eyes wide shut

alright. I’ve got some thoughts on andrew to start talking through. I REALLY need to study for my midterm, but I want to get this out first.

andrew came out of his depression last week. I’ve learned a lot more about bipolar disorder, and it’s really opened my eyes to him. he popped up on AIM sometime last week, saying he was really in the mood for sex. sex is definitely a part of how he expresses/regulates his mood. hypersexual is a part of being manic/hypomanic. when he’s on the “up” swing of bipolar, he’s hypersexual. I was aware that he was putting more than the normal amount of weight on sex, but it wasn’t until I studied the disorder that I thought of it as “hypersexual” or anything.

a few days later, he told me on AIM that he had injured himself. he didn’t give me much info, so I started asking questions to get at the story. it was driving me nuts – he would answer each question in the most basic way, and nothing led to an actual conversation or a full story of the injury. I figured out that he had been to the ER and that he wasn’t going in to work, but I was still really confused. how did he hurt himself? how bad is it? what happened at the ER?

we had a great talk a few nights ago. he was in a really sexual mood again, and I said that I was surprised that I was actually going to indulge in this with him. I explained a lot of my side – how I’ve been feeling about our relationship, how his distance has affected me. he responded, but didn’t reciprocate or really involve himslf in my conversation. I said that I knew we both had things to work on in this relationship, but I was willing to do the work. I meant this as an invitation for him to also say that he wanted to work. he changed the subject.

at another point, I said that I had been trying for many weeks to let him know how much I care about him with absolutely no reciprocation from him. I told him that I needed him to take his turn now and tell me how he felt about me. he seemed a bit resistant, but said, “I care about you.” total half-ass, nothing like before, when he would have gushed forth with a narrative about how and why he likes me to the point of falling in love with me.

a couple nights ago, I was agonizing over a horrible paper that I had to write. it was a miserable process. he AIMed me to tell me about HIS homework – his professor had accidentally attached the answers to the homework worksheet. I said I was jealous and would love to switch homework with him. he said he could write any paper better than me. I tried to explain the complications of the paper, but that didn’t matter. he pretty much told me – much more than once – that he can do better than me and everyone else in the world on any paper. yes, self-grandiosity is a part of bipolar disorder. but forget that. what I needed that night was someone who could sympathize with me over my paper, or at least encourage me to get it done. nope. he made me feel like total shit.

today I had an away message up about how I’m ready for warmer weather, because I’m ready for skirts and sandals. he left me a message saying something about how he’s ready for skirts, too – because he’s ready for “upskirts.”

for some reason, that triggered total disgust in me. there are TONS of things he has said that grates against the feminist in me, but I used to toss them aside, because he always said those things in jest. I can joke about the anti-feminist things that I actually strongly disbelieve. but after a while, I started to realize that he can pass just about anything as a joke – or he thinks he can. he can say hurtful things, but as long as he passes it as a joke, no one has a right to be offended, and he never has to say things straight-forwardly. so the sexist things are adding up, and the jokes are no longer covering over him.

there is absolutely no reason why I should let a guy say such things to me. actually, a guy who is dating me sure as hell should know to watch what he insinuates with me. maybe it’s wrong to expect a guy to realize this, but telling me he wants skirt season to return so he can have “upskirts” just makes me think of my dad and the years that he took advantage of me. it makes me think of how powerless I really am among a world of men.

wearing skirts now is a way for me to reclaim my femininity and dignity and respect. it sounds counter-intuitive. but wearing skirts says that I don’t have to live my life in fear, and I don’t have to let fear of men restrict how I dress. I’m not “asking for” anything, and I’m not being provocative. I’m not wearing mini skirts. I just like the feeling of skirts, I like the way they look, I prefer them over jeans, and they flatter my body-type better than most jeans.

but this is a huge tangent, I want to get back to andrew. this kid is not right for me. as much as I want to be in a relationship, I don’t need to be in a relationship with him. I don’t need any of this.

I don’t need someone whose grandiosity digs me into the ground. at first, I recognized it as an over-compensation for his actual lack of self-esteem. maybe it is, but it’s also more than that. he insists on always being right about absolutely everything. at first, it was funny. it was debates. but then I asserted that I wanted to be right once in a while, and he basically told me it will never happen. his insistance on always being best at everything crushes me in the process.

on top of that, he’s critical of everything. that just shoves my face into the ground, and it’s often unnecessary. the color of my towels. the way I drive. the music I listen to.

which is another thing: I would kind of hope that the guy I marry is at least open to the idea of hanson. he doesn’t have to like them, but he should respect how much I care about them and have an open mind about the music. you would think that andrew, a music major, would have an open mind. absolutely not. he is like all of the closed-minded people who judge hanson by “mmmbop” and refuse to even listen to anything newer.

I demonstrated open-mindedness in absolutely every way with andrew. if we had dated longer, I would have gone even further and probably regretted some things. I modeled open-mindedness, but he didn’t see where he could do the same with me.

it has been months in the making, but I am finally ready to say it: we’re over.

there was a part of me that thought that as a psychologist, I should be the last person to discount a guy because he has a disorder. if I believe that people can live effectively with disorders, I should be open enough to date someone with a disorder. but there is a huge difference here. I believe that people can help themselves and seek the help they need to live effective lives. the type of person I can’t date or marry is the type who refuses to accept or help himself. and that is andrew. he can manage his disorder better. he can improve his relationship skills. but he won’t even acknowledge that he’s not perfect. his moods are just him, and he thinks girls – and everyone – should bend to that.

I’m not ending this because he is bipolar, and I’m not ending it because of the distance. those in themselves are not the problem. it’s the way he treats me, and his disregard for me in almost every way. my God – I let him objectify me. the one thing I don’t want to do is be

objectified, and I let it happen. he says he wants to be headed towards marriage, but his actions aren’t about that. what he really wants is sex. he really thinks that sex makes things better. he saw me as that possibility. even though I insisted that it would be a long, long time before that, I was still sexual gratification for him. he never really was seeking a relationship. he said he was, and maybe he thought he was, and for a while it sure looked like it. but the only times that he said that he felt truly close to me was during or after or talking about something sexual.

so why did I date this guy? he had characteristics I wanted – he’s an intellectual and a musician – I highly value both. he has a good knowledge base of psychology. basically, I looked at what it would mean to be married to him, and it looked good. I would love to marry a professor. I would love to stay near the world of higher education, and I would love the intellectual stimulation. I would love to be with someone who knows enough about psychology without actually being in the field. I highly value music, so marrying a musician would be wonderful. so I loved all of those qualities, and for a while I glossed over the essences of “andrew.”

I needed to see how far away from my own values I could fall before I could really pick up my values as my own again. a lot of my values came from the atmosphere of my friends at hanover, and when I became to separate from them, I couldn’t figure out where my values ended and theirs began. I’m remembering now.

I needed to enter the dating world. I just needed to get back out there again. I did.

I needed to know that the important people in my life can support me, not judge me, and let me make my own decisions. for the most part, they did. I learned so much about my friends in this.

I need to stop writing. I have got to start studying for my midterm!!