On Mutuality and Masochism

Relationships. I am terrified of them at times, and people, yet we must have relationships on some level in order to be human, not normal I say, but only human, vulnerable, strong or weak as is our personal nature. We need other people also, even when we believe we do not. Funny, that most times during youth especially, when we are upset or have been hurt, we tell ourselves fiercely, "I don't need anyone!", that is just when we need someone the most. Someone to understand, to care, to sympathize, empathize, whatever one wishes to call it. We wish acceptance of some sort. If we do not wish acceptance, or truly do not care for others and have no compassion, then usually such ones are sociopaths or psychopaths, who fall under categories in the abnormal psychology books and reports. Those who do not even fall into such categories? The gods of the universe help us all, they are more dangerous than any animal however long toothed and clawed. But I am digressing (yet I've heard that in blogs that's alright to do :-)

Back to the type of relationship I wish to relate, but it also includes instances of abnormal psychology, which is why I referenced what I did before:

There is a woman I have come to care for, a good friend. Or was a friend, until perhaps recently. In appearance, beautiful, gentle, strawberry blonde haired and petite, yet with a fierce personality and a painful lash in her soft voice whenever you had displeased her or she perceived that you misunderstood her. I consider myself as sane as possible considering my background, my childhood. Her childhood was a terrible hell compared even to mine, yet it was all under the layer of familial "love" and pseudo-Christianity. I think in some ways this can be worse. To be abused by a stranger is bad enough, but those of one's own family? The lasting psychological scars are unreal.

I've tried to understand her. I've listened. I've given opinions when asked, or when not asked. I've related my mind on certain matters as I felt the freedom to do so, but we continued to go back to two topics that we had difficulty of us to understand the other. Religion and gender. Sometimes also nationality. Without conceit, I say she and I are both intelligent, well read, reasonably open-minded about many aspects of life and living, even when they are different than what we do ourselves.

Religion. I am non-religious, especially in the westernized, Christianized way of things. I have studied many religions, have read the Bible through once than once, as well as a translated Koran. If anything I find many things that speak to my soul in Buddhism, and also Shamanism. Wiccan also appeals to me, as I have long studied the history of pagans (such as Christians call them). I've even studied Satanism, as one of my grandmothers was a well-known witch in her village. Spellbooks, necessary chemicals, herbs, paraphenalia were all common things I saw in her house when visiting. Yet personal belief in religion is not mine.

Religion Part 2. I believe there was a man, who was eventually named the Christ who walked the earth. He was a good and just man, perhaps he was the son of a god, in any case, there were many who came to believe in him and through history as you all know what came about based on his legacy. Mostly violence, injustice, horrors and death though claims are made they base their actions on his words. Hypocrisy, blatant. Yet, I realize there are many who geniunely believe in this Christ, who try to live by his words, who try to do good towards all mankind though we are all imperfect. I have no problem with these ones, but I do have problems with one's who defend Christianity's horrible past to me. I dismiss those ones who try to "convert" me. It's not going to happen. Such was the case with this woman. She has her beliefs, well and good, but do not try to convert me to them. Do not push your beliefs onto me. I do not mind to hear of thoughts and even scriptures, I can quote them as well, but when it is time for me to express my thoughts, why do you not also listen to me?

Gender. I've done my loving of many women. So many beautiful creatures, whether of the soul or of the face and body or both together. But I have great difficulties in maintaining a relationship with one for any length of time. Maybe based on my upbringing, my own experiences and personality, I do not cater to some women the way they wish to be catered to. That pisses them off. And though they might have loved me at some point, I've had holy fucking sexual cut-throat tactics jihads declared against me because I might tell one to shut up and mean it, or clearly state they might have manipulated their other boyfriends or husbands to their satisfaction but it's not going to work with me. I will respect you as you respect me. You want to be an ass, I can be an ass with you, and telling me you have PMS is not going to make me feel sorry for you, or excuse your cursing me out because I didn't wish to see a film you did, didn't go to a restaurant you particularly fancied, or liked someone you hated. I don't care if you get mad, because I can get mad too, and cursing is one of my favorite pasttimes. Women, in my experience, hate that attitude. I was not always so. I used to just keep my mouth shut, look pleasant or pretend I didn't understand, apologize although I wasn't sorry just so they would still care for me. Life is too short for that crap, I realized one day.

Gender Part 2. I stopped being around women very much because there eventually always seemed to be problems, but also because I fell in love with someone of my own gender. Once you have been perceived as hetero and then show you are in fact, bi, that tends to kill the number of women running after you. But the reactions were so much more extreme that I had envisioned. "Coming out" can be hell, as so many of us know. I knew it would be difficult, but not like this, insults, disgust from people, family members and past lovers who looked at me like I was the lowest lifeform in the universe. I clung to the one who loved me like a lifecraft in a open sea, no shore in view. I avoided anyone who might show us intolerance. Usually it was women I had known before who treated me so badly or began to ignore me. I had very little interaction with women except in passing: the clerk at a shop, a waitress, a lacksidasical office worker. I do not feel I began to respect women less, I very much do so still, for so many are hard working, intelligent, strong, but I began to have a fear of seeing disgust in their eyes, repulsion. Slowly, though it took some years, I did start trying again. Often it was fraught with difficulties, because I was quick to redraw in fear of an attack, or quick to be defensive. Some took great patience with me. The friend who encouraged me to blog here is such a one. I had hoped to marry her once. She wasn't having it. Smart girl that she is.

