Fake Smile
I’m quite a bit exhausted lately. Not necessarily physically, but more like emotionally. Nothing horrible happened, it's just that I feel like I got to a part of my life where the things that used to make me happy, don’t make me happy anymore. I can't decide if it's because I'm being ungrateful or because it's simply part of my human nature. Eventually you get bored of things, you crave something better. It's not good enough anymore. Could be either, or, could be the all of the above.
I’m starting to not enjoy my job, so lately I’ve been playing with the idea of quitting and getting a new one. For the first few months I was ecstatic, and frankly just grateful to be able to keep working in the creative field, but after over a year and a half, the tasks I'm getting day by day just starting to become repetitive and they don't challenge my creativity or even intellect at all. I can do them without paying any attention, and I don't like that. I like the feeling when I get a task and I'm not sure how to get it done, because I know I’m about learn something new. After a while if I’m not challenged at all, I feel like I’m stuck, and if I’m stuck, that starts killing my vibe. On the other hand with the experience and the knowledge I have I know I could be making more money, but see? I'm second guessing everything I think and feel. I never know if the way I feel is valid or it's just me getting inpatient and ungrateful. Either way, my expectations and reality are getting further and further from each other, and it reflects in my mood and presence. It’s a fact.
My boss and I had a talk in February when I got my first pay rise from 25K to 28K and he asked if I was happy with the money. I told him, I’m obviously happy I got a rise but to be completely honest, I looked into how much designers make with the same amount of experience I have and it's between 30K-35K, so I was hoping to be in that range. He said ‘let's leave it on 28K for now and his financial assistant is going to look into this and we’ll get back to this in a few months.’ Well this conversation happened almost 9 months ago and I don't see any signs of him getting back to me anytime soon. Plus as I mentioned before, I’m starting to feel stuck in my profession. They keep saying that they’re going to hire someone junior soon who will take over my boring jobs and I can move onto more fun projects, but they’ve been saying this for almost a year now and they still haven’t hired anybody. I’m having a bit of a hard time bringing it up because I’m scared of confrontation. I’m such a people pleaser. I’m terrified to upset people, so I rather suffer in silence and let people use me, push me around than to risk to have someone raise their voice at me. It scares the shit out of me. I feel so pathetic. I have to grow a backbone, otherwise this world will chew me up and spit me right out.
Don’t get me wrong, if I’m unhappy with something I say something at least once maybe twice, in the nicest way possible, trying to come across the least entitled as possible, but as you can tell, nobody takes me seriously, so nothing end up changing. I keep being unhappy and eventually I just give up and leave. Then everyone’s mad at me. “How could you be so ungrateful?” It’s pretty ironic that despite being the biggest people pleaser, at the end of the story I’m always the one who ends up being the selfish bitch. Seems like there’s no scenario where I can leave with my dignity. I don’t even understand why I care so much after all.
Now let’s stir into my love life. I’m starting to get exhausted in my “relationship” too. I swear, I’m not even mad or sad anymore. I’m just exhausted. When I met Swimmers, I promised myself I wouldn’t cry over him. I’ve cried so many times since I’m with him, I can’t even count on my two hands. First, him still talking and hanging with his ex. Then ghosting me for days. Then finding out that he’s talking to girls on dating apps after we said we’d be exclusive. Anytime I try to communicate that I’m not happy about something he gets annoyed or upset and I'm literally talking to a wall. My latest issue is that any time he goes out to have fun, I’m NEVER, EVER invited. I told him this about 3 weeks ago, so he did take me to Bristol with him a week later where I met some of his friends, I give him that, but I feel like that only happened because I told him I'm getting upset for always being left out. Otherwise he would have left me home that time as well. He denies it, but the statistics are against him because guess what? He was away partying last weekend, he’s away this weekend, and I’m not invited. We’re back on the same track. So his actions speak for themselves. I think he thinks, he did his bit and now he’s done for the rest of the time being. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want us to be joined by the hips and do absolutely everything together. I’d just like to feel included every now and then. Like I’m part of his world. Not a secluded segment of his life. That’s it! And let me curve back to Bristol for a second. I know his friends are reading my blogs, so let me just say something here quickly. Swimmers said it was very rude of me sleeping through most Saturday. Guys, if it was rude of me, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I thought you guys were all terrific. It’s just since I’m not really used to drugs, I was just feeling very “hangover” and sick from the extasy I took the night before. Any moment I was awake I felt very nauseous, like I’m about to throw up, so I was rather asleep than to feel physically shit. It had nothing to do with you, I promise, I hope you understand.
