 |
| Luna Lain - 052216 |
I have a big heart and try to fix things. It's a very guy thing to do to try and fix things when something, or somebody, is broken. With a something, the fixing is usually easier because the object has no feelings, so it can just be fixed without having to accept change.
With people (both genders), I tend to gather birds with continually hurt wings. I must give off a vibe of big heart and care. By getting into these caring and nurturing relationships, I get embroiled in the sufferers woes. I give advice, loan assets, help people move, and try to comfort.
Since those days, I gained confidence in relationships to start and grow them into romantic entanglements. My quiet, introverted charms coupled with the big heart, worked well to seduce the injured birds. I genuinely cared for them as the relationship grew, but I also knew that with adults, intimately emotional relationships that focused on talking about things of the heart (life, love, failures, ruined relationships, mid-life regrets and aspirations will quickly connect both hearts and genitals. I fully own that I wanted deep, intimate relationships, but only as a side bar. I never wanted them to become a single, monogamous thing. In harsh terms, I was an emotional user that used deeply without an exit strategy. I am ashamed of that part of me.
While I was great at starting these relationships with the hope of getting to know the person and experience a piece of life with them, including sex, I am really lousy at ending these relationships. A few years ago I got into the mother-of-all-bad-using relationships. In the beginning it was my fault for planting, nurturing, and using this bad relationship for my selfish needs. She matured it into a monster for both us.
For the sake of brevity, I am not going to dump the whole Yolanda (not her name) story today, just share the three important lessons I learned from it. First, don't use matters of the heart to get into a person's pants. That is using. Second, communicate expectations of an open relationship ahead and check in often on how both sides feel. Love can develop, but expectations must be kept or the relationship should be negotiated or ended. Third, recognize when it needs to end it, and have the hutzpah to end it. The cleaner and quicker the cut, the sooner everyone can heal.
None of this is to excuse what I do/did. I am both a monster and a monster's victim in that horrible relationship. I learned, at great cost, that having a big heart and using it to use others (without their knowing the overall goal), is wrong and will deeply hurt.
Photo credit - the incredible Luna Lain. More of her coming soon.
