With a Sense of Poise and Rationality

March 2010 September 2010 November 2010 December 2010 January 2011 February 2011 March 2011 April 2011 May 2011 June 2011 July 2011

Jealousy is a bitch. It’s right up there with Depression, Despair, Anxiety and Distress, in my list of Most Hated Emotions.

I don’t know whether I am a very jealous person or not.

I’m going to say I have the potential for being moderately jealous, with the foundation of that jealousy, being a sense of possession.

Jealousy is normal, and there’s no way around feeling it. The rule is, however, that while it’s ok to feel jealous, it’s not ok to be an idiot about it.

And what’s even worse, is to blame the other person for it.

You never say ‘You’re making me jealous’. You don’t just put the blame on Maime just like that.

It’s a completely personal reaction, triggered by personal fears and unresolved issues, and should be taken care of personally, and perhaps with the help and support of the other person.

The pattern I’ve noticed in myself, is that my triggers are replacement, and fear-of-abandonment- related.

It’s always this petty, childish ‘But I’m supposed to be more special than they are’ feeling.

Not the most convenient feeling for poly, but a manageable one at that.

I’ve already dealt with my demons, and have a rather sober, cynical attitude about replacement and fear of abandonment.

People meet, people part. Enjoy it while it lasts.

Still, the impulse is there, and I have to deal with it.

When it’s something small, I simply talk myself out of it. I remind myself of the reality of things, as cruel and harsh as it is, which allows me to detach a bit.

It’s hard, but not as hard as having to vocalize it to the other person, and ask them for whatever it is you need to appease that thing gnawing at your core.

In my case, it’s reassurance.

I have my childish little girl moments, where I need to be pet and stroked and cuddled and told I’m loved and that it’s ok. It’s always just a matter of reinforcing that foundation of friendship, acknowledging what I consider to be my ‘embarrassing’ circumstance and just loving on me a little more for the short duration of that childish little episode.

I’ll randomly pretend that I’m jealous, or indulge in petty jealousy in a very childish way among friends, but that’s more out of a need for attention and affection, than a fear of anything else.

It’s all fun and games to get more physical affection, not the horrible pang of genuine jealousy a la Roxanne, in Moulin Rouge, where you have obsessive thoughts eating at you and it really does become this corrosive thing that interferes with your functionality.

I’ve noticed I need both verbal and tangible reassurance to those very personal insecurities that trigger my sense of jealousy. Spending a bit more quality time with me, being told that it’s ok, that I’m loved, and just increasing the level of physical affection and communication tends to do it in extreme cases.

I revert to being such a little girl when I get jealous.

Not in the capricious, tantrum-throwing way, but in a more ‘I’m feeling vulnerable and helpless and I need you to hug me and stroke my hair and tell me you love me’ sort of way.

What annoys me is how we romanticize jealousy, how society treasures it like it’s the key way to prove someone cares about you.

I remember with the First Girl, she would get insanely jealous over my attachments with other friends, to the point where I distinctly remember her saying “I’m a jealous bitch, ok?”

And I always processed that as “Yeah, ok. It just means she cares that much for me. Which by the looks of it, must be a whole hell of a lot, if I’m getting that kind of reaction.”

Bad choice of interpretation.

From what I understand, the brain interprets abandonment as death, so this very primal fear triggers a bunch of insane stuff that makes people behave like idiots. Which is great for romantic comedies and dramas, but not for real life, and the pursuit of functional relationships.

Knowing yourself and what you need is key, I think.

If you can verbalize the fact that you’re undergoing a fit of jealousy, and ask for what it is you need to soothe it, rather than expect the other person to read your mind, things out to run more smoothly than if you villains the other person, and try to change their behavior, rather than yours.

I’ve never dealt with jealous boyfriends, or boyfriends who openly expressed their jealousy. Mainly because the first one was a saint, and the second one would somehow sink into this low self-esteem episode that turned into passive-aggression and suddenly the issue wasn’t so much jealousy, but rather how he channeled it.

Chicks on the other hand? There’s a lot of potential for disaster there. I have no clue what it is with us if we don’t keep it in check. Reminds me of that episode in Pet Shop of Horrors, with the mermaid.

I used to be the insanely jealous type when I was little until I got bored with it, since it got me nowhere, and the only person getting hurt was myself. Now, I make a point of keeping it in check and getting to the source of the issue, and… you know, well as dealing with it.

I’ve had very unpleasant experiences with jealous women.

The last one being one of the more…not crushing, but rather, disappointing ones, since in that relationship, I was on the rebound from an intense emotional attachment with a very jealous and possessive person, and I’d made a point of doing everything I didn’t do right in the last toxic relationship.

That is to say, a very strict open communication policy and the like, and I was under the assumption that the girl and I were on the same wavelength regarding that hard limit, but by the time everything unraveled into chaos, I was informed of a bunch of stuff regarding repressed jealousy towards my best friend, jealousy towards my secondary, and just a bunch of stuff that in the end made me question everything, given this ‘Oh, yes, I’m totally on board with this’ and pretending to do the work… when in fact the lines of communication were censored and just generally flawed.

There’s always next time.