But nobody has to worry about me anymore, because I’m out of Swimmers life. This just really doesn’t work like this, and if you read my blogs back you can tell that I’ve been struggling since we’ve met. It was never smooth sailing. I’m having a hard time to trust him. I admit I have trust issues that I’m bringing from my past that I have to work on - no doubt - but Swimmers is not helping me with that at all either. In fact, he's only making it worse. He constantly feels the need to make me feel jealous, and then he doesn’t understand why I’m being so insecure when he’s away. He tells me stuff like “I don’t bring you around because I don’t want you to meet my side chicks.” I happen to know that he still speaks and hangs out with girls that he used to be hooking up with, and he’s expecting me to be completely cool with this and not to explode from anxiety when he goes to party WITHOUT ME EVERY… SINGLE… TIME!!! That’s just not gonna work. He said many times, he wants multiple wives and threesomes. I’m not here for that. He says he’s just joking. Haha!!!! Very funny!!!!! This is not the type of joke I can ever laugh at. Anytime he sees a girl he’d like to fuck, he NEVER fails to point it out to me. “oh yeah, she’s a fittie” (or fitty - I don’t fucking now how to spell it, but that’s what he says to me). TO HIS GIRLFRIEND!!! What a dick thing to do, when I never fail to remind him how special he is to me. Oh, which reminds me; anytime I say something nice about him to him, he says “I get that a lot”. Fuck you! So arrogant, so belittling. While I’m trying to make him feel special he’s making me feel like I’m just one of the many. And then he keeps asking why I’m so insecure and why don’t I trust him!!! ARGGGGGGG!!!!!
Then he goes “you don’t see how good I am to you. I text you every day, I make time to see you, I’m not seeing other girls.” etc etc. Dude!! What do you want? An award for doing the VERY BASIC things a boyfriend is supposed to be doing? I do all those things and beyond for you too!!! If you didn’t do those things we would have broken up a long time ago.
I wrote this bit yesterday and as you can tell I was fuming. I deleted all of the pictures of him from my phone. I was like “get out of my life”. I don’t want anything to remind me of him. Today I’m in a completely different mood. Normally I would just erase everything I wrote and start over and try to keep the same tone, but how I felt yesterday was real and true too. So I’m keeping it. Just bear in mind that I’m feeling completely differently today.
After I wrote that bit, I went to meet my friend and her boyfriend. We got dressed up for Halloween and hit the city. All day I was feeling pretty good and content about cutting it off with Swimmers. Like a great source of my anxiety is gone. Then I saw my friend and her boyfriend flirting, hugging and kissing. I didn’t feel affected by it too much and it even surprised me, but after having a few rounds to drink, and as time passed, I started to feel worse and worse until I reached an emotional free fall. It dawned on me all at once and I began to panic. Around 2am I told them, I’d like to go home, because I just not having any fun anymore. I cried almost all the way home, and had bit of a mental break down after I got home. I even woke my roommate up next door, because she was asking today if I’m ok. I could barely sleep. The adrenaline in my body kept me awake, and I woke up feeling very very down.
- Oh shit! I don’t wanna lose him. I don’t wanna miss him!
Suddenly all the good moments that we had started flashing through my head. Just the little cute moments we share. When he puts his arms around me in the morning. When I get that “Hey gorgeous! How’s your day?” message, when we stood in front of the mirror and I thought we look so good together. When he comes home after work and gives me a smooch. Oh fuck! I’m tearing up just to write these things down, because it’s so damn hard to think that we’ll never have those moments again. It absolutely shakes me in the core. And I know I wrote blogs before when I thought it was over, but it wasn’t. Maybe this one of those too, but our communication is very deficient and a relationship can’t work without effective communication. And as painful it can be sometimes it’s unfortunately essential to it.
Yesterday he told me that his ex was very much involved with his group of friends, and now he regrets it. He wants to keep his love-life and friends separate because if things go south, people get involved.
To be fair it’s a pretty valid point, and I would have completely understood and respected that, but I never came across with a couple who didn’t share friends. How should I have known why I’m never included. All I’m experiencing is that he’s going out weekend after weekend and he keeps failing to ask me if I wanna tag along. If I never invited him anywhere either, I’d be like ‘fair enough’. But anytime my friends organize something fun to do, my first question is always; “Can Swimmers come?”. Why? Because I want my partner to be there with me. I wanna share the moment with him and make memories together. I want him to be part of my world. If he keeps failing to ask me to tag along, of course I’ll feel deliberately excluded after a while. To be honest it didn’t even bother me for the first couple of months. I was like, ‘maybe he’s not comfortable introducing me to his friends yet.’ Fair enough. But after 8 months? When I know they already know about me? He still keeps going out, and never ever ask me if I’d like to be part of the experience. I mean does he not wanna show me off? Does he not proud to have me? Why is he hiding me? I don’t understand…
We could have just talked about his past experience when I brought up my frustration for the first time and I wouldn’t have assumed he’s not inviting me out, because he doesn’t want my company, or as soon as his friends are around, I don’t matter anymore, or because he’s got something to hide. A little communication would have saved me from a lot of hurt and agony, maybe find common ground and now we wouldn’t be here where we are. Same with texting. Usually after 6-7 hours if I asked something and he doesn’t get back to me, I start to get upset. I feel ignored and unimportant. If he just told me that ‘Babe, I’m sorry I’m busy, I get back to you tomorrow’ or ‘I forgot my charger. I won’t be able to text you.’ or something I would totally understand. It doesn’t take more than 5 seconds and it will save us from a lot of unnecessary drama. Just communicate it with me. That’s all I’m asking.
