unsent tweet thread
if you're afraid that having a partner may change you, a good thing to do is make that partner adjust to your whims instead and imply that they're selfish if they don't
***
sometimes, instead of negotiating a single adjustment in my life for someone else, i dream that they're a soul-sucking demon pursuing me through the ruins of my wasted potential. then i tell them about it
if they don't take the hint, i remind them they can leave anytime while refusing to change so that they have to accommodate my whims instead
then i emotionally abandon them because they're obviously a complete idiot. i'm late to things and refuse to be present; i make a joke about their lack of talent before launching into reminisces about my ex; i imply they're intellectually disabled; i critique their banter when i permit it at all
if the facade breaks and they cry about it for reasons they thought safely compartmentalized, they're a deranged selfish harpy
because being a deranged selfish harpy gives me carte blanche to bully them, i do. then they break up with me and i apologize. then they tweet about it, which is annoying, but i never have to change so who cares.
the end
another unsent thread (about a friend of his whose boyfriend, who happened to have substance abuse issues, hacked her bank account. it was awkward because he had originally preferred the boyfriend to her.)
a bad part of me is excited for the next woman, a woman better at conformity and bargaining than i am, to discover that her talents won't save her from being reviled as soon as her mirroring act falters
at age 20, a story i reported for a national news outlet was featured in a briefing by the ACS to help congress understand why they should fund scientific research in between active crises
but let me wallow in shame and sadness for not being able to choke down my trauma long enough to contemplate a serial tech abuser's redeeming qualities.....maybe recycle a line about the sacklers, etc etc. god forbid i fail to have anything nice to say about someone i've never met but who was introduced to me in the course of a conversation about controlling men with a penchant for hacking their partners' bank accounts
notes to self
you can't get back with someone who kept hurting you like that, even if you know enmeshment is the reason.
you just can't.
you can't change him. you can't teach him. you can love him from over here.
"i can't be with someone like that. but what if that's the only sort of person i can be with?"
retroactive dumb love like because it's finally safe i guess. we're so far apart, i can fantasize.
unsent letter
i love you.
i am mad at you for never saying it.
i am mad at you for not caring about who i am or trying to entertain a world in which we could be happy together.
i am mad at you for not truly believing that women have feelings, the same way i no longer one hundo percent believe men do (except in certain situations where feelings are rhetorically convenient).
i didn't tell you certain things that may have clarified why i had such strong feelings about your dangerously sad men friends. i know that you are also sad, but i think you're a better man than they are. i am pretty sure your problem is that you underestimate the power you hold in relationships with women. you don't fully believe they mean it when they express pain or sadness. you think it's a bid for control. so it's no wonder i didn't tell you the sad things that happened to me that made me skeptical of your friend who actually hurt someone. the specific genre of abuse i told you about, tech abuse, was not the full story. there were grisly details and did not want to pollute a still-happy relationship with them, or make you see me differently, or (the worst outcome) not believe me if i told you. maybe i conflated these two men in my mind, but also, i wanted you to see what i saw. i guess i'm pink-pilled or something. i want you to be slightly (read: a lot) more pink-pilled than you are, but you are from the back country and you do not understand. i was drawn to you because of that, and you were probably drawn to me because i am so tragically *of* this place. but i wish you wouldn't make me feel bad for the job i have. i wish i didn't have to apologize for having it. i mean, it's a job. sure. but it's also kind of fun. i get to write and edit all day, but it's all inconsequential, so i don't feel bad if i do a bad job. i don't know if i'll keep it, but i might. it depends on what i need.
you reduced my pain to a grievance about money, and that's not who i am. i was just trying to set boundaries because i've seen what happens when women give without end just because they want to be good people. bad things always happen to them when they do that.
you wanted me to be florence nightingale. i wanted you to realize that's a dangerous trope and that i come from the real world, where women have to make their own money or they will be stomped on and humiliated in lavish and creative ways. i'm realistic. i do what i have to do. and i want to be loved for that as much as for everything else. i don't want giving and caring to be my only redeeming qualities. i want to be a person and i want to be seen as a person.