Ever since Cali, I tend to be ridiculously paranoid about check-ups. Sometime this week will have to be Doctor Day. What that essentially means, is that I’ll use the excuse that I need to see my psychiatrist for the sake of a new prescription (which I do), and take advantage of the fact that I’ll be out, and in the general area, to just do the rounds by myself, with no meddling grown-ups to make things unpleasant.

Going to the doctor is always this uncomfortable experience, not because I hold anything against doctors (though I am rather picky and skeptical about them, unless they have the proper rapport, which is rare), but because someone always goes with me.

And I hate it. Unless I personally go out of my way to ask someone to go with me (in which case, it’d be Kenz), odds are, I don’t want anyone joining in.

Usually my mother will accompany me against my will. And of course, that makes me insanely uncomfortable, because whenever I want to address personal matters freely, I can’t very well do it, since she’s there, and she doesn’t think I can handle going to the doctor alone… even though I’ve done it, and somehow survived through it, for the past five years, or whatever.

Either that, or I have to talk in code, or hypothetical manners ‘out of curiosity’, or just make random excuses to address my concerns.

Being open about my interests in sex therapy somehow make all my bizarre comments and topics of conversation in vanilla settings perfectly acceptable.

Still, it’s ridiculously unpleasant.

With these relatives, and their charming view on the needlessness of doctors, when all their life experience combined is more than enough to fit the conservative, vanilla needs of this family, I have to be very careful about how I approach my checkups.

Which, as with everything else, it just means deliberately lying.

Somehow going to the psychiatrist for a prescription is completely acceptable, but going to a checkup or a consult gets me scolded.

Either way, I need to go for a check-up, so I’ll have to use the psychiatrist as an excuse.

I don’t really go for sessions anymore, just the prescription. I’ve been pretty damn stable for a while (amusingly enough, ever since I cut with all toxic attachments) , so the 80 bucks I would pay for the 1hr session, I just pay just to get the little paper with the signature. Nowadays, I use the 1hr session not to discuss bipolarity, so much as just general psychology stuff and the tools of the trade. How to deal with patients, and the like how to detach, etc.

I still remember when I freaked out on the poor man, because I thought I was a psychopath.

My sessions with him are just so amusing, because they’re so bizarre and on leveled ground. He’s always so amused by my use of technical jargon. I’m sure he must love having a patient who digs deep and psychoanalyzes every little thing, rather than go every 6-8 weeks and say ‘I have no idea what is wrong with me, fix me.’

I pretty much go to just be put in my place.

And the best part is that he’s surprisingly open minded, so it’s not uncomfortable to discuss anything.

With all the stuff I’ve been figuring out, I’m sure this session will be…just very strange. It’ll be interesting, regardless. It always ends up being. And we always somehow relate it to The Big Bang Theory, which makes it kind of awesome.

Had a very interesting conversation last night with one of my cousins. We felt kind of silly, not having anything to do Friday night, so we went out to dinner, just she and I, like we’ll usually do every once in a while to just bitch about the semester.

I always feel relatively uncomfortable discussing certain topics with her, because despite her eagerness and overall curiosity, I fall under the assumption that she’s just like our other cousin, who’s pretty much a repressed saint of a girl who more than likely has never had an impure thought in her little virgin mind.

Good god, just that look she gives either of us whenever we slip up. This ‘higher than though’ look of sheer judgment and disappointment.

Since the whole family is essentially that way, I never talk from personal experience, only in terms of studies and theoretics.

Still, while we were eating out, it became rather obvious that she had picked up on something that triggered her curiosity, and demanded I ‘spill it’. As usual, there was the whole denial, denial, denial—deflect, deflect, deflect routine.

Then it turned into a sort of Hannibal Lecter/ Agent Starling Quid pro Quo conversation.

She was actually very clever. She began to really open up to make me more comfortable, to stress ‘it’s ok, I have skeletons in the closet too’.

So I opened up a little bit, but once her gates opened up, this flood of information came out, and I realized something.

We seriously are different sides from the same coin. We were discussing fantasies, habits, sexual histories and experiences, and all I was picking up from everything she said was— you might not want to own up to it, but you’re one kinky little nymphet as well.

All her fantasies had an element of consensual non consent (being forced to submit despite her reluctance), bondage, D/s etc.

I was very amused.

We have the same issues and tendencies, the same turn-ons (sans the SM, Bi thing I have going on), but essentially, it was all there.

It was also adorable how she was saying all these things, feeling like some sort of freak about them, and all I could do, really was go ‘Oh honey. You have no idea how normal that is.’

It made her feel better, I hope.

It was mostly Catholic guilt I got over years ago, that she’s still dealing with now.

And the bottom line, was that while I stopped caring, and now pursue things in a relatively liberal manner, with that underlying paranoia and overall concern for health issues and whatever, she finds it more practical to keep herself on a leash until she gets married, out of fear of disappointing her family or fucking up somehow.

Which is perfectly valid, and essentially very practical.

I stopped caring about that when I did the whole ‘reject the world, before it rejects you’ thing, though I still fall into it from time to time, just for the sake of avoiding conflict (like the bi thing, or the poly thing).

Still, I love listening to people’s fantasies, especially when they’re not the lovey-dovey romantic ones with the sweet boy and the roses and the dimmed lights and the romantic dinner and whatever.

