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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I've been doing some. A lot of quiet thinking I suppose. For example, "How did I lose my obsessive 'love' for John?"
Part of it was a book. Now & Then, by William Corlett. I read it last summer and wept through most of it. Part of it was friends and the ability to weep on your shoulders while you wept on mine. Part was a decision to take control of my life, part by part.
As I was pondering I re-happened on this poem. It seems W H Auden had his John too
Oh the valley in the summer where I and my John
Beside the deep river would walk on and on
While the flowers at our feet and the birds up above
Argued so sweetly on reciprocal love
And I leaned on his shoulder; "Oh Johnny let's play";
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
O that Friday near Christmas as I well recall
When we went to the Charity Matinée Ball.
The floor was so smooth and the band was so loud
And Johnny so handsome I felt so proud;
"Squeeze me tighter, dear Johnny, let's dance till it's day";
But he frowned like thunder and he went away
Shall I ever forget at the Grand Opera
When music poured out of each wonderful star?
Diamonds and pearls they hung dazzling down
Over each silver or golden silk gown,
"Oh John I'm in heaven," I whispered to say;
But he frowned like thunder and he went away.
Oh but he was fair as a garden in flower,
As slender and tall as the great Eiffel Tower,
When the waltz throbbed out on the long promenade
Oh his eyes and his smile they went straight to my heart;
"Oh marry me, Johnny, I'll love and obey";
But he frowned like thunder and he went away
Oh last night I dreamed of you, Johnny, my lover,
You'd the sun on one arm and the moon on the other,
The sea it was blue and the grass it was green,
Every star rattled a round tambourine;
Ten thousand miles deep in a pit there I lay
But you frowned like thunder and you went away
The thing that pleases me is that now, while I see how the poem affected me in the past, and I can weep the tears of the poet, I no longer weep "Tim's tears". The whole thing lets me see how it is possible to grow through an obsession, an dhow one can come out the other side into sunlight.
It was almost exactly the 37th anniversary of my meeting John that my obsession left me. I wonder if anniversaries are significant? Somehow I doubt it. He was cute, gorgeous, wonderful, sexy, desirable, aloof, elusive, loveable, loved, adored, all of those things. He was also a real boy with aspirations of his own. I think I missed those and became too concerned with my own troubles.
I wanted, you see, to have a friend. A real friend, one I could look up to. Instead I found a sort of love, one sided and awful in the prison cell it created, and I never had the friend. And yet intuition tells me now that he was in some way attatched to me then,and that I am 95% sure we were two boys separated by terror, not seperated by orientation. And no, it is not wishful thinking. Instead it is the most objective view I can see of the facts of my teenage years.
Now I just have to regain the years when I was lonely and stop being lonely, and the years when I was afraid and forgive myself for them, and the years when I was not happy and learn to be happy.
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Guest
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On fire! |
Registered: March 2012
Messages: 2344
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As you say:
"He was also a real boy with aspirations of his own. I think I missed those and became too concerned with my own troubles."
We often fall in love with our perception of someone, not with the person himself. And the real person may also have a perception of you which is also not the real you.
Friendship can often turn to love. But desire rarely leads to friendship. There's too much in the way.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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You know, if you care to write it, there is a story here.
It started as love, pure and simple. No as a desire for friendship, for I was a loveless, friendless, nervous kid. I managed to bypass frinedship, but not to desire, not at first. I found more than that and less at the same time. I was fascinated at first. He was unique, physcially and very pretty (in my eyes anyway). And yes, I do mean pretty, for I could see that even then.
I was not used to naked bodies. I avoided the showers fo rthe first six weeks at that school, and never saw his. What I saw instead was "him", and I found I loved him without desiring him. Then, one day, HIS was the face I saw when I wanked. It had been a mechanical act before, with no personifictaion.
I did try to be his friend. So very hard I tried, but the hormones and my desire overwhelmed me. And yet....
