There really is no better nickname for It because what we usually call It involves gestures of pointing in a specific direction and I just can’t do that online.
It’s been 10 years now and I still don’t understand it. I keep thinking I do and then something else happens. He has become such a different and better person in the 10 years we’ve been together. He still has some serious issues that I just feel like he isn’t addressing and I don’t know how to get him to address them. I actually don’t understand not addressing issues. In the pat two years or so I have worked my ass off to admit when I am wrong and accept criticism because it makes me a better person. If someone tells me I am doing something wrong or could do something different or better I want to be able to take that advice.
One of the issues that makes me feel weird is his attitude towards women, dating, and love. One of the serious issues we’ve had when it comes to being poly is my success. It is easy for women to find partners. I haven’t always been fair about my time which contributed to the problems also. I have really worked on that and it has gotten way better. With It though, no matter what I did or do, if he is “single” and I am not, he is miserable. He has gotten better in the last 6 months or so but it still is unsettling.
He dated Michelle for a while, maybe 4 or 5 months in the last half of 2008. They talked over email for a long time because she was in Turkey. When she got back to the states they hung out and really hit it off. It went on pretty well for a while, he was happy he was getting sex which was a sticking point between him and I still. I think it was January when she broke it off with him. She didn’t feel that romantic spark with him.
He took it amazingly well, he wasn’t too broken, or so I thought. After a couple days he reverted back into his “Must.. Find… Girlfriend…” mode. When he is in this “Must.. Find…” mode it seems like he just sort of loses touch with reality. He denies he gets like this, but Pants was around for this and would back me up. I remember him saying something along the lines that he had to made finding a girlfriend into his third fulltime job again, and he did. He gets so obsessed with finding someone to date that it isn’t fun to even be in the same room with him. He is constantly on OkC, Facebook, Livejournal, going to parties of his friends, pushing hard at N-M to try to get girls to go out with him. He gets cranky and passive agressive (more than usual). He turns back to scorekeeping, which really hurts me.
Everyone he has hooked up with, he totally pushed it so fast. It really seems like it is hard for him to have female friends, even though most of his friends are female. He has had some sort of physical relationship, even if it was just smooching, with a large amount of his friends. I can’t say that about my male friends. There is a difference between friends and not for me. I think a lot of guys genuinely like their female friends but will jump at the chance of smooching or more. He also just doesn’t seem very discerning, to me. Someone really has to strike me as amazing for me to even smooch a little.
I can see from his point of view how it would be really hard to be with someone who easily found people she connected with. How it would suck to be “the single one”. This compounded with his need to be accepted and desired makes it even harder. I just wish he wouldn’t use these as excuses to act like an asshat.
This summer, when I started seeing The Ocho, we really hit it off. It didn’t help that I was in a mixed state (a bipolar state that is both depressed and manic, it’s awful). I spent far too much time with The Ocho and it created so many problems at home that I just wanted to spend more time with The Ocho. It was a really bad clusterfuck and I was served up some straight up verbal and mental abuse in that situation by both Pants AND It. Pants has totally apologized, but It says that he is happy it happened. He will apologize once in a while, but then pretty much takes it back in the next sentence.
For the record, when I realized what was going on this summer and I got my ass to my Psychiatrist as soon as I did and got on a mood stabilizer even though that was the last thing I wanted. I also realized my shitty behavior, what I was doing wrong, and I not only apologized for it from the bottom of my heart, but I changed my behavior. Anyone who knows me will vouch for me that I made a near 180 degree turn in my life and myself and I have stuck to it. I am really proud of myself for being able to do that. I just wish I could take back the hurt that I caused.