And it’s so amusing, the subtext one can find in fantasies; the underlying themes. It’s not so much the people involved or what they do. She kept saying she didn’t understand why she fantasized about ‘x’ or ‘y’ person, but it ended up being that it wasn’t about the person, so much as what they did, or the sensations they triggered.

The person, just as with an artist’s model, is not so much the focus, as it is the accident through which the painting, or the fantasy happens.

…And I put in practice all that crap I’ve been learning in my interview class, so it was fun. Then I triggered in her an existential crisis over the effects of insomnia, and it was wonderful, but then she got over it, so it’s ok.

I kind of like these conversations. I miss having a confidant I can have tête-à-têtes with over dinner, or just generally a partner in crime right there with me, rather than all the way in freaking Canada, because she’s a mean person (… just kidding, I love you).

The sad thing about not being able to go out much, is that I don’t get to play dress up all that much anymore (compared to last semester, or even the whole of last year when we went out quite a bit), which means I end up taking it out at school, resulting in sweet and charmingly misunderstanding comments from classmates, and just general suspicion from family members not really used to the fact that I love playing dress up.

So when I experiment with random crap, like the bunch of beach dresses I only ever wear either at Sta. Maria, or Vallarta, spicing them up with stockings and boots, my cousins look at me funny going ‘Who are you dressing up for, huh?’.

Stockings and garter belts are not all that kinky (unless the context in itself is kinky, in which case the level of hotness is multiplied by a gabajillion) when you wear them constantly, in very vanilla situations. And stockings last longer than pantyhose, hence my overall preference for them.

The fact that I may or may not have a general fetish for them is irrelevant.

Then of course, I got lectured last night, since the time I came home coincided with my cousin coming down the stairs to get something to eat, giving me some little comment about being out all day and wearing a skirt.

Because, you know, unless you’re wearing something under, it’s unacceptable to wear skirts or generally anything short. Even if it’s ridiculously short. Like, Spanish hooker short.

That’s the difference between home and the city. Back home I walk around in skimpy skirts (I’ve had those skirts for the past 6 years, they’re bound to look shorter) and wedges and a wife-beater, and it’s no problem. Here… not so much. If my uncle had been around, or even if my cousin had been around when I rushed out the door for oversleeping, he would have grabbed me by the hair, and forced me to change.

Here, the only acceptable context for skirts consists of Sta. Maria, or anywhere as long as I’m wearing tights.

It’s been so damn hot and dry I can’t stand jeans. Dresses and skirts are the order of the semester.

I’ve also been fooling around with make up because it’s fun, and I love trying random things.

I’ll always have a thing for cat eyeliner, but I’m experimenting with different colors and eye shadows, as well as eyeliners, compared to last semester when I was obsessed with the plain 50’s look of red lips and nude eyes with just cat eyeliner and mascara, and compared to the semester before that, when I was obsessed with smoky eye.

Hurray for impossibly girly ramblings of girly-girlyness.

And I missed Lady Porn Day, so I’ll have to make up for that. I loved the concept of ‘Brownies and Porn’… this is why I miss my friends back home. Next time I’m there we need to do that.

Being kept on a leash isn’t one of the best feelings in this world, and lately, I’ve been feeling the tight grip it has on me more keenly.

In a way, there is a lot of confusion going on, as seen last week, when I went to watch Black Swan with a classmate. Protocol somehow demanded I call my mother, then ask my aunt or uncle for permission, then go.

It sort of took me off guard, because in the year I’ve lived in this house I’ve never asked for permissions. I spent all of last semester off at gay bars and house parties just by… going to them. As long as I had a ride back, and didn’t come home too late, nobody really cared.

Yes, there was a ridiculous amount of lying, but that’s kind of just second nature. Minimizing, selective truths and the like were necessary. I eventually let my mother know what I was doing, since it was for my final grade, and yes, she was uncomfortable with it, but even she insisted I lie about what I was doing, since there would be no way in hell my other relatives would condone anything.

For a rather long while, now, I’ve never been one to ask for permission, mainly because if I ask whether or not I’m allowed to go somewhere, the reply I’ll more than likely get, is no, because parents would rather you just stay locked up at home away from the big bad world, and just… be safe in the confines of your room.

Or Sta. Maria, as is the case now. So much easier to keep track of everyone, when they’re confined to a closed off territory.

Instead, I noticed that if I simply said ‘By the way, I’m going to Susan’s. We’re just hanging out, I’ve got my cell. Be back by 10’, and just leave (because if I depend on the parentals for a ride, I’m risking rejection), there’s really nothing anyone can say, or bother to say.

So suddenly it turned into such a big deal that a classmate I’m not close with is taking me to the movies, that protocol demands he meet the family, and he goes through the usual background check and the like.

The poor boy is so freaked out about meeting my aunt and uncle tomorrow, he kept over thinking what to wear, what to say, what to everything, just to give a good impression.

Keeping in mind this is just a classmate.

Not some guy I’m introducing to the family because we’re seriously dating, you understand, but just a classmate.

And this is why I don’t date, and why when I was with the first boyfriend, it was all under the table.

Because my family is just way too old-fashioned, to the point of intimidation.

Then I get lectured by my father on the phone over how it’s not proper to sit in a car for an hour, outside of the house, talking to that boy.

Given the very uncomfortable circumstances, it was the most appropriate, and respectful thing I could do, really.

