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unsui
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Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:09] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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As those who have read "About Me" will know, I am very much in favour of telling. And you will know that I have told.
In a very odd way the response is not relevant.
I'll try to explain, though do understand that this lack of relevance is personal to me, and may not apply to you.
It took me many years to track "my" John down. With help, because I lost my nerve, I acquired his phone number from his parents, and with a little serious detective work I discovered his address. It took me at least a year to get up the nerve to dial his number.
You have to understand that I have created a prison cell in my head where I live. Back then it was a very small cell indeed. I had not realised the cell existed, but it is almost tangible, and I could reach out and touch the walls, all walls, without moving. I was dangerously obsessed, probably clinically depressed, and had been for years and years.
When I called him I felt lighter. There was no way I was brave enough to tell him of my self created lifetime of pain in that call, but we agreed to meet, after he had finished a course. After the course was finished I called a second time and he agreed to meet. The story of that is on the main site. The meeting never happened. My prison shrank, not a pleasant feeling.
I wrote him a letter, and the act of mailing it, while terrifying, allowed me to start to break the obsession. I told him what had been in my heart. He made no reply. But the prison walls started to be movable. I could now move them. I have moved them.
On Friday, last Friday, I mailed a further letter. I'm not stalking the guy, it's been several years since I tried last to be in touch. I am sure I will get no reply again, but I am able to step further away from my old obsession. The more often I get no reply, or even if I do, eventually, get a reply, the more I know that my prison cell cannot contain me. I am free of him. I just can't quite realise it yet, because, selfishly (and why not?) I would like to see him once more before I die.
[Updated on: Tue, 14 October 2008 06:35]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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It never happened to me.I just couldn't hide it. Perhaps it was because I started so late but when I did start having feelings for other people they KNEW; I was unable to hide it. So I know about unrequited love but not about the frustration of not daring to tell someone I had feelings for him. I do think I am lucky about that.
[I think I have to make an exception for daughters' straight boyfriends, but at least one of them guessed just from the way I looked at him!]
And the strange thing is that in later life, talking with straight friends it has been pointed out to me that Nick was in love with me or that [name forgotten] had a crush on me (at age 25!) and when it was pointed out I had to agree the observation was right but that at the time I hadn't realised it.
I only know about those two but maybe there were some other marvellous opportunities that I missed.
Love,
Anthony
Don't hide your desires without good reason.
[Updated on: Tue, 14 October 2008 19:10] |
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unsui
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Registered: September 2007
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:09] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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I considered that. "If he replies I will know something, if he does not reply I will know something" But that is not truly useful. All I will know with no reply is that I have been granted no reply.
Instead I am considering the act of telling as the element that allows me to increase the size of the cell I pace. A reply of any sort will be interesting, no reply is likely, but it was the sending of the letter that is my trigger act, and I am not glued to the doormat to see if I get a reply.
Does that help clarify it a little better?
[Updated on: Tue, 14 October 2008 17:00]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:08] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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Ah, but there are two points that you are missing
1) I no longer find it any more than "interesting" if he replies or not, because the issue of writing to him, apart from the letter needing to go to his address, was not so much for him to receive it, as for me to write and mail it. Since I never expected a reply when I put it in the mail, it is the act of my mailing it that was useful to me. Why would I believe whatever he writes back to me if it is negative anyway?
2) The time for his loving me is long past. He may or may not have felt an attraction back then, but now? At best improbable, and how terrifying for each of us if he did? I do not wish him to love me today. I wish, simply, to clear the air, even if it does not need clearing. But I acknowledge freely that this will not happen, and I am content with that.
So those are the two important points. He and I will never run towards each other on a beach in slow motion. We will not sink into a joyful old age in a joint dotage together. Apart from the low probability that he is gay and that he is attracted to me as well, he and I have other responsibilities, other lives. We are separate, and are separated by a very great number of years.
You, with your phone call, had a mixture of courage and luck. I have just had the courage. Nonetheless, your message is "tell". I am. I have. And maybe I am doing more than I ought, but I am doing what I must in order to increase the size of my self created prison cell.
Since that cell was not created with logic it also cannot be destroyed with logic. I am confident in my illogical actions. I acknowledge the scenario you have painted, and, with illogic, I reject it, because, today, that is what I am doing. Tomorrow I may think differently, and the day after differently again. You seem to have clear blacks and whites. I have greys.
[Updated on: Tue, 14 October 2008 21:36]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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unsui
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Likes it here |
Registered: September 2007
Messages: 338
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No Message Body
[Updated on: Fri, 24 October 2008 17:08] |
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13796
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These things transcend logic. And that is the point of playing this out in the open. The more it is pointed out that I am free to leave the more I resist, and the more I sit on the hard bunk and wonder why I can't leave.
Anyone looking at me can see how stupid my thought processes are, so can I. And I can also tell you how hard I've worked to be where I am today. Ask Marc and JFR among others.
When you are obsessed, and I hope you have never been, that process is hard to break, almost impossible. And, in breaking as much as I have I have lost(!) much of the phantom world I used to think I lived in. And losing my one place of refuge really, really hurts, even though it is unreal.
What doorway? There are no real walls, let alone a doorway. But I crave the illusion of security all the while knowing it is an illusion. This is the devil I know.
My rational self wonders what there ever was to be in love with about this phantom boy, now a man. My juvenile self adores him still. But he is not adorable, nor was he ever. He was ordinary, fallible, pleasant, unpleasant, and just a pretty average looking average behaving teenager. And not even a real friend, though he appeared to be.
But loving the brat was wonderful and awful. And disposing of those feelings is very hard indeed. Your post allowed me to take another step, though not as fast as any rational advice would suggest. I have moved the walls. Now I'm painting them, and sweeping the floor. I'll move them again another day.
My hope is that others will see this and recognise themselves and not walk this road.
[Updated on: Wed, 15 October 2008 00:18]
Author of Queer Me! Halfway Between Flying and Crying - the true story of life for a gay boy in the Swinging Sixties in a British all male Public School
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