Tuesday, June 23, 2009

In which I mindfuck this situation to death...

Muckraker wrote back with an explanation.

Well, his first email back to me was rather combative, but was essentially: "I wasn't going through your stuff. I was looking at something I had looked at before. I don't get why you're making such a big deal about this."

My email back to him was: "Given what I was told, can't you see why I would think what you did is a big deal?"

His response: "Yes, I can, but I didn't think I was doing anything wrong. I was looking for the list you had already shown me, and I didn't want to bug people in the office who were already stressed with other stuff for help." He ended it with, "Still Friends?"

I thought about responding with "Still friends??? When were we EVER friends? Friends don't fall off the face of the earth for several months, or not return emails, or only be in touch when they need something. Asshole. No we're not Still friends because we were never friends."

But, of course, I didn't do that. I basically said, "Sure. But next time, when you have a question, actually address it to ME instead of helping yourself."

He responded rather oddly to that by saying that he was busy until the end of the week, but that after that he wanted to tell me about his spring and he wanted to hear about mine. And Oh. He also mentioned that we'll be having not one, but TWO classes together this spring. AWESOME. (/sarcasm)

I'm not saying that sarcastically because I DON'T want to see him, I'm saying that sarcastically because I DO want to see him. Even after all this. Even in spite of his super douchey behaviour. Even in spite of the fact that I've rarely had an interaction with him in which I've not felt worse about myself afterward. Like I said, he's totally under my skin. And so, I know that wanting to see him is the height of self-destructive behaviour. That I won't be able to concentrate the rest of the summer is the least of it. That I'll drive my friends BAT-SHIT insane, is bad, but that's not the worst part. (Well, Npapaya might think that's the worst part.) The worst part is that I know he's going to make me feel worse about myself.

One of the classes I'm taking is a writing course, and I do NOT want him to read my writing. I feel-- very stupidly-- that his opinion of my writing carries much more weight than it should. I know I should not care what his thoughts are about what I write as long as I like it.
And yet... What he thinks matters to me. And I know that if he doesn't like what I've done it will crush me. And... I also know, just by the genre of what I write, that he won't like it. So-- nice fucking catch 22 I have there, isn't it? Yes, I'm trying to convince myself that his opinions won't matter... I'm trying to psych myself up already. I doubt it will work.

Because I'm mindfucking this to death, I am also dwelling on the fact that he opened an eharmony account very recently, as evidenced by the fact that we just got matched. What does this say to me? That he's SO COMPLETELY uninterested in me that he'd rather go to the interwebs to find a date than ask me out. (Yeah, yeah... I'm on there too, but I was on there long before I even met him, and I made it plain this winter that if he asked me out I wouldn't say no.)

So. I feel like this is a rejection, almost as if I HAD asked him out, and he said no.

Now, don't get me wrong-- I know that if we went out it would totally implode & end badly, but at the same time I take as a sign the fact that he went to eharmony AFTER he knew me as an indication that I'm really not desirable. (Ok, yes, I DO realize that these are my OWN very fucked-up issues inside my head and that I'm reading way, way, WAY too much into this. Believe me, I KNOW that. But what a person KNOWS and what a person FEELS are two different things. And what I feel? Is like undesirable leftovers.)

Bah.

I had found equilibrium when he was gone.
He's not even been back for 5 days and he's got me totally fucked up with his mind games.
Why I'm trying to read his cryptic responses like tea leaves, I don't know. As Npapaya said, What makes me think that I'll ever be able to figure him out? He LIKES this. He gets off on it. It makes him feel important.

Npapaya was all for me cutting him off completely, which I was actually in favor of, and I was going to attempt it. Easy enough to avoid him in a lecture hall, even if we did have class together. In the writing class though? There are 5 people. Impossible to avoid him, or his critiques. (I need this credit, but I actually contemplated trying to get out of this class. (Ha ha... like Edward Cullen trying to get out of biology... I guess Muckraker is my own personal brand of heroin? Ha ha. Yes, I am behaving about as fucking stupidly sensibly as Bella, aren't I? Gawd, that book is crappy. And how crappy is this... infatuation... if I'm comparing it to the shit-fest of teenage melodrama & creepy stalkerish bad-boyfriend behaviour that is Twilight? Extra specially crappy, with a cherry on top. Believe me. I am aware of this.))

Bah humbug.

This will be a torturous summer.

2 comments:

Perpetua said...

Ugh. What an ass. And a deluded ass, too, if he thinks you shouldn't be disturbed by what he did.

But I totally get where you're coming from...when you're smitten, you're smitten. Damned weak knees! :) I think we've all been in those situations where a guy has basically said, "Hey, I'm really bad for you! Let's go out!" Your brain says RUN, but it's overpowered by the rest of you.

As I said earlier, ugh.

He's a published author, right? What the hell is he doing in a writing class? Can't he opt out?

StephanieC said...

Precisely! I don't know who wouldn't be bothered by that, but I think in general he's pretty narcissistic. (which... totally play into my issues.)

Yes, he's published many works. I think he's taking these courses so that he has the credentials to teach.