Fuck Transparency

To Serena:

Fuck transparency.  It has done nothing for me.

I don’t know why things had to end the way they did, but this was one of those situations that was out of my control and always was from the very beginning.  I suppose I’m more focused on the “how” things ended, rather than the “why”.  I think that this could have gone more smoothly than it did, but in the end, it was never my call.  I just think that I might have been more tactful.

I can deal with the reality that what you and I had is now gone, a distant memory.  What I don’t like is how you decided to go about it all, as you were hardly concerned with how this all might affect me emotionally.  Still, I know that at the end of the day, my feelings aren’t supposed to mean much when it comes to how your life will progress moving forward.  And suffice it to say that as far as I’m concerned, you have definitely moved on.

I can understand that you have moved on.  The reality is that you and I were never mutually exclusive and this should not have surprised me the way that it did.

But what bothers me even still is that you led me to believe things that, in the end, were never really true.  Based on what you told me earlier today, this week, you made out with three different men, with me being one of those three.  In what you described as your efforts to be “transparent” with me, you genuinely led me to believe that the second of these three men was someone who you yourself deemed to have been “dumb”, as someone who struggles to spell and utilize the different iterations of “you’re” and “your”.  You even chuckled as you told me this, giving me the especially strong impression that this was someone with whom you would never do such a thing.  But yet, you did anyway because as you put it, “It was fun”.  To make this even worse (for me anyway), is that you told me that you were just meeting this man for the first time.  Apparently, it didn’t take long for him to reach that level with you, whereas it took me a few months.  I know that I’m not tall or muscular like he is, and rest assured, I know my limitations.  You tell me all the time that I’m smart, but apparently, it doesn’t really make that big of a difference.

And then, to further throw dirt in my face, after you told me that this guy was dumb, you asked me if I was jealous in hearing that you would be hanging out with this man.  You then told me that it was okay to be a little jealous and in response, my vulnerability took center stage.  I, like an idiot, said that it did make me feel a little jealous.  This makes me feel so stupid now.

Then, again, in another effort to be transparent with me, you disclosed that you had made out with a third man yesterday, someone on whom you had a crush for many years.  Yet, you decided to let this man kiss you and even feel you up.  I never had a chance really, though yet again, I know that you and I were never mutually exclusive.  I can’t compete with someone on whom you have had a long-standing crush.  I’ve known you for just under a year.  And I definitely can’t compete when marijuana is involved.  Every time you and I ever did anything, we were always sober.

As I think about it now, several hours after you felt compelled to tell me this, it still doesn’t settle well.  It actually hurts, because in my warped world, I thought that I was the only one with whom you were being intimate.  I don’t know what possessed me to think that way, but I did, and I guess now I’m paying the price.

I now find myself moving on and that’s just as well.  You’ve clearly moved on.  What I find to be absolutely mind-boggling is that you still want me to be your “best friend”, amidst what I’m trying to process mentally as a form of betrayal.  That’s going to be a struggle and I make absolutely no guarantee that I can or will be able to fulfill that role.  For several months, you had essentially received the “relationship” version of me.  As far as I’m seeing it now and given your recent revelations in your efforts to be transparent, that man is dead.  He died a painfully emotional death.

You’re (see that, proper use) not likely to care for the version of me that remains, because the version that is left will no longer allow himself to be vulnerable or susceptible to having his feelings hurt.  He will be closed off and very reluctant to share anything about himself or his life.  He is less likely to laugh and smile as much as he used to, as he no longer has any reason to do so.  His happiness was taken from him.  He will return to being an enigma.  The Visionary you knew is no longer.  What is left is effectively a shell of his former self.

I guess in the end, he was going to die.  He just didn’t need to die the way he did.

PV