I’m feeling a lot of reticence about writing here lately. I’m not sure why. Part of it is that as much as I try to keep it out of my head that Chris reads this, I know he does. And I like that he does. It’s just that I feel like there’s some stuff I can’t say, or that I have to word it carefully. I analyze it to death. If I write about him too much, will that say something to him? What will it say? If it’s all good stuff, will that make him feel good or feel pressured to be perfect? If it’s bad, will he feel bad? It’s not that I’m not comfortable with him being inside my head, it’s more that I’m afraid he’ll be uncomfortable there.
I’m censoring myself, and I know that’s not right. I know that I should trust him to be mature enough to handle this, and to handle what he reads. I really do believe he can handle it. But I still worry that one of these days I’m going to say something here that is too much, or too real, or too strong, and it will freak him out. I still have trouble believing that he can handle what I am. No one ever has been able to before. But then, I’ve never known a guy to have the sort of courageous realness he has either. I like him because he’s different. Why can’t I accept that he’s different in this regard, too?
So I’m going to go ahead and say what’s on my mind. I’m going to make a decision to trust him to tell me if it becomes a problem, trust that he was being honest when he said it was okay, take his words to be truth, because thus far, every word he’s spoken has been. He hasn’t misrepresented himself once. He’s been very clear about what is and what is not okay, and all of it has been true. So I’m going to trust him about this, too.
Here’s what I’m thinking about. I called him a few minutes ago to ask what his plans were for tomorrow night. And I felt kind of annoyed that I had to. It often amuses me that he seems to just hate making plans, but sometimes it bothers me. I feel like I’m almost always the initiator. Not always. There have been a few times he’s invited me to do something. But I invite myself a hell of a lot. That’s something that’s true about all of my relationships, really. I’m the maintainer, the initiator, always. I’m good at it. And that’s okay. Except when it isn’t.
When it gets to Thursday each week, I feel a sort of dread..dread is too strong a word, but it’s sort of like that. I dread that message or phone call that I seem to make almost every week. Asking what’s up with Friday night, if we’re going to do something or not, is there poker on Saturday, etc, etc. It’s become almost routine. I feel so unequal about it, like I’m the one pushing to be with him, and his side is mostly acquiescence. Constantly initiating it makes me feel like I’m the only one that really wants this.
I’m trying to look at it from his side. Maybe I don’t give him a chance, maybe I invite him too early and don’t give him the chance to initiate it. But I really don’t think that’s it. Sometimes, maybe, but there have been a few times I’ve intentionally waited until the last minute to call, to see if he would. He didn’t. It seems almost like a put-down. Like, I know she’s not doing anything, so I can wait until 5 minutes beforehand to call her. I know consciously that that’s not right, that he thinks nothing of the kind. He just has different priorities than I do. He doesn’t do the plan thing. He picks up at the last minute, and if I already have plans, no big deal, he can do something else. But that implies a pretty different weighting right there, doesn’t it?
I don’t know. I feel like I’m being unfair about this, perhaps because I’m determined to see his side, and to give him all the credit and benefit of the doubt I can. He deserves that. But I deserve to have my company desired enough and my time respected enough for him to initiate the invitation or give me notice now and then, don’t I?
I should probably discuss this with him. But I can’t seem to bring myself to do it. I feel like we have some sort of discussion every weekend, and I feel like I need to give the guy a break. There’s only so much relationship discussion the male psyche can take, right? I don’t really know how much we talk, on a scale. It feels like a lot. Maybe it feels like a lot because we’ve just left that “beginning” phase where every week was a renegotiation while we figured out what we wanted to be to each other. Yet it’s so honest and real that it feels later in the relationship, to me. So it feels like we should be talking less, like we should’ve ironed this shit out already, when in reality, we haven’t had time.
It’s kind of funny that I feel guilty about “discussing” too much, or dominating his time, or whatever, when in reality, the fact that I’m even thinking this shit is pretty considerate when you think about it. I’m trying so hard to be fair to him, to make sure I see both sides of the coin. I’m thinking carefully about my actions because I want to make sure they are rational, or at least honorable. I’m doing all kinds of thoughtful things. Yet still I feel kind of bad about it. I really should’ve been Catholic.