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lana-del-briaridyl-blog · 7 years

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#2 - August 2, 2017

First of all, notice that I’ve changed our url. And that’s because I’m a big fucking klutz and I accidentally liked a post on ZG’s new girlfriend’s blog while on this account. Just hand me a gold medal for being the world’s shittiest Tumblr stalker. ZG texted me and her girlfriend changed her url. Yikes.

I’m literally writing this at work right now. Getting paid by the hour. *money barf emoji*

About the self-sabotage/crushing on straight guys thing: It could be that you’re subconsciously going for people you know are unattainable, which is scary, but I think that’s actually a pretty normal tendency and I wouldn’t be too worried (if that helps at all?). Crushing on celebrities/older people/people in relationships can be a safe testing ground for us to figure out what we like and what kinds of people we’re into without the pressure of trying to make something happen. The problem is, in your case, you have to live with this guy AND a relationship is something that you actually want right now.

Also, the feeling that everyone else is getting all of the experiences in dating/sex/romance and you’re not is LITERALLY THE WORST THING EVER. Like, it has so much power to bring up the “yo is there something wrong with me tho” feelings.

SO. A few things (gonna bullet point because paragraphs are whatever):

To be honest, a lot of things about dating really suck. The honeymoon period goes away eventually, and a lot of times you’re kind of left with this dynamic that feels more like when you and I would sit in the N*ckCave in high school and put in a pizza and talk about what to watch on TV/YouTube for 30mins before just sitting on the couch and doing whatever than it does ~romance~. I’m not saying there’s not value in that dynamic (there really, really is — having someone you can love and feel comfortable doing next to nothing around is important and wonderful), but I’m just trying to demystify the whole ~~relationship~~ thing that often feels like surrounded by its own magical fairy dust from observers. Falling in love is exciting but, from my experience at least, it’s one of those things that exists in the extremes of micro and macro. You notice it in tiny tiny things and you acknowledge its larger arc over time. The in between bits haze over and get lost in the everyday.

The point of that point (eyyy) was that relationships aren’t inherently meaningful. My tendency is to think of a romantic relationship as some fated match of kindred souls coming together, but that’s LOL NOT HOW IT WORKS S*PH**. More realistically it’s just two people who were like “sup dude you’re cool I’m cool lets make something together” and then they do and it grows or it doesn’t. And the beautiful part is that thing you make and take care of. Not just the fact that you’re two people who are attracted to each other. And maybe it’s fate but if it is we can’t think of it that way.

And you’re over there in California like “HI HELLO WORLD I AM *READY* TO BUILD THAT MOTHERFUCKING FIRE” and you’re just getting echoes with a side of straight frat boys hollering “pu$$y pu$$y pu$$y marijuana” and it’s frustrating for me that I can't help you more with the literal finding-of-a-person-to-love situation. I can’t manifest a perfect partner for you (would if I could, boo), but I’m trying my best to use this space to complicate some of the assumptions about what the value of a relationship is, and why sometimes we feel such a lack (of love, of security, of power, of time left in our lives to *find* love/security/power) in our lives without one.

The TP/RS thing (wishing you’d had the chance to have an experience like theirs early on — or at all) is actually something that’s come up in my own anxious relationship thoughts. Part of me wants to say to you, “No, those early, stepping-stone relationships are bullshit, timing doesn’t matter, there’s no such thing as ‘learning’ how be in a relationship because it’s different every time with every person, TP and RS probably aren’t any better people or partners for it, etc.” and part of me wants to say, “Yo ok but let’s not try to downplay the significant social capital and external validation they gained from being a public couple at R**s*v*lt and into later high school years. Dating has STRONG inertia, and it’s as easy to slide from relationship to relationship when you’re in one/just got out of one (lol hi hello it’s me) as it is difficult to break out of feeling static when you're single. Though likely not all too deep within the relationship itself, the fact that it got the ball rolling for both of them both in their sense of confidence in dating *and* in others’ perceptions of their respective ~datability~ is legitimate.”

So what I think I’ll land on with the TP/RS thing (you know that I’m just using them as an example to talk about the concept of having dated while still under your parents’ roof, basically) is this: Yeah, not having done it does stunt your growth a little. And I think this phenomenon is particularly common and particularly evident for queer/gay people who were either not out in high school or didn’t date for other reasons. I’ve read more than one ~thinkpiece~ (don’t laugh at me) about the consequences for queer people in particular of barriers to dating during teen years. Maybe this is why the culture of hookups seems to exist for gay men and the culture of “U-hauling” exists for gay women? Like two extremes of dating, either no commitment or a TON all at once due to fear of not having the right “skills” to build a steady partnership?

(I have a huge fucking bone to pick with the lack of safe, non-alcoholic queer spaces for young people. But that’s a topic for another post.)

