Today I’m grateful for feeling…

Pretty triggered by the tail end of what was originally a really nice conversation. It’s with my library friend Cameron, he’s the older one who I felt was avoiding me for a while. We had that tea date I had talked about last week and it was all good quality growth and vulnerability talk. Enriching even. Then at the end he starts talking about the differences between the sexes and horomones and how men are built for spreading the seed, how men are the bees and women are the flowers, how it takes great conscious effort not to sexually look at every woman passing by and think of fucking them, that’s how strong the compulsion to spread the seed is. This kind of thing strikes at my deepest seated fear: that every man is just like my father. I just can’t believe that, I wouldn’t be able to leave my house. I’m actively talking myself out of this panic. He’s a lonely guy who has never had luck with love, despite being super in touch with his feelings. So I’m trying to logic that this is his world view and other guys can be trusted to not sexualize me, to trust my feeling about who is sexualizing and who isn’t. But that still leaves me with what to do with him. Do I have to tell him he makes me uncomfortable at some point? Should I have already? In retrospect, how did I let that conversation happen, how did he think it was okay to talk to me like that? He was almost frenzied talking about it, and he’s one of the most low-key, calmest people I’ve met. I stayed in it because (1) I don’t know how to say no and (2) I thought this was liberating, like this is the kind of convo enlightened, open men and women can have with each other. But I know in my gut that’s wrong, it was presented wrong, the energy was wrong, it felt unsafe. 

Confused, hurt, and betrayed. Cameron has been really important in my quest to de-villianize older men. That not every older man is sexualizing me, mentally taking my body and using it for whatever perversion they have like my dad did. Not that every guy would go that far, but that every older guy has a part of him that *might* if there were no consequences. I now feel the worst kind of validation because I’ve gotten the feeling multiple times before that he’s looked at me like that! That he had sexualized me and made me a body rather than a being, but had told myself I was being paranoid every time he set off my spidey senses. I don’t get that feeling very often, that I’m being lusted after, and looking back on it now I should have trusted it especially since it was recurring with him. Now I’m in this gross, icky feeling place where my suspicions of him have been confirmed and I just don’t feel comfortable anymore. And he knows about my childhood sexual assault. I know it’s not on him to remember everything and tailor to sensitivities, but I would. Is that codependent or being a good friend? I think it draws the line between trusted and not trusted and he stepped over it.

Loss. For all his great qualities, I don’t think I can be friends with him knowing that’s how he feels inside and that he’ll continue to look at me like that.

Hurt that I had ignored my intuition. Ashamed. My inner senses and children have been trying to tell me for years. And looking back at my life, I can so clearly see all the times this feeling has come up and I played it off just to later discover something like this. But I never put it together as a pattern. The worst betrayal was towards myself for not leaving. It started getting uncomfortable, he started getting oddly energetic, and I froze. Actually, not froze. I fawned. I kept the conversation going, I made sure he felt heard, that he thought I was down with talking about this even as I wanted to literally burst into tears. I felt out of my body, that my mind had retreated somewhere safe while my mouth and body kept up this cool girl, liberated feminist ideal.

Angry, if I’m being honest. Trying to lean into anger. That had to be over the line, I can’t be making that up. How dare he talk to me like that, tell me he depersonalizes women for the sake of his unchecked libido, that this is just what men are biologically programmed to do. How dare he not be sensitive to me being a victim of someones unchecked and overactive libido. If he had a friend that had overdosed, I would NEVER start on a diatribe about how people with his friend’s circumstances are bound to OD because it’s in their nature and they’re in fact right for doing so. He seemed like he wanted a hug as we were leaving, how dare he hesitate and think he gets physical contact from me after that? And when he came up to the cafe porch I had my bare feet up on a chair and he said it was hard not to tickle them. That’s gross right? I shrugged it off as playful but I don’t think that anymore. I’m just feeling so unseen, unconsidered, and violated by someone I had considered a safe friend. Is this codependent? Should I just go “well, that’s him and I choose to not interact with that kind of energy” and not feel hurt?

Feelin’ good…

• now that I’ve had distance from the event, I can clearly see that it had triggered me lol. I don’t feel anything as strongly as I had written earlier today, which feels more peaceful. I’m still not super comfortable with the idea/him though and will have to think of how I want to go forward. So the feeling of loss remains. But I’ll keep the upper portions to show you/remind myself how much I lose focus when triggered
• my volleyball team won a game!! I’ve been playing rec sports for over a year and my teams have never won. Over half the players have always been new to the game/not athletic per se yet enjoy the game. But we’ve had a whole year of practice now and it shows! Or is beginning to. I didn’t mind losing every game but it feels good to win one. I’m proud of the hours my team has put in and to be in such a great, goofy group. 
• I played really well today. I had extra time before the game and gave myself a pep talk. I told myself I’m enough as I am, that  I love myself, and that I would love myself just the same even if I missed every single ball and cost us the game. My biggest fear being soothed (unloveable because flawed, I had the best time playing, just enjoying without any stakes and not beating myself up even a little bit. It felt incredible, just fun play. I’m grateful for the books on perfectionism that pointed out these tendencies in me.