I had some sort of realization. So, for those of you keeping track, I’d say I currently have something like four crushes, friend connections that I’d want to go towards some sort of romance or otherwise semi-persistant links but which as yet have not. One that was there has faded out, another is fading in, taking its place. Two I have had sex with and confessed my love to, of those both are sort of stabilizing into person-appropriate friendships in their respective ways, as I see and accept flaws and incompatibilities once the surge begins to dissipate. One hovers in the background like a fixed star, remote. One is pleasantly uncertain like a cloud and I am fascinated about how many fears blossom delightfully in me on that front. To this we add three committed relationships, all long or very long distance, one having been there with interruptions for almost two decades, with some form of calm ongoing evolution – a source of great safety for me; one since 1-2 years which is finding its own intensity much like that of some rare gas flame, and one which feels like sunlight glinting on the facets of an uncut and rough gold nugget unpredictably moving, which is super hard to assign a time frame to. In fact, since 2006 all my relationships have been long-distance, I have not been seeing anyone living in the same city. This is something I do want to change now that I have a home, I want to know what it is like to casually date someone without the logistics around it. This probably informed the fervor which which I was so eager to girlfriend some of those crushes.

Normalizing things with people. During parties yesternight, realizing that I’m chasing after someone who explicitly lets me chase her, but who is in no shape or form chasing me back. It’s not the first time. I have spoken to others about this who all tell me the same thing, that I should not keep on falling for people who are emotionally unavailable. It’s a fact that I do, and I sort of know why.

One part is I parse it as some sort of outsidership, some indication of having seen through things, some indication of a Special Perspective. This is probably wrong of me, a person being cool and remote does not mean they are woke or that I should expect them to be brilliant and farsighted. It just indicates experiences and coping mechanisms.

Part of me also has her own commitment fears, so that coolness seems like a guarantee that I won’t have to carry the other all the time. I do want to carry my loved ones when they need it (and it’s not an option for me not to, really, I would despise myself if I did not), but I want the need to not be constant but rather only partial, I am drawn to those who steer their own lives mostly (and in some cases, those who do not but who are in other relationships giving them that support). But emotional unavailability is not that either. A person who is in crisis and neither expects nor asks for help is not necessarily someone with their stuff together. Since I will still worry on their behalf, I will still hover near them offering help (which will not be accepted). People not asking for help does not reduce my emotional labour burden. People working to help themselves as much as they can, including by seeking support from me and from others, does. And this type of unavailable person often does not seem to understand this dimension, does not understand why I can’t just stand by and watch them suffer and not care, because by default they assume no-one will help them. Whereas my default is, in any genuine friendship, family bond or romance, the other being sad or upset always should result in at least checking in, to see whether they have it under control or not. This was how I grew up, so I have culture clashes with those who’ve learned differently from their lives.

This is BDSM-y also. I’ve noted I have a fetishy wish to collect strays. On some level which is much more emotional-relational than sexual, but which also has sexual charge, I see myself as that together, unshakeable witch who dwells in her circle, her hut on chicken legs, and who comes across broken, brilliant, untrusting geniuses. I leave the door open, they can come and go and I have no control over them. Except also somehow, they are supposed to slowly, spontaneously open up, learn to trust, come to stay with me, come back again and again to submit to me, so I can heal and advise and mentor them, and also tease and taunt and hurt them a little as I do, all with love, and they will come to trust me and themselves and the world and to grow into their full potential and to surpass me eventually. This sort of stray tamer, stray trainer, is to a large extent who I am as a domme. Obviously the fact I have a mentoring fetish means I need to be very very careful when I actually mentor people (those I advise, or those I lead professionally), so I make strict boundaries not to get involved with those. But in relational contexts, this always draws me. I long somehow for subs to come to me for more, and frame it as me helping them grow through everything I do. Even as I recognize that some domming is problematic for me as it makes me stay dissociated, I think enough of it is there, remains truly there as part of me. But it’s still problematic, because often this complicated fantasy does not match reality, it doesn’t describe the trajectory of those I touch. And especially, emotionally unavailable strays aren’t always just waiting for me to help teach them to trust and be happy. That is a silly romantic pipe dream. I won’t say it is toxic because in the form I have it, I think it is not, but it also isn’t usually very realistic and I must learn not to let it cloud my perception.

Most importantly, though, there is the whole high hopes, low expectations dimension. I really needed to learn that when I did, and it is very valuable, but in my years of coping I took it too far. I know why, because fundamentally I don’t understand myself as lovable. Deep down I am convinced I am hurtful, clumsy, boring, boorish, repetitive, simple, banal. I have impostor syndromes on all levels. I consider everything interesting about me to be faked, less genuine or deep than in others. Like I pretend but from a very shallow basis. And while I’ve come to genuinely be able to see myself as at least a little beautiful (thanks, HRT!), I also am still viscerally used to think that no-one possibly can enjoy seeing or touching me. So I expect that once the limited supply of curio I have with each person is drained, they will lose interest and politely move on.