He says he doesn’t like to talk about stuff and there are certain things he doesn’t tell me and never will. Not everybody is like me, and he doesn’t like to talk about his feelings.
Okay. First of all, the part where he says there are certain things he doesn’t tell me and never will is ringing all the alarm bells in my head. What is he hiding? Why can’t he share them with me? Second of all, if he doesn’t tell me how he feels, I’m not gonna be aware of it. Simple as. And if I’m not aware of his feelings, I can’t be empathetic. And if I’m not empathetic I become selfish. I don’t want to be selfish, but I’m only aware of my own feelings. So then I don’t understand why things don’t happen the way I’d like them to. Now I’m confused and frustrated.
I gave him this analogy yesterday. Imagine I’m driving a car blindfolded and the only person who can give me directions is not communicating with me. Eventually I’m gonna drive off a cliff. Look at us now, we’re hanging off the cliff again.
Guys! Communication is very important!! Nobody is a mind reader. You can’t expect people just to know what’s going on inside your head. I know it’s not always easy as I’m guilty myself for holding back certain thoughts and feelings (usually the negative ones). Mostly because people usually take them as an attack and I’m scared of the drama. But people can ALWAYS sense it. Swimmers is exceptionally good at it. He always knows something’s up even if I’m trying my best to hide it. But there’s a change in my posture, in my smile, the way I phrase things, the way I respond and that’s because the pain is eating me up inside. It’s like I’m holding my breath and the longer I hold it, the harder it gets. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not expecting him to figure it out on his own. That’s not why I’m doing it. I always think I can deal with it within myself and just try to process it on my own. I wanna save myself from a fight. But the truth is I can’t. Once I’m hurt, I begin to feel this pressure in my chest and as much as I’m waiting for it to disappear, the bitch ain’t going anywhere. The only way to get rid of it is to let it out and hopefully the person who hurt my feelings will be empathetic, but unfortunately most of the times it’s not the case. At least not in our case. Swimmers immediately gets defensive and starts attacking me. Not all the time, most of the times. I wonder why.
Maybe it’s the way I phrase things. I admit I have got a few times that I’m being passive aggressive. I guess it’s because I’m trying really hard not to come across aggressive - because I don’t want an aggressive reaction. But because I’ve bottled up my feelings, by the time I let them out, I’m pretty upset so as I’m trying to mask my anger but also trying to communicate how I feel, that makes me come across as passive aggressive. I see how that can be aggravating. I should not be so scared of confrontation and be able to communicate my feelings on the spot, because when the pain arises it’s not as bad as it becomes with time. When I let it stew, I just keep chewing on it, and adding to it, so by the time I can’t holding back any longer, it’s 10 times worse than it was initially. Hmmm…interesting. A few paragraphs ago I was complaining how Swimmers needs to communicate more effectively and now I’m realising how faulty my communication is too. Oh God! We’re doomed!
To be fair, I have noticed that although he doesn’t take my negative feedback very well at first, he does do his best to change on things after. I mean just look at the record, it’s true. His ex is out of the picture, we do communicate daily, we do see each other more, he has deleted the dating apps (or at least he says so). He acknowledges me as his girlfriend. He has introduced me to his friends. So he is capable of taking feedback and change on things and that’s what’s keep giving me hope that we can work things out, but at this point I don’t know. I just wish I didn’t have to beg for every step forward.
Look, I understand that he just got out of a long term relationship when he met me and he needs to take his time. If I wanna be with him, I have to respect the pace he’s comfortable with. But I have needs too and at least I’d like to be able communicate them openly without getting on a verge of a break up all the time.
I don’t know what to say. I know I’m not perfect, but I never do or say things to deliberately fuck things up or hurt anybody. It’s not always clear to me what’s the right thing to do in the moment. I might not always make the right decisions, and for that I’m sorry.
At the moment I just feel exhausted. Physically and mentally. I think I wrote most of the things out, perhaps came to some realisations. My mood right now is mostly empty with a pinch of sadness. I don’t know what tomorrow holds. I might be fine, might be happy, might be absolutely devastated. I don’t wanna put pressure on myself though. I do whatever I feel like doing. Like I felt finishing my blog a few minutes ago. Maybe I’ll be laying on my bed in silence for an hour, then finish my painting or take some pictures or just go to sleep, perhaps watch a movie. I don’t know. All I know is that the world’s not gonna end and I’m not going to die. And if the world ends or I die, my problems don’t matter anyway.