In the morning I told N about an interview I watched. He said he wanted to watch it too. I told him to text me after if he wants to share his thoughts on it. Late at night, when I was already in bed ready to meditate he texted that he watched the video and was ready to discuss it, so I postponed my meditation to hear what he wanted to say. But once he was on the phone there was just silence. So I was like okay well um it seems like you're not talking so I'm going to go. He suddenly got very emotionally reactive which startled me, especially following the weirdly long silence, after being summoned for a conversation in which I was expecting a dialogue. I guess he just wanted me to drop what I was doing to listen to him breathe? I escaped the "conversation" as gracefully as I could, and went to sleep, exhausted by the weird ways humans behave.
To hear the silence broken with such a startlingly screechy loud childish protest to my request for sleep was unexpected. Maybe he was tired too but lacks self awareness?
Since I missed my usual nightly meditation due to another mantrum, I did yoga in the morning instead. And put my phone on do-not-disturb mode. I'm tired of emotional reactivity from adults. I do all this journaling and mindfulness and yoga and therapy practices, but I still have to deal with people who do nothing for themselves but lash out like toddlers and test my boundaries.
It's not that big of a deal, but it reminded me of when M has drinking relapses and loses his ability to communicate. Except N was sober.
I woke up this morning pondering a common feeling I get with men that they want me to be their captive audience, but without actually communicating. N said he likes to do dishes in the other room without interacting. That's his idea of a fun time. Which is ok, but if someone's going to occupy my space only to ignore me, I'd prefer to be alone and not have my space invaded.
I thought about how R expected me to drive 80 miles to wait in his house all day with nothing to do while he worked, and demanded I do that every day all the time, and when I declined, he'd act very needy and guilt me as if I owed him, and then harass me for weeks, like a spoiled child.
I thought about how M would persistently INSIST on coming over but as soon as he arrived he'd find something to get mad about so he could give me the silent treatment or storm back out. (Why bother coming?)
I thought about the fuckboy who sucks at conversation yet always wanted to call me to "talk" i.e. breathe while I wait for something intelligent to be said, while he grew aroused, and I felt robbed of my time.
I'm grateful I live alone.
I'm looking forward to my women friends returning to the city so I can experience normal conversations again.
I'm tired of men playing dead, showing up drunk, staring at me without talking, breathing in the phone and not contributing meaningfully to conversation except to get angry. It's a waste of my time and theirs. For slow thinkers, they sure have fast emotional reactivity.
I dreamed I walked to a hillside to photograph flowers, but a toddler on a tricycle kept driving in erratic circles around me trying to ram into my ankles so I had to keep avoiding him, while his family walking far ahead of him kept scolding him while he ignored them. The flowers were so beautiful in the light of golden hour, I wanted to enjoy the moment, but this toddler was hell bent on crashing into me to hurt me because he thought it was funny.
That's pretty much the dynamic of men in my life. They've fallen behind, nonsensically hyperfocused on injuring me for amusement, lacking awareness, crashing into everything.
I just want to look at the flowers.
N texted today, as if nothing happened...
M keeps calling from new numbers each month, as he always does when he loses jobs and doesn't pay his phone bill. I'm sure it's him, because he makes repeated attempts minutes apart, every few days, then the next month it's a new local number with the same pattern. I deliberately have no voicemail to avoid him. After his relapse in November I told him not to contact me anymore, and I meant it. I've chosen serenity.
6:42 a.m. - 2023-01-19