Happy New Year

So there are, what, 6 regular readers? There's probably one or two women who check up on me once or twice a quarter just so they can feel jaded again.

There's two good friends of mine, one with whom I share IPAs and another who works as hard (or at least as late) as I do.

And there's the christian, who said he had to delete the RSS feed a few days ago when he couldn't bare to read my last post about hating women. C'est la vie, my friend.

There's the good friend who isn't a friend because her religion says so. How's that arms-length observation treating you, A?

Anyway. Happy New Year.

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So I don't have any resolutions. And unlike every year in recent memory, I'm not depressed today. I don't care about the woman that is not in my life but was on Thanksgiving (always happens). I was a grinch this year and it was fine... almost enjoyable, in fact, although that is, perhaps, a relative judgment. (And against the sentiment that it would take a month for anyone to even actually find me if I never woke up one day, well, working on xmas is pretty goddamn awesome.)

Life is... well. Good.

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So I'd like to do something cathartic today instead of just an expression of raw emotion. I've been thinking about therapy, about what it would entail, about if it would actually help my mindset or my situation, and about what I'd talk about in the first six weeks, which is all just get-to-know-you bullshit anyway.

I think I need to get some shit off my chest. I need to write a few letters. They need not be read (indeed, I don't even know who you are, unless you happen to be mentioned 7 paragraphs up). They need not even be true as I write them, as admittedly many of the things I say here aren't. (Well, they are, but sometimes they expire as soon as they're expressed.)

So anyway. I'm makin' a list and I'm checkin' it twice. But this is only of the naughties:

Laura the slutbag.

Dad.

Maybe:

Mom.

Amanda.

--

Here we go. No time like the present.

Laura,

I hate you. No, really. I've thought about this for two years. I've fought it, I've taken it on myself, and I've replayed my life, my actions, and my betrayal ten thousand times each.

It was not my fault. It was nothing I did. It was not that I was too nice, or a doormat, or not present enough, or looked at you at times as a consolation prize. It was not because I was did not hold you on high and fell in love with you not because you were emotionally available and selfless but because simply that you were always there.

I confused "always there" with "always there for me" for two years. I was wrong. That was my mistake and the reality that I must face.

I was a fool. A fool to love you, a fool to love you, and a fool to let myself be vulnerable to you. I saw your presence as a form of love, and while the good man that is left inside me can reach far and stretch to imagine that it was "your version" of love, I really don't give a fuck.

I may have entered our relationship with expectations that were a little less than completely healthy. I wanted the fairy tale, then I wanted anyone, then, finally, noticing that you were always there, I thought that would be enough.

And you were always there. When you wanted to be, which was almost all of the time. You just weren't there for ME. You were there for selfish reasons.

You were there because I treated you well. Because I stimulated you on multiple levels. Because of what I could do for you.

You were never there because you loved me.

In retrospect, of course I should never have seen you as more than a fuck buddy. We had a great time in those days, and I was free to still discover just how few single women of quality there were in the east bay.

Of course I should've seen you as nothing more than a selfish girl. You never wanted to talk about "real" things except to dismiss my hunger for emotional connection. Even if it was with you. Especially if it was with you.

Not until long after you uttered "I love you" were you ever willing to even acknowledge that I had what you called "dad issues". Even then, it was not comfort you offered, but condemnation.

I was good to you until the end. To this day, sometimes, I still wonder, in fact. If I were a stronger man, if I could find it in my heart to ever forgive you... etc.

But you know what? I shouldn't have been good to you. I should've told the truth.

The truth is, there's a word to describe you, your behavior, and what you did to me. Or, perhaps, there is a word for the first two. The last one...

You're a whore. You disgust me. I am ashamed that I ever loved you. I feel stupid because I allowed you to hurt me so badly, so sharply, and so deeply.

What you did makes you a whore. What you did to me, a man that adored you, a man that made you strive to be a better person than you wanted to be, a man that treated you better than any woman I've ever met deserves to be treated, makes you something far worse. I cannot think of a word bad enough to attribute to you. "Cunt" comes to mind, but even that just isn't bad enough. It only has shock value.

I truly, honestly, and although it pains me to admit it, hope that you, in fact, are NOT happy. I hope that you feel the pain that I did, that I still feel when I think about it, about you, and about the shadow of a man I am and have become because of you.

I am embarrassed to admit it, but I hope you suffer. I hope that a place like hell exists just so terrible, selfish, cruel people like you go there. I hope that an eternal soul exists just so that you can burn forever.

I miss the person I used to be, Laura. I miss the willingness to hope, the faith in fairy tales, the lack of fear with which I approached relationships with women. I miss, so badly, the comfortable place, even while being completely lonely, that pre-Laura version of me lived in. I miss looking at women not with suspicion, an eye towards conquest, or simply derision, but instead the genuine, magnanimous position I once enjoyed.

And it's your fault. I've been over and over and over this, and I've taken the blame a thousand times, whether it was knowing better than to fall for you or simply not letting what you did bother me -- change me -- so much. And while I'd really like to take the higher road and say that I'm responsible, that I'm a grown up and have to manage the consequences of my own actions... fuck that.

You're a whore, and YOU did this. You broke the rules. You said you love me and made it a lie. You fucked up.

You changed me. Not me. I was good to you. The evil in me today is mostly BECAUSE of you. And yes, while I am an adult and have to live with, get through, and ultimately "deal" with all of this, you did this to me.

It's not my fault. Abused kids are not bad kids.

Men who are cheated on are not inherently weak, bad, or stupid. It is not a lack of masculinity, a lack of sexual prowess, an affinity for turning the other cheek too often, or any other such loosely related bullshit. It is not that I was stupid, that I was not good enough, or that I wasn't making you cum.

It is not that I could not or did not provide anything and everything you ever wanted enough to even articulate within the confines of your own selfish skull.

It is not me.

It was not me.

It has never been, never was, and never could be me. There is no rationalizing this point. There is no negotiation, no what-if exercises, no wondering, no debate.

You said you loved me. You said you were loyal. You betrayed me.

For that, I hope you burn in hell. I hope you think of me every holiday and feel remorse. I hope you masturbate to my memory and then feel foolish because you can never know my touch again. I hope you die young, alone, "independent" in your stupid fucking "city girl" ways and no one cries at your funeral.

I hope that you never ever know love. Not the apparently unrequited version that I gave you, not some superficial version that seems rampant in SF, not even the arms-length version that you and I played for so long before you set the stage for your betrayal by telling me sweet nothings. Nothings that were, after all was said and done, so very very far from nothing and so very much the antithesis of everything I had ever expected -- from you, from a woman, from anyone. Let alone hoped and dreamed.

I would be a better man had I never met you, Laura. There was no "lesson" there. There was nothing I learned that made me grow or otherwise change in a positive way.

"You go to hell! You go to hell and you die!"

Whore.