He used to hang out with me
He copied things I did
He came on vacation with me
He used to stay late at school to talk
He recommended I read a book where a boy seduced another boy
We sat together in chapel
We went sailing together both at school and in private
Even at 17/18 we play wrestled. He liked the physical contact
There is so much more,l so many little things that individually are cnicidences, but togetehr send very mixed signals
But I never saw him as who HE was. I saw him as I saw him instead. My fault, my loss.
Write the story, for I cannot.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I am free instead. The musings are simply that: reflections on the way I acted, and so on the way WE act.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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As I think about it, I did not treat him well. I idolised him, yes that is for sure, but I did not treat him well. You see I had expectations of him in my head which differed from reality. And when he failed to live "up" to my expectations I was not considerate.
Yet I would have run through fire for him, and I defended him totally and absolutely against anyone who said bad things about him or did bad things to him.
That is not love. It may have started as love, but it mutated to something more like an attempt to possess than a pure love. Or if love still, then its innocence had gone. But not the type of love any sane person would wish to receive.
I was not really very nice, and yet..... He still hung out with me. And this among other stuff is why I postulate that 95% he, too, had feelings for me. Not the same as mine, of that I have no doubt, but something was there.
He is, I think, well rid of me. Ihad been treated as a doll by my parents. I fear I wanted him in the same way. As a person to mould, as a boy to love me on my terms, as even a sexual toy. Make no mistake, I wanted his body. As time passed and I saw him naked I found him to be beautiful and wanted every part of him. Not, oyu must understand, to impose myself on him. You see I was unusual.
At 13 I knew precisely that I could not have him, not ever. But I also knew how I wanted the union of our bodies to be, if ever he would offer me the chance. And it was not the "traditional" desires. I was what I know now to be a "natural bottom" at 13. I wanted him inside me so badly I could feel it. More important I wanted him to hurt me as he entered me, I meanhurt. I don't mean "cause mild pain" like Nigel does for Chris I mean hurt. I mean really hurt so I would be screaming in agony.
Is that weird? He is the only person I have ever wanted pain from. I sometimes wonder if that is because I wanted the physical manifestation of the emotional pain I was causing myself over him. My excuse is that I "knew it would only ever be once" and wanted, needed to remember it. But in truth he could have hurt me in any way he chose and I would have submitted willingly.
Perhaps that is why I both waited al lthose years and then hurt myself by the final stages of ridding myself of him. Speaking to him on the phone hurt. Writing to him hurt, receiving no reply hurt. I think I got what I wanted and needed.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I think I have just realised why I'm musing this way. I am right in themiddle fo the anniversary of my drafting the letter to him that put all of my hopes and fears down on paper, right in the middle of the tme, twelve months ago, when I was trying so hard to persuade him that he should meet me.
I only wanted to talk, and to see him, to see who he is today, to see how he'd grown, knowing that there were the twin risks of my love being reinforced and my love being trampld under my own feet.
I was going to tell him, you see. Had been going to screw up my courage to the utmost and face my fears and speak. Perhaps it's well that he denied me the chance. His voice message was only unkind if oyu know the full context, but it was somewhat patronising. It wasn't kind, though I have no doubt that he meant to be kind, at least at the time.
Why he hid from me I don't know, but it isn't important, not now. It should have never been important. Nothing about him should have been important, but it was.
I remember so many litle things about him. The spring in his step, his ever cheeky face, his hair that was always cut short just as it got to be beautiful, his upturned nose, his sporting prowess. And other things, intimate things about him, I remember them all as if he were in front of me today.
But, and this is important, I am no longer in love with him. I can see all of this, remember all of this, and not feel hurt, not feel tears, not feel more than a little regret. And that regret is only the time I wasted over a dream of happiness that could never come to pass, not over John himself. The picture of him has no power over me now, nor the tone of his voice, nor the memories of him have any remaining power. Silly lonely love songs thatince moved me to cry and sob have no more power.
So why the paen of praise here?
Because I love him without being in love and I can never hate him though I am unhappy, briefly, at my perception of his cruelty in not contactung me at all.
