Author: William

For better or worse, we can never say that the decisions we make ultimately are/ were best for us.

But, we adapt.

And life goes on, and we have the power to create whatever narrative we wish about our choices so that we feel more empowered to deal with the present than before.

But it never means that our choices, however well informed, have left us better.

The only authority I yield to is the ornery and wild insistence to feel authentically. Sometimes that means honoring my past, sometimes that means honoring my future, sometimes that means rejecting everything familiar.

Just honor yourself.

I’ve found that pain and suffering are life. I do not romanticize pain and suffering. They are necessary evils. A result of a permanent mind in an impermanent world.

I do not believe in unnecessary pain and suffering, for the sake of some mystical higher enlightenment.

I choose my pain and suffering according to my goals and desires and aspirations and visions. Pain and suffering and struggle is a consequence of being frail and imperfectly human, and the cost of manifesting desires, of actualizing visions.

Sometimes it means gaining.

Sometimes it means losing.

It is the cost of achievement.

It is necessary for life.

Educated, deep, kind, self-aware, compassionate, free spirited, petite, active, well informed, sharp, intellectual, creative, unconventional, traditional, adaptable, loyal, slender, green/ blue eyes, blonde, paradoxical, adventurous, well read, reflective, optimistic, authentic, passionate, subtle, thoughtful, humble, fun, worldly, health conscious, fit, principled, open minded, loving, understanding, unassuming, classy, curious, reserved, charming, natural, original, carefree, just, silly, confident, long hair, exceptional, responsible, seductive, a taste for art and culture and new experiences extending beyond the sensuous, spiritual, exotic, high cheek bones.

Those are a few characteristics I’d use to describe my ideal woman.

That’s the only word I use to describe this current season: Incubation.

Immobilized, full of pain, surrounded by brilliant light, under scrutiny, from myself.

I finally escaped the toxic relationship with my Narcissistic Ex. And no, I don’t use that diagnosis lightly. It’s highly pathological. And no, I’m not full of hate and disdain for her. I view her a victim of herself, like we all are. A victim who hasn’t learned to take back their power. And no, I don’t think she’ll ever be able to. The damage is too severe, too pathological for any capacity of self-awareness, for any ability of self-awareness, for any personal responsibility that translates to authentic discovery.

Maybe that sounds pessimistic, or harsh, but she is not in touch with herself, her damaged self; the shame is too severe, too persistent.  And I’m not sure she’ll ever be broken enough or hit bottom hard enough to experience the rawness that leads to the vulnerability of seeking help from outside herself, which requires relinquishing the incessant need for self control, which manifests as ego.

After seeing each other a second time around for about 8 months, and living together for just over 6, I had to call it quits. I was getting physically ill. The drama and conflict never seem to subside. The good that I held so dearly to began to pale when I began to fully realize the steady decline of my well being. Boundaries can only be set and crossed so many times. The feeling of defeat, of never being good enough, never doing enough, became a nauseating constant.

Why I decided to draw the line doesn’t matter. When you know it isn’t going to work, you know. You know when you’ve put everything in you have to put in. You know your conscience is clean, despite what they try to convince you. Despite their attempts to make you feel guilty for otherwise benign and innocuous behavior.

I decided once she was fully moved out that I would remain in no contact. It’s the only way to avoid the manipulation. She’s contacted me every 2-3 weeks since then, in some capacity, either directly or indirectly, through texts, through sending pictures, through invitations on social media, through mail, through apologies. But I just will never forget how pathological she is. How manipulative. How insidious her lies are. I have nothing to say, mostly cause I no longer care. Is there trauma? Absolutely. The same trauma I carry with me from my childhood as a result of my narcissistic/ abusive/ sadistic father. But do I really care about her? No. Is it difficult to move on? Yes. Have I? Absolutely.

The same week I decided to permanently end the relationship I sought out a therapist. A psychotherapist, who specializes in Narcissism and mood and personality disorders and some relationship therapy. I’ve been to therapists my entire life, and I cannot say that I’ve never gone as deep, or explored the emotional topics as I have with this therapist. I’m not sure anyone ever understood me. I’d see therapists for years. 2 years at college. 3 years at college. 5 months here. 4 months there. But it never made a difference.

I’d always feel frustrated, like I was going through the motions. “Give it time. Develop a relationship with them. Allow them time to understand you.” But it never came.

This gentlemen is a listener. He asks questions. And some how, whether it is because I was emotionally broken after my abusive relationship, or he just encouraged me to open up in ways that other therapists totally overlooked, I do not know. But I do know that I’m connecting dots. He recommends relevant books on the subject, and probes and pushes.

I’ve revisited my childhood for the first time in my life in an effort to identify faulty brainwashing in an attempt to undue poor emotional coping methods due to various childhood trauma. It’s been refreshing. Confusing. Very confusing. Very emotional. Angry. Sad. But… good. Somehow.

I talk about how my ex has permanent damage that I truly do not believe she will ever escape. Her sense of self is so damaged, and her capacity for empathy so absent, that I do not see how she could ever connect on a vulnerable level with anyone, and form a meaningful relationship of give and take.

The damage she’s sustained or just developed is so traumatic, that her personality developed in a way to remain forever distrustful and skeptical of others motives, to always think about self-preservation, to always be on the look out for threats, especially by those who are suppose to love us. Everything is a threat. Everything is paranoia. Her self worth is maintained strictly on the validation by those around her. She supplies herself with endless relationships with men who flatter and fawn after her. She has but two relationships with females, and both of these women are very damaged, and live 4 and 10 hours away, hardly an opportunity to form a basis for intimacy.

And her and I are not all that different. I empathize with her state immensely, which is a major part of my weakness and downfall with these kind of relationships: I rationalize for them, I want to be the savior, to heal and fix and love back together.

I struggle in many of the same ways.

The major difference is I have no desire to be vengeful, hateful, angry, or maliciously hurtful.

Her on the other hand. “I hope you die alone. You are obsessed with me. You are lazy. You never cared about me. You are the worst person I’ve ever met in my life. I cheated on you because you made me. I lied to you because you made me. If you didn’t do those things I wouldn’t have cheated or lied. ” The constant invalidation of my feelings and my reality, the gas lighting, the walking on egg shells.

And I swear to god… I never did anything but try to please this woman, an impossible task.

But I can relate. On many levels.

So I’ve been working on myself.

Working on restoring my sense of worth on a deep emotional, authentic level, something I cannot say I’ve ever felt. And I still don’t, but I’m trying to work towards it. Whatever that means.

I’m focusing more on my job, focusing on myself. Doing my best not to date. Doing my best to rid myself of my co-dependency.

Working with my therapist to root out toxic trauma.

Take responsibility for my life. Reframe relationships, values, motives. Etc.

I will tell you that for a long time I was afraid and fearful and hurt. Lots of my childhood. I was chronically depressed and in pain. I was a victim of a lot of things that most people don’t ever experience, and shouldn’t experience. And I thought myself as a victim. And I never took responsibility for my life. I wanted to blame. I wanted to assign responsibility to everything except myself. Genetics. Parents. School. Teachers. Friends. God. You name it.

I hit bottom so many times, it became a familiar place. Disappointment and hurt were familiar, but miserable.

My life changed when I stopped being afraid.

Afraid of what? Death. Annihilation. Shame. Damaging my ego. Hurt. I was controlled by my fear.

I decided that I was on a path to being a homeless bum. Because I was. 19 years old. Drug addict. Overdosing. High School drop out. Angry. Self destructive. Living on couches. Poor. Ashamed. Alone.

I figured I would rather die, because I felt dead already.

That’s when things changed: When I stopped being afraid. When I am already dead, I have nothing to lose. When I am at rock bottom, the only direction is up. When I was a bum, a loser, I had nothing to lose, and I realized I had everything to gain.

So I stopped being afraid of everything, stopped being afraid of trying, of embarrassing myself, of failing, of suffering, of doing things I haven’t done, of knowing more, of being different, of disappointing people, or caring what people thought.

And I took full responsibility for my life.

No one knows my duty better than I know it.

No one can care for me more than I can care for myself.

My parents can’t. My friends can’t. No one knows my best but me. I stopped living for everyone else. I stopped explaining myself. Everyone can criticize anything. Let them have their critical misery. Let them judge themselves with the same ruler they judge me with. I’ll have nothing to do with it.

When I realized this I realized I could achieve anything if I decided to set a goal and work torwards it. Nothing can stop a man but himself. Nothing. Where there is a will there is a way.

And I read a book titled “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen, and a life changing epiphany occurred: The quality of your thoughts determine the quality of our life. Reality and perception are not REAL. They are illusions, constructions in our mind. They only exist within us, not in the world. This is when I began voraciously reading books, to fill my mind with only the best thoughts, by the wisest most successful men.

You see, we only perceive obstacles when we don’t know the solution.

When a man changes the way he looks at the world the world he looks at changes. A man becomes what he thinks about all day long. Change your thinking and your life changes. We reap what we sow. Sow good thoughts and reap wholesome feelings. Our thoughts become our actions, our actions become our habits, our habits become our character, and our character becomes our destiny.

Our fears are irrational. Fears of being wrong, fears of failing, fears of death, fear of being unloved, of being not enough, fears of being embarrassed, fear of pain, fear of being criticized, fear of being unpopular.

These fears are not real, and they control us and make us small.

We ALL DIE. It’s just a matter of time. Embrace that reality and you can do anything. You have no fear, and you lunge any any difficulty, and love it.

Overcoming the fear of death is the first step in becoming more alive.

Our life is like a wave forming momentarily in the ocean, taking shape, joining with other waves for a period, before sinking into the great blue ocean that is the universe.

Whatever the mind of a man can conceive and believe, the man can achieve.

The only major difference separating one person from another is their psychology. If you can achieve a positive psychology, and you adopt successful thoughts, a optimistic attitude of mind, you will overcome obstacles with no more difficulty than anything else you’d spend your time doing.

I want to live fully, and do whatever it is that I am fearful of. Showing people that you can do anything. That struggle is life, and we don’t have to be defined by it. We can define it. And empowering people the way I’ve learned about this empowerment. Develop our infinite potential.

I see a woman and I see her heart

I see what they want

What they crave

The attention

The love

And I give that to them in a way they can accept and feel good about

Not in a selfish way.

Maybe it’s called seduction

I just see the lack within them, and I want to fill it and love them

I see it in all people

But with women it’s harder, because those good feelings always lead to more

You don’t want them to end

I study the art of the sale. The art of persuasion. The art of charisma. How to read people. How to influence their mood, their state of mind. How to emotionally evaluate people. To see past words and clothes and makeup and demeanor, and listen to what they are not saying

And this is not a magic trick, a flash of good feeling to appease the senses and enrapt the imagination in an temporary show of lust and desire and deception.

No, what I touch is deeper.

It is the heart, the void, the need for belonging, for acceptance of their true self, not their false self. The self that yearns for validation, even when it communicates the opposite.

This is my skill

This allows me to adapt to any situation.

With any company

Humans are mechanical animals

Everyone has the same basic needs

And when you can find a need that is unmet, an emotional need, under the facade… you will always connect.

I love people. And I have a lot of compassion

And sometimes I forget how important boundaries are,

Such as stepping into the physicality of a relationship, into sex and affection,

and the immediate vulnerability that this contains. 

