It’s just kind of baffling.  Even though, thanks to the negativity festival at Roissy’s, I’ve learned a lot, this kind of behavior still confuses me.  I’m not so confused about why.  What seems bizarre is why they come back even though I tell them very bluntly, that I understand and sympathize, and that this is exactly why they can never touch me again.

They can all do better, as far as conventional standards.  I’m not down on myself.  I like me, and forgave myself for not being perfect a long time ago.  I just understand that even though I’m great, this doesn’t really matter.  Greatness, talent, intelligence, etc. only turn on a select few men on this planet.  Fame gives you some leaveway, but I think that’s because your net is wider.  It’s easier to find the other weirdos when you’re well known and have enough money to be seen above the crowd.

For the rest of us though, if you find out someone you’re with is socially vulnerable, it’s best to throw that one back in the water.  It’s too small.  It’s sad to me that these small fish who think they’re big fish just because the pond here is small, keep coming back, but with no more maturity or independence than they had when they were released.  They’re probably confused as to why I don’t view their attention as a favor.

I don’t but then I do.  I mean, I appreciate it in the way that a schoolteacher appreciates an apple from a student.  It’s very nice to be recognized on some level, but I know I’m not dealing with someone who feels an appropriate romantic connection with me.  I am a distant something they get warmth and positive feelings from.  They just can’t really relate to me the way partners should be able to relate to each other.  It’s just that in this case, these are adults, but they’re so far from me in mentality that it’s as if I was dealing with children.

I look back on why I got involved with these people in the first place.  I was clearly not myself.  It seems like now, I’m trying to do a kind of cleanup of messes I made when I was emotionally missing in action.  I didn’t have the energy for real, dark, deep anger back then, so I pushed certain things aside, trying to be a nice person.  I would say the words, “It is not respectful of someone to coddle them,” but didn’t realize how much of that I was doing.

One of my students some time ago, unknowingly alerted me as to where I was going wrong.  She was the one student who chose the shadow self as the Jungian concept to write on for that assignment.  I was in denial of my shadow self.  It was a part of me I locked up because I thought it would hurt people.

Now I understand that this is a matter of nature acceptance.  I am not a good person to mess around with, to put it very mildly.  By being too sugary in the initial stages, I was in a sense, luring people into a dangerous situation where they felt it was okay to push me, and would only find out that I had a dark side too late.  This is something people should know about me early…that I am a nice person so long as the respect I give others is reciprocated.

I answered way too many flippant texts, and too many calls that came too late at night.  I talked too many things out that would have led my true self to just tell them to f*ck off and be done with it.  It’s not about being more of a bitch (as in ill tempered woman) to get guys more interested.  It’s about being more okay with being bitchy when needed, and if someone loses interest then that’s a good thing because I’m not for them.

I don’t think I’d recommend this as general advice for women.  Most women aren’t in my situation or doing the kind of work I do, that requires mad levels of focus and mental room to create and dream.  It might be of some use to artists though.  Especially if you’re living off of your art, you can’t be burdened with experimental relationships and drama.  You need someone who’d there for you, and if they’re not, they need to just not be in your way, wasting your time.  On the real, they’re also wasting your money.  That energy needs to be spent thinking of new things to write about, build, and create, not whether or not he cares.  When you have to wonder, you’ve got your answer.  Get over it, and get back to doing something that is going to matter to humanity.