it is good and oddly fits to our situation.

You know what's rough, Gotye? Hearing somebody in the woes of a break-up listening to this type of crap, and having to make my sandwich and go to work and not be caught up on somebody that is self-flagellating with an over-rated pop anthem that sounds like Sting and looks like an American Apparel ad, and is easily pitched to groovy moms.

It goes without saying really, but the last week at home has been as awkward. No simple simile will suffice to explain just how awkward. 



Kitchen run-ins have become paranoid experiences on my part to avoid running into the sharp end of a knife. She doesn’t say much; the constant whoosh of sticky smoke being sucked out of a bong serves as a wordless conversation. She hates me. She continues on her day to day, slipping past me without much eye contact, but with a dull haze of disappointment following in her wake. I think my friends hate me too. Everyone seems to be treating me the same to my face, but I just know that they are talking about me the second I leave the room. Sarcasm slips to the surface in every conversation about my actions lately, her sardonic chuckle seems violent given the levels of tension in these conversations. 

Every now and then she makes a sharp and witty stab in my direction that I have to just sit and take. I never thought of myself as a ‘cheater’ since I have managed to avoid messy emotional entanglements, up until now. I never thought of the social implications of being known as one. 



It really doesn’t feel good. 



Way worse than feeling predictable, way worse than knowing that people think I’m a joke. 

I caused this corny punch line, but taking responsibility proves problematic. Can’t everyone just be happy again? Her present violence proves that she can take it, the stages of grief seem to be in fast forward since we live in such a close proximity.
 
It happened, it’s over. Why does it matter so much that I lied? Is ‘trust’ even a real marker of friendship when people can never truly know each other anyways? 
Why do I have to bear witness to this?
 

I want to tell her that my hurt and hers are comparable, different but comparable—but I would really like all my vital organs to remain un-punctured at this point in my life. 



I don’t want to get all Carrie Bradshaw here, but why does doing something when you are blackout get you put on the blacklist? Like is what I did really that awful? 
I just don’t get it. Does Old Spice make a scent that covers shame? 



I don’t want to grow up yet; I’m just not ready.

I hated seeing her devastated like that.

I asked what I could do to make things better, I really meant it. She just looked at me in disbelief. I just wanted to see her happy again. Why does her happiness depend on me, of all people? She told me that from the beginning all that she asked for from me was honesty (yeah like that was an honest statement, all that she asked for). We spent so much time together, and I was honest... for the majority of it. I told her not to fall for me. I told her that I don't do relationships. But now I'm the one that everyone hates for doing what I do, predictably. The only times I briefly suspended the truth, I just didn't want to hurt her. She told me she knew that. I thought that waiting for the right moment would make things better. Guess not. I probably could have given her more credit, if she is such a prophetess.

 She reminded me of the futility of running away from problems when you live with that person you are running from.  Did I mention that we live together? Yeah, we signed the lease before we even starting hooking up; It's a long story that now comes to quite an unsatisfying conclusion, for her.

As for me, I'm just moving on and not looking back; what's the point of looking back? Does that make me a bad person? 

I love her as a best friend, but everyone tells me that people don't treat their best friends the way I treated her. She seemed rather put together when we talked. Taking it like a champ, kinda.

She told me that she knew--that she was just waiting for the day--that I would do something like that to her. It was as if it pained her to even refer to it with a pronoun. She made me feel like a monster, looking at me with her soft blue eyes, obviously trying not to cry... as if that made her seem stronger in the situation. "I never wanted to change you, I just thought I'd be good for you."  Good for what? Oh wait, I'm a "head fuck" sorry, I forgot. I'm not like everyone else. Jesus.

This is all so convoluted and ridiculous.

"Are you trying to make all your friends lose their respect for you? Because you are doing a really fucking fantastic job."

She told me she tries to see the best in people, always. Guess that's why it took her so long to give up, give in to the fact that I would never live up to her expectations. 

Expectations, implications.

I am just trying to be myself. 

Articulating the details of this conversation is really fucking hard, it was like I was astro-projecting while awake, like my mind was trying to escape but my body was anchoring me there. We both didn't want to be there, I could tell by just looking at her, the way she wouldn't get close to physical contact with me. I purposely avoided emotional contact for the majority of our thing, and now we don't have either. It is over. Did it ever begin?

She says she wasted a year of her life.

We are still living together.

I feel bad. She has still never seen me cry.

You know what is crushing to one’s sense of self? People constantly telling you that you are “fucked up”. It becomes this cue word that gets used against you so often, but never really seems to lose it power. 

Am I fucked up for knowing what I do and don’t like?

 Fucked up for ending things when I know that I will never be able to give them what they want from me, aside from a good lay? I’m tired of people labeling me all the time, everywhere I go. Is it preposterous to propose that we all just float together? You can’t just take the ocean, undulating in a constant unforgiving mass, force it into a Ziploc bag, pin it on the wall, and then get angry at it for dripping on your hardwood floor.

I finally talked to her.

I’m on my way out now though, more details to come tomorrow.

Even in the wilderness, I can't get my mind out of the gutter.

The picture below pretty eloquently sums up my feelings about being in New York right now. I took a week off of work to escape; it was a fucking great decision.

I would tell you where I work, but its not particularly relevant to who I am as a person and slightly shameful to who I would like to be. So yeah, moving on.

Escaping routine was exactly what my brain needed to cool off. Days disappear and nights stay in that shadowy part of your subconscious when the city grabs a hold of your senses. I decided to go somewhere with trees, that was sort of my only goal. Something about being in nature serves to relax my inner me, soothe the beast if you will.

