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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I'm writing the book of my teenage years. It's hard to write sometimes because I relive all the emotions in a very compressed way. And as I play scenes out, scenes that really happened, without diverting from what genuinely took place, I am starting to realise how weird love is.
I loved, as you know, very deeply, from the age of 13. I think you probably also realise that this wasn't lust, though a desire to make love to him was there, but was an overwhelming, idealised, romantic and passionate desire for a total commitment, me to him and him to me.
I've got to a point where I must have started to grow up, and I've realised hat, as well as being the most wonderful thing in my universe, he was also a selfish shit, unreliable, and not really very nice. But I always found reasons to forgive him. I grew up as a miniature battered wife without even the good parts of a relationship!
The thing is, even sight unseen for many years, I know that I can't stop loving him. The book is making it easier, but I can't break the spell I created over myself.
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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Well, Timmy, I do think that maybe writing it all down WILL enable to to break the spell you have cast over yourself.
I guess my afflictions are different and I suspect I have worse self-knowledge and so I'm not so aware of what they are.
Anyone is welcome to speculate! Sometimes such things do give insight.
When Ivo told me that Nick was in love with me it was a revelation. Blindingly obvious, once said, but invisible to me beforehand!
Well I am going to do some research on Friday at the Gaudy and find out which of my still living contemporaries at Oriel knew I was gay. My opinion is that I was well camouflaged but the incident with Rex says otherwise.
I can also ask whether people knew I was in love or not and ... ...
I'm going with a contemporary and I'm doing the driving!
Have you been to an 'old boys' dinner recently? Could it help?
Love,
Anthony
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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Ah the Old Boys' Dinner: weird ritual where one puts in a hugely plummy accent and pretends success in life, posturing and preening. In general, and I have attended several, they are detestable affairs with impossibly pretentious and pompous blowhards.
At the last one I went to I sat opposite the deputy head who confessed to me that the school purposely held back the more able pupils because it was unable to cater for them. He also had no idea what the school's current values were!
I will resolve quite a bit more, but, even though I am starting to dislike him, I do still love him. I even have a fondness for the picture of the total loser he looks to be today, and can make up excuses for his turning out the way he has.
Your ex colleagues will not admit what they thought, you know. They never do.
[Updated on: Tue, 17 March 2009 21:24]
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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Well, Timmy, you will excuse me for differing. Perhaps because we are quite a bit older, perhaps because we were all in our twenties when we first met each other, I am not worried by people pretending to greater or less worldly success than others; they didn't do it last time and I expect them not to do it this time.
I do think we are a fairly unusual bunch, even among the people who went to Oriel. We being the particular group centered about John Wiggins who has held a party all years but three or four since 1958 at which a nucleus of a dozen or so has met.
Peter Brunt, who was a fellow of Oriel for some years (and then at Brazenose when he became professor of ancient history) remarked that he had never known another group like it.
But we shall see. Perhaps in an effort to prove you wrong I will be even more extreme in my behaviour than usual! Would you enjoy that?
Love,
Anthony
[Updated on: Tue, 17 March 2009 22:07] |
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Timmy,
I sorta feel like a cat with ears down and squinty eyes ready for a smack, when I comment on your posts. Forgive me if I make things worse. That is not my intent.
I fell in love with a boy I met at age 9. It culminated and fell apart at 19. I was dumbfounded when I stopped loving him 2 years later. The love was so unique and magical to me. It was other worldly. I believed in love and I was sure it would always be there. There was no doubt in my mind that it was transcendent and much too beautiful to ever stop. At 19, I came to see that he could not requite. I hurt lots. I was in the depths of despair for 2 years. Then, mercifully, it died. When it died, I lost faith in love. It is not what it seems. We long for forever and always, but regardless of how pure our love, we can end up alone in an instant. I also found out that I could fall in love again. But when it broke up, there were another 2 years of despair. The fact that you have never been able to fall out of love is tragic. I wish there was something I could do, but apparently I am helpless in this regard. I do hope that you can find a way to end your mourning over this relationship. I look forward to reading your book, if you ever feel the need to publish it.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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One should never smack a cat. cats are sharp!
I've been struggling to rid myself of this boy for far too many years. I started to revolve around his sun as a minor planet, and it was hard to even realise it.
it gets easier over the years.
You said yours culminated? Does that mean you had some ]sort of tangible closure?
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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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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You may, by extremeness, give them received memory syndrome!
[Updated on: Tue, 17 March 2009 22:49]
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Yes. My closure with my Al happened when I asked him to have sex. Sorta point blank. He didn't say no. I could tell that he was uncomfortable with it, but would have gone through with it, as a favor for a longtime friend. That was not what I needed from him. It showed me more clearly than anything else could, that it would just not work. It was heartrending. But it was sweet too, because it showed how much he was concerned for me. That made it easier for me, I guess.
I emailed him twice recently with no answer. What a blessing it is that the love is dead and his non reply does not bother me. I hope the same happens for you some day.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Timmy, you and I have extensively discussed this matter in private over many years. But only when reading your post today did it occur to me that you were never in love with him at all! I am guessing that you were in love with your own mental/emotional image of him: not John as he was, but John as you imagined him to be, longed for him to be. If I am right, the John you loved never existed, but was just a creation of your emotional needs. You were too young and too immature at that time to realise this. Thus, when John failed to live up to your expectations (he was also a selfish shit, unreliable, and not really very nice.) you found all sorts of reasons to forgive him. The fact that you were in love with a phantom explains why it has haunted you for more than forty years.