For lasting relationships it is important to refrain,

So I can develop a relationship with their character first.

If you don’t have an ego, you can adapt very quickly to anyone or anything

You become them.

I write so that life is not just a fleeting sensation.

When people tell me we can’t afford free education, healthcare and infrastructure investments:

The government gives trillions in tax breaks to corporations that have allowed a massive wealth transfer, and a massive reduction in tax funds. Tax rates on the wealthiest have declined every year since 1950. Wage growth has not grown since 1975, but GDP has increased over 300%. We have the highest debt per capita than any other country.

We’ve been paying for perpetual warfare since WWI. The Iraq war cost us $6 trillion. There are hundreds of billions spent on military defense contractors annually. Our military spending is more than the next 11 countries combined.

We imprison 25% of the world’s prisoners, more than the next 4 countries combined, including China and russia. 80% + are non violent drug offenders. The war on drugs costs $15+ dollars a year. It costs 2-4x more to incarcerate that to educate.

Trump has proposed a policy to build $600 billion dollar wall across the Mexican border.

Hillary’s state department lost/ stole $6 billion in funds.

Our healthcare costs are 150-300% higher than other developed nations. All because the government allows pharmaceutical companies to exploit the sick and needy, which translates into higher premiums, and millions unable to afford care without going bankrupt.

I could list endless cases of wasteful spending that does nothing to serve societies best interest, elevate the whole and and remedy our nations problems. I could go on and on.

But you are a fool. And only you can help yourself. Your ignorance is your own. You will reap what you sow.

I was reflecting this morning, and I wanted to share some.

Being still is important. Habits pull us every which way. Trivial distractions. We want, want, want. We are constantly being pulled. Desiring. Craving.

We believe in everyone else’s dreams and visions and ideals and values, but we have none of our own. We don’t know ourselves. We take, take, take, and do not give. And all the while we are emptier, and lonelier, and sadder.

I have been practicing stillness. It’s crucial to quiet your mind and let go of all preoccupations, all worry. Letting go of all needs.

We need nothing outside us, nothing material, no approval, no admiration, no attention, no affections, no pleasures. These things become our master.

We need to only serve love and truth.

I have a tattoo I got in college:

“ne te quaesiveris extra” which means “do not seek yourself outside yourself” or “seek yourself within”

There is no truth or love in the world. No truth in text. In words. In signs. In symbols. In man. In things. In achievement.

Truth and love exist in us.

We need not do anything but accept that we possess them. They are not earned. They are revealed by submitting, by accepting, as a gift. We can never do enough or be enough or have enough.

We are enough, if we accept ourselves.

I can love you and know what you are. But what is within you is pure evil. Everywhere you go you leave destruction and hurt and heartache. You are broken, and you want to break others. You feel used, so you want to use others. You lie to others because you lie to yourself. All you do is take from others because you feel like so much has been taken from you. You do not know how to forgive anyone, because you live in shame and do not know how to forgive yourself. Your entire life you’ve only thought about yourself, because you’ve never learned to think about others. You do not know how to love, because you never accepted true love. You love because you need someone or something. You stop loving when you don’t need them.

I needed you, because I loved you. Not the other way around. You loved me, because you needed me.

I ended the relationship because you were toxic. You never gave, only took. You do not know how to think of anyone but yourself. And your entire life is a show. It is a huge facade. You are terrified of being found out how dark you are inside, how lonely and unloved you feel. You try filling your emptiness with men, money, status, image, drugs, success. But nothing will ever be enough for you. You will try your entire life, and never be enough. You will fake your entire life, but never feel genuine. Never feel enough. Never do enough. You will never feel adequate or loved by anything you do.

But you ARE loved. You are LOVED. But you cannot see the love. You cannot accept the love. You are too hurt, too angry, too broken, too proud. You run all your life. You think you can solve your problems with worldly things, with image, with carnal pleasures and indulgences, but you never will.

As long as you refuse to accept self love and acknowledge your brokenness and imperfection, you will always be unhappy, and there will always be a darkness inside of you, and people will see it, and good people will run, and evil people will commiserate with you, and you will always be alone, paranoid, skeptical, unsafe, insecure. You will always have dark secrets and secret shame. Your life will always be a lie. You can fool all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time.

All you need to do is seek for truth, seek love, surrender to it, forgive yourself, and accept the gift of life, and you will be transformed. You will find joy and peace and happiness and tranquility. You will feel safe, you will feel secure, you will feel loved, and you will never feel alone again.

You need to do nothing but accept the gift. It’s already yours. You cannot work for it, you cannot earn it, you cannot find it. It is within you. And it is waiting. When you are exhausted from running, from faking, from trying, from selling yourself out, from living a life of darkness in secret, when you are broken and exhausted and worn and have nothing and no one… Only then, I’m afraid, will you understand that it has nothing to do with you. And you will understand true love. And you will look back and understand the few people in your life who truly loved you, despite what you did. I will always love you. But I cannot have you in my life. Not now. Not until you have found the truth, and accepted the love, and asked for forgiveness.

I gave you all I had to give, and it almost broke me. I cannot permit you to ruin me. My life is far too valuable. Far too precious. For all that I gave to you, I want nothing in return. I want nothing in return. I love you, and I am letting you go. You need to struggle and suffer before you can understand that you will never do enough to be enough. You have to hit bottom again and again before you get sick and tired of being sick and tired. Only in those moments will you find salvation and peace and joy for your soul. I hold no grudges. I desire the best for you. I always have. And I always will. You cannot hurt me. Your words cannot harm me. I will always forgive you. I will always understand your heart. And I will always be thinking of you.

I wish you the best. I hope one day you will arrive at this peace. And I hope I can see you a transformed person.

Life is about love. And love is about accepting and giving.

Nothing in this world will satisfy you. You will never have enough or get enough, because it’s not what you get, it’s what you give.

That is love. And love is life.

Bernie doesn’t want a bigger government.

He wants the government to work for the people; he wants to downsize it, reduce its corruption, reduce its frivolous spending on special interest projects, reduce its tax breaks to the super corps who already have massive profits and continue to move jobs overseas. Bernie wants to reprioritize the governments focus. That’s all I’ve ever heard from him.

Why bail out banks, why give tax breaks to huge mega corps who offshore jobs, why give massive subsidizes to corrupt private contractors or corporations for projects that never come to fruition, why spend money on frivolous and costly wars… Why spend billions on militarizing police, on the war on drugs, on privatized prisons? This is the government status quo we want?

All the while… We have huge healthcare problems. Huge education problems. Huge job problems. Huge infrastructure problems. Huge justice problems.

The gov isn’t serving the people. Trickle down is a lie. Inequality has gotten extremely worse… An indication that past gov policies are not equalizing and working for the common good.

People can buy less today than they did every year past. This is a problem. This is a continual recession that’s been normalized. People live in debt and its normal. GDP continues to go up, but real inflation adjusted wages stay the same, or go down. This is a problem.

I do NOT believe Bernie wants a big government. I do believe that what government we have should be accountable to the common good, to elevating every citizen, all the workers that build this country.

I don’t believe in hand outs, and neither does Bernie.

Our country has the money. Our GDP and productivity speaks for itself. We’re not a poor or weak nation. 15 people own more than 40% of the Americans. That’s grossly unequal. That money will continue accumulating in their hands, it will not reenter the market place and make the country better if the rich hoard it in banks and investments. The tax code favors these people. It’s unethical. It’s wrong.

People don’t appreciate the inequality. They think America has it good, even the poor think this. What they don’t realize is that as a nation, every man and woman that has worked has in some way made this country wealthy and productive— and America is obscenely wealthy and productive. But if you aren’t paying people their fair share, it’s exploitative and wrong. And contributing to inequality. It’s not a handout to get a fair share.

People cannot live on minimum wage.The nation’s lowest paying companies operate within one of three industries: restaurant chains, department stores, or hotels, which according to the BLS, account for more than 70% of U.S. workers paid at or below the minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. These are mega corporations, not mom and pop small businesses.

$15 minimum wage is the same as $7.25 was 35+ years ago. Inflation and cost of goods have risen: people don’t seem to appreciate what this means.

Our country wants to blame irresponsibility of people. But you can’t save when your paycheck doesn’t keep up with inflation.

The problems we face our systemic. Hence the need for a revolution.

It’s time to force the people who have taken so much to reinvest in this country.

It’s not stealing. It’s not socialism. It’s being a responsible citizen. It’s giving back to the country that made the wealth. It’s investing in the long term success of our country.

It’s getting the corporate interests out of education. The obscene text book costs. The obscene corporate sports cultures, that has institutions of higher learning investing in stadiums and not tuition grants. It’s getting corporate interests out of politics.

It’s holding insurance companies and pharmaceutical companies accountable to keep their prices down, to not put profits over care. To make healthcare affordable for all. Every Doctor swears an oath to treat any person in need, as a human right, and in turn we bankrupt them? We spend 300% more than Canada and UK and France and all these other countries in healthcare. It’s corporate corruption. And policy makers allow it and benefit from it.

Comcast and ATT have our internet cables costs the highest in the world. It’s preventing the flow of information to the poor: it’s wrong

There are countless injustices like this, that have risen from unrestrained capitalism.

I do not believe in a bigger government.

I believe in accountability.

And our politicians CANNOT keep our corporations accountable if they are being PAID for in elections.

Life is very simple

It’s all tribalism

It’s all which narrative you want to buy into.

Which story you want to believe.

This gets us up in the morning at the end of the day. These stories. They cause us to fight. They cause us to work. They cause us to plan and build.

You have to believe in these stories, and some you are born into, and some you go out and find, and some you create within you and sell to others.

It’s hard to fake when you won’t die for what you believe in.

Good god this is complicated: this is a matter of hashing out an equitable moral philosophy, economic theory, and political theory. Moral capitalism is GOOD. It creates and innovates and lifts humanity up! Unrestrained capitalism is BAD. It exploits and destroys and dehumanizes! (Read: A People’s History of the United Sates by Howard Zinn to learn about the capitalism’s collateral damage)

When resources are plentiful and relatively distributed, capitalism seems fantastic. When resources are scarce and centralized and concentrated, capitalism seems horrible.

People that control the wealth control the laws. They control the market. They control the land and resources, all the media and all the information, and thus jobs and livelihoods. If the wealth is relatively evenly distributed, democracy can function for all. When it is concentrated in the hands of a few, democracy cannot function.

Consider a capitalistic society that continued to see an increase in inequality, where eventually 10 people owned all the wealth and all the land. Everyone that lived in the society had to rent homes from these 10 people. And they were given jobs by these 10 people. They were paid a wage to survive, but not to save. Because they couldn’t save, they couldn’t buy their own land or a home, they couldn’t invest in entrepreneurial activities and create their own wealth. They are essentially slaves.

This is an extreme illustration of the path we’re headed down.

It seems very obvious to me of the dangers of continuing down this path.

A government is only available vehicle for curbing over zealous capitalism

You can have a moral economy or an immoral economy.

You can have a moral government or an immoral government.

If you have an immoral, overzealous and corrupt government, the PEOPLE can revolt. Revolution is the only way to overthrow an immoral government.