I’m not going to invite a male classmate to a house that is not my own, invite him to the living room, and just talk for a couple hours, without ‘supervision’, and all the other conservative social conventions, this family’s protocol demands.

Because I’m not in my own house, I understand I have to abide by the house rules.

Still, when my father begins to lecture me about boys and what a ‘lady’ does or doesn’t do, and just… goes into some speech about what good girls do, it really pushes a button, because it’s an insult to both my intelligence, and theirs.

What I find ridiculous is this idea that by exercising that kind of control, they fall under this false notion of security.

It’s a blatant insult to my intelligence, because the sheer assumption that I need to be lectured about how to deal with men and relationships, implies they’re under the notion I’m an idiot. That I don’t know what I’m doing, and that I don’t understand how to act on what’s in my best interests.

And it does piss me off, because if there’s one thing I’ve made a point of showing, is that I don’t do anything out of stupidity. Even my most impulsive actions, have a method to their madness. Nothing I ever do is reckless. Ever. It’s not in my best interest.

So when I’m suddenly being told off as to how to men think, and lectured as how to women ought to behave, and then suddenly dumped with all these rules and protocols which in essence are just counter productive because they encourage lying, it’s suffocating, and all I get, is reinforcement to the notion that finding myself backed against a wall, it’s not even justifiable, but rather a necessity to do everything under the table, if I ever expect to experience any sense of freedom.

And so I have to bite my tongue, and nod, and make a point of not lashing out, out of being insulted (which is very hard), because I do have to abide by the rules, or at least pretend to.

Better to lie and lie well, let them fall under the notion that they’re in control by establishing limits, and having me clash with them every once in a while, then submit to them, to assert their dominance, and just keep doing everything under the table.

Regardless of anything, next semester things will differ, and I’ll have to have a very serious conversation with the parentals, because I’m still bitter over that blatant attack to my ego.

It sends mixed messages when they’re suddenly pushing you towards this sudden independence (which I’d been prying from their stubborn hands for years), constantly insisting ‘Your life, your choices’, then suddenly ‘Oh, but you have to abide by these rules, because they make me feel safe, by making me think I have some control, because if anything happens to you, I’ll never be able to forgive myself, so it’s easier to keep that erratic leash so I can say ‘at least I didn’t just throw her to the wolves’.’

News flash: If by the age of 21, you don’t feel secure about what your parenting’s done to your child, despite your child proving herself over and over not to be a failure at life, then there’s some issues letting go there which need to be addressed.

End rant.

My aunt is known to give us self-help books to aid in our unfortunate state of spinsterhood. Out of boredom, I was browsing through ‘Why Men Love Bitches’. While I’m all for what it says about being independent, and not a doormat, and generally giving yourself your well-deserved place, It suggests we have to tip-toe around a man and his sense of masculinity, lest we completely and utterly emasculate him.

Suggests manipulative things like ‘let him think he’s in charge, while you get your way’.

I mean, I like the competition? Need it to some extent? But we all know I’ll eventually give in (if it’s someone with topping rights), I just need that bit of struggle to justify my giving in. Being in control annoys me. I don’t choose other switches or dominants for friends and potential partners on a whim. I like being put in my place, finding the banter a real turn on, even if it borderlines of emotional abuse (not really, but I do have a masochistic craving for it).

Still, it’s all playful fun. These ‘wars of the sexes’ and power struggle in the relationship isn’t actually a problem, or even taken seriously, yet the book suggests to take it seriously, and make sure you use every passive-aggressive tactic to get your way regardless.

She’s also treating male egos like they’re this helpless, fragile thing.

I’ve had my share of babying vulnerable boys whose egos get hurt by the mere act of verbal teasing.

See, that is just ridiculous. And it gets old very, very fast.

If I have to tip-toe around a guy’s sense of self- worth, then there’s some self-esteem issues there that are essentially not my dog. And as such, they can either get their shit together, or not. Their choice.

That kind of behavior doesn’t earn my respect, let alone any topping rights.

A phrase that ticked me off— Men don’t respond to words, they respond to no contact—really just really wanted to make me smack the author in the back of the head and blame her for the lack of communication in relationships. Same with withholding sex. That’s just cruel. I get the girl might not always be in the mood, but to deliberately withhold sex to get her way? That’s just too low.

They suggest you use sex as a weapon, or a bargaining chip, encouraging stereotypes that are essentially harmful.

And since a guy needs to feel he’s always right, you manipulate him into making him think things were his brilliant idea, convince him he thought about it all by himself,

‘he’ll put a lot more effort to please you, if he thinks he’s in charge’

Talks about how a guy will show his true colors, eventually… but so do manipulative women who take on all these artificial behaviors.

I dare any woman to make a point of remaining a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch 24/7 and never open up or show a chip in her armor to her lover.

I’m all for things being a game and competition. It’s so much fun being infatuated with someone, and knowing the other person is infatuated with you, and seeing who caves in first.

What is not fun, is everything being some sort of manipulative plot to get a guy to walk into your cage, and next thing you know, you haven’t even trimmed his wings, but rather pinioned the damn things.

Even less fun, is keeping up the act 24/7.

All that fucking passive-aggressive, manipulative behavior annoys the hell out of me.

