standing on a fault line

h. · Post by h. » Sat Apr 13, 2002 8:47 am

Forum, answer me this: If one cheats, is it always the likelihood that even though the cheater is in the wrong, they will blame and be hateful toward the cheated to cover the fact that they've acted like such an asshole? (this asshole can be masculine or feminine, as anyone can be an asshole.)
It seems to me that if you are going to be exclusively with one person and fuck somebody else, isn't it your fault and not theirs that you can't keep your clothes on?
What's wrong with just saying Ã¢â‚¬Å“this doesn't workÃ¢â‚¬? before you start seeing someone else?
This was a question posed to me recently and I agree. You are a total asshole if you can't even admit that you want something else.
What IS wrong with being honest up front, rather than being a rat bastard on the sly and being cruel to someone whose fault was caring for you in the first place?

Daily Taylor · Post by **Daily Taylor** » Sun Apr 14, 2002 6:27 pm

Hey, good question. I was dating this great, or so I thought, great chick last summer. We had been together for a couple months and I was really taken with her. I really believe I fell in love. So we had been seeing each other almost every day and things were going so well. Then the strangest thing happened - she disappeared for a week and a half, wasn't ever home, wouldn't call me back, etc. So I sent her a kinda mean-spirited e-mail, speculating that she was cheating on me. She replied and just was a huge bitch about it. She said "Well if that's what you believe, just go with it - Fuck You!!!!!" I couldn't believe it. This was someone who led me to believe that she felt the same way as me and I couldn't believe that anyone who's being accused of cheating wouldn't defend themselves. She acted like there was something wrong with me! So a few weeks later I finally was able to get my things back from her apartment(that's another long story) she informs me that she was engaged and would be married in 6 months. All that happened in the period of 3 weeks since our breakup? I'm calling BS on that. The only person you can completely trust is yourself, I suppose. But yeah, I don't get it. She acted like she hated me, and what had I done? I just tried to love her. High crimes, huh? I was totally kind to her throughout the ordeal(with the exception of the e-mail, which was pretty mild)and she responded by being ruthless. I don't understand it either.

rabbit · Post by **rabbit** » Sun Apr 14, 2002 6:42 pm

There is something wrong with you Daily.

With that aside, i think people hate saying "this doesnt work" just for the simple fact that their significant other may have huge faults but they still love them. I knew this girl, I dated her and she was with her boyfriend and I learned that he beat her. That's bullshit. But she still loved him and I tried helping her but she would have nothing do do with it. very frustrating.

h. · Post by h. » Sun Apr 14, 2002 10:25 pm

nothing's wrong with Daily. He's the type who probably would say "this isn't working" no matter how hard it was.
I was once engaged. Yes, to be married. To a sweet sweet man who never did anything wrong to me aside from think I was someone I was not, no matter how hard I tried to show him who I was. I lived in a different state than him, and when the time came, I flew to see him.
He was so damned happy to see me. And I told him that I couldn't be with him anymore, and why.
It was more painful than I thought it would be. I felt like I was some cruel bitch. None of my close friends understood where I was coming from when what motivated me to break his heart was that I knew if I stayed with him, I'd break it worse. And he'd hate me.
He's married to someone else now, but he still calls to say hi. It preserved our friendship to tell him the truth, even if it hurt him and he didn't want to see me for a while after that. His wife hates my ass though...

Daily Taylor · Post by **Daily Taylor** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 7:10 am

What's wrong with me?

Daily Taylor · Post by **Daily Taylor** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 7:30 am

Yeah, I think you handled that the right way totally. I mean, you went through the time, trouble, and money for a ticket to tell him that. That's pretty honorable, I must say. I'll bet most people would've done it over the phone. The girl I was talking about never sat me down and told me that. If she would've I think I'd probably still think highly of her. I've had enough relationships to know that they don't work out the majority of the time and that when they fail you just move on. I try to stay friends with my ex girlfriends amd usually do, they can provide excellent insight as friends. But the way we broke up just crushed me. I felt like a sucker. Here I was taking what she was saying to me the only way I could - at face value. And when someone tells you she never wants to ever leave you then pulls a vanishing act like that less than a week later, it really didn't make any sense to me. Then she informs me of her engagement. Then she wouldn't even be nice to me in public. I said congradulations to her when she told me about getting married too. I really wanted to be kind to her. By that point, I knew I didn't want to be with her. I felt like she was enjoying hurting me. There were no I'm sorry's or any remorse from her end. I haven't seen her since October or so, but I kinda wonder if her engagement's still on. For the guys sake, I hope it's not. I think she has a few issues to deal with or maybe she bothered to let him in on what those are exactly. Looking back on the whole thing it could've been much worse. She could've wasted alot more of my time. Anyway, I've dealt with the whole thing and moved on. I just read your post and knew exactly what you were talking about. Just like that line in Cool Hand Luke - "Now what we've got here is a failure to communicate!" That about says it all.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 6:10 pm

Daily you are right. It sucks to love people you don't like. Time my friend is all we have to heal the fucking wounds.