BUT the area in which not having had relationships stunts your development is one that 1) has been overblown and glamorized in its significance and 2) probably has influence over your sense of relationship confidence more because of external social dynamics that validate couples over single people than because it gives you real life skills that make you a better partner. Did that make any sense? What I’m trying to say is that TP/RS relationships help you develop and that’s REAL but not in the way that you think, and the way that they help you develop doesn’t lend itself that well to the *stuff* that makes relationships juicy and loving and good. More social capital than internal growth. Same with JC/ZH.

On to the stuff that I think makes relationships juicy and loving and good: Vulnerability — the blind trust in someone to take pieces of your literal warm guts and soul out of the part of your stomach that hurts when you’re embarrassed and put them on the table and feel the discomfort and, like, roll in it. Bloody fucking gross but bloody fucking good. The cool misty calm of the patience, space, curiosity that it takes to stay in tact as an individual human and united-yet-not-swallowed alongside another person (you can’t have all of your guts on the table or you’d die, ya know?). There’s a different kind of vulnerability (this is the one that I’m less good at, lmao) in trusting silence and allowing privacy and distance and unknown and allowing for a slower meshing, I guess. Also, willingness to embrace and respect mundane — having enough faith in your mutual connection to know that it’s there even when it’s not right in front of you. Obviously there’s a lot more than those three, but I feel like anything else I could list would kind of fit into one of those categories.

I don’t think any of those skills (can you call them that?) are exclusive to romantic relationships. You can explore those concepts within yourself and notice your own ability to give/receive vulnerable words and actions, your own tendency to desire an all-consuming or all-giving bond with someone regardless of reciprocation (gas refilling?), and what feels scary and what feels safe and why. What are the parts of you that you’re excited/ready to share with another person? What are the parts of you that you want to share with another person but (possibly) feel scared to give? And what are the parts of you that feel so precious that you want to keep all to yourself? What do you want or not want to receive If there are any ~stepping stones~ toward a meaningful partnership, I think it’s asking yourself these questions.

I hope I’m not getting too theoretical or too preachy here. This is for you but it’s also for me. Putting these words on a page feels nice because shit if I know how love works.

I can’t take away the pain and the SHITTYNESS that comes with watching everyone around you navigate hookups and dating and love while also having unrequited feelings for someone. That’s like a double fucking punch in the stomach. And I also felt like sharing ~practical dating tips~ would be kind of dumb because our environments are so different and I can’t really promise that anything I would have suggested would actually help you get what you want. But I hope these thoughts can at least give you something to chew on? I hope they can complicate some widespread assumptions about what relationships are and why we think (/are told) they’re somehow higher than other forms of love.

Currently, I’m feeling a little too winded by the nauseating Uber pool ride that is my internal life right now to write it all down and flesh it out. Today, things feel calm and relatively stable (by “things” I mean: my mental health and its inevitable connection to how secure I’m feeling in my relationship with PL, my lingering not-relationship-not-friendship-but-not-not-something with ZG, and my attraction to GL — text me if you need explanations of initials, but I think you got it). Last night, PL gave me a packet and reading of five poems from the last few months that all have to do with me/our relationship. I think I’ve told you this, but she’s a published and super talented legit poet, so these aren’t just sappy love poems I’m dealing with here. I cried and I didn’t know how to respond to her poem-words with my mouth-words and I told her that I love her.

The I-love-you thing has been something we’ve opened conversation about before. When I explained to her my complications with feeling like I got into this relationship too fast after ZG and that I’m still dealing with leftover feelings and love for ZG (It’s been an intense couple of weeks for PL and me. Did I tell you about this conversation we had? I also told her about GL — not by name because I think that would make things really tricky, but I told her that I have feelings for one of my close friends), one of the things that hurt her the most was that I was so freely saying how much I still “loved and cared about” ZG when “I love you” still isn’t a thing that PL and I regularly say in our relationship. I told PL that it wasn’t that I didn’t feel that way towards her, but I just didn’t feel ready for whatever reason to say it, even though it gets expressed in different ways.

But I think the real reason why I’ve been hesitant to say it is that in a lot of ways it feels like the last thing I can hold onto about my relationship with ZG. As if only having said “I love you” to one romantic partner ever kept ZG’s and my relationship alive in some way, and that sharing those words with someone else (even if I felt it) would start the real fading-away process of that past relationship.

Last night I felt it, and I said it, and PL said it back, and like… nothing exploded. Love is not finite! You LITERALLY cannot run out. It’s cool. I just have to keep reminding myself that loving a new person doesn’t diminish or disrespect previous loves. Then we had sex on her parents’ couch.

I love you and I miss you and write back when you can.

Sincerely,

Just Wants Lots Of Friends Who Invite Me To Their Parties (aka Y)

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