It is so much easier to be straightforward, lay all your cards on the ground, and let the chips fall where they may.

But… you know, social conventions and social protocol just have to make this into a freaking tango dance sans the sexy, with the chick topping from the bottom. Which as my darling dance partners will know, is not cool lol.

My family is out of its freaking mind.

It's 1:30am, last night I didn't go to bed till 5am, and we're all in the studio, supposedly doing homework. Except, I was done 2 hours ago. Well, maybe not 'done', but did enough for the night, and will continue after a good night's rest. If I ever get any.

I have no idea how it happened, but it had to have been due to my being a little too feisty, and biting a bit more than I could chew when teasing Rafael.

At some point, there was this pact to stay up until everyone was done with work. A pact I had nothing to do with, but was forced, because I teased Rafael a bit too much, rebelling and just being generally bitchy just to piss him off.

We're laughing our asses off, the way people will, when sleep deprivation piles up.

They refuse to let me leave the studio.

I am being held hostage.

I thought I could escape when we took a break to eat something, since my room is near the kitchen, but the moment they saw me straying from the path, Rafael stepped on the tail of the blanket I have around my shoulders, and forced me back up to the studio.

Then I tried to sneak out when they were working, but I was tied down to the chair.

And it doesn't help we saw that scene in Tomcats, with the kinky librarian, because now, they've killed the word 'kink', the way they kill any and every word they obsess over.

Rafael is studying for Archiecture, Paola is doing some fashion designs, I'm... reading stuff... and we're all verbally abusing and humiliating eachother.

I keep lashing out, which only earns me that dismissive "Oh, how cute. Resistance is futile." reaction I hate so much.

And I learned today that insomnia screws with the growth hormone (......no wonder I'm so tiny D: ), and it kills memory, and it makes you age faster, and something about cortizol levels.

Which means I'm essentially screwed anyway.

It's not fair losing when every threat issued out is countered with "I'm the one with the shotguns in his room."

It totally kills the menacing effect I was going for.

I hate being held hostage.

Good god, and apparently because I don't have to go to class until 10am, while they have to go at 8-9am, I get harsher punishment.

In that one class that feels like therapy, we discussed leadership and the like, and I found myself reacting in a very peculiar manner whenever the teacher kept pressing about personal experiences regarding being a leader or being in control.

Both my personality type and my counter-dependence give me a heavy inclination to be in charge.

Couple that with the ‘you need to be an alpha dog’ mentality my father drilled into my head at a very young age, and you get someone raised with an apprehensive distaste for submitting in any way shape or form. That includes the ever so predictable rebellion against any figure of authority, and just generally anyone posing any sort of threat to my sense of control.

Through the years, I began to learn how to pick my battles in terms of what is most convenient, and the path of least resistance, at the expense of the short-term humiliation of bottoming to someone else’s command.

I have some sort of independence complex, which stems from my counter-dependence, and that refusal to depend on anyone for anything. That makes it extremely difficult for me to yield control, and more often than not, gets me into needless trouble, because I end up biting off more than I can chew.

This comes up the most in group-projects. I always end up doing everything myself because I don’t trust anyone to do it as well as I can do it, and if something goes wrong, it’s easier for me to cope with the fact that something went wrong due to things being my fault, rather than someone else’s.

One of my New Years resolutions was to start giving up control for the sake of practicality, especially in terms of academia. If I carry all that weight on my shoulders, I’m bound to collapse, whereas if I distribute it, I’m bound to resist a bit longer without a breakdown.

In most of my relationships I’ve been the one in control, and it’s gotten to the point where I’m completely and utterly bored with it. I don’t like being in control anymore. I’m tired of it. Sick of it, even.

And so it’s such a deviation from normal for me to give up control, that I find it kind of kinky. It’s one of those things one eroticizes, because it seems so out there— like in my case, sleeping with a guy. It’s such a deviation from what I find normal, that that in itself is something strange and inexplicably kinky.

I’m a terrible submissive, except when it comes to two people (one, now that the other one’s gone) to whom I bottom gladly.

In any area, I can only obey orders on my own terms, and even then, it’s only done in this ‘I’m only giving up control, because it’ll benefit me in the long run, not because you deserve it.’

One of my New Years resolutions was to work at yielding control. I still face that instinctive resistance every time I find myself in a situation where temperaments clash. Depending on the situation, I will either let it go, or go out of my way, fight tooth and nail to prove a point, even if it means I’m more than likely digging my own grave.

These constant clashes of will at school have served as good practice.

Now I just need to translate that to my personal relationships. I still find myself inevitably attracted to the submissive type, simply because it means I won’t have to yield control, but as I recently found out, the power struggle is the thing that gets me going. I've kind of been ruined that way.

It’s not like I can very well go back to the days where it could be a 50/50 power exchange, where I was 100% dominant, and my partners 100% submissive. That only caters to a small fraction of my needs. The greater part being met through someone on equal footing where consensual power struggle is bound to ensue.

For whatever reason (being burnt out?), I feel like submitting, even if it's one reluctant struggle after the other. All part of being a switch in every aspect, I suppose.

I kind of really hate that damn binary nature of mine. It means I’ll never be fully satisfied, sacrificing the ‘less important’, though still significant needs, over the major ones.

