i'm dating again. hopefully it goes better this time [tw: rape, abuse, all that good shit]

[Glides]

so yeah very abruptly. the ironic part is that i just lost my highest paying job so she's dating a bum, more or less, though i am looking around like crazy for something and keeping expenses down. if anything has come from this pandemic bullshit it's how quickly i've really gotten up on keeping track of my shit like never before and understanding how poorly i understood finances before this point. when the chips are down. i'm apparently really good at saving money and making sure i'm not spending too much. living with family is definitely helping with this (and i'm paying rent), i've got advantages. and i've been dating someone for a month.

they're making a lot more money than i am, and they're older than me by a few years, and i've only dated one person older than me and that person was uh...way worse with money than i was. this person is responsible and seems to like that even though i just lost my job in a way that almost certainly violated the ADA on purpose (i can't afford to fight for it), even though i lost my job in the most ableist possible way, that i'm at least looking for a way around all this, something accessible that accommodates me. i've been working primarily in fellowships this year and living off the collective stipends and any money i'm making from remaining freelance clients. sometimes i feel so lazy, especially on the days where i'm so tired that i can't move or days that i feel like i can't focus on anything.

i'm not monogamous anymore. she's dating two other people and weirdly enough, i'm not jealous at all. i don't know why i'm not. but its not something that i question. she doesn't mind that i haven't told my hella conservative family about her. she's a trans woman and she knows that i'm non-binary and so neither of our families know. it's none of their business.

it also felt really nice that she was the one who indicated interest first and was very forward about it and i have never experienced that before, in a way that didn't even feel like the creepy ways a lot of women, cis or trans or whatever, have dealt with creepy men. i'm not saying it as a brag, it's just so foreign and it scares me how much i like it. i don't have the capacity to feel the massive rush of hormones i felt towards my previous partners, it's just like a warm glow. after everything, i think that's what i need right now. and i know jerkbrain is still there because it's in my brain all the time complaining that it's going to end, that i'm going to ruin it.

my last interaction with my last partner, who i was planning on marrying, was her telling me that no one would ever want me again, and that no one would ever love me again, and this is after she forced herself on me and then left as if we'd had a coffee date. her wording throughout it all was that i owed her for "everything," whatever that means. i haven't told the new person about this. i've vaguely mentioned how i haven't dated in a couple of years and how that relationship was toxic. it's not worth knowing about my ex right now. that gives her more importance than she deserves. the new person is the first person i've ever dated who i've come out to. i don't think it'll be like the burst of fireworks or whatever, but it's nice however long it lasts. she constantly tells me that she has no expectations for me and she likes being around me. she doesn't mind that my sex drive is basically nonexistent and i rarely like to do anything. we haven't done much, physically. i don't mind that. sometimes i worry that because of this, because her sex drive is immensely high as well, that i won't be enough, but she's still around. i'm too tired to question anything.

i'm not in love with her. i'm not sure i ever will be. i think she likes me more than i like her. i think that if i date anyone else, that they will always like me more than i like them. it doesn't matter how fucking kind she is to me and how much she listens and says nice stuff about the things i've written because she went off to find them. i worry sometimes that my ex shattered the part of myself that feels love and that it only comes out muted now. this person deserves everything i gave to my ex and i've only been dating her for a month. i gave it all to the wrong person. that's what jerkbrain says now. i have enough sense not to self-sabotage, and the new person is aware i have Been Through Some Shit. she's aware that i'm a survivor of rape, and that i can actually say it now. even as i doubt myself and blindly insist that i haven't really been through it, or any of the other various abuses. or that i've hurt other people, not as badly as i've been hurt, but badly enough that it counts. it hurts because when i hurt other people, i had no idea i was hurting them at the time. i would have never said and did what i did had i known in the moment. i can't take any of that back now. i can only hope that they are able to recover the way i have to. i can only send good vibes from a distance.

she's encouraging me to write more after i gave it up for a while. it's come out in fits and bursts. jerkbrain says she only likes it because she likes me and she wouldn't have given a single solitary fuck had she found it without knowing me. jerkbrain says a lot of things my ex says nowadays. it's tiring when you know how many sources there are to jerkbrain. it's tiring to date, and tiring to really want to date other people too, and really scary when your new partner pretty much says that you can do anything you want with anyone else as long as you're safe about it. i'm used to jealousy and things being broken and being slapped and choked and screamed at in the ear so loud it rings for hours after. i'm not used to "oh and you should tell me because it sounds fun to listen to."

