Maybe I can downgrade to a Stage 4 Clinger…

Therapist: “So, this thing where you’re calling yourself stupid, and clingy, and crazy — where’s that coming from?”

Me: “I don’t know, I feel like I was pressuring him. He has anxiety and depression, too, and I know how that feels, to have someone demanding your time, another THING you have to keep up with. Honestly, I’m kinda psyched to have Sundays to myself again, so I get where he’s coming from.”

Therapist: “OK, I get that. But from everything you’ve told me — and obviously I’m your Person, so I’m biased — this sounds like it’s him, not you. Basically the only thing you asked him for was more sex. Maybe you could’ve been more direct about saying it, but that doesn’t make it clingy, or crazy, or stupid. Putting aside the sexual component, if you had a friend and communication with them dropped off like it did here, would you be concerned and check in with them?”

Me: “Yes.”

Therapist: “That’s not crazy. It’s caring about a human being.”

I LOVE paying people to tell me I’m right.

She told me it was fine to send him an email I’ve written offering a friendship, but the longer I don’t hear from him after the last message I sent, the less interest I have in that idea. I’m not that bad at taking a hint.

Addendum

He just texted.

I am a fucking nutcase.

Carry on.

Clinger Reformation Refresher Course

OH, OK, cool, so… he hasn’t texted since Monday afternoon, so obviously he decided I’m boring and bad in bed and is going to ghost on me.

^^^ Real thought my brain just had.

Despite the fact that he’s not dumb enough to do that, because if I tell our mutual friends he was mean to me, they will call him a shithead coward forever.

Weirdly, I’m actually kind of OK with wanting to hear from him but not. It’s better than the “please stop talking…” tipping point I’ve reached with previous attempts at dating. 

Also… I mean… Not to be conceited, but… I’ve watched his face — I’m not bad in bed.

So worst case, I’m just boring. TREMENDOUS. THAT’S TREMENDOUS.

When’s therapy again?

Don’t make me hate you.

Over the weekend I finally settled an issue with a family member who “didn’t want to talk about this.”

I get that, I really do. I don’t want to talk about it, either. But if you keep refusing to talk when I need to, I will hate you. I won’t mean to hate you. I won’t want to hate you. But you’re telling me I’m not worth the time, or enduring the minor discomfort you’d feel during a conversation? No. I’m not gonna smile and play Cool Girl while I silently stew in your bullshit.

We’re adults. We talk about it, or we don’t talk. Your call. Reasonable? Of course not. But I’ve learned that NOT communicating solves nothing. It just creates larger problems because now everyone is operating on presumption and hurt feelings.

I forced a 10-minute, in-person conversation because I thought it was worth forcing (because I don’t want to spend my life butthurt), and now we’re good.

I fucking hate when hippies (ie, my therapist) are right and I can’t just be Irish and swallow my rage. Swallowing is my favorite. Oh. Wait, no…

Defeating your purpose with drunk texts

A friend got a late-night drunk text from a guy last night (not even a booty call, ’twas about the feels), and I got one recently as well, leading us to a conversation about what people are thinking when they do this.

For me, the late-night drunk text will get you absolutely nowhere. In fact, it will set you back, because in addition to whatever the text says (which I automatically think is drunken horseshit because of the time, OR that you meant to text someone else), you’re also saying you don’t think enough of me to come correct soberly and say it by the light of day. It’s insulting, and pretty much makes you look like an asshole.

I can’t even imagine how much shit I’d get if I pulled that on a guy. I wouldn’t even get to defend myself — he’d probably just block my number, because it’s a dick move. If a chick did it, we’d get written off as your crazy psycho stalker. (Unless it’s a booty call, in which case I think we’d be cleared. Maybe… I personally have such a hard time sleeping that if anyone woke me up planning to penetrate me, I’d probably be pretty pissed. Don’t know how dudes would react.)