Still, I'm reminded of what a writer friend once told me:

Even with wolves, the alpha female will only submit to the alpha male. No one else.

Had another manic episode last night, which was bizarre, though welcome. After the rough week I had, I was overdue a couple hours of mania, even a night or two.

I’m actually still ridiculously sore. Every inch of my body hurts the way it usually does after 4-6 hours of jumping and dancing around like an idiot in a cocktail dress and a pair of break-neck stilettos.

There might not have been the cocktail dress or the stilettos, but there sure was a lot of inexplicable dancing. Which is by default, what happens during one of the stronger manic episodes.

The milieu encouraged it, of course. A bunch of dance-starved nymphets, a dark bowling alley with a black-light and light show, and pumped up nightclub music? Yeah, dancing had to ensue.

The fact that Chulis invited me a couple beers only enabled the already overwhelmingly manic side of me, pushing it to that exquisitely raw, high state I’ve only ever been able to achieve in a dance floor.

I mean, I know I’m a lightweight, but beer has never been able to do anything to me. I never expected it to get that far.

I was neither drunk nor tipsy, maybe a step removed from it, but it canceled my inhibitions enough to joke around with my cousin’s cousin, which just does not happen.

The sheer transition was actually very amusing to me.

There was the very distinctive point where my inhibitions were at their peak (as they will usually be when my cousins are involved), where I was increasingly sarcastic and defensive, closed body language— anxious even, dreading being directed, even observed.

I forget if I’d already been dancing around like an idiot, but that’s never really been an issue in terms of inhibitions under the proper circumstances, which there were.

I was tremendously high strung by the time Chulis invited me a couple drinks, which I downed rather fast (flat beer = not fun). Then my little cousin arrived, which was perfect, because she doesn’t mind dancing around like an idiot, so we kept twirling each other around, nearly choking up with laughter.

I began to notice the shift as I noted myself getting a little more daring, which is what happens when Jules begins to take over, except Jules wasn’t awake. It felt bizarre, because it was like falling into her behavioral patterns (the mindless dancing being one of them), without dealing with her being conscious (which I kind of miss).

And in a way, it was that same out of body experience, in the sense that I’m acting before I’m thinking, reflecting in the unwontedness of my actions only as they occur, or a moment after.

I’m sober in terms of frame of mind and rationalization. The shift simply consists in losing one’s self, an acting before thinking.

Which is to say, that the co-occurrence of mania and the outset of mild inebriation trigger those behavioral patterns, which is kind of a whole hell of a lot of fun, and something I have yet to achieve without being manic.

There was a point where I was chatting up my cousin’s cousin, who qualifies high in my list of Gorgeous Bastards. He has a gorgeous set of eyes, and the most exquisitely expressive face.

His hidden agenda consisted of setting me up with one of his friends, but what stood out for me, was that I get so shy around him, the fact that I was randomly chatting him up and kidding around, and even getting him to dance with my contagious dancing mood, made the whole thing just seemed bizarre.

I’ve had a high school crush on the man since I was a kid, and still fall every time I see that pretty face (never mind his personality type isn’t really my thing), causing me to get red in the face, and all those other girly symptoms on gets when you have one of those little crushes

The other distinctive moment consisted of my sudden Jules-like behavior towards the camera, which also involved my cousin’s cousin, and then my overall open body language towards it.

Again, bizarre.

Only times I recall that feeling sans alcohol was that one winter reunion two years ago where I humiliated that poor boy and made out with one of my female friends, and this winter, when I met the brothers from California on my birthday.

It’s interesting, every time an overwhelming manic episode comes along.

I really missed it.

Seems I’m back to my masochistically manic ways of ‘Why Not?’. Not that it’s a bad thing, given our days of partying have been numbered, and our time has essentially ran out.

Too much violence and insecurity. There was a shooting a couple blocks from the house, for crissakes!

Either way, we went to my cousin’s bowling event, despite the horrid migraine, backlash insomnia, and terrible day I’d had. I was inexplicably manic, so I was in one of those ‘lol I really couldn’t care less’ moods, which kept me in a very good place despite the circumstances.

I was actually very manic. It was strange. No one was awake in the back of my head, but I was just really, really manic.

I was jumping around and dancing like an idiot with my little cousin and whoever else joined, randomly running around form here to there, and I must have had fun, since my ass and my back and my legs and my feet are killing me. And this was without wearing high-heels.

We bowled, and I failed, though I did strike them all out at least one time.

I had hoped for some nymphet mischief to ensue, but since my cousin was there, anytime a guy asked who I was, he gave his ‘She’s my cousin. Off limits’ speech, scaring off any potential candidate.

We left around midnight. I was falling asleep, still had a headache, but my cousin invited me to a reunion at someone’s house, so I said ‘why not?’. It was a miracle they let us go out in the first place, so I might as well enjoy it.

And I mean, a backyard full of strangers, mostly men? Plenty of potential victims.

We knew no one, so we just talked among ourselves, then some of my guy cousin’s friends showed up to say hi, and began to talk to us.

At one point one of them had been making up some story about how he broke his back, but there had been a peculiar bit in his lie, which had called my attention.

I love hearing how men think, so very seriously, I demanded he explain the rationale behind his actions, and the bottom line was, that men hit on a variety of pretty girls at a night club, with the intention to date them, and go out of their way to please them, because they’re aware that the price for getting laid, is engaging into a committed relationship with them.