i talked recently to someone i had sort of a flirtation with in late high school/early college, sort of the first time i'd ever had that dynamic with someone. we hadn't talked in years. we were both going through it, and we were dumb teenagers and we got into a lot of shit. it's strange to talk to her now (i used to nickname her Her because i was convinced at like 17 that this person was my soulmate, so much so that She was a living embodiment of a Pronoun) and just be her friend. She's going through it, and had this really anxiety-inducing libertarian phase which she's thankfully sliding away from. at one point i was terrified she was going to vote for Trump, but luckily she's now committing to not voting at all. which is really the best we can hope for. she doesn't know about the new person, the new person doesn't want anyone who might potentially be a TERF to know about her. it feels shitty, because i don't want the new person to think i'm ashamed to be with her. i feel shame, but i would feel shame no matter who it is. it's the shame towards myself. But i guess me and Her are just friends now, talking casually, talking about barely keeping our shit together and our experiences with drugs and two nerdy kids who overcompensated in the other direction and became burnouts. Her is like Good Will Hunting levels of good at math/calculus type shit. She's hyperfixated on it, but because she lives in Bumblefuck, Nowhere (I live on the border of Bumblefuck), it doesn't matter. I'm the only person who knows She's good at mathematics. Mathematics is the realm of That Dirty No-Good Liberal Shit, and she's terrified of being seen as a liberal. So she doesn't tell anyone about her genius level intellect in one subject. She compensates for it by being awful at all other subjects. So her GPA isn't at Dirty No-Good Liberal territory.

The new person comes from a family of appalachian redneck fuckers that she hates and i come from a family of self-loathing conservative Jews from the Northeast. I was terrified she'd be as virulent of an anti-Semite as all my other partners were. So far, she doesn't seem to be. Haven't shared any of the war stories of how the last person I hooked up with had breathlessly and drunkenly told me during how her attraction to me stemmed entirely from the fact that I was Jewish and she wondered what i would be like in bed. None of that, thank god, and that's as G-rated as it gets.

I don't recognize myself. I don't recognize 17 year old me posting on the old forum, and thank god all of that was gone. Thank god I wasn't a good enough incel for the real incels. I went through the motions, I really really did. I don't know how much of that I believed. I'd be horrified to see myself at 25. But I don't feel sorry for me at 17. That person was a shell on top of me, a protective suit of armor with spikes and chainsaws to scare everyone else off. I would be alone but I would be safe. it has been a process killing that version of myself off. The shell was probably necessary in the moment, but it's not now. I went into the shell at some point during early puberty and I'm now clawing my way bloody out of it. Maybe the reason why me and the new person get along is that she too recognizes the construct of socialized masculinity and sees that in me. Who knows. I'm not sure if the new person is going to be around for a long time. I have a strange confidence that even if we eventually stop seeing each other that it will be my most amicable breakup. Maybe we're what we need right now.

it is my great intention that as i get older, that i will eventually stop recognizing this self that i am right now, and hopefully by next year, i won't recognize myself at 25. I don't want to recognize myself any longer than I have to, that shit did me no good. I am expected to continue to morph and change until I die, however I die. Maybe i will kill myself. I don't know. Right now that's not feasible so I'll make the best of it. I read things I wrote in middle school and don't recognize the shell. I hope to be 30 and recognize myself even less.

[Enail]

Hey, awesome! I'm glad this relationship is going well so far and that you feel safe in it!

[Datelessman]

Great update! If anyone deserves some happiness, it's you.

[Glides]

so uh. well i'm not seeing either of those people anymore. i spoke too soon. woo.

wildest part tho, which i do find genuinely funny, is that the first of the two people i have recently dated was the most recent ex of the second.

so uh

woo.

[Enail]

Sorry about the breakups. I hope they both landed up being good experiences of being with non-abusive people who treat you well and respect your boundaries, at least. You deserve that.

[Glides]

Sorry about the breakups. I hope they both landed up being good experiences of being with non-abusive people who treat you well and respect your boundaries, at least. You deserve that.

I mean, neither were abusive, neither violated any boundaries, they both just had some underlying issues that made us fundamentally incompatible (and also explained why they previously broke up with each other before THEY BOTH GOT WITH ME HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE)

I'm not getting into it, they're not earth-shattering things, just things regarding their capacity and need for emotional labor I couldn't provide. Neither are bad people. But I still know a couple more things that are dealbreakers for me if I ever get another chance with somebody.

Not that I really know HOW to find someone during quarantine.

God covid sucks.

[Hielario]

before THEY BOTH GOT WITH ME HOW IS THAT POSSIBLE)

Well, if you three hung around in the same places or with the same people, it's perfectly normal that you turn out to be romantically interconnected in some way. It happened in my parents' friend group a lat.

Also, not knowing what to do in these times isn't your fault.
The only people who have met in quarantine are the ones who happened to have someone attractive and willing in their same appartment block so meeting them didn't require going out.

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