I was able to get a decent amount of work done today, probably because of the looming fact that I have a meeting tomorrow I am entirely unprepared for. Luckily it is in the afternoon so I could do some things in the morning beforehand. And hopefully after before my younger sister comes to visit. I am super excite about that; she has never been to the house before. I just need to come up with shit to do. Maybe I'll take her to the mall in Syracuse, since she likes shopping and stuff (though my mother might kill me because she spends too much on clothes and everything). Eh, I'll figure it out. She and I are very laid back when it comes to planning anything.
In session today, I spoke about my cynicism towards people and the contradictory nature of most of my emotions. As per the first, how my pessimistic attitude makes me feel like a monster, and how I often judge myself negatively when comparing my viewpoints to those of my roommates. For one, I automatically go to the default "what is wrong with me" question. And I search for answers and come up with more than a few explanations: my own perfectionism, working retail, ex-boyfriend crap, failed attempts at romance afterwards, being a social scientist, etc. But then I would compare my experiences to those of my roommates and at least one of them has a very similar background, yet he is more optimistic. And I can't understand it. I had to be reminded that people respond to things differently and that is okay. Also that it is not healthy for me to compare and judge myself so harshly (which is of course, still the default that I am very slowly trying to work on).
This segued into my emotional contradictions: how I find myself both lonely and wanting to be alone, mainly. I talked about how going out and making new friends or dating is so fucking unappealing to me that I lately seem to actively avoid doing it (hell even people I know rarely see me nowadays). However, the idea of having a new friend or skipping the courtship part of a new relationship (so basically just...be in the relationship) is appealing. The comfortable stage. (Besides, I don't have time to really invest a lot in new shit.) I find this incredibly frustrating. I will want to have company, but then a lot of times I'll get it, and I'm still unsatisfied and then just want them to go away.
Despite this, I was told that this was a good sign. I was a bit confused, but she explained to me that the fact that I'm even thinking that any of that sounds appealing is an improvement and a sign of healing. That it is no surprise that - in terms of romantic relationships - I remain skeptical of the dating scene, since that blew up in my face when I tried it. But the fact that I find that I sometimes want that comfortable stage is good, since the ex put a huge damper on that for a long time. Even still I tell myself no, out of a constant desire to protect myself from being hurt like that again. And I am aware that if I want something new I will need to allow myself to be vulnerable in that capacity again; right now my fear overrides any loneliness. I would rather be alone than go through all that I went through with the ex a second time.
It was...and is, truthfully, fucking terrible.
I am terrified of that happening again. Part of me wonders if I would survive that a second time. I almost didn't the first time. A lot of times I did not want to. It was too shocking; how could you go from telling your partner that they are the most important person in your life and that you love them more than anything and want to be with them forever to basically negating all of that within a week? It hurt too much and was too confusing and I still do not understand it despite any explanations. And it showed me how unreliable people can be. So I did not want to survive many times. I struggled through not even out of love for someone else but more that was what was expected of me. And I still struggle, with some days being much harder than others, though I will say that things have gotten slowly easier.
We did note that I seem to have a type, and if I find myself attracted to someone new in an emotional way I should ask myself why that is: am I falling into the same pattern? The same type of person who is not exactly a healthy individual for me to want to be with? I'll need to be mindful of that if something new were to ever happen.
Friendships became a big topic as well. I was asked whether or not I would be so adverse to people if I was with college roommate or best friend. After thinking about it for a second, I said no, and that I probably would want to hang out with them as much as possible (or at least for a longer period of time). We talked about my close relationship with those two, and highlighted something: we had some major differences between us. College roommate and I liked a lot of the same things, but we also had varying interests in other categories and did not spend all of our time together. And my closeness with best friend sometimes confuses people because we are so drastically different in personality and interests. But despite her being so different from me, we have conquered a lot of shit and she has always been there for me and so I will never mind if she laughs at my cooking abilities every day.
After highlighting these differences, we talked about - if I felt comfortable - me going to grad student things to meet people from other departments (specifically, I said, the math and comp sci disciplines because I honestly gravitate towards those fields in terms of friends, though I might be biased because in undergrad that is who I hung around with a lot). Though that gets difficult because I have gone to a few of those and really...the departments tend to stick to themselves instead of mingling, and trying to go up to an already enclosed circle is kind of intimidating and not my strong suit.
But maybe one day I'll try. ...Maybe. We will see.
...I know this was a serious entry and should end on a serious note but I will not do that because I think I found my new favourite gif that I need to share:
It gets funnier every time I watch it, I can't.
No comments:
Post a Comment