I was fascinated.

And it makes total sense. Everyone has their price, and for women, more often than not, the only way it’s acceptable for them to put out, is to be in a relationship with the guy. And I have friends like that, and it’s perfectly valid.

For me, a relationship is too much. It would be ideal, because I wouldn’t have to keep myself in check every step of the way, but emotional needs and sexual needs are covered differently, and can be covered by different people. And so my price, is pretty much a level of attachment. A friend I’m attracted to. A friend I love, but I’m not in love with.

If I were in love with the person, the fun would kind of end. Things would mud up the picture with sentimentality, and that’s not a place where I want to be right now. And so fooling around with a pretty girl or a charming guy I’m on equal footing with, and it’s all about play, rather than feeeeelings, is exactly where I want to be right now.

The poor boy heard me say all this, and I could see his eyes widen, his mouth open, and go all ‘I love you D:! You get it, you truly get it! Why can’t more women be like you!’

It was hilarious see his change in attitude and there was a tremendous shift in power. We went from being on the same level, to his losing a couple steps, which made me go all into happy sadist mode (which is why men should never, ever submit to me), and I just went about playing with his head for a minute, before we had to go, and he kept asking for my number, which I didn’t have, and wouldn’tve give out.

It was an interesting night.

Haven’t been able to wrap my mind around emotional cheating. It’s one of those things you wonder when on earth it’ll be something that stops simply happening to you—when it’ll finally become something you can do something about. You know, have a say in it.

I’ve certainly been involved in any and every conceivable angle.

I’ve inadvertently cheated, not realizing it until it’s been going on for a while, been cheated on and simply sucked it up and tolerated it, been the person one cheats with and not pick up on the signs until it’s gotten so out of hand that it’s causing trouble for my partner’s other partner, etc.

It’s quite the tricky business.

It’s probably easier for me to guarantee sexual exclusivity, to emotional exclusivity. And that’s really saying something, considering that the common denominator to all integral parts of my orientation have a binary component that cannot be met by one person alone.

I tried looking up a definition for emotional cheating, but it’s all pretty gray-area material, but for me, it means satisfying the key majority of one’s emotional needs with someone other than one’s primary partner.

One of the vague descriptions I found, and the one that got closest, was:

“All human beings have a need for emotional support and communication. This leads us to seek out relation­ships that will satisfy these needs. What makes emotional cheating a problem is that a person gets their need to be emotionally close to someone satisfied by a person other than their partner. These emotionally unfaith­ful relationships often begin as strictly nonphysical; with time though, they can easily develop into romantic relationships.”

There’s no problem with the potential for anything turning into another romantic relationship, given my proclivity to non-monogamy. That’s not the issue. I’m perfectly capable of maintaining two, simultaneous, romantic relationships in a primary-secondary dynamic, no problem.

The problem is when my emotional needs are not being met by my primary, and feeling neglected, and backed against a wall, my secondary begins to take care of those needs replacing the ‘role’ of my primary, though not necessarily affecting either the title, nor the level of commitment I have to my primary.

Then I begin to feel used, because in my primary relationship it’s all give, give, give, and it affects my secondary relationship in a negative way.

In a way, that is a contributing reason to why things ended with the first girl. In a non-romantic context, though deeply-committed, long-term, emotionally intimate relationship, at some point, we just couldn’t meet each other’s emotional needs anymore.

We were growing into very different people, after having grown together for around 6 years.

And this was, in a way, my second introduction to poly. The first one had been through Jules, as I tried to somehow describe her inexplicably non-monogamous behavior in a positive light (read: a conscious, responsible choice).

This girl began to feed her emotional needs through both a mutual friend of ours, and myself (mostly her) and mine went impossibly neglected, making me turn to another close friend who ended up being my first semi-acknowledged girlfriend/submissive.

I began to resent our mutual friend, but at some point, I reached a point of compersion— this friend was obviously fulfilling needs I could not, she was a lovely girl, and she made this girl I cared so much about very happy, so why not?

Then this girl grew jealous of my not-then-girlfriend/submissive because I spent so much time with her, and she felt the neglect.

Eventually, it was just too much. Things began to be demanded of me I could only give a lover, and given the strict non-romantic involvement between the two of us, I began to feel impossibly smothered, to the point where the toxic relationship had to end.

I was also barely realizing/coming to terms with all the other integral parts of my orientation, which were incompatible with her to the point of making her uncomfortable, so things ended, and I finally began to develop communication skills and how to have a healthy relationship.

The girl who became my girlfriend/submissive went from secondary to primary, where I was set on not falling into the same errors as with the first girl, and after some time, I fell for Prince Charming.

The problem there, was that my relationship with my submissive was based on me taking, and her giving. And though I made a point of giving, and really taking care of her because I genuinely loved her, she was far too undemanding, wanting only to please, neglecting her own needs, and putting me in a position where I didn’t really know what to do, because of her ‘I only want to make you happy’ mentality.

I couldn’t read her mind and know what she needed, so I couldn’t give it to her, so I just ran under the assumption that she was emotionally satisfied in simply serving, and satisfied whatever emotional needs I could.