P.S. I AM, however, allllll about the late-night drunk email. It doesn’t wake anyone up, and I like waking up to long-form sexiness in my inbox…tee hee…

“Ask not what lube can do for YOU…”

A friend of mine works at a sex shop, which sometimes leads to entertaining email conversations:

Friend #1: “I am so sick of people coming in looking for a lube that ‘turns her on right away’ or a lube for oral sex. It’s your job to turn her on. She’s not a car, it’s going to take time and effort. Do it right and stop being a schmuck and I bet she’ll be ready and willing. As for oral sex, dick is an acquired taste — acquire the taste. Same goes for pussy. Flavored lube is gross. Grow up and deal with it. I don’t know what you’re asking me for when you talk about a ‘cream for oral sex.’ Do you mean whipped cream? That’s in your local grocery store. Otherwise…I’m clueless.”

Friend #2: “Maybe they mean an edible, relatively pleasant tasting lube? That kind of makes sense, for finishing a handjob or switching from a toy to some oral. But to mask the taste of dick? I don’t know…Include some ice cream or fro-yo — a treat for both of you. But it’s still going to taste like dick. And lube that ‘turns women on?’ That’s called not being a jackass.”

Me: “I read this and genuinely didn’t know what to say, because I was so confused as to how people can be that dumb but still free to procreate. I just…I got nothin’. I won’t even eat flavored Cheerios, so making a guy’s dick taste like pie is really not going to improve the experience, which, by the way, is ALREADY MAGNIFICENT.”

The last person I was super into just had to LOOK at me right and I was wetter than a log flume at Six Flags — I would’ve let that man do anything to me, and he would’ve been damn happy with the mutual result. Other people, maybe not so much the immediate log flume, but I’d tell them, or they’d learn, the spots they could hit that turned me from lovely, gracious lady into a willing and extremely able penile vestibule, and we’d use the lube when needed. With the exception of medical problems, this doesn’t need to be THAT big an issue between healthy adults who are able to discuss what works, and who also have Internet access. Figure shit out. Prep your person. Get some lube — not the kind that tastes like Bubble Yum.

Ask not what lube can do for YOU, my friends. Ask what you can do for lube.

“That’s right, Christy. Keep telling yourself that.”

I sincerely hope I never spoke about my ex (or about anyone, really) the way I hear some women talk about their husbands. (I am 99.9% sure I didn’t, even when we broke up.)

Jesus Christ, I get that you need to vent sometimes, but it’s like you never talk to THEM. You must be saving it all for me, because alllllll you do is bitch. And let me tell you, listening to it is an absolute TREAT.

Do you love this person? Do you even LIKE him? You really need to buffer by mentioning some of the nice things, because you’re either married to a complete fucking jag, or you’re just an ungrateful asshole who can’t see what he does for you. And honestly, having met both people in the relationship, it’s really a tossup.

Facebook foul

New rule: You don’t get to say you miss me because I haven’t been on Facebook. That’s not how life works. I have a phone. Email. Texting. We have cars. There’s no reason for you to lament not being in touch with me if you want to be.

If a Facebook break is what makes you say you miss me, I don’t believe you do. If I miss you, I talk to you. I don’t wait for you to spoon-feed me carefully edited bits of your life in a stream of 200 other people I don’t care about enough to keep in real touch with. No.

I am more wary of saying “I miss you” than saying “I love you,” which is probably fucked up. I love lots of people, but rarely miss any. I miss, like, five people, sometimes, and then I make an effort to interact with them. It’s not that hard. At all.

Bitchy Bitcherson is on line 2

It’s adorable how you think the silent treatment will bother me when all I ever wanted in the first place was for you to shut up and let me think. The fact that it doesn’t bother me probably indicates that I shouldn’t be talking to you — normally it drives me batshit insane when people I care about won’t talk to me.

I’m done thinking, but admittedly curious how long he’d let this ride.

(I know, I’m an asshole. I won’t actually wait.)