One of the joys of being intentionally single

Wednesday night I found one of the joys of being intentionally single. I went to a club in Philadelphia with friends which had a floor playing my favorite type of music to dance to (e.g. The Prodigy - Funky Shit). The joy was, dancing like an idiot without caring what you look like. I was not there to impress anyone, and dancing is a lot more fun if you don't give a fuck.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hope my American readers had a happy Thanksgiving! I've got about 1 minute left to say this.

Oh, dear

So, I finished my ex and the Saturnine Thespian's (the new guy's) shared blog Wednesday night, after my last post, something like 36,000 words. The parts where they were sharing things that I'm not into, I could rejoice with them the most. The parts where it was stuff I would have liked to do but she'd never open up with me? There was jealousy and anger. And there was some sadness from all of it.

At first, I was pretty distraught; I called up Determined Guy and Determined Girl and asked if I could come over for some company, not to be alone. They said yes, as I was sure they would, they're good people; we talked about it a bit. And I thought about things I had read the next day. How much love and devotion is in S.T.'s writing. How familiar my ex's love-and-devotion-promising responses sound, under the fet trappings. How her writing has tapered off much more than his since it started. How he apologizes for the lack of content, and she doesn't. How much he reveals of himself, his conventionally embarrassing kinks, his awkward adolescence; how she reveals nothing of her past but a vague reference to how she always had dark desires but was trapped by the vanilla world into hiding them. Her preposterously ironic (to me) musing on the beauty of devoted marriage that no one does in the modern world, delivered without the faintest hint of self-consciousness. His most recent post, talking about how his dreams are falling into place because of her.

And I thought, the poor guy.

And I thought about how most people have never heard her seriously admit a failure, and me only once. And how surprised she was at the idea that my family might be mad at her. And I thought how her memory seems to be run by the Ministry of Truth. And I thought about the times I've met him (S.T.) recently; I was extremely intent on showing that I was not a threat, not full of hate; but how from the very beginning he had none of the defensiveness that I would expect from someone meeting a distraught jilted ex-husband who is carrying a gun.

And I thought, how was all this presented to him?

And I thought, I probably owe her first husband an apology.

Wrong For Me

I think it would be wise for me to go over some of the ways my ex is wrong for me to help me keep in mind that it was really not that great before she left anyway. It's a shame that none of you reading this blog get to see her good side here, but, the blog is about what I need to talk about and can't to people who know her.

Reluctance for intimate personal communication, especially about sex
Lack of moral courage (she has physical courage)
Lack of a giving spirit matching mine, especially in sex
Very poor at admitting mistakes or shortcomings
Not a Christian
Not truly serious about vows
Kinks seriously don't match (she's very into S&M, I'm not so much; she's into taking or having taken, I'm into giving or receiving giving)
Devotion to her work is far greater than devotion to her partner
Lack of introspection

Almost any of these would be a dealbreaker by itself if I were looking for someone new. All of them together?

Just wanted to say I'm feeling better.

Just wanted to say I'm feeling better than before.

Why the fuck do I have to be so loyal?

Why the fuck do I have to be so loyal? It's killing me.

Probably going to be some stream of conciousness on this blog, then I'll have said it all and shut up. I don't want to worry you all, I'll survive this. I just need to vent. It's the problem that's been getting to me recently; my heart is still attached even though my head is not. I don't want to make anyone think I'm an stalking obsessive. For example, I've known she was on FetLife for months, and how to find her, and I didn't look till a virus-induced impulse this morning. Just now I checked my email, hoping for a distraction, and she'd sent me a link to an photo album of a documentary shoot the new guy borrowed some stuff from me for. She contacts me more often than I her. Admittedly, when I contact her, I often ask if she wants to get together; whereas when she contacts me it's usually because she wants something she left here. Anyway, I'm not stalking.

Despite the high-minded thoughts in the last post, I'm a mess. I was feeling lonely before, especially because I've been sick at home and haven't spoken to another human since Tuesday. Now, turmoil and heartache.

Happiness for her happiness is going to win. I'm going to fucking MAKE it win. I am stronger than this.

"Master, which is the great commandment in the law?"

Jesus said unto him, "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

"This is the first and great commandment.

"And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

"On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets."

Matthew 22:36-40, KJV

Discovery

A few weeks ago a couple of people contacted me on OKCupid and after I made certain they understood that I wasn't ready for a romantic relationship, I've been emailing back and forth. And that's taken up all my writing time. But, that's not the discovery.

This morning, sitting at home sick and fuzzy-headed from a cold, I decided on impulse to look up my ex's profile on FetLife. Wasn't hard. I use my face on my FetLife profile, so I imagine she's seen mine if she bothered to look. It's possible she could read this blog because until just now I used the same name on both places. But I strongly doubt it, I don't think she's that interested.

So, I learned a fair bit; her and the new guy write a lot together and post a lot of pictures. She's kinkier than me, though I always held back because she wouldn't open up; our sex life was much less kinky than either of us are. I always thought I was kinkier than her, because I was always the one suggesting things! I do wish she had told me, I would have done so much more for her. But, in the end, I think she'll be much happier with him. The main thing that makes me happy is that he sounds like he respects and values her greatly, which is a huge relief; so many in that kind of relationship come off as rather contemptuous in their writings. (And she him.) That makes me happy, though it's a happiness tinged with melancholy. Good luck to you two, and whatever others come into your life! (the relationship is somewhat open)

At least now I understand more of the why. And I guess being too vanilla is sort of another blow to my ego, but not really a bad one. Eh, it's what I like. It's better by far than for an unspecified reason. The dates on the writings start very soon after she left me, and before she initiated divorce proceedings. So, she left me partly for me, and partly for him. That's another relief to my ego. And now when people ask I can say she left me for another guy, which is much easier than "she couldn't really explain".

Name Change

Just decided to change the name here, on OKCupid, and FetLife to different names. Probably this name is temporary and I'll change it again. More to come.

UPDATE: Andrew Vanbergen is the main character from one of my favorite books, James P. Blaylock's The Last Coin. It popped into my head.

Sick of my own whining

In the course of listening to lots of sad music and dwelling on how much I missed my ex, I exceeded some kind of self-pity threshold. And I remembered again what a small thing my current problems are in this mortal world, much less the life of an immortal soul that plans to someday go to Heaven to be with God. So, here's one of the songs that reminds me how much more there is than this.


Eagles - Journey of the Sorcerer

P.S. It's hard for me not to spell it 'sorceror'.