"all alone is all we are" -Kurt who killed himself.

"all we need is love"- John who was killed.

h. · Post by h. » Mon Apr 15, 2002 10:38 pm

There's this man who I love. It's silly, really. I've wasted too long hoping that I'd meet someone I felt that way about and then I could just not hope that sometime, things would all work as I'd wished they had
He sends me love letters and pictures. He tells me he misses me and loves me. Asks me to move home sometimes.
Guess he forgot to tell me the part about proposing to a girl and getting married. and I talk to this man every day. Last I heard, they were breaking up.
hmmmfff!
I hate this shit...
I think I will chain smoke and write pissed off poetry. I already wrote one entitled: Congratulations on your marriage you goddamned son of a bitch!

h. · Post by h. » Mon Apr 15, 2002 10:41 pm

And yes, McCutcheon, I'm a tad bitter at the moment.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Mon Apr 15, 2002 11:42 pm

Nice title. I have one that goes:

Young girls shouldn't be allowed to write love letters because I get drunk and believe them.

h. · Post by h. » Tue Apr 16, 2002 12:28 am

Maybe that's what it is. I believed him. I stone cold sober believed him.
Guess it's good I'm not so bitter as to lose all hope. Just bitter enough to write bad poetry...

martino · Post by **martino** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 9:52 am

when people behave so dishonestly, i don't get it. what's the use?

i happen to hold pierre bordieu's "social capital" concept in great respect. it says that people generally try to accumulate certain kinds of capital -- financial capital, social capital, intellectual capital and emotional capital. a person who has lots of money (ie financial capital) but no real friends (social capital) has an incomplete life. if you gain a certain emotional capital by manipulating a lover and this reduces your social capital you are playing a zero-sum game at best.

you lie to a lover and your friends hear about it, so you lose face and besmirch your reputation, therefore decreasing your ability to find a new lover: so what's the point? to use a current cliche, what goes around comes around.

on the other hand, i think one reason for such unconscionable behavior as you have experienced may be connected to what might be called the anonymisation of society. your lover, h. dear, thinks he can get away with it because you have no mutual friends and his reputation will remain intact.

so what to do? what i say is this. be extra careful with a lover who is not from your circle of friends and acquaintances. be extra sceptical before falling in love with a person who puts too much stress on being financially independant, ie yuppie types. and read robert green's "the art of seduction" in order to protect yourself from emotional manipulation. (i will be writing a piece about this formidable book in a short while).

and by the way, holly: i think your poetry is quite nice.

Post by **mccutcheon** » Tue Apr 16, 2002 4:47 pm

h. don't believe Martino. He is just trying to gain more capital. Of course I say this in jest. Martino is a smart man, as anyone who follows his posts can tell, he is well read and thoughtful with his intelligence. And your poetry is quite nice.

h. · Post by h. » Tue Apr 16, 2002 6:38 pm

Martino, thanks you for the advice. Unfortunately the man is from my old group of friends. They have been more protective of me than you would think, for a bunch of boys. It was one of them who told me that this man was getting married. He couldn't tell me himself for some reason so I told him I knew and left it at that. I congratulated him, just barely. Trying to be a decent person when you are hurt is a hard thing to do.
And thank you for liking my poetry, darling. I've got loads of it laying around that I don't know what to do with. I was trying to convince McCutcheon (started as his idea that I thought was a good one) that we should get some awesome poets together, pool money, and put out a book. Too expensive to do on my own.

martino · Post by **martino** » Wed Apr 17, 2002 9:01 am

aitch honey, i think there is no need to be decent to a guy who is a lousy cowardly fool. he is just waiting to be pussy-whipped. on the other hand, the decent thing to do (as opposed to the polite thing) might be to give him a swift kick in the balls.

i think the idea of a poetry book is great. i'd like to match your funding efforts dollar-to-dollar, but i have to save up, because one day i'd like to make an offer to buy the foreign-language rights to some mccutcheon stories!