Nationality. I must admit I have the feelings of so many non-American persons when dealing with most Americans who have not traveled, or if they have traveled outside of their own country, have not opened their minds the different cultures, lifestyles and histories, different thought patterns. Sometimes in speaking with the friend I originally mentioned, some comments would just stop me cold because I could not imagine someone could be so narrow-minded or unenlightened about the rest of the world. Often, when I tried to explain why I reacted the way I did, saying, "I can't believe you just said that! That is so not true!" She had no idea of what she had said offensive, of the stereotypes she was playing into, nor was willing to changer her view though obviously incorrect. But she claimed I did the same regarding Americans, stereotyping. I have spent far more time in the US than she has outside of it. She has never traveled to Europe or Asia, Africa, Australia. Granted we all can tend to stereotype or even be prejudiced against something, but the thing is, when someone points it out to you, change your view if its truly incorrect. Why keep it? Why keep yourself ignorant? Yes, I will say, it horrifies me the decibel level many Americans use in every day speaking and addressing each other. It horrified me how so many are religious to the level of absurdity. How so many are willing to vote for officials who encourage attack and war. How so many are willing to accept laws that restrict aspect of personal life that are none of anyone else's business. Yet I know there are many who are good-natured, open-minded, still conservative yet tolerant of other views.

So this female friend and I had difficulties in conversation, besides the fact she said she loved me and wished a relationship (though the next week she said she was joining a convent for a year and would I wait for her), besides the fact she was extremely manic depressive, and I never knew when she was going to come out screaming at me or crying and helplessly calling my name. What kind of relationship can we have together? Friends. This I am willing for, but I think my presence is upsetting to her a good part of the time, and I don't know why, even when I am trying to be as non-confrontational as possible. We know what topics are not good topics for us to discuss, so I try to avoid them, she goes back to them every single time. How to have a friendship, a relationship? I care for her. I worry about her. But I am not a masochist.

In The Merry Month of May

I am a writer by profession, to make a living, and I should be doing so even as I begin this blog, yet here I am. Honestly, I do not understand the concept of blogging
really. I discussed this with a friend earlier. The very friend who suggested I blog. So, I said, I write down my thoughts, feelings, etc, etc, and people are suppose to
or might read it, correct? You write it down for your own self, she replied.

Hmm, I thought, but I can remember my thoughts and feelings inside my own head, recount my days or nights through memory without having to type it up. And
what's the point in typing it up when odds are very few people will read it anyway, and lesser percentage they will care about what you wrote? She replied her
previous reply, You just type it up for yourself...yadda, yadda, yadda. Ok, I get that part, but still why should anyone care what I think? Maybe its a Russian thing,
maybe its Native American, I am mixed both. Half from one group of people who ask themselves rhetorical questions most of the time, and half from a group who
generally repress their emotions in front of outsides. Yet, here I am blogging. How humorous ironic!

I will begin at the point I am at now, early evening in a climate where daylight last well into night. I'd had plans to go out tonight, was meeting an expectant friend at a
film premiere. As said friend has been increasingly difficult during the last week since we planned the outgoing, I no longer have the desire to go. After an argument on
the telephone earlier, as well as online, having been accused of being rude because I refused to call the theatre to arrange for this person to have a special seat (I wasn't
rude, I merely told them that if they wanted a special seat they could call for themself.), after a glass of wine and a vodka, I have no fucking intention of going anywhere
I do not explicitly wish to.

The evening is pleasant, the day still a nice temperature, I've just had a nice dish of pasta leftover from last night's dinner, I'm working to complete a story which is still
interesting to me, and I feel like taking a nap. In fact, I have just arisen from laying down, intending to go to sleep, but as I lay there, images of my beloved came into
my head. A quick phone call we'd had some moments earlier. He was still out shopping, having a meeting with friends, sitting in a park, I've no idea what, for he
didn't tell me, but only that he might be home soon. He had not invited me this morning to accompany him. I did not wish to force my presence upon him either. He
seemed to wish to be alone.

The bed seems doubly cold and empty without him. My body becomes aroused thinking of him. I momentarily lose the desire for sleep. I rise again, and go back to
my computer. I consider having another drink, but decide against it. Not until later maybe. I really do need the finish the story I'm working on, but my mind keeps
getting distracted. Relationship problems that have lingered over the past year are beneath and behind my every thought or mood. I am no good at such things. I love
very strongly, irrationally sometimes, utterly, yet to express that to the other person, therein lies my biggest obstacle.