If you have an immoral, overzealous and greedy capitalistic economy/ oligarchy, the government is the only vehicle for protecting the people.

It’s complicated. It’s really a discussion we need to sit down and just talk it out.

Yea. Mind over matter.
Be smart
Take care of your body
You never get something for nothing
That is why balance is so important
We spend our time eating and in the gym, and we sacrifice other things
We stay up late banging women, and we sacrifice our recovery.
We go on hormones to get big and jacked and have energy, and it comes back and we feel the exact opposite
There’s always a trade off
I tell myself that when it’s hard, my attitude and discipline and focus pays off all the more
When I’m not on cycle, what’s my attitude? What’s my work ethic? What’s my diet?
Cause that will determine how great I am on cycle
Yea no libido sucks
But it can be good to get you focused
Women are fun, but a waste of energy
Sex is healthy
But coming off a cycle leaves you with negative libido
It’ll come back tho
The BEST thing for you to do, is train hard, sleep 8 hours, eat your meals, and do cardio
The next 8 weeks are just as important as the previous 12…. if you plan on making this apart of your life and getting good at it
It’s not 12 on, 8 off… Cause no energy or no libido no motivation. It’s on all the time
It’s what I do, regardless of how I feel
Regardless of how I look
Cause when I am my best, I will be better than anyone who did less
Because I always did more, regardless of how I felt
That’s the mentality needed
But I just wanna encourage you to think long term
It’s a lifestyle. It’s a way of life. The body will get better and better. But only after consistency and persistence of hard work and focusing on the details and keeping the big picture in mind
Feelings are not apart of the equation. It’s as simple as you DO it.
No one “feels” like eating 5,000 calories a day. No one “feels” like training till complete exhaustion 5-6 times a week, rain or shine or snow or sleet or however tired you are. No one “feels” like getting 8 hours when you have girls hitting you up at midnight asking for your D
Never pretend that you’ve made it. I have not made it. I never will have made it. It’s ongoing. That should be humbling. There are always people working harder, eating more, training smarter
And those people will always look better and bigger
Except if you do more than them

Loving me. You can do something for me.

Trust that I love you, and be vulnerable with me, even when you don’t feel like it, and show me you trust me with your deepest feelings and insecurities, and believe we’re on the same team, and communicate with me, and think of my feelings and the big picture, and trust I want the best for you, and take time to see and appreciate everything I do because I love you, and don’t tell me you love me, show me you love me by putting me before yourself, by recognizing my feelings, and accept my feelings, whether you disagree or not. When you do this, you’ll realize that you are safe and loved more than you could ever imagine. When you don’t, you are pushing me away, and making me an enemy.

All I want is a relationship with you where you speak to me like I am the only person in the world you can trust and count on, and act like I am the one person in the world who’s feelings you care about more than your own. That is what I want from you, from myself, and for us.

Damhán, we cannot. It’s unhealthy. We both know it. It’s our personalities. Not something we can control. We both know it. It’s endless drama. It’s a vicious cycle. We are both broken people. And we do not lift each other up. The theme is clear. I have given it all I have. You have given it all you have. It’s a dead horse. The fundamentals of a healthy relationship are missing. Of course it will be hard. We are codependent on each other. It’s a complete mess. But it’s in both of our interest. I believe that. You will not forgive me no matter what. Things have been said. Things have been done. I quite honestly just want us to both be happy and healthy. Selfishly, and yes, this is completely thinking of my interests: I need someone who is more sensitive. I need someone who can empower me. I want to feel special. I want to feel wanted. I want to support someone and have them support me. I don’t want to hurt anyone. I don’t want to hurt. It’s just been ugly for no reason. You say I don’t listen, I don’t try, I don’t care. It’s just the end. I don’t really want to discuss it. I’m tired of hot and cold. I’m tired of feeling crazy. Feeling responsible for everything. I’m over it. We’re both over it. You will always resent me. You will never trust me. We thought we knew what we were getting into, but we didn’t realize how hard. We just focused on what we wanted to see. Does it break my heart? Yea. It’s sad. It’s hard. But that’s life. It makes you stronger.

I am not interested in working things out. I’m not interested in continuing the cycle. It’s like endless. I am always wrong. I am always coming up short. You loath me. You detest me. The slightest thing sets you off. I get mixed signals. And you know, maybe I do it too. But i know I don’t want it. And I think you don’t want that. I tried. Do I care if you see how much I tried? Nope. I can’t make you see how invested I was.

We are incompatible. We both tried. We really did. But the end is the end. I never ever wanted to feel like I did in our last relationship, and I do. I feel exactly the same. I feel crazy. I feel unstable. I feel confused. I feel like I walk on eggshells. I don’t feel any love from you.

I don’t like any of those feelings. I don’t like not knowing how you really feel. I’m done trying to please you. I’m done taking all the blame and responsibility. I’m done feeling like the only person I can rely on doesn’t know my heart. Doesn’t trust me. And I don’t trust them.

It’s clear it’s unhealthy. We agreed this second time around that we didn’t want this, and it’s come to this. I’ve racked my brain. I’ve been going to therapy 1-2x a week since we started. I was willing to give up my biggest passion for you to make this work. It just doesn’t matter.

At this point, there’s no use pointing fingers. We’re both to blame.

But this much is certain: it’s not going to work. We need to respectfully move on.

I don’t want things getting worse. And it has. I don’t want things blowing up like last time.

Me: Damhán and I argued again tonight. It’s endless. Makes me think weird shit when we argue about what seems like nothing. Then I end up over reacting and it blows up and my the bad guy and she’s the victim. It’s whack. Fight for no reason. Something small ignites for no reason. To her it’s a big reason. And I guess I get that way too. It’s like. I am sorry. You are taking this too personally. I didn’t mean to offend you or hurt you. And to her, I’m totally selfish, and I’m thinking about myself and not her feelings. It’s hard. I took like as much responsibility as I could for our arguing. I know it’s 50/50 always. But she doesn’t think I did. She thinks I need to take more, that she tries enough. And I’m like “I don’t know how to try harder. Please meet me half way. This is the best I got, I love you and I’m sorry. My intention and heart isn’t trying to hurt you”

Friend: Golly.. Idk man. It just seems like a mess. Y’all have been trying and trying and failing. I just don’t think y’all are cut out for each other long term. Just my honest opinion as your buddy. It seems like so much work and things are good then they crumble yet again. 

Me: Yea. It’s weird. It’s not good. I want it to be good. But God I don’t even know. It’s confusing 

Friend: There’s a certain number of times I feel like things deserve a fighting chance. Perhaps y’all have exhausted all your fighting chances

I dunno. Maybe. I feel trapped really. Mentally and physically. It’s confusing. It’s a helpless feeling. I think it’s fucked. But apart of me wants to believe it can get better. And when it’s good it’s great. End the cycle forever,

But it’s like. What’s been done is done. Damage has been done. And as long as we hold onto that, and think that’s a good enough reason not to be with the other, then it’s over

It’s hard to forgive and forget. And that’s what kills a relationship. Cause it gets harder and harder to move on and move past it. I mean. I guess it doesn’t have to be. But it does. I swear. I feel crazy in this relationship. It’s not just me. I wish it was. But I am trying. And it still is crazy. 

Friend: You are not crazy. The relationship is. I’ve seen y’all try and work. And honestly it doesn’t seem like it ever will. 

I want someone who wants me. Appreciates me. Loves me. Desires me. And I’ve chased you. Since day fucking one. I’ve tried everything to get you to want me. I’ve been patient. I make compromises. I’m the one who waits around. Waits for you. Considers your feelings. It’s never good enough. Never. I never feel good enough. I am always insensitive. I’m always the asshole. I’m always the jerk. I’m always selfish. You say the most horrible stuff to me. You act like I don’t care about you. You act like I don’t care about your feelings. The stuff you’ve said to me. You think I’m a piece of shit. You think I’m a fucking nasty pervert. You don’t event want to sleep with me. Its a chore to have sex with me. You can have sex with all these people, and when it comes to me, I’m insensitive and inconsiderate and never care about your feelings never care about how you feel. I feel used. I feel like I always try to make you happy and its never good enough. Never ever ever fucking good enough for you. And I never will be. And Its a horrible feeling. All I want is to be wanted. I ask you to talk to me. To share your feelings. And you don’t. When I tell you how I feel you tell me I’m wrong. You tell me i deserve to feel that way cause I make you feel bad. And I would never know it cause you don’t bother to talk to me. And when I told to you you don’t even listen. You tell me how you feel. You tell me I deserve to feel that way. Cause I’m not good enough by your standards. No I’m not okay. No matter what I do its my fault. If I feel bad then it makes you feel bad and its all my fault. Doesn’t matter. My efforts don’t matter. Nothing matters to you. You would let me go and never look back.

Damhán: I guess it fend for ourselves night.
Very thoughtful.
Don’t know why we should go to Florida tomorrow.
Don’t bother with your response.

Michael: Because we love each other? Because we’re committed to being with each other through thick and thin? Because arguments happen? Because we don’t give up? Because you want to meet my family? Because I want you to be apart of my life?
Are we not on the same page?

Damhán: I was just waiting for you to come back so we could have dinner
But you want to go by yourself
Whatever I cook for us everyday and you do this
I’m canceling my ticket
I need space. I was upset and I needed to get out.
Don’t talk to be
Have fun in Florida by yourself
You can explain it to your whole family
I don’t care.
You could have gone out and come back.
But you did this
I’m not dealing with this anymore
I did nothing wrong. You should have been proud
But you had to do this
Fuck this
Obviously I shouldn’t care
But it doesn’t do me any good
You fucked up big time
When you come home. Don’t talk to me. Don’t look at me.
I’m not cool with this at all
This is completely inconsiderate
Totally all about you all the time
I ever fucking warned you not to act like this
And you still did
Totally all about yourself and your feelings

Michael: Damhán, despite whatever you say, despite whatever you think is happening, despite however you think I’m behaving, despite however upset I am, the fact is and will always remain that I love you. And I am committed to us. And I believe in us.

Damhán: No you fucking aren’t
You care about your own feelings
We were going to have dinner together and you go by your God damn self
Because you are selfish and only your feelings matter
This is not the first fucking time Michael
This is the last time
No big deal. Couldn’t eat yesterday but you don’t care
Because it’s all about you
Every single time
Didn’t want to help out when I had shingles
Because you don’t care
Nothing every is important enough

While the selfish part of me would like to keep my extremely handsome salary to myself, especially because I worked so hard to get the degrees and training and career I have, I would gladly pay more taxes if it meant better education for the next generation, better health care for veterans, better community programs for those stuck in poverty, less inequality, a more fair justice system, Etc etc. I want to live in a society where everyone is given equal access to quality education, resources and networks. I don’t think that makes me selfish at all. How you treat those who can offer you nothing says a lot about you. Corporate exploitation and government corruption are two threats that will always face a society. It ebbs and flows in either direction. At the current moment we need a government to crack down on the super national corps and banks that have been exploiting Americans the past four decades and not paying taxes.

I implore you to look into the real issues. I implore you to do more than the average American and inform yourself on each candidate’s position, and ask yourself if they actually identify these issues as apart of their platform, and what they’ve done in their life to rectify them. 

