Warning - this blog is mostly negative and more than a little indignant. So if you're having a good day, you might not want to keep reading.
Warnings aside, here goes nothing:
I am tired of Cootie Monster Man Whores.
Tired.
When I look around at the kind of men in my life, it makes me want to throw up.
Last Friday, I was sitting at a bar with my male co-workers/friends, just talking. And the subject of sex comes up (as it always invariably does). Not a single one of them has been tested for STD's in the last five years. They're just passively depending on their ex-partners to self-report, and not taking any precautions in the meantime.
And I started thinking about the kinds of behaviors I've observed them engaging in, namely rampant, committment-free, random partner, casual sex. This is a fairly small town, and I know for a fact that several of them have been with the same girls.
It's like watching a train wreck. It's fascinating and repulsive. I know the back-story of WHY these particular guys act like this at this point in their lives. A couple of them had been married for years and have recently been divorced. It's like a second teenage rebellion. Wahoo, nobody to tell me I can't sleep around, so I'm going to stick it in anything that moves and is willing!
But understanding the WHY doesn't make it any less sickening. I know my friends are hurting. I can feel compassion for that. But their actions hurt other people. Sometimes very deeply. They can't see beyond their own emptiness and pain.
Then I started thinking about the one guy in this group that I've been with. Because I too am suceptible to fits of hormone-induced stupidity. I blame it on my raging 30+ year old hormones. I'm coming into my sexual prime. But I'm also old enough to know better. We've been friends for eight years. In that time, when I wasn't seeing somebody and he wasn't seeing somebody (which has only happened three times), we've "hooked up".
The first time around was a mess. It lasted two months and was aided greatly by the consumption of mass quantities of alchohol. To add to the mess, I had actually had feelings for him which weren't reciprocated. He repeatedly used the phrase, "I'm totally just using you for sex." And our mutual friends knew about the situation. When I finally put a stop to it, we didn't speak for almost a year...not until I was involved in a relationship with The Boy.
Fast forward to Big Breakup # 1 with The Boy. I was in a horrible mental state, knowing that My Boy was travelling all over the Pacific Northwest, putting his wiener in all sorts of holes, making people fall in love with him and then hurting them, all the while lying to me about it. Mere days after having a horrible dream that The Boy's cell phone accidentally called me (I believe that's called a "cell phone butt dial") while he was having sex with somebody else, his phone actually DID accidentally call me. While he was out on a date with somebody. I could hear them laughing. It felt like they were laughing AT me...and suspected he might have dialed on purpose to hurt me.
In a fit of anger, I called my friend. I said something to the effect of, "Come over. I still hate you, but I hate him more and I need to get him out of my system, so this is totally just angry spite sex." And of course he came over.
One week later, The Boy and I got back together.
Fast forward to five months after Big Breakup # 2. Same scenario. Traveling ex-boyfriend sleeping around and lying about it. I placed another phone call to the effect of, "I need some attention, you're not dating anyone, I still barely like you as a person but you have an appendage that I'd like to utilize."
The second time around it lasted five months, with a promise that none of our mutual friends would ever find out. And though I tried to keep my emotions out of it, two weeks ago I almost blurted out the words, "I love you." Granted, people blurt out all sorts of ridiculous things while they are fucking, but it kind of freaked me out.
Here's why it freaks me out: He's an asshole. And a Scorpio. When I think about the duration of our "friendship", it mostly consists of him telling me that I'm not logical enough, him telling me what to do, him criticizing everything about me, him putting me down. And me completely ignoring everything he says. We fight all the time. Which makes sense. Scorpio and Aquarius. Fire + Air = Kaboom. Or if you look at it from a psychological angle, an INTJ (him) with an INFP (me). Any book on Kiersey temperments will tell you TJ's with FP's is a disaster waiting to happen. Our "friendship" is actually emotionally abusive and dysfunctional. So the idea that I almost said, "I love you" to him is just another warning sign.
After the first time around, when I was really messed up in the head, he immediately started dating my best friend, who is no longer my best friend. To this day, he still tells me that he'd rather be in a relationship with her or with my other best friend, making it quite clear that he never had and never will have any interest in me as a potential permanent partner. Tells me how hot and how great they are. Constantly flaunts other girls in my face.
Hmmm, where have I experienced this before? Oh, let's see, this sounds frighteningly similar to my last two boyfriends.
So, I was sitting at the bar, looking around the table at my guy friends. Listening to the way they were talking about girls, about sex, about committment, swapping stories about who's easy (with Cootie Monster Man Whore # 2 sitting across from me, winking at me when he thinks nobody is watching). And asking myself why I'm engaging in activities with this man that could be adverse to my bodily health, mental health, and could ultimately result in the creation of life.
And I almost threw up.
Because this is the kind of man I've been attracting into my life for the last five years. This is the kind of male influence I've been surrounding myself with. Two boyfriends, one secret "fuck buddy", and six guy-friends who do not value women as anything but objects.
Except for me, of course. I'm "different", because I'm "just one of the guys."
It's funny. They listened to me all through the breakups with The Boy. They responded appropriately with, "What an asshole," "You deserve better than that," "He's not worth your time," and "Want me to go kick his ass?" But I think that they were secretly taking notes as to how The Boy was able to do all these things for quite a while before they ultimately blew up in his face.
I may have inadvertently unleashed on the world a little pack of Cootie Monster Man Whores. :(
I hope not. I have hope for a couple of the guys. They're coming from a really hurt and angry place right now, which I understand because obviously I am coming from a really hurt and angry place right now too.
The hard part is to learn to move past it. Which I personally haven't done. I haven't been working with the pain, letting it teach me, letting it move me to a new level. I've just been banging my head against a wall. Ow, that hurts, let me do it again. Yep, it still hurts, let me try that first section of wall again.
Well, I don't know. I do see what I'm doing to myself with quite a bit of objectivity sometimes. When I'm not mired down in it, I watch it like it's happening to somebody else. It's like a train wreck. It's fascinating and repulsive at the same time.