... a very good friend surprised me a few days ago by propositioning me (honorably: he's not in a relationship and he was even proposing a potentially long-term thing with significant lead-time) ... as I dealt with my reactions to that (after the initial conversation), I discovered many things, and I think my response is worth posting publicly (with identifying information redacted, of course).
Because in having to put words to parts of this situation, I discovered some important things about how I live my life and why certain things are the way they are. (And aren't the way they aren't.)
"Grace," as herein used, is a term from my faith tradition. It means essentially a special gift of the infinite, from God. Different people have different graces; some are more common than others. Our conversation the other day hovered around the idea of grace a lot, although perhaps a slightly less hallowed connotation of the term.
To the three people who know who he is, and to the very few people who know him or I well enough to guess who he is: please refrain from identifying the man in question. (Which I assume is an obvious piece of community care, but I know many people get on the internet when they are tired and mistake-prone, and hurt is something that you can't take back ... )
heya.
Ok, so, having had a couple of days to think about it, pray about it, and generally react to it ... the answer is really actually No.
I am really sorry I didn't cozen to what was going on with you earlier, because being clueless probably made things more difficult. I truly had zero idea you had been thinking in that direction.
Perhaps if you saw more of my everyday relationships you would have realized that I am like this, hard-core-all-in, with many people in my life (including that a lot of people react very strongly to the graces I have been given). I make edits in what I converse with different friends about, for suspected or known trigger areas (for example, I guess I won't be sharing non-public info about my romantic life or lack thereof with you anymore, which is a common edit I make for a lot of people for a variety of reasons), but the depth of feeling is there pretty much across the board. There is nothing about this grace that is exclusive or even romantic. I think this is why sometimes even very gay men react to it ([the one I mentioned before] was certainly not the gayest, he just happened to be one you knew). It's more like a Virgin Mary thing.
Because of this set of interactions with you, I've also just consciously recognized that this grace is just about the last thing I would want someone to be romantically interested in me because of (and that this has been a major source of frustration for me since I was quite young). Because (1) it's not *me,* it's a grace I've been given to spread around, and (2) it will never be just for my partner or even primarily for my partner, so it does everyone involved a poor turn if my potential partner wants to bury into it and be held by it. It's a no-win situation.
And so many mundane things. We disagree on a lot, both practically and philosophically.
We have different preferences for how life should be (challenging/easy; essentially traditional/open to huge changes; "simple"/beautifully chaotic). We don't even agree, I think, on what being healthy looks like. I'm not sure that you understand, in practice, that contractual relationships are not the only option; whereas I will never enter into a functionally contractual relationship. And then all the feminist stuff, which you often not only dismiss, but dismiss in a denigrating/diminishing way.
There's no basis for a good romantic relationship, brief, temporary, or permanent, in all of that.
And, in the end: I generally dislike the whole professional sports thing. I suspect that is, on its own merit, a pretty good, and completely non-esoteric, flag for, "this is not the right woman for your life, ever."
I am sorry.
I think we have been pretty good friends.
-- K.
* * * * *
Postscript: In case anyone was not sure, of the listed dialectics, I fall on the [challenging], [open to huge changes], and [beautifully chaotic] sides ;). Also, yes, the women in my life react to the graces I carry as well, but many fewer women than men react with an attempt at romance, and I was, by citing the gay men, trying to illustrate to this man that the attraction -- no matter how strongly he feels it -- is not innately a romantic one, even from men.
.
Because in having to put words to parts of this situation, I discovered some important things about how I live my life and why certain things are the way they are. (And aren't the way they aren't.)
"Grace," as herein used, is a term from my faith tradition. It means essentially a special gift of the infinite, from God. Different people have different graces; some are more common than others. Our conversation the other day hovered around the idea of grace a lot, although perhaps a slightly less hallowed connotation of the term.
To the three people who know who he is, and to the very few people who know him or I well enough to guess who he is: please refrain from identifying the man in question. (Which I assume is an obvious piece of community care, but I know many people get on the internet when they are tired and mistake-prone, and hurt is something that you can't take back ... )
* * * * *
heya.
Ok, so, having had a couple of days to think about it, pray about it, and generally react to it ... the answer is really actually No.
I am really sorry I didn't cozen to what was going on with you earlier, because being clueless probably made things more difficult. I truly had zero idea you had been thinking in that direction.
Perhaps if you saw more of my everyday relationships you would have realized that I am like this, hard-core-all-in, with many people in my life (including that a lot of people react very strongly to the graces I have been given). I make edits in what I converse with different friends about, for suspected or known trigger areas (for example, I guess I won't be sharing non-public info about my romantic life or lack thereof with you anymore, which is a common edit I make for a lot of people for a variety of reasons), but the depth of feeling is there pretty much across the board. There is nothing about this grace that is exclusive or even romantic. I think this is why sometimes even very gay men react to it ([the one I mentioned before] was certainly not the gayest, he just happened to be one you knew). It's more like a Virgin Mary thing.
Because of this set of interactions with you, I've also just consciously recognized that this grace is just about the last thing I would want someone to be romantically interested in me because of (and that this has been a major source of frustration for me since I was quite young). Because (1) it's not *me,* it's a grace I've been given to spread around, and (2) it will never be just for my partner or even primarily for my partner, so it does everyone involved a poor turn if my potential partner wants to bury into it and be held by it. It's a no-win situation.
And so many mundane things. We disagree on a lot, both practically and philosophically.
We have different preferences for how life should be (challenging/easy; essentially traditional/open to huge changes; "simple"/beautifully chaotic). We don't even agree, I think, on what being healthy looks like. I'm not sure that you understand, in practice, that contractual relationships are not the only option; whereas I will never enter into a functionally contractual relationship. And then all the feminist stuff, which you often not only dismiss, but dismiss in a denigrating/diminishing way.
There's no basis for a good romantic relationship, brief, temporary, or permanent, in all of that.
And, in the end: I generally dislike the whole professional sports thing. I suspect that is, on its own merit, a pretty good, and completely non-esoteric, flag for, "this is not the right woman for your life, ever."
I am sorry.
I think we have been pretty good friends.
-- K.
* * * * *
Postscript: In case anyone was not sure, of the listed dialectics, I fall on the [challenging], [open to huge changes], and [beautifully chaotic] sides ;). Also, yes, the women in my life react to the graces I carry as well, but many fewer women than men react with an attempt at romance, and I was, by citing the gay men, trying to illustrate to this man that the attraction -- no matter how strongly he feels it -- is not innately a romantic one, even from men.
.
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