I know you’re one of my more open minded and educated and intelligent friends, so I’m sure you’ve done your due diligence, but I ask they you keep on reading and researching and educating yourself. 

I’m sure you’re aware that GDP has more than tripled since the 1970’s, while real adjusted wages have stagnated, and CEO compensation has increased by over 3,000%. 

I’m sure you’re aware that the war on drugs is an abysmal failure. That the USA has 25% of the world’s prison population, and a large portion of those are private for profit prisons. I’m sure you’re aware that more more than 80% of these people are nonviolent drug offenders who now have a record. Im sure you’re aware that this is a racial war and it perpetuates generational poverty. I’m sure you’re aware they your tax dollars pay for those people. I’m sure you’re aware that US healthcare is 300% more than the UK, 50% more than France, etc. I’m sure you’re aware that our healthcare system is broken. I’m sure you’re aware that 15 people own more wealth than 100 million people, and that 47 million people live in poverty. I’m sure you’re aware that the freedom of information act is a huge breech of our citizens privacy. I’m sure you’re aware that our politicians will happily spend trillions on hopeless wars, while our veterans can’t get basic healthcare when they return home. I’m sure you’re aware that the top 5 banks have combined assets equal to 60% of our gdp, meaning they are too big to fail, meaning if another economic calamity happens then tax payers will be forced to foot the bill to save them. I’m sure you’re aware that super pacs and corrupt campaign financing have resulted in a rigged political system where real issues can’t even be addressed or discussed because the politicians are bought and obligated to their donors, so the broken system is perpetuated. I’m sure you’re aware that the USA is 27th in literacy. I’m sure you’re aware our generation has the highest income to debt ratio than any other country or time in history. The same goes for savings rates. I’m sure you’re aware we have a massive student debt problem that’s being exacerbated by schools spending on bs that doesn’t better educate students. I’m sure you’re aware there is an inexcusable gender pay gap that needs to be addressed. 

I could go on, and on, but I’m sure you are aware of all this and more.

I’m sure you’re aware that Bernie Sanders is the only candidate that consistently addresses these issues.

I’m sure you’re aware he’s the only candidate that doesn’t have a super pac or special interests groups financing his campaign, and thus no obligation to any interest other than the American people. 

I’m sure you’re aware that he’s an independent. Im sure you’re aware he doesn’t profit from his political influence as a senator. Im sure you’re aware that his platform and principles hasn’t changed throughout his entire political career. I’m sure you’re aware he has the best senate attendance record while running for president. I’m sure you’re aware he has the highest number of individual campaign contributors than anyone else in history, with an average of $27 per contribution. I’m sure you’re aware that he’s never run a negative campaign in his life, and that he’s committed to talking about the real issues, not other candidates personal problems.  Im sure you’re aware that his policy proposals have the endorsement of more professional economists than any other candidate. I’m sure you’re aware that he is striking a chord with the American people who are aware of these issues and want someone who can voice them and bring them to light so that they’re addressed. 

I’m sure you’re aware that he’s not going to solve it all, but that he’s better than the other DNC candidates who have been and/or are currently being federally investigated, and who have flip flopped on every major platform issue throughout their career. And he’s vastly better than the other xenophobes who simply obsess about what seems like three singular issues: Muslims, immigrants, and lowering taxes for all, especially the super wealthy, but seem to ignore all he major infrastructure and domestic issues plaguing our society.

I’m sure you’re a well read, well informed citizen. 

 We have breakfast and Damhán drives us to the post office around the corner so I can mail a box and some letters and pick up a package. There was no parking, so Damhán would have to circle the block (in hindsight there is parking. She also didn’t have her phone on her, which I didn’t know). When I got out of the keyless entry car I accidentally took my keys. The car still runs until it’s turned off.

There was a single worker at the post office, and a line of like 6-7 people. It took about 15 minutes to get to the front, then they had to measure and weigh it, then figure out how quickly I needed it to arrive. I texted Damhán that it was going to take a bit. I also called her. By the time I paid for shipping and mailed the car I was walking back to the street and see Damhán walking my way. I was surprised and asked if she found street parking. She did. She told me she was worried cause it took so long and I took the key. She asked me if I picked up the package. I realized I totally forgot. I was bummed. She was really upset that I forgot the package. I told her it was a mistake (my personal package) and I was super bummed. She expressed how upset she was I forgot the package. I told her it wasn’t a big deal, I could go back later, and that she was making me feel bad. 

This is when the conversation turned bad. 

She said “Are you serious? This is about you and your feelings?”

I was confused. She said she had a right to be upset, and I said sure she did. She waited, and I accidentally took the keys. It was a mistake. She said even if it was a mistake she could be upset about it. And I told her that’s fine, but that it shouldn’t come at the expense of wanting to make me feel bad, and put me down like I’m incompetent or something. 

She was beside herself. I was being so selfish with my feelings. She said I was unbelievable and she didn’t want to talk about it. I said I don’t know why you’re upset.  

When we got home she went inside. I followed after her. She gathered her things to run some errands and I sat quietly on the couch. As she prepared to leave she stopped to tell me how she felt, she told me she was very upset at me, that all I thought about was my own feelings, that I didn’t listen to her feelings. I told her I had no idea what she was talking about. 

She told me how she was upset because she had to drive around for 15 minutes, without a key in the car, that I forgot the package I went there to pick up, while her dog was with some strange dog at the house (dog sitting a friends dog…what?), and how I made this out to be all about my feelings. 

I said I understand. But also that I was pissed that she thought I was trying to upset her…. That I had no intention of getting her upset. But that she was taking it too personal, that I made a mistake. She told me I was interrupting her, that I didn’t care about her feelings, only my own. I said I did know how she felt, that she told me and I could tell her. She said I could never possibly ever understand how she felt… Ever. 

I didn’t say anything. I forget what else happened. She left.

What set this episode off, I may never know. According to her it’s all about my feelings, and I’m insensitive. I understand why she’s upset, even though I feel like any other person would understand that shit happens and mistakes occur. And that her getting upset and her effort to make me feel bad just brings everything down, it’s not constructive. I apologized. I don’t now what else she wants. 

I sometimes feel like we just won’t ever see eye to eye… And like… I’ll just have to suck it up and take the hurt. And my reaction is that I don’t want that. Cause I just want us to both respect each other. And like just like, when one of us asks not to do something, we just do whatever we can not to do it. And I know we struggle with different things. And sometimes it’s hard to believe that your struggles hurt me the way my struggles hurt you. 

You are not responsible for my actions. If you hurt me, I have zero excuse for reacting and doing something to hurt you. Should I tell you when I hurt? I think we have a responsibility to communicate our hurt to eachother so we don’t continue doing it.

Some things just don’t make any sense to me. Some of your behaviors. And i just question how I’m ever going to figure out how we’re going to work through these things. It’s been very hard to get over the past. I love you anyway. But I have these fears that you don’t see things the same way I see them. And so we’ll never reach an agreement. Like, I don’t know what you think of this weekend. To me, I felt like we established some ground rules to protect eachother. Things we’d do to make sure the other person had peace of mind and we could trust eachother. Things like eliminate pictures and not talk to ex’s. We discussed being able to look through each others phone at any time with the peace of mind that everything is okay. We agreed and promised that neither one of us want to be lied to, and we talked a lot about how we should be upfront when we mess up. We agreed that we would cut off al communication with ex’s. Or anyone we were involved with. Or at least tell eachother if we would talk to them ahead of time.

But like. It’s hard for me to understand why our conversations didn’t mean the same to you as them meant for me. I just think I did all these things. I was proud of my commitment to you and the respect I was showing to you. I told you so many times how important it was to eliminate temptation by deleting numbers and pictures. 

So when I find that none of this was upheld on your end, it’s like, why? Why did I do all that? She says she loves me. She knew I’d be hurt. She didn’t take some time to delete pics and emails and numbers. She reached out to ex’s. She still talks with guys that upset me. I’m like, does she not respect me? Does she think that little of me? Does she realize that we talked about how much those things meant to me? Is she trying to hurt me because I hurt her?

And then there are things like that just keep appearing as double standards. I mess up. I ask for safety net. Then there’s no safety net for me. Sometimes I’m not ready to talk, and you’d like to. And then you get upset for not saying it immediately. And then it gets reversed. You say you’re not ready to talk, and when I apply the same logic and trying to discuss it, you say I’m being selfish and only thinking of my feelings. And you say if I lied and talked to an ex/ cheated you’d kill me. And then you do it to me and I vocalize how upset I am, and you say I am overreacting. I just don’t know what the heck I’m suppose to do.

I ask myself if I’m not seeing the big picture.

I ask myself, when she lies to me about big things and little things, what else is she lying about? 

Sometimes I feel like we see things perfectly. We agree. And then. The behaviors don’t match.

I asked why you decided to talk to him, after everything, and why you lied about it. You said you didn’t trust me, or trust that you were good enough for me, and so you were reaching out. I asked if you could trust you and you said no.

I’m beginning to believe that nothing I will do will prevent you from doing what you want. No agreement. No promise. 

So on one hand, I have the option of just loving you, and taking it. Never expressing how hurt I get when you lie or never call you out when I find out you were talking to other guys. And I just let you do these things. And the hope would be that you see my love and stop doing them. Or don’t do them at all. But my fear is that you’ll just keep it up and do it more, and I would feel disrespected and unloved, and I’d have to know that the person I love is okay lying to me, and okay reaching out to others for comfort, and accept that I will never be enough for her.

Or I could just refuse to live like that. And just walk away. Refuse to be treated with no dignity or respect. Refuse to be unhappy all the time cause I can’t figure out if she’s telling the truth or lying to me, and living in paranoia. 

I want you to feel comfortable talking to me. I want all your vulnerabilities. Believe it or not, I am very vulnerable with you. More vulnerable than I’ve ever been with anyone. I tell you when I hurt. I tell you my fears. My insecurities. You have access to these things, and no one else. So it’s like… Extra painful when you know them, and do things to hurt anyway.

I ask myself how I could possible love you better. Listen better. Care more. What could I do? I’m willing to do it. 

I wonder if the things you say I do to hurt you I can ever change?

It’s like. What does progress look like? 

Things take time to change. We all have struggles. Each relationship is unique. 

I don’t think these struggles are logical at all. I don’t think reason will fix anything. They’re all emotional. And that’s like scary. It means I have no control. There are no guarantees.

Listening to each other is important. I agree. 

I hope we can find some common ground. It’s just defeating sometimes. It’s like, I didn’t sign up for this. I love Devyn so much, but does that mean I have to worry or hurt? Does that mean I have to be okay with not trusting her? 

We spoke about what we thought was the ideal relationship: communication, closeness, commitment. Respect and kindness. 

I am trying to understand the things you struggle with. I recognize you may have a hard time being honest because of shame, because of acknowledging you did something wrong. I realize this may not ever go away, or if it does, may take a long time. Or maybe not. I don’t know! 

I recognize you are very sensitive to the fear of abandonment, moreso that I can relate to, and maybe on a level I find irrational. And it may cause you do reach out to people even tho it would hurt me because you are on some level trying to protect yourself, or give yourself a safety or backup or something to comfort yourself with when I’m not doing it. 