He has a life. Married with three children. He has a career, caring for offenders as a manager in the probation service in a west of England city, ans lives in a leafy suburb of another city. I was never part of it and it is right that I should not be a part of it.
I do miss one thing. I miss the thing I never was, that he never was. I miss the fact that I was not his friend and he was not mine. I liked him, you see, as well as loved him. But I have no longer an obsession, save for a mild joy that I am no longer obsessed.
And playing the last scenes out in public, that has helped me immensely.
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I read Now & Then too and found it a most moving book.
The idea that our present day lives can be so affected by events that happened years ago strikes an uncomfortable chord.
I recommend the book to anyone who finds themselves dwelling too much on the past. As LP Hartley wrote in his prologue to The Go-Between, "The past is a forign country. They do things differently there."
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trevor
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Really getting into it |
Registered: November 2002
Messages: 732
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Your musings got me thinking a bit more about myself and my past as well as understand you better a bit.
I think the Composer had a good point. I recently thought maybe I was in love, but then realized I was more in love with the concept of being in love than with the person himself. In love with the possibilities the relationship might open, although it almost certainly wouldn't live up to my expectations in reality.
So, I wonder if you are still obsessed with relationship, or the possibilities, even if you've gotten over the boy as a person?
I do agree, just from the few details you've given, unless you've misinterpreted or history has distorted them, that there were some reciprocal feelings there. I wonder how many of us have feelings for another that we just can't admit to ourselves for whatever reasons?
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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But having wondered, I think not. If so I would have obsessed over every good looking lad who passed through my life, and there were so many. I can see them all so clearly, and can see the desire. But not the desire for a relationship, just the desire for sex.
The question remains valid, but I was not in love with being in love. I have had "being in love" in a real relationship with my wife for over 23 years. I know what that feels like.
I also know it feels totally different from the feeling I had when near John, and I do not doibt that my heart would beatfaster near him today, even after all of this time, with us each fat and older.
I wished I didn't love him while I did. It cut me like a knife each day to see him, to see his smile, even to see the back of his head. It cut me to greet him and it cut me to part from him. And when he left that awful school a year before I did my world collapsed, yet I had a suit or armour and it kept me going. I truly do not believe that I was, as the counbsellor I am paying to listen to me says "In love with being in love" or "addicted to being in love".
Mind you he and I fell out over that issue. For I see no wrong with wishing for the intense feelings you get when near the object of love. But that is another story entirely.
I am over the boy, period. I never knew the real man, so cannot love him. He is a different person. I have a very solid relationship with the girl I fell in love with all those years ago, so do not even require a relationship elsewhere. Sustaining one takes effort enough! Sustaining a second would be so hard as to break me! And that ignores any moral and trust issues totally.
Do I want a realtionship as an alternative to the one I have? A valid question with no valid answer. Using logic, pure and simple logic, the probability of a man of rising 50 who is a teenager inside being able to form a relationship with one of the age John has always been in my mind is remote. And providing the type of love and other things that a teenager needs, while not beyond me, would be an immensely challenging task. I know it happens, but frankly I view it personally (that is "for me", though for others I know it can work) as obscene. Teenagers need teenagers, not old men. Do I want an adult of my own age? Well no.
I am happy in the relationship I have and I want no other. It is the peripheral things that bother me, the things I cannot have. And that is different form being obsessed by either a boy or a relationship, I think.
And no, I did not distort the history. If anything I simplified it. I feel we were each puppies at the other's feet, but unable to recognise the other's devotion or needs. And I am sure his needs were different and his allaged devotion was diferent. I wonder of he was trying to say, eg with th ebook, "friends but only friends" or whetehr he was trying to say "love me".
And I wish I knew what he and his brither said when Peter his brother effectively outed me. Peter knew, you see. He knew for sure.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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I re-read the book without any tears until the final page. And then it was just a moist eye, and for different reasons from love for John. Instead it was out of empathy for Chris Metcalfe.