My goals are usually pretty simple, as are my means of achieving them. There’s something miraculous about the time we live in—people will do just about anything for a person they think is beautiful—not that this didn’t apply back in the day, just that it is now so easy for someone with a technically good physique and an ample amount of charm to wander through the modern flux of non-committal sexual dalliances and reap the benefits of ‘hooking up’ (Insert my mother asking me, “What does that even mean, is that like sex or what?” in a tone of indictment).

It makes traveling so easy. For a small price, someone like me can sheet shack with various friends, new and old, and really have a very versatile and fun trip. I say like me partially because of my bisexual tendencies but more because people keep telling me I’m attractive (you’d be hard pressed to find me in agreement with that, but I do well for myself if you know what I mean). Humble Brag.

Back on track, right, anyways I took a bus out of Port Authority and when I removed my headphones I was upstate and ready to reconnect with the natural and reconnect with myself.

Have you ever had a threesome in the woods?

Ovid knew and wrote of the joys of such bacchic revelry—wine traced touches and waking, twigs intertwined with hair and morning light splashing upon your face. It started with some gentle rubbing of toes, and ended with some other less than gentle rubbings. 

We all swam nude in the river after.

 Going from such extremes of body temperature, hot to cold in a drastic turn can really change a person. 

That tangible shift can make one really realize the arbitrariness of emotional meaning: we share our beings for such a brief time and temperature is a cruel pendulum in constant motion. It was quite a revelation (like in its  original Pauline sense, a real apokalypsis)

Lessons learned? Or suspicions confirmed?

Just like just about everyone I know my age in this damned city, I also dabble in Photography. It helps me where words fail, which seems to be all around.

Everything has been a little behind lately, perpetual time lag gone awry. I haven’t slept at my apartment in days. In fact, I haven’t slept in days (which isn't too weird considering my average bed-time is around 4:30 am anyways). But when I do I have these horrifically graphic dreams about her punching me in the face (which I am told is the sign of a guilty conscience). It just seems easier to avoid her at this point (and it is so stop judging me).

“Is this really how you want things to end?” reads the passive-aggressive text that after three days of non-communication cuts through the silence with a menacing buzz on Joe’s nightstand. I fucking hate texting (unless its sexting). Joe rolls over, and I roll on out of there before he tries to be all cute and morning cuddly, ew.

Well yes, actually, things would be way simpler if this was it, if everything could just evaporate as quickly and arbitrarily as it started. After a heavy rainstorm passes, it's not as if the pavement attempts to rationalize why it got dumped all over, instead of just waiting for the water to dissipate. Pretty sure ‘feelings’ don’t entirely work that way, however. Also pretty sure anthropomorphizing a pavement doesn't do the situation justice, but you feel what I am laying out, correct?

 All my friends keep making attempts to talk to me, constantly reminding me of ‘the right thing to do’, incessantly prodding me with concerned stares and checking to see if I’m okay. Duh, I’m okay. Finally beginning to have fun again..."But you guys were so great together"

Yeah I know we were best friends. Yes I am aware I did something rather shitty to her. But does letting someone have sober sex with you multiple times translate into a stamp of ‘private property’ slapped across my forehead and a contract re-negotiation if she has buyer’s remorse? I think I’ll write her a note. Soften the blow. Hope she doesn’t punch me in the face.

What is the evolutionary function of guilt? Why are humans capable of lying, why are we so bred into it and then told it's a cause for concern when it happens? I need to Google that shit.

Fuck it

In fact, I'm feeling lucky, spontaneous even. I'm tired of thinking about it. This will be better for me, more time to write less time to fight. I'll let you know how all this plays out. 

So, about the other night, I did it again. I know I promised her that I wouldn’t, but I just get into these scenarios and can’t quite control myself. Promises fall through my fingers, erosions of trust, like sand slipping back out to sea in a calm and expected manner.

These sorts of things happen.

We went to a small social gathering. Sin and gin and a soft thumping baseline filled the air and she just kept looking at me. Either she could sense that I didn’t want to look like I was with her or she was just profoundly horny. Really could have been either.

Suddenly, she got irrationally mad when I didn’t want to kiss her in public. For the entirety of our almost one year affair—certainly the longest time someone has remained persistent and I have remained earnestly interested—I have been very clear about my opinions regarding PDA.

And then we got into one of those fights, drudging through the doldrums of drunk conversation: where the things that aren’t said are meant to hurt the most. Where any normal person would have perceived the pain in the air and done something about it, but I just chose not to for some reason. I guess I’ve accepted that I’m not normal.

The details are a little hazy…but don’t misunderstand me, I like her a lot and really care about her.  

I have cracked.

I seem to be torn between a disdain for living down to people’s expectations and searing urge to fulfill my desires in the moment they arise. Feels like I have been lost for quite a while now, ever since I started feeling the pressure of that goddammed word we’re honestly just too young to truly mean. Does she truly mean it? Why do people throw that shit around so casually?

I love the idea of love, but thus the fledgling flees.

The first guy I had sex with that night could sniff it on me, and he pursued quite aggressively right after she stormed home alone. People are always interested, and I just have problems saying no. 

The second guy I fucked in a bed that time at least (she slept hard that night, just a floor beneath us, after forcing herself to vomit and then crawling into bed with an even worse feeling in her gut, knowing I was up to no good and would do something drastic). He was just such a cute and shy and overwhelmed ginger, practically trembling in my presence...agreeing to it was never really a problem because I just knew it was going to happen by the end of the night.

We fell asleep and he rode his scooter home in the morning, she believed what I told her and that I was sorry for being weird because I really was. Sorry that I was incapable of loving her or giving her a reason why I couldn't.

I just can’t believe I did it again, it’s so predictable. I hate being predictable.