I love a man who I've known since he was fourteen years ago. Awkward and shy, yet beautiful even then. He loves me says, he said, he married me after all. He has
stayed by my side through my serious illness, and all the hospital stays and doctor's visits, but there seems a barrier now that I cannot overcome, or perhaps I do not
know how to. Perhaps I know how to, but only fear of what I will reveal of myself. But is not my soul suppose to be open to my dear one, available at need?

He fell in love with someone else. He had not intended on doing so. It was a friendship which deepened. They have similar difficulties and needs. It developed. I did
not protest it because at the time I was unable to satisfy my partner in various ways because of my illness. And so here we are some months later, my illness much
improved, little trouble any longer, and this person still is between us. Or maybe they are not between, it is only my imagination. Maybe it is my self who continues the
stilted meetings, the passionate lovmaking yet lack of compassionate conversations before or after. Maybe it is my own old fears of rejection and incompentency that
keep the distance between us. I love him so desperately, so completely. I fear to show how much, he might consider it foolish. I am foolish.

I have not cheated on him since our marriage, though he has cheated on me (cheated is a dirty word). He had another lover, that sounds better, does it not? I never
have doubted his love for me, and I agreed to these meetings, but it still hurt on some level. For the first time the other day, I had arranged a sex date for myself, a
sexy young thing, willing and open, but I couldn't go through with it at the last minute. I felt strong desire for sex, for contact with this person, but in the end it just
didn't seem worth it.

I am a difficult person much of the time. Or if not difficult, then internally focused. I have my ideas of how things should be done, how I want things, I do not often
give in to other ideas unless I happen to be in a compliable mood...and that is rare. But I do try to think through what is best for all involved with me, and not often am
I wrong, so it usually works out. But this has eluded me, making a peace. Determining what I can do to make it better. But again, maybe I am just refusing to see the
facts clearly. A friend suggested, Tell him how much you love him. Tell him how you really feel. And I am being a shit and haven't lost my fear of telling my heart and
soul, and being rejected again. I've had it happen too often in the past, too importantly. But then everyone has, have they not? What makes me think my life should be
so different? That everything will go well for me? Yet, that's the point. I am rather a pesstimist. I fear he will leave me, that he will tell me, that's all very well and good,
but there is someone else I wish to be with. I fear this. I would rather live in this damnable limbo that invite him to say that to me. Honestly, my lack of action might
just be the real invitation to separate.

Always, he and I get back to this point mostly because of my emotional reticence. He is vibrant, alive, expressive, demonstrative, and I am the opposite, yet I feel no
less passion for love or life. At this moment I can think of nothing better than taking him in my arms, pressing kisses to his long throat, filling my nostrils with the scent
of his hair and skin, his breath, of tasting the musky tang of his sweet mouth, but would he want me the same way I do him? Rhetorical question, yep, I am mostly
Russian it seems. There is no way to find out without him being here, or I being where he is. And where is he? I've no idea. When will he come home? This I have no
idea of either. Could I find out? Yes, but it puts me in that damnable position of being vulnerable by asking. Of taking the chance of hearing background voices on the
phone line, very likely masculine, a lover perhaps. Or maybe he wouldn't answer at all seeing it was my number.

Damn it all to hell. He said he would call me back around this time. He hasn't. I feel like going to lay back down and pull the covers over my head, but on the linen his
scent clings. Maybe I need to go do laundry. Maybe I need to call and demand he return home. Nix that, tell him how much I wish he were beside me now. Will I
call? Read above, what do you think? LOL *Sigh* But its not funny really, and I am not laughing out loud. I feel like crying. I feel like punching holes in plaster or
tossing my laptop from the window. My usual response. Ironically enough, the friend who was being to irritate me about meeting this evening has called me twice
since I began writing this blog. Almost has received the Beast. The Sumashetshi. The last time, I said very quietly, didn't I tell you I would call when I was available.
Yes, they said, very meekly. Why are you calling me? Quickly, they got off the phone. Not fair on my part perhaps, but aggravating as hell they keep calling. I could
have been much much worse. I have been before honestly. Good thing they were not here or had knocked on my door. With my mood just now....might have been
dangerous. Now that is funny! LOL I'm not going to physically accoust someone, but when I am mad, I look like I might. And being my height and weight, (6'6 and
roughly 200 odd pounds/199cms and 101kilos), most people don't hang about long when I am in a mood though I would never intentionally hurt anyone.

I need to listen to my partner and I's theme song, it may break me from my immobility enough to go to him or beg him to come to me. "Heroes" by David Bowie.
Any and every time I hear that song it brings tears to my eyes of he and I dancing together, kissing, happy, suppose to be housecleaning or cooking but instead we fall
to the floor, losing clothing, our wits, ourselves in each other. We kissed beneath the wall just where Bowie mentioned in the song. In our city, we can do that without
being arrested or harassed. Once the kill zone meant death for anyone there, but now, or at one time, to us, it meant the beginning of life.