I expect to be able to ask for and sometimes receive intimacy, but to always have to ask, because no-one will ever take initiatives towards me. Why should they? I am not attractive to them. When they accept, whether it is from kindness or a curious interest in the moment, I expect polite withdrawal at any point. I expect no persistence. I expect nothing to last. I expect for all who interact me to become bored and politely move on. While I have important and precious counterexamples, I also have many examples of people getting close and then that dimension fading out. None of my play partner interactions remained such for more than a brief few times. Every time this happens, I am reinforced in my belief that only fleeting interest can be held in me, that I cannot be foundationally wanted or loved. That I simply am too unskilled, too banal, too ugly, too shallow for anyone to stay around. That belief remains strong despite my partnerships and interactions, because it still was very long since I experienced anyone having sustained passion for me resulting in their approach, not just them letting me interact with them when I ask.

I cried over this on the dancefloor yesternight, and enjoyed that much. I recalled that phrasing, not wanting to be an option but a priority for someone. Except rarely and in the past and remotely in some of my partnerships, I don’t feel familiar with being a priority. I certainly don’t expect it in the slightest. I haven’t ever, I think. And that hurt so much in my early tweens, when I was still idealistically romantic, so when I found a high hopes, low expectations approach, that was the perfect defense from feeling constant pain and sorrow and self-depreciation. Letting love be solely to love others, to never expect love except as grace and blessing that comes solely by the contingent choice of others. A good way to keep from a great fear of rejection and abandonment. And it also certainly plays a role in me seeking out unavailable people. I believe it is all I can hope for to be an option but not a priority, and then somehow that feels safer.

I’ve hurt others too of course. From this baseline, I would feel it was wrong of me to require myself to feel physically drawn to someone if I was to approach them, discriminatory. I should give everyone a chance because no-one chooses their body or person, and it is somehow mean to not give a chance. So there were people I perhaps lead on, or slept with and then were happy when it never happened again, hoped that I could just let the bond cool, let them down gently. This is cruel and must have harmed just as I have been harmed. I must start to restrict myself to just those I really do want also in body, for all our sakes. That is also scary because of course I believe myself to be so unappealing that if I am picky, I will just be alone.

Being alone feels easier now. Not that I will be, for I am anyway multiply loved. This is wisdom, painful growth, painful for myself and others both. Thorny lives. Thorns thrive.

But I should restrict in another way, and this is what I thought of at the parties. If the only one making an effort is me, if all initiatives are taken by me and eventually accepted by the other each time, then what am I? An option, not a priority. I’m fine with being an option sometimes. I don’t want restrictions, or my life to be woven around anyone else – I need my freedom and my truest wife is Science, it is she who rules me (and I can say pretentious shit like that because I’ve actually earned it by this point). I have crucial loves that can never be edged out.

But I need for a proportionally larger part of my week-to-week, month-to-month emotional and sexual and romantic and friendly interactions to be with people who actually want me enough to make an effort. Because I deeply, dearly need to heal that part of me that thinks she isn’t worth anyone’s efforts. It’s not that anything is wrong with the casual connectivities, or the proposals that someone might take me up on once from curiosity. But I must balance that with receiving attention in a manner such that I actually feel _wanted_. Because there is such a great hurt inside me where I believe I cannot be, believe I am unworthy of being wanted.

This is scary in itself. Because if I ration myself – don’t seek out intimacy (broadly described) where you are the driving force to a greater extent than you receive intimacy from the other acting and making an effort, all in all, averaged over all bonds and relationships – then I fully expect to be lonely, to not experience much. Precisely because of that hurt cemented in teenage and tweenage years (and probably dysphoria-compounded) where I fully believe none will want me unless I am the one doing the legwork.

But now I have a self at least. I have achievements. I am fracking proud of myself in so many ways, because I know that I stand out in so many ways. Despite using stress to force myself, I know I am exceptional, that I shine like a star. I know I am beautiful, and that while I am no genius, I have a combination of agency, executive capacity and fluid intelligence that lets me do almost anything I decide to, so long as I pay the price. I know I can pay the price and smile through the tears as I do it, if I have to.

So maybe I can deal with that fear, and start expecting something from others also. And then maybe where I find that I am the only one making the effort in a romance, I can let that reach whatever level of loving friendship can work, and not chase after someone who won’t reciprocate. Strength lets me but the reason I need it is that I have this deep, deep wound that I must heal, and the only way I can heal it is by experiencing intense enough interest, love, lust, desire from others, evidenced by them also making commensurate efforts.

I don’t know where that healing process will go, but I feel somewhat confident on embarking on it. And being here in Babylon as a place of grandeur and adventure, I will be in my temple-grove, and I will go out to touch everything, and dance, and play, and forge bonds, and I will smile and cry always as I will. I am alive.

(EDIT: Also, must clarify: I do know the experience of being priority, not option. Those relationships which became lasting partnerships, and a number of lasting friendships, they did and do give me this, very much. It’s rather that I need to experience it more, in yet other contexts, from yet other people, to be able to heal as I crave.)