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mihangel
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Likes it here |
Location: UK
Registered: July 2002
Messages: 192
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Tim, you say you've rid yourself of your obsession. But have you really? From the way you keep returning to the matter, I wonder if you're still trying to persuade yourself that you have. It's understandable to have regrets about the past: who doesn't? But to dwell on the past, whether regretfully or nostalgically or even triumphantly, seems to me to be counterproductive. What matters is the present and the future. I once knew two elderly ladies - one an aunt, the other a friend of my parents - who both lost their fiances in World War I. Both married thereafter. One, like Victoria mourning her Albert, never let anyone, least of all her wretched second-choice husband, forget her tragedy. The other never mentioned hers, though I've every reason to think she'd been just as deeply in love and just as shattered. And there was no question which of the two ladies enjoyed life the more, and gave more life to others. Now don't think for a moment that I'm comparing you to Victoria, or to my sourpuss aunt: you give more life to others, bless you, than do most people on this planet. But you still seem to be mourning your lost 'fiance'.
Your road might have gone one way, but instead it branched off and took you in another direction. That's the road you're on now. Nick was absolutely right in quoting L P Hartley, "The past is a foreign country. They do things differently there." You can never follow that other road. I've found that the years tend to intensify the blacks and the whites of one's past. The more one thinks about it, the more it turns into a hell, or an inextricable maze of puzzlement, or a Shangri-la, as the case might be. If one didn't understand it at the time, hindsight may to some limited extent throw light on it, and let one understand one's present self better. But if, as you say, you're happy in your present life, does it help to constantly revisit those lost opportunities? Don't throw away the memories, but store them in the archives as a record: that's what memories are, no more than a record.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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You know I would agree totally that I should leave them except at present I am almost testing myself. It is a process, you see, not a clean break. I am passing the test. "My" therapist also agrees that it is a valid element of the process.
In addition it does have some validity for people to see it.
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mihangel
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Likes it here |
Location: UK
Registered: July 2002
Messages: 192
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... and good luck to it, so long as getting rid of one obsession doesn't turn into another obsession!
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It is insightful, the things you've written in this thread.
I'm glad you did, because it helps me get to know you a little bit better. It doesn't look to me like you're obsessing over your past, maybe looking back with a bit of regret and nostalgia, but there's nothing dangerous about that.
It sounds almost inhuman we'd be able to look back at our past without regretting anything. So again, thank you.
-Lenny
"But he that hath the steerage of my course,
direct my sail."
-William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act One, Scene IV
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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Ah, you noticed that I am obsessed at present with my lack of obsession! Not a bad thing to be obsessed about, but it HAS to be a temporary thing.
My life seems anniversary based, even without realising it. Soon enough those anniversaries will all fade.
For example I got through his birthday without even thinking of weeping and without biting everyone's heads off.
I've been unhappy for so many years that I need some short time to unwind and be relieved and to give thanks for the relief.
And, if one person reads this and saves himself from walking the road I walked, even if I never know who, then ithas been worth unburdening myself.
This public service announcement has been brought to you......
No, seriously, it may really help someone else to read about the shit I caused myself to go through.
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tim
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Really getting into it |
Location: UK, West of London in Ber...
Registered: February 2002
Messages: 842
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Without the crap in my past and the good things in my past I would be a different person. As it is I have had a lot of things to learn very fast indeed, and had to come to terms with things I thought I had buried successfully.
The problem is that burial fails. Things have a habit of resurfacing at the worst times.
So, my strategy is to look over all of the things which I once thought to be good (like allegedly loving John) and assessing them to see what they really are.
They become "processed" and not buried. And I can file them in the "finished goods" pile and decide what to do with them at leisure.
John, for example, is finished goods. I truly believe that today, if he arrived on my doorstep, we could have a drink and a chat and part. A year ago I would probably have felt very differently. So the processing removes the sadness.
It does not remove the nostalgia. But then nostalgia is not as good as it used to be
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Musings on Love Lost or Love never had 
Thanks for you testing yourself... 