I may be wrong, but I think that what I have written may be worth thinking about.
I have written this 'publicly' instead of privately, as I usually prefer, because it has occurred to me that this insight might be useful to others as well.
Hugs,
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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It is very hard indeed to work out what love "is" and whether I loved the real or the idealised boy. I know I loved someone, something. And I know I put him on a pedestal. I know his presence in my day brightened it and I know that my love for him stopped me from killing myself. I know that liking and loving are very different things at times and at others are wholly congruent.
When we partner up, if we do, we forgive our partner their many faults, don't we?
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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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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My closure has been substantially more gradual than that. So gradual that I can choose to believe that it has not happened.
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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timmy wrote:
When we partner up, if we do, we forgive our partner their many faults, don't we?
No, Timmy. In the context of this thread that won't work. If we really love someone who is "a selfish shit, unreliable, and not really very nice" we try our best to correct those faults, not to condone them. If we do not even try to correct them, but make do with a one-sided forgiveness, we should ask ourselves why.
J F R
The paradox has often been noted that the United States, founded in secularism, is now the most religiose country in Christendom, while England, with an established church headed by its constitutional monarch, is among the least. (Richard Dawkins, 2006)
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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In the context of the relationship, such as it was, that I had with him, which was that of what I thought was a really good friendship, then I tried to correct the faults.
I forgave what I could not correct.
Since he and I never really ever had a reciprocal relationship of any meaningful description I agree that this was an imperfect thing. But I have never condoned his selfish behaviour. I simply always took it as part of the package, the less appetising part. But I accepted the whole package because I adored him.
But when in the last few days I wrote the events of my youth down, then I found the most odd upwelling of emotions and teenage anger and resentment that were there at the time but that I suppressed. I know that I suppressed them and I know why I suppressed them. And I remember it as a choice. It was "suppress it or lose any chance of being with him in any way at all."
None of the emotions stand up to logic. But they don't have to. What I have to do is to work through them. In all my dealings with him I used to be incorrectly submissive. If he had asked me to roll naked in nettles to prove I loved him I would have welcomed even that abuse.
I know I "created" him. I am sure he is not as I ever thought he was. But that does not stop me from always wanting to find excuses for his behaviour.
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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For me closure worked much like aversion therapy. When my subconscious mind wandered there my heart ached. After 2 years of this my mind didn't go to my reladtionship with Al anymore. That got replaced with my mind occasionally thinking of Al and the beautiful person he was and what a good thing it was of me to let him go to be the person he needed to be. The hurtful feelings about the relationship got replaced with affectionate feelings about the departed friend. I can love what happened, and I can even still love Al in a certain sense. But I love him like one still loves a deceased dear one.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I aim for something like that
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Could anger be what is keeping this thing alive?
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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I don't think so, though it's a good question. The only person I'm angry with is me, if I'm angry with anyone. I created the whole situation where, after hormones got me in love, I skilfully ruined all attempts I made to try to tell him and to get closure.
I am not angry with John. I never once even fell out with him when we were kids. I'm not angry with him today for his refusal to meet me and let me attain some sort of closure now. He has his reasons and owes me nothing.
I've resolved the anger I had with my parents over their attitudes which caused me out if terror to imprison myself in my mind.
Every time I go over this I manage to remove another strand of barbed wire from my self constructed prison. It's easier, today, to accept that I will never meet him again than it was last year, for example. I've known for years that he'll never hold me in his arms, never be more than someone I once knew, or rather who once knew me, since I am pretty sure I never knew him.
Hence the start of the thread. Love can be pretty bizarre.
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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For me,even after closure, there were still 2 full years of heartrending grief. Who knows, maybe last year was closure for you, and you are going through the healing process of grieving. Its a nice thought anyway.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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timmy
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Has no life at all |
Location: UK, in Devon
Registered: February 2003
Messages: 13800
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It seems so odd that we have to grieve. I never lost anything because nothing was ever available. Yet I am grieving. But it was all wishful thinking! So I grieve for a ghost.
Hurts as if it were real, though. We suffered differently, but I know some of what you have been through.
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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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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I think all relationships have a bit of the ghost quality that you mention.
They are all founded in our having faith in the one we love.Ephemeral, insubstantial faith. That faith is the greatest gift one person can give another. When the gift is accepted it can be a creative transformation that melds 2 people together. When it's ignored, one feels valueless.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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Wow! Macky, you are amazing. I think at last I've found someone who is even more of a romantic than I am. Congratulations.
But a meld (as in canasta) only lasts till the end of the deal. Then the cards are shuffled and re-dealt.
The question is "Are you as cynical as I am as well?"
Love,
Anthony
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Macky
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Really getting into it |
Location: USA
Registered: November 2008
Messages: 973
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Yes, Anthony, I am what you might call a Romantiac. I have no idea what love is, but I'm always ready to tilt at any windmill to find it. To varying degrees, I fall in love several times a day and that can't really be what love is.
I don't know if its cynical or being a realist, but despite love's mystical allure, it is as fragile and temporal as anything else on this Earth. It can crash and burn in a second, so savor it when you have it.
Behold, how good and how pleasant it is
For brothers to dwell together in unity!
Ps 133:1 NASB
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