These things scare me to death. I’m trying to figure out what I can do to improve this. To make you feel more secure. To guarantee you never feel shame with me, no matter what. 

I also realize there probably nothing I can do, and those are issues you have to work out yourself, and it may take a long time. And that need to keep faith that my loyalty and devotion will be enough. And accept the risk that maybe it’ll always be there, and I’ll always have to live with lies and some infidelity. I wonder if I should be okay with that. I wonder if I should love you anyway, despite my happiness. I wonder if that’s fair to me. I wonder if you think of my feelings that way. 

I do love you so much. These are just my thoughts. I will work on myself. All we can do is talk things out and all I can do is hope. I don’t know what the future holds. I just want to be happy. And I want you to be happy. I would love to have a relationship where we are honest and trusting and we can communicate and be vulnerable and we respect each others feelings all the time, and when we mess up we accept responsibility and not blame eachother for why we act one way or another, and move on.

I just hope we can be as happy and healthy as I’ve always believed we can be. And that we both can learn to put each other before our own needs. And take care of eachother. 

I just want us to love each other. 

Damhán was physically and sexually abused by her alcoholic father for years growing up. She brought it up as a child on a few occasions, but her mother didn’t want to hear it, and pretended nothing was wrong. When Damhán became an adolescent she began acting out and seeing boys and her mother sent her away to a all girls behavior reform boarding camp in Alabama, rather than addressing the problem. Damhán left the camp and had a series of abusive relationships with boys, mostly sexual and physical in nature. She was estranged from her mother and got odd jobs before getting into promotional modeling.

She eventually found herself working as an escort, and eventually courting sugar daddy’s. This is where Jonn Palmer (alias of a deranged, mentally and emotionally unstable predatory named Ed Long) and Ed Schoff enter the picture. These men would support a well to do lifestyle for a number of years. Eventually the partying and loose lifestyle started to unwind and Damhán began to distance herself. She moved back in with her mother, continuing to see a few guys. Eventually Jonn and Ed encouraged her to enter real estate, a field both of these wealthy gentlemen worked in (Jonn, however, fabricated his entire story. He is not wealthy, nor is he an investor. He has a wife and two children in college). Ed has provided her with a main source of income for the past 5 years. Over the past year and a half Damhán has worked as a realtor for a firm, taking care of the real estate aspects for Ed when he invests in properties to build. Their sexual relationship (according to her) has transitioned from sexual to more business over the past year, although they’ve always been mixed. She cut Jonn out of the picture after he meddled in her personal life, and continually lied about his intention to give her money for various things.

Ed currently pays Damhán between 1,000 and 2,500 a month for various favors and errands. He sends her homes to purchase and sell, which earns her anywhere between 1,000-5,000 per closing, averaging about 1-3 a month from him. Her personal real estate business is slow, but growing. He provides her with an apartment to live in at a discounted rate, which she just moved into this month. She is very much financially indebted to Ed.

Damhán says she loves me and wants to marry me and be with me and will do whatever it takes. She says she recognizes the unhealthy relationships, and she wants a healthy one, but her actions never coincide with her words.

Last night she says if our relationship doesn’t work out, I lose nothing. (She doesn’t appreciate how much I am putting into this relationship, feelings, time, humiliation by going back to a girl who cheated and lied to me and my family and everyone I know throughout our entire relationship). She says she will lose much more, financially and friends. I said it’s upsetting to think she has more to lose than to gain.

Damhán and my relationship

We began talking in April 2014. We met on okcupid, and she catfished me, posing as another person with a fake profile. But after I messaged her she came clean and told me she was attractive and provided me with her number. I was dating many women at the time, but when I decided to be exclusively with Damhán, I cut off all relationships. Within the first two weeks I found out she was talking with Jonn, her 50 years old millionaire ex boyfriend. She was also friends with his 25 year old daughter, and his 50 some year old sister. But that she was just friends. This left me feeling very uncomfortable, but I trusted her. As a defense, or precaution, I began chatting anonymously with other women, as a protective mechanism.

She also had no job, and was just starting real estate, and worked with this guy named Ed. When asked about their relationship, how they met, whether they were ever sexually involved, whether he wanted to be sexually involved with her, the nature of their relationship, she completely lied to be an assured me they were totally platonic.

Damhán was not a typical girl. She was very guarded, and very emotionally distance. Sex was very mechanical and cold. I wondered about the father she never spoke with, and over time began asking questions that caused Damhán to open up about the sexual abuse that occurred. She informed me she had never spoke to anyone about it in 20 years, and that her talking to me was the first time she verbalized it. We had many conversations, and I encouraged her to see a professional to deal with this trauma.

Three months into our relationship she sat me down and told me a confession: she had Herpes. I was devastated, but I loved her, and told her I was upset she didn’t give me the option to deal with that information before we had sex. We continued to be together. A month or so later, we find out she has Chlymydia. She got tested and wasn’t that upset, although I was very upset and curious how this could happen. I mentioned to her I had it in the spring, but I was treated. She immediately raged on me and laid into me that I had risked her health and I was cheating on her and all this. I know I could not have given it to her, because after I was treated in the spring I had slept with other people, and they had been tested since, and did not have it. Also, the symptoms did not materialize until 4 months into our relationship, and I had not cheated.

Towards the end of our relationship she because increasingly paranoid of my cheating, accusing me of all kinds of things without proof. I would cry to confess that I had nothing to hide and was not cheating, and ultimately say that I can’t be in this kind of relationship, in which case she was stop, console me, and all would return to normal. This behavior increased and I told her I could not do this and that we needed counseling to address these issues.

During counseling the entire therapy was focused on me and my problems. I was so guilt stricken I slowly began admitting every little fault, every conversation, I gave her my phone, told her everything. She saw the texts and sexting and was outraged.

She admitted “I fucked Jonn” in a smug way and I was devastated. A week before my birthday, the week I took her to a concert, the week before she took me to a spa for my birthday and organized a lazer tag trip and cooked my friends and I dinner.

After a day of emotional devastation she said she was just kidding and “wanted to give me a taste of my own medicine”. I told her I couldn’t deal with jokes like this and we couldn’t be together. She was relentless in her desire to work things out. I was emotionally wrecked. I took off from work and drank all day Wednesday. I told her I wanted to know everything. She said she’d come over and tell me everything. When she sat down on the couch I immediately asked for her phone and password. She gave it to me. I immediately found sexting messages and pictures to Ed and Jonn and snap chats to other men and pictures of her naked self that were saved on her phone that I had never seen. I was devastated. She admitted to sleeping with them both. I began crying and wailing and being a drunk wreck. I took her phone and screen shot the phone and send pictures, and texts and sexts, to her mother, her sister, her brother in law, her boss. I was drunk and almost blacked out and emotionally devastated and wanted everything to know the horrible things she did. Her mother and sister did not take too kindly, and they hate me. The next day she says she wants to work through it.

Her best friend Megan’s boyfriend, John, hears what happened between Damhán and I, and breaks up with her. Megan calls me upset and tells me everything about Damhán in exchange to have me talk to John.

With this new information I ask Damhán questions and learn about her sex work past, her escorting and sugar daddies. She told me a lot. According to her, she told me more than she told anyone. She begged me to stay and work it out. I said I would, under the condition she cut off all ties with Ed and Jonn. She said she couldn’t. I said I can’t subject myself to that kind of hurt and abuse. She was outraged and said I abandoned her and rejected her at her weakest.

In Summary

I think Damhán suffers from serious trauma. I believe she falls on the spectrum for various personality disorders, such as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (Vulnerable Narcissist), or even possibly Sociopathy.

I believe Damhán love’s me very much. I also believe she has had no healthy male relationships in her life, and that she has serious trust issues. I believe she’s always depended on herself to protect her interests, despite anyone else’s feelings. She copes by guarding herself, being emotionally unaffected and distant. Her capacity for empathy, or to think about the consequences of how certain actions may directly hurt others is severely limited.

I believe she wants help, and I believe she’s willing to do the work. I believe she is in serious denial about many of her coping mechanisms, such a pathological lying, and being defensive, and seeking intimacy and validation through other men outside of her primary relationship. I think she’s developed a dependency on older men with money to support her lifestyle, and this is not something that can easily be undone, despite her desire to do so.

Damhán and I have an amazing relationship one-on-one. However, I do not believe it’s entirely authentic. We are extraordinarily compatible in interests, chemistry, intelligence, attraction, activities we enjoy doing together, life goals such as marriage and a family having a similar vision for our future. We have amazing conversations, very similar tastes, we make each other laugh, we support each other, we’re very thoughtful and caring for the other personal happiness.

However, issues arise when we are not together, the alternative relationships, the deception and lying, the intimacy with others, the poor communication. Damhán is not a good communicator. To get her to really speak about her feelings, you must probe and pry and not judge and accept her. She shuts down very hard and very cold. She can be very defensive and aggressive, and immediately deflect the conversation and blame to something else.

I believe when you talk things out, and ask her to reverse situations, and put herself in the other person’s shoes, and ask her what she would do or how she’d feel, she almost always arrives at the correct conclusion, and would not tolerate someone doing these things to her. But the fact that she doesn’t arrive at these conclusions ahead of time on her own is very concerning.

I love Damhán, and I have told her I will continue to love her. I have told her that I will be patient and understanding, but that I must consider my health, and that if actions are not taken, and circumstances do not improve, and she continues to hurt me and push me away, that I will ultimately be forced to walk away. But for now, I trust her words, and I believe that with therapy, we may make some progress.

It’s important that I see that she’s proactive. That she is making steps. That she is moving forward, and wants to, and doesn’t want to internalize, or ignore, or mask the problems and challenges because they are uncomfortable.

Below I have listed a few major concerns in our relationship.

Major Concerns in our Relationship

Lying (lies by omission, deception, creating a false sense of reality)
• Almost pathological pattern of lying. Mostly by creating false realities, by not mentioning important details, lying via omission, or creating convenient illusions
• Insisted her ex Jonn and her were strictly friends when asked, but later had sex with him.
• Insisted Ed was strictly platonic, even though she slept with him weekly throughout our 6 month relationship. When recently asked if she was still seeing Ed, she said yes, only professionally. When asked if she was sleeping/ having sex with him, she adamantly said no, we’re just professional. After our falling out I told him we needed to stop sleeping together. When I asked further the last time she has slept with him, she said May (3 months ago, and when she was speaking with Dillon). She said she was lonely, and he was there, and she “didn’t care about him” like that, but he was always a friend, and it was convenient.
• When we began talking seriously again, I assumed she would distance herself from her other romantic relationships. Especially before we got intimate and had sex. A week after we had spent every day together, she divulged that she was still speaking to her last “boyfriend” Dillon (who lives in spain working in the Navy with her brother in law). She explained should “could not” stop talking to him until another week and a half, because he was under a lot of pressure to take his test and regain his rank in the navy, and if she broke up with him, he might have a melt down and she must think about her brother in law and sister and consider how it may affect them, as well as his ability to earn his rank.
• She has been lying and misleading Dillon, leading him to believe that she is exclusively involved with just him, while we’ve been spending every day together and sleeping together. She will not tell him why she is breaking up with him.
• When asked about her new apartment, she told me she was renting from a property rental company, and gets rental discounts by showing other apartments for them. She omitted that this rental property was owned by Ed, the sugar daddy/man she works with and cheated on me with throughout our relationship.
• She has not told Ed that we were seeing each other.
• She has not told her family that she intends to see me and work things out.
• She has said if she had to stop seeing Ed, and stop working with him, she would have to work harder, but she would do it. This was before she informed me that she was living in his property, and after she told me she would do whatever it takes to make it work with me long term.

