Do you have a favorite place you have visited? Where is it?
My relationship to my environment changed when I realized everything begins and ends with me. That I couldn’t blame anything on anyone at anytime. That when I’m phrasing a sentence, I make sure it’s “if, then” and not “this is why the people I know are bad.” Even now I have a sentence I call myself out on, so I know I have to correct it….. not in how I meant something. How I said it.
I said something about not wanting Supergrover to be mad at poly because “she helped make me this way to begin with.” I was mad and not thinking clearly, because if I hadn’t been going 90wpm, I would not have said it that way. I would have said that my reaction to the hard out was to make her a part of my heart in a way that can’t be duplicated. Therefore, it would be hard sharing myself to the same degree with another person. But it comes across differently in “she made me” language, and I am persnickety about that. No one made anyone do anything, I was just bad at grammar that day…… because I really do see the world like this.
Everyone is the cause of their own suffering in interpersonal relationships, but I draw the line at “everyone is the cause of their own suffering” because conventional wisdom says “don’t bet against the house.” I am the cause of my own suffering if I do not take care of the flaws within myself. But nowhere within myself can I fix institutional-scale ills. I am never going to fix racism. I am never going to fix ableism. I am never going to fix homophobia or transphobia. This is why self-help on the laws of attraction is bullshit to a minority on some level, because for a minority to attract anything to them they require others to want to work with them despite their differences.
They are all differences society is trained not to see and you’re trained to social mask around. If someone makes a comment about your lifestyle, sexual orientation, or gender, it is not on them to have been nice. It is on you to have held your tongue. This is the plight of all minorities. Be different, just don’t mention it.
For instance, having the reaction I did with Supergrover was helpful in my relationship with Zac, because I asked him out not knowing that he was actually the partner of a mutual friend. At first, I didn’t know he was intelligence, either. All of that came together later, when I realized that I’d managed to pick someone who was both safe and exciting, strong and comfortable. I felt like I already knew how to do this because I was so practiced at not feeling jealous of Supergrover’s husband…. that my behavior wasn’t fake with Zac because it wasn’t fake with her, either. I can love her all I want, but at no time does that make her stop being straight. I can send her love that is useful to her or love that isn’t. I can have other romantic partners because she will not give me that, but I cannot put her outside that level trust, either. And this is true whether we’re talking or not, because when she walks away she doesn’t depreciate in value.
In a lot of ways, it feels like she’s a museum exhibit and I’m the custodian who works nights.
But I walk around in my head often. It’s my favorite place.
Stories That Are All True 