With Prince Charming, it was all give, give, give on my end. It balanced out things with my submissive, and we were all pretty damn happy for a while. There was the jealousy from my submissive towards Prince Charming, simply because the way I fall in love with men is different from the way I fall for women, and in a way, it’s understandably annoying, given the NRE.

But then Prince Charming fell into inadvertently emotionally cheating on his primary with me, and I didn’t catch on to the signs of the intense emotional affair going on until plenty of drama ensued, and regardless of how in love I was with him, I just had to back the fuck out, and drill it in my head it was not my job to fix Prince Charming’s relationship with his primary.

Then my submissive began to feel what I felt with the first girl, where she felt too much was being demanded of her, when she was getting very little. The thing being, they were all a set of imaginary demands she felt compelled to fulfill. I never asked them from her.

I had a prolonged bout of depression, where I wasn’t my cheery, communicative self, and she drilled it in her head that it was her job to fix it. So when I insisted a million times that I was fine, and just needed to deal with it, and that it wasn’t her fault, she would just try harder, really taking it into herself that because all she wanted to do was make me happy, that she had to get me out of this depressive episode.

Eventually, the relationship turned toxic, and I had to end it for her own good, as well as mine.

Promoting intimacy is pretty much the one way to avoid emotional cheating, I suppose, which is done through communication.

To an extent, I’ve found women are better at this than men. No one will ever fully satisfy your emotional needs to the fullest. Different people in your life feed different emotional needs and different sides of you. One person can’t take care of all of that, and they shouldn’t be expected to.

I’m used to discussing the most menial details of people’s days with the intention of nurturing that sense of intimacy and overall closeness.

Women are infinitely better at this, to the point where we’ll randomly text each other a thousand times a day with the random things, and tell each other the most pointless anecdotes in the form of a metacognitive play-by-play, as if it’s the most serious thing in the world, when it’s just going to the groceries or something.

And we crave that. We crave that illusion of intimacy, even at a distance.

Then there’s previous male partners I’ve had who when asked ‘How was your day?’, they reply with ‘Pretty good.’

End of conversation.

Friends and acquaintances can get away with that, but people I’m romantically involved with are not. It got to the point where I was starved for some sort of connection, that said something like “Just humor me. I don’t care if you lie, or make stuff up, just tell me a story.”, in that ‘it’s the principle of the thing, damnit!” sort of way.

If I were straight, it would be no problem. I would just have a best female friend and confidant, which is what my friends do. But that doesn’t work with the whole bi thing— that sense of intimacy does develop into romantic attraction.

So, I’m bound to emotionally cheat on a guy with a girl, without even realizing the way I did with my first boyfriend, and if I make a point of taking care of it from the beginning, I seem too naggy and clingy, and just make my male partner uncomfortable by asking something of them it’s just not in them to provide.

Then I’m bound to emotionally cheat on a girl with a guy, because the way I fall for men and women is very different. With women, there seldom ever is an infatuation. It skips over to love, in the sense of stable, long-term, romantic attachment. With men, that never happens. It’s always a long infatuation, and after much consideration, I might decide to let myself fall, then much later, the genuine long-term part comes along.

So it’s New Relationship Energy on a constant basis, which does feel as an emotional threat to other partners. And it happens constantly between best female straight friends, when one of them gets a boyfriend, and the other one feels emotionally replaced, and is irritated by the overwhelming NRE.

It’s one of those things in my list of goals— to keep an emotionally balanced relationship. Practice does make perfect!

Jules has this tendency to hoard on the basis of whim, which has been transferring to me a lot lately.

I now have a drawer dedicated to ‘Things I will likely never wear, but just had to have.’

In the story, it’s not uncommon for her to have the most random articles of clothing, some not even her size. She simply sees something, falls completely head over heels in lust with is (I swear, the brain interprets it as infatuation). When something’s not my size, and I’m in lust with it, I simply deal with the heartbreak, and go for some rebound item.

She, on the other hand, doesn’t. She needs to satisfy those whimsical appetites of hers, so even if she’s never going to use whatever it is she gets, she just says ‘…just in case’ or ‘who cares if it’s a size too big/small, next time I gain/lose weight, I’ll have something to wear!’.

In the context of the story, it benefits Sammy, because she has no excuse but to be Jules’ dress-up doll, and be dragged anywhere and everywhere, along with Cass and Jeff.

In my context, I have no idea how it translates, but she’ll be the one falling in lust with things, and making me get them against my better judgment.

Good lord, like the pair of black leather opera gloves, and the corset, and the bustier… and the vinyl skirt...and the cocktail cigarette holder. I mean, the stockings and the garter belts I constantly use with my dresses, and the skirt, I can pull off for clubbing, but black leather opera gloves?

Or the string of black pearls she was so set on making me get. I don’t even wear pearls (now I have to, since I have them).

She is a horrible influence.

Half the stuff falls into the category of ‘Things I’ve always wanted to have, but there’s no real use for them in my given context’.

It’s all caprice.

Still, I love playing dress up, and I’m a sucker for black sexy things.

Especially stockings. I have a real fetish for them.

And I finally replaced the black bra I oh so very amusingly lost. I have no idea what women smaller than I do to get clothes. It’s virtually impossible to find any sort of undergarment that fits my specific measurements (corset and bustier included!)— just one more statistic in the number of women with poorly fitted bras!