Being intimate with other people:
• On one hand she says she’ll do whatever it takes to be together, and cut off all contact with Ed, but in another breath she “hopes that we can get to a place where she can work with him and be in a long term relationship with me”
• She says she doesn’t care about Ed at all, then tells me how I don’t know her relationship, and he’s a friend, and he’s been there when I was not, and its nice having him around.

Being financially dependent with other people:
• She’s been financially dependent on Ed for the past five hers. Initially as strictly a sugar daddy, eventually working for him in real estate and continuing a sexual relationship with him.
• I believe this is a huge issue.
• Not only does he pay her for sex (in the past), but he pays her for errands like showing houses and doing things for him, as well as getting money for any houses he sends her way. I estimate she makes about 30-40k just from having a relationship with Ed. She said she is willing to end it, but she currently lives in his property, and just moved in, and just bought all this furniture.

Relapsing into old relationships
• She has a tendency to keep old relationships alive, be it Ed (5 years), Jonn (5 years), Patrick (3 years), and I’m sure others.

Gas Lighting:
• Ex: in our previous relationship, she was intent on highlighting my faults, and downplaying any of her own. Such as, she flipped out when she scrolled through my pictures and found pictures of my Ex. Meanwhile, she was maintaining a constant relationship with her ex. She would ask me to eliminate all contact with girl friends, and yet she still maintained a relationship with her ex. And she was cheating on me with ed.

Moral Outrage:
• In the beginning of our relationship she was morally outraged when people cheated, and she advocated fierce monogamy
• She will devalue and harshly criticize others for cheating and lying, as if she was above it. Even though she is doing it at the very moment.

Un-empathetic; incapable of considering my feelings, and how actions may hurt my feelings
• Ex: Maintaining an intimate relationship with Dillon, the guy she insisted she would stop speaking with and break up with after his test. After Damhán and I had begun seeing each other daily, and sleeping together, I asked if there was anything I would find upsetting in her phone. She explained her text messages with Dillon. I asked if I would be upset by past or recent conversations, she said both. I asked if I could read, she said no. She is either misleading Dillon and maintaining a romantic, intimate relationship. She is being duplicitous. Maintaining two romantic relationships. I cannot fathom how she can justify doing this to either of us.
• Acts in ways that totally disregard my feelings, and believes it is okay, until we ask her to put herself in my position and reason from there. Such as lying.
• During our breakup we both divulged everything (I assume) about our past and current relationships. She said she told me things she never told anyone. She said she wanted to work through it and wanted to be with me. I told her I wanted to be with her, but I could not be with her unless she cut off all contact with Jonn and Ed. She refused. I said I can’t subject myself to that kind of hurt and abuse and debasement. She has said ever since that I abandoned her, and she trusted me and told me things and I rejected her.

Accepting responsibility:

• I’ve heard her apologize twice to me. Once I asked if she was sorry for cheating and lying, and told her I wanted to hear her say she was sorry. It was like pulling teeth. The other time was on her own volition; she had wrongly accused me of doing things for months, and realized that I was not at fault. She told her that she found out who did it, and was sorry she thought it was me.
• When she tells her friends why we broke up the first time, she tells them I cheated on her (I never physically cheated, and any girls I was talking to was in response to protect myself from the fact that she had an ongoing relationship with her ex which concerned me deeply) She does not find it necessary to elaborate on our falling out, and explain her own role. Her family only knows all the bad she tells them about me, and never elaborates on her role.
• She highlights all my faults, and never her own.

Talking points:
Dillon: Past and current relationship
Ed: Past relationship, current relationship, future relationship
Jonn:
Patrick:
Our past relationship
Our future relationship

Things we think we’ll struggle with:
How we cope with insecurity/ fears

Things we agree on:
Things we want for our relationship:

What is does a healthy relationship look like?

What does an unhealthy relationship look like?

Fears:
Abandonment
Rejection
Infidelity (intimate or romantic or sexual relationship
Lying (omitting, half-truths, deceiving)

Three C’s
Communication
Commitment
Closeness

Transparency: Open social media access; open facebook access; open phone access; open computer access; etc.

Maintaining the self/ loss of identify:
How to spend time apart and trust eachother, maintain sense of self

Control issues: how to trust with the opposite sex

When do you feel these things? Why do you feel them? What do they feel like?
Guilt
Remorse
Regret

How our relationship started:
Online
Her talking to her ex Jonn
Her sleeping with Ed
Etc

How to create open environment for discussing any and all fears, insecurities, concerns, problems, thoughts— without being judged, rejected.

How to create healthy partnership based on compromise

Pre-marital Counseling

Necessary? Things we need to agree on

The greatest achievement was at first and for a time a dream. The oak sleeps in the acorn, the bird waits in the egg, and in the highest vision of the soul a waking angel stirs. Dreams are the seedlings of realities.
—James Allen

Ever since I read “As a Man Thinketh” by James Allen 9 years ago, I’ve taken his words to my heart, and think about his wisdom every day. I can say, every day of my life, I spend time thinking about my thoughts, and how my thoughts today will bring about my future tomorrow. I visualize and dream about who and where and what I want to be in meticulous detail.

I remember when I first began my journey, I had no idea who I wanted to be, and what I was suppose to do. I didn’t finish high school, and I was living on a couch. I had no plan and no direction. I didn’t have a dream.

So that’s exactly what I began to do: I dreamed. I would spend my mornings journaling the kind of life I’d like to live one day. The clothes I would wear, the people I would socialize with, the home I would live in, the traveling I would do and the vacations I would take, the job I would have, the money I would make. I didn’t know how I would get there, but I dreamed about it. I dreamed about it in such detail that I could almost taste it, smell it, and touch it. I would write about it as if it were real, as if it was just a matter of time before it would happen. I visualized my lifestyle, the restaurants, the cars, the type of relationship I would have with my wife and my kids. I visualized myself jet setting here and there, exploring countries, and backpacking.

Every night I would spend time playing this life over and over in my head. I would embody this person, I would go about my day to day in this life as I lay in bed, dreaming, waiting to sleep.

I had no idea at the time how I would make this happen, but because it provided me a destination, a reality that I could believe in, I could begin tracing the steps I would need to take to get me there.

I began creating goals, and setting time lines. Daily goals, weekly goals, monthly goals, quarterly goals, annual goals, five year goals, ten year goals. They would evolve, and I would add new goals, and remove old goals.

I remembered, I knew I liked helping people and problem solving, and that I would want to be involved in business. So I decided I would work to be some sort of business consultant. I asked myself what majors would best compliment this. Originally I thought business and psychology would fit nice, but the skills they taught were too vague. So I changed to economics and philosophy. Complex quantitative reasoning with a business market context, and critical problem solving unusual questions. I applied to the best schools I could, retook my SAT, studied all the time, I decided to forego any partying and leisure. Academic success was paramount. I would not rest until I accomplished what was necessary. I took the most challenging summer internships in the fields of my interest, and the fields where a person can make the absolute most money: direct sales, law, finance.

Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so you shall become. Your vision is the promise of what you shall one day be; your ideal is the prophecy of what you shall at last unveil.
—James Allen

Fast forward 9 years.

I work as a Sales Engineer in the industrial automation industry. I consult with manufacturers on ways to improve production processes, then sell them solutions designed by my engineers.

I make $165,000 a year.

I have traveled to 13 countries.

I graduated from a top 16 university in the US, and a top university in the world.

I double majored in Economics and Philosophy, and minored in Finance.

I am a professional fitness model, signed with the top fitness model agency in the world, and shoot with industries top photographers, and compete and win professionally on an international level.

I live in a swanky industrial loft situated in the heart of Nashville.

I have just begun my journey.

I am 28 years old.

I have dreams. I will continue dreaming.

I can’t wait to see where I will be in the next five years. Ten years. Twenty years.

I’d like to spend time organizing my internal and external life.

Continue reading “Areas to expand and expound upon”

Washington DC.

I came here for the weekend to visit a childhood friend. We weren’t the closest friends growing up in our blue collar south jersey small town, but when there are one hundred students per class, you get to know just about everyone fairly well. My senior year I moved to Florida, for a variety of reasons I’ve mentioned before. I reconnected with this friend about 3 or 4 years ago, and he’s been asking me to come visit ever since. Not many people make it out of our hometown, so you notice when someone does. This particular friend has had a very successful career in the federal government for his age. He’s been the direct assistant to senators, worked in the secret service, for the homeland security council, the nuclear security council, for the secretary of state, and a variety of other high profile politicians and government officials.

Many of my Vanderbilt peers also moved to DC. The concentration of energy and ambition here is overwhelmingly evident. Everyone works for a high powered company or the federal government, and makes very good money for their age.

I’ve noticed, though, that there aren’t very many “cool” or “attractive” people in DC, compared to popular mainstream definitions of the word. It seems like all the intellectual or smart kids are recruited here. All the geeks that had to work and study hard, cause that was all they had going for them. Not looks. Not brawn. Just smarts. Which is fine.

This brings me to another revelation I often have from time to time. I’ve found that many people don’t know what to do with me when they meet me. Before we exchange words, they peg me for a douche bag or a meat head. I’m very muscular and fit, and I can objectively say I’m attractive by most standards. I curate my appearance, making sure I appear clean cut, put together, hygienic, and fashionable. But I’m intelligent, and I value ideas, and hard work, and intellectual activities and pursuits, dichotomies that almost seem inherently incompatible. (I think I relish in paradox)

People occupying positions or jobs and careers requiring a higher level of intelligence and smarts usually were, generally speaking, never the most popular, charismatic, attractive, or athletic. They don’t care about these things, and I think that’s awesome. But I find that they bind together. Scientists hire scientists that share similar qualities they themselves admire. They are attracted to people who possess qualities they possess.

When I enter the picture, it’s almost like they don’t know what do to with me. There is an initial level of intimidation. An almost, you can’t be apart of this group because you’re too “attractive” or “charismatic”. Or “you’re not one of us”.

I’ve actually even heard this in job interviews. I’ve applied for positions otherwise reserved for geeks and intellectuals, and the interviewer would say, “you have an impressive resume, a great education and good work experience, and I have no doubt you would do well in this position, but you have great charisma and people skills. I think you should be applying for jobs in sales or project management. Something client facing, where you work with people.” I have heard this more than a couple times, and I find it almost offensive. It reminds me that when applying for certain technical jobs, I should probably tone down my charm and charisma, and embody the qualities of a person they might be looking for: quiet, reflective, calculated, reserved, and the like.

But it’s the very fact that they assume that because I can smile, and generate conversation, and build instant rapport, that someone I wouldn’t be a good fit for the position of a data architect, or an implementation specialist, or a financial analyst.

Anyway. What I’m highlighting is that people are tribal, and it’s like the geeks keep to themselves. They stereotype, like we all do, and unconsciously maintain an insular working group.

