Cycles
07 October 2010 at 6:01 pm

He arrived tasting of cognac, something I discovered minutes after I let him into the apartment. We danced around the studio, our mouths enmeshed for a few minutes before I put a stop to everything and explained that I have to clean my apartment. The truth, which he knows, is that my period was two weeks late and having a uterus so full of useless blood does not an amorous Morgan make.

He left, but not five minutes passed before he was knocking urgently at the door.

When I opened the door, he announced, "I refuse to believe that the passion has left our relationship after three months."

I already know that this relationship is going to end very soon. I began twisting counter-clockwise the valve that reign in my emotions when he said he needed to "reevaluate" based on my confession that I had kissed boys while in a committed relationship...twice.

It's not something I feel guilty about; those relationships had been over for a long time, I just hadn't quite gotten around to crossing "Break up with boyfriend" off the to-do list.

He'd wanted me to be honest with him, and then punished me for things that had nothing to do with him. We both clarified our positions, but the damage was done, and now it's impossible for me to be open with him.

It also drives me crazy that he compares me to past girlfriends, as in, "I've been with girls who refuse to communicate, and it never works out."

"I don't think I can be the kind of girlfriend you want," I said.

"This is what your friend Esp is talking about," he said, referring to her comment that I can be very abrupt. I'm a classic conversation ender, because so often no one is every really listening to what I'm saying anyway, so why bother speaking at all when I could be reading something wonderful?

"You seem to be pretty set in your ways" -- oh, conviction, so often confused with hubris; in truth, I am brimming with self-doubt -- "so I'm not sure what you get out of our conversations. I can't offer you anything more financially, and it seems like you've done everything you want to do sexually, so I don't know why you're with me."

He was looking for a stroke of his ego. I managed to assuage his fears with one manipulative line: "You offer me the opportunity to spend time with someone I admire."

But in truth, I am with him so I can figure out how to communicate in a relationship. When that happens, someone else will come along to remind me that it takes emotion, not just clever manipulation, to have a relationship, and the cycle will begin anew.

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About me
Hi. Morgan, 27, of Santa Barbara, CA. I am a hypocritical admirer of rhetoric (when it is my own) and an observer of literary trends. A secret: I don't take anything very seriously, and that includes myself.