I’m probably completely wrong, and other thinking things, of course. Probably being incredibly egotistical, or egocentric, and these people could care less.

But I don’t think I am. It’d be different if people (girls I date, colleagues I meet, potential employers, friends of friends) didn’t constantly tell me how surprised they were that I was intelligent and thoughtful and cultured and well read, and how they thought I was a douchebag until they started talking to me. And it’s like… really? I probably need to wear more argyle, corduroy blazers, and loser fitting clothes, and grow a beard out.

But why the hell wouldn’t I leverage what I’ve been blessed with? We are visual creatures. We are drawn to ideals that typify health and success and beauty, all of which are synonymous with goodness. In this culture anyway.

Why not be a whole human, if possible?

Anyway.

This is a new year. 2015. The dawn of an awakening.

I will make a commitment to write at least once a week, with the hope of writing daily, like I once habitualized myself to do.

I’m currently in DC, visiting a highschool friend whom I was never very close with, but always held in dear regard. Our relationship the past several years has developed via text message as we exchange books, and I offer fitness advice, and we discuss occasional political or economic news. I’m in his guest room, typing away these nascent agitations that have been festering the past few years of my sabbatical from writing.

I need to awaken my stream of consciousness again, read and provide myself tinder for new thought. I must never grow complacent, never be content with the sensual pleasures I’m so apt to embrace.

I’ve been a serial dater, and fucker. I plan to end this season of my life, and turn my energies toward building something, a business perhaps, or cultivating a new trajectory or paradigm for myself. I’m 28. I need to invest in myself, become more conscientious of my wealth accumulation, or lack thereof.

I’m working out, and doing a photoshoot in about four weeks time. I’ve hired a trainer and have achieved fairly remarkable progress from seven weeks ago.

I’m seeing several therapists and life coaches and psychiatrists, all in some weird effort to right myself, and find some footing. It’s my symbolic way of reaching out to myself, that is, by reaching out to others whose job it is to help me. In theory anyway. My hope is that they will act as a catalyst, to shake myself from this stupor I’ve developed by way of overindulging in my sexual appetites.

I’m capable of dating a woman every night of the week. For many weeks, and sometimes months, I’m in a continued frenzy of dating. I work, workout, shower, and visit these women. I’ve decided to stop dating new women, and just enjoy a handful that are easy enough to manage, whose company I can stand, and whose expectations are low enough where my minimal efforts pose no threat to sustaining the relationship.

I’ve had my fill of sex. Or maybe not. But I recognize that its impact on my future probably produces a net loss. Not the best time of my resources, my time and energy, when I could be focusing my efforts on scheming, on building wealth, creating businesses, networking, seeking new employment or career opportunities, or simply cultivating myself and my character, identifying my strengths and shortcomings, leveraging my strengths, and doing whatever necessary to make up for my shortfalls.

I must write.

I’m reading an anthology on Carl Jung’s work on Active Imagination. I realized that writing was one of the most powerful outlets of my subconscious, and one of the best ways to materialize these latent anxieties so they can be dealt with constructively, rather than running from them and diving into more inane activities and sex and dating and superficial relationships to allay to discomfort of  existential confusion. I must redirect, and refocus, not treat the symptoms with more symptoms.

I have so many thoughts that cross my mind that I don’t hash out anymore. So many profound insights I fail to capture, that appear in flashes and leave, without any medium to capture the exposure. Writing is this medium, and was the most effective way of delineating these inspirational epiphanies.

I want to become a better thinker, as always, but I always want to become a better doer.

I have so many opinions.

My friends think I should start writing short stories of my dating experiences, or my sexual experiences. Perhaps one day. I’m sure there will be times I’ll have the urge to recapture these stories when I’m reliving them in all their glory. My hope is that this year, with my renewed commitment to writing, I’ll do just that.

I want to read more, and date less.

I am a master seducer. I should write about my thoughts on influence. I have many, and I feel I have almost perfected the art. Specifically with women, but also with men, and my peers.

“Have more than you show; speak less than you know,” said Shakespeare in King Lear. That is my unspoken motto, now spoken.

I will write. I will be honest. I will be transparent. This is my anonymous outlet where my imagination can become active, where experience can gain meaning, where subliminal drives and desires can manifest and I can consciously make proper use of them.

Reflection is necessary for understanding. Writing forces one to relive experiences, recite knowledge, and reformulate meaning by giving it our own direction. It is essential for developing ones opinion. If one doesn’t write, we’re left to day dream, or converse with like minds, and hope that these minds care as much as we do about the topics that cross our mind.

Goodnight, moon.

I’ve been meaning to write.

I have so many things I wish to write about, but instead of relieving these pent up thoughts and feelings onto paper, which I would prefer, I just talk them out, to friends, girlfriends, therapists, co-workers, and the like.

My life is quite crazy.

I wish I could go into all the stories with the endless details they deserve, but that would require an exhaustive effort on my part, and intense concentration, to recall all the necessary events and feelings and thoughts. And then would come the task of contextualizing them in a greater narrative.

In short, I was in a relationship with a 35 year old from June 2013 until May 2014. We technically broke up in March, but we continued seeing eachother and sleeping with one another. She’s a sweet woman, without a bad bone in her body. The guilt I carried as I began dating other women weighed on me immensely, and we had a falling out. Around the same time I was dating and sleeping with several women. Probably a dozen or so. One of them was a particular creature of mystery and allure. She possessed a heart so distant and isolated, yet a sophistication and worldliness that was so familiar, that I was slowly captivated.  We saw eachother for about 6 weeks before we had sex, which was quite awhile for me. But two of the middle weeks I was in Europe.

About two weeks after we had sex, I decided that I wanted to be in a committed relationship, and discard all the other flings and otherwise distracted preoccupations. She was active, intelligent, exciting, charming, and, like I mentioned, possessed a distance. My intuition told me there was much she wasn’t telling me, but that granted me a subliminal permission to omit things of my own past, such as the swinging and endless casual sexual encounters.

I wanted her. She was the one. I told her I was keeping her. She was delicate, yet fierce. I don’t want to get into all the detail now, but I always possessed an uncertainty about her. I was quick, however, to make excuses for her, telling myself she was a wounded creature, that her abusive alcoholic father, and cold distant and rigid mother were central in producing her cold affect that was seemingly impossible to warm for much longer than minutes.

Long story short, she constantly suspected me of cheating. I always denied it, but it raised some suspicions of her own infidelity. She spoke to her ex, whom she had known for four years, who was 50 years old, and kept in contact with her family, his daughter who was her age, and he sister. She spoke of him far too often, but I chose to ignore it, hoping it would go away as our relationship improved.

She also worked very closely with an older investor, who was helping her with her real estate career. I found it very odd that they possessed this working relationship, as she had no immediate value and experience to bring to a seasoned professional wealth advisor.

Her constant accusations of my infidelity lead me to suggest breaking off the relationship, or go to relationship counseling. Our initial sessions were all about me. I broke down, cried, confessed to texting some women here and there. In my mind, this was nothing serious. I never physically cheated. Women would text me, and I would respond. And I would occasionally text women, sending promiscuous photos. This is wrong, absolutely. But I never maintained a romantic relationship. It was a product of boredom, and perhaps a symptom of my own doubts and insecurities about her relationship with certain men that she insisted were innocuous. I broke down again and again, in front of her, and the counselors, and all the while, as I confessed to texting, and even giving her my phone, she said not a word about herself, and her own issues. When I confessed to having a harmless lunch with an ex, she confessed to “fucking” her 50 year old ex boyfriend. At first she was this was because of all the pain and self doubt I was causing her due to her suspicions. At one point she said it was because she wanted to piss off his daughter, who did not approve of their relationship. I found that response fucked up. (She said he practically raped her. And when I talked to him a month later, he said it was purely consensual.) The day after she confessed to fucking her ex, she said she lied, and said it to “give me a taste of my own medicine”. When she told me that, I told her I didn’t want to see her anymore. She was at a work function, and drove 2 hours to walk into my house uninvited, and told me “this is not how we are breaking up”. I told her she had a lot of nerve, that she’s sick for cheating, or even telling me she cheated just to teach me a lesson, and that I needed a break. We went to counseling the next day. Before we went, she compiled me a booklet about survivors of sexual abuse. About trust. About abandonment. About what to expect from being in a relationship with these people. In the final sleeve she included a hand written letter declaring that she believed in us, that she loved me, that she wanted me, that she wanted us, and that we would work through this together, that nothing was too big to work through, and that she loved me endlessly.

Despite that semi-productive session, I felt at ill-ease. My intuition told me there was something bigger that I wasn’t seeing. Things weren’t adding up. I couldn’t sleep.

Finally, after losing 15 lbs in a week, not sleeping more than an hour or two a night, and watching my work performance dramatically slack, I called off work for the rest of the week, and told her I need to know everything. I had drank half a bottle of Scotch when she came over. I was emotionally drained, tired, famished. I immediately asked for her cell phone, which she gave to me. I began looking for evidence of cheating. Which I found.

She had been sleeping with this investor for money (she told me she would do him favors and he’d pay her $300-600 a week, such as looking at homes to buy, and going to the zoning office). She had cheated on me with this 50 year old ex who lived in DC. I was floored. Floored that not only had she been cheating on me (with at least these two), but that she had made me feel so bad about myself for my actions, that she showed no sympathy, no pity, no remorse. As this unfolded, she was completely emotionally unaffected. The more emotionally uncontrollable I got, mostly in an effort to get a reaction out of her, the more cold and distant she became. I had screen shot her photos and text conversations with men and others mentioning me and her relationships, and sent them to myself. All while she was clawing for her phone back, and I was crying like a baby. I finally gave her cellphone back and woke up a 1am in a haze, and filled with anger and resentment. I got on my phone and drunkenly messaged these images and text conversations to her mother, sister, brother in law, ex-boyfriend, best friend, her best friends boyfriend, and her “boss”, who I suspected she might have a relationship with. Why? I don’t know. I was blacked out.

When I woke up the next morning she was livid, but told me if I apologized to everyone, she would forgive me. She insisted that we see eachother at least once a week while we both got therapy and counseling. I thought this was ludicrous, that I needed time apart. She said she feared abandonment. I said I needed space for my own mental and emotional health.

Her best friend contacted me crying. She said her boyfriend had broken up with her. I had learned that when I told her boyfriend about what had happened between my ex and I, that she had cheated on me and was sleeping with people for money, little did I know that she met her best friend through escort/ prostitution, and that her best friend had a prostitution charge that her boyfriend knew about, and was always concerned about, as he suspected that she would continue it. Her best friend pleaded with me to talk to her boyfriend, to tell him she had stopped the lifestyle, that my ex had lied to her about stopping. I told her to tell me everything about my ex. She did. I learned how my ex was an escort and gave men massages for money, and the ones she liked and had money, she would sleep with. Her investor was one of these clients. She switched careers into real estate, and was leveraging him to help her establish her career.

I confronted my ex, and told her to tell me everything. She would tell me more, and I would press for more and more. I gathered a very interesting picture of this girl. About her childhood sexual abuse by her father, how her mother sent her to an all girls reform outdoor school during highschool. How she lived with abusive boyfriends who liked watching her have sex with other men (Bubba or Joshua was the name of the person who apparently introduced her to the life. Although she insists she was just tired of being broke, and signed up for sugardaddy.com, where she met her ex, talked with other women on the website, and was introduced to escorting through another connection that would market her on backpage and other websites.)

After I spoke with her about all these new developments, I felt a sense of clarity and relief, but I was still uneasy. Her 50 year old ex contacted me and warned me to stop meddling with her family (due to the pictures I sent), “or else”. We got into a conversation, and much of what he knew corroborated. He told me of her most recent ex “P” who she slept with for a number of years, who was married with children, who lied about his name. I found a photo of a note he wrote her on her phone that looked as if it could have been written by me. Just the reaction to lies, and emotional devastation that was wrecked as she played with him. Granted he lied. He said he wanted to build a life together, leave his family, etc.

Anyway. She told me she would stop sleeping with her investor, but that she couldn’t stop talking to her ex, especially because I wanted to leave her, and she would have no one. She loved him, but was “in love” with me.

Long story short, she’s crazy. And a pathological liar. There’s so much more.

We stopped talking for a couple months, and I dated other women to rebound. We started talking again, but each time we meet, I just sense lied and deceit. I can’t distinguish between what is factual or not. She distorts the past. She told me she only slept with her investor towards the beginning of our relationship, but stopped. But at the time this was all unfolding, she spoke like she was still sleeping with him, and that she had enough to support herself without giving him sex. She refused to stop working with him, thought.

Long story short, I don’t know why I still talk to this girl. She’s sweet, and charming, and I connect on a variety of levels with her, but she’s literally a pathological liar. I told her I think she’s a sociopath, and I still believe it, but she was so insulted that she blew up on me, telling me its so offensive, that she cares for friends, that she has a dog, etc. That she couldn’t possibly be. But its the lying. Its her constant reference to “keeping secrets”, it’s the seemingly endless chaos of drama, of love triangles, of sexual promiscuity.

Granted. Am I perfect? Hell no! Did I mess up? Hell yes! Am I sexually promiscuous? You bet. But I have no desire to hurt people. To deliberately deceive. To manipulate for gain.

There’s more, but I need to get back to work.

I needed to give a general overview just to reaffirm why I need to continue blocking her and remove her from my life. My current agenda to maintain friendly relations with her is… quite frankly, ridiculous. I can’t get past the cognitive dissonance. My mind doesn’t feel at ease buying all she tells me. And what would I get from it? What does she bring to my life? She constantly tells me I’m no better than her, and brings up my past, about how I hurt her so bad. It’s all ridiculous in my opinion.

She has this sense of entitlement. “You know what was one of the things that pissed me off the most during our relationship?” she would say. “That you never held doors for me.” I always held doors! What are you talking about?! “Not car doors.” That’s ridiculous. When we went on dates, I’d get the door. Do I get the door to every casual outing? No. It’s silly. Where do you draw the line? She commands this level of treatment, and gets incredibly pissed when she doesn’t receive it.

Anyway. She’d traumatized me. I need to move past it. No contact, once and for all.

After meeting this older woman who introduced me into the world of sex as a tenable hobby or past time, rather than an intimate encounter with a lone human, my perspective of dating began to change even more.

My curiosity led me to conduct several searches on the web to find a website similar to adultfriendfinder.com and others that populate a browser at the most inconvenient times. I found several, but most notable was a large online community of swingers. I signed up, and used the prowess of my emotional intelligence to craft a profile that appealed to only the best and finest swingers. At this point, I had developed one of the very best physiques, my education was that of the finest universities in the world, and my broad range of interests and studies allowed me to discuss topics from business and politics, to literature and psychology and other philosophically relevant topics relating to the universal human condition. Everything that would make me an ideal suitor. My verbal agility, and cool confidence put the most anxious couples at ease.

I immediately attracted attention on the website. My profile was well curated, carefully crafted with flattering pictures and sophisticated interests. My aim was to be the “bull” of their dreams.

One of my first encounters was with a middle to upper class couple. They owned a very successful service business in the area. Discretion, as with all these couples, or at least the ones I was interested in sleeping with, was their highest priority.

The wife was between 5″8 and 5″10, with long legs, a firm round ass, and toned throughout. Her body was chiseled, with defined abs, round glutes, and an overall well formed physique. She was curious and sophisticated, working out regularly and keeping up with the times. She had a passion that emanated. She was blonde, with an even tan, and a kind of smile that flashed as bright as lightning, only to fade as quickly as it came. The couple was around forty years of age.

I met them at their modest suburban property, which had been thoroughly gentrified, as if, rather than upgrading their estate and buying new property, they just invested in making what was initially a modest ranch home into an elaborate retreat home. They had a lavish pool and hot tub, a large fishing boat, or two. Inside was crown molding, the finest electronics, large tile and wood floors throughout, beautifully crafted cabinets with granite countertops. Their yard was large and well manicured, sitting a good half acre from the main road.

I arrived on my first visit to be greeted by the husband. Their little Chihuahua looking creature barked, or coughed and hacked, at my arrival. “Don’t mind him. He’s a little rascal, but harmless.” He shook my hand, and I stepped inside, into the orange glow of their sun room, and out of the gray fading twilight.

The husband was roughly my height, maybe an inch shorter. He had dark hair and dark eyes, and was freshly tanned, with lines etching his face. There was a youthful glow hidden beneath his drunk and possibly high exterior. His demeanor was very casual and friendly. His build was rather average, and he possessed a modest beer belly that poked gently from the bottom of his shirt. They were a good couple, although she seemed to possess more energy and zeal than him.

His wife walked in from the hallway as I stepped into the kitchen. I smiled and reached my arm out to greet her, and she stepped in for a hug and kiss on the cheek. Her legs went for miles. She walked on high heels and wore a tight fitted pair of shorts. I could tell she was slightly self conscious wearing them, and she immediately told her husband that she wanted to take them off. “But baby, you look good, and you wanna look sexy for him. Don’t they look good?” He looked at me and motioned to her, as if to coax a response. “You look amazing.” I said this with conviction, so as to assuage any insecurities she may have been feeling.

He offered me drinks, pouring me a Scotch, which is what I offered up as my drink of choice when he told me he would be taking care of the alcohol for the evening.

We stepped out on the patio and began discussing our background. He talked of his business, how they met each other, the ground rules for engagement. She was the center of attention. What she wanted, she got.

He sat on the porch, smoking his cigarettes. I noticed a large rifle sitting behind him, leaning in the corner. He mentioned it as merely a precaution, and I empathized in agreement, that you can’t be too careful with strangers.

He pulled out a bowl and took a hit, and then asked if I minded that he was smoking. “No, not all at, you’re good.” He offered me a hit. I politely refused, knowing that my nerves didn’t need additional excitation.

They complimented my body, and his wife told me how handsome I was. I returned the compliments, genuinely thanking them for surpassing my expectations.

We then proceeded to the bathroom where we prepared to go into the hot tub. I stripped naked with him. He commented on my large cock, and played with his as he talked with how he’s comfortable with his fairly average penis. His wife walked in naked. Her body was a perfect specimen. He tits were small, but still shapely for her age. They hung ever so slightly, indicating her true age, and not the age of her body, which appeared to resemble a thirty year old in her prime. He hit the bowl several more times, handed me a towel and we went outside.

I’ll continue with more stories in another post…

I’m at Edgehill cafe. This is my first genuine journal entry in several years. It feels… strange. Strangely familiar, like an old friend.

I will be journaling much more. The past couple years I’ve devoted myself to worldly pursuits. To acting without thinking. This was in genuine interest to see how my life would develop when impulse is the fundamental driver in my decisions. I used steroids for the past couple years, and achieved an amazing physique. In the process I began dating, mostly to ameliorate the raging libido that developed, but also to allay the fundamental feeling of loneliness that has been a salient feature all my life. Books and a personal relationship with myself, being tabled during this period, were not an option to cope. As a result, dating and women became a source of comfort. Working out, something I’ve always committed to in earnest discipline, became a way to tame and structure my otherwise wild desires.

The online dating scene opened my world to strangers. I met many people. Many lonely people. Many hurt people, without strong relationships in their life, looking for a way to fill their self-denied sadness, like myself.

One of the first women I openly had sex with without discretion was a retired WWF/WWE wrestler. That’s right. She’s now in a rock band, and pursues a host of other entrepreneurial ventures, such as photography and crafts and other makeshift enterprises. I believe she was 34 or 36. Her body was exquisite, something out of a fitness magazine, with fake tits and a voice that was strong and assertive, but tired at the same time, like it experienced a lifetime of abuse. There were high walls with her. She loved my innocence. Her and I made love many times. Her insecurities poured through after our 3rd encounter, receiving texts from her that she’s not just some piece of meat for me to fuck, which was never my intention. I love people, and I am genuinely am interested in bonding with them. However, I know that such encounters are fleeting, and my genuine affection, while it may bring out the vulnerabilities in the hardest of people, wants nothing more than to connect. I recognize that most times I am being used by these women.

That encounter turned dating into a promiscuous enterprise, where finding a significant other seemed an uphill task, with endless email exchanges that turn into a rote routine. The more routinized the email exchanges, the more routinized the phone conversations and dinner conversations, the more emotionally unattached I became, and this seemed to have a positive affect in getting a woman’s attention.

Soon, sex became a priority, and enduring relationships seemed something of an impossibility. I utilized the shotgun approach, dividing women amongst two groups, either a 1 or a 0, which indicate my sexual interest. I reached out to all the ones, like casting a net upon a school of the best fish. Many got through, but even if one or two a week was interested, these relationships became common sexual encounters. I would have sex 3, 4, 5, 6 times a week with different women. In a single 24 hour period I managed to have sex with five separate women. Three in the same night, and two the next day.

But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I was still convinced that sex was the gateway to a meaningful connection. It created the vulnerability for a relationship to exist, or so I thought, as I browsed these strangers.

I went on a date with one woman who was older. She was barely a one, but her sexualized interests peaked by curiosity, so I decided to go on a date. We met at a local brewery, and she had nothing but a water. I chose an IPA, which at the time I liked, but looking back, it’s such a bitter beverage to consume when conducting an interview. Or, a date.

The woman told me about herself, and we exchanged pleasantries. She soon told me about her career as a sex therapist, and expanded on her services and experience in the field. Soon thereafter, she confessed that she wanted to have sex with me. This made me happy. However, she added that there was a caveat. She was in a relationship. I was taken aback, and slightly offended initially, but I listened as she explained that her significant other liked watching her sleep with other men. In fact, he liked being humiliated by other men. She wanted a “bull”, or a highly attractive, fit, intelligent, and aggressive man to fuck her while he watched on in submission. This whole scenario came out of left field, and while my curiosity was perked, my moral conscience was in conflict, and the whole thing didn’t exactly sit comfortably with me. We left it open, and said our goodbyes, but the idea that there were couples out there that were willing to invite me into their bedroom so that the wife or girlfriend could fulfill her fantasy with a man she dreamed of, while their man watched on, was something that was strangely enticing.

It opened the door to unknown possibilities, and soon I would taste them all.

And they would be bitter sweet.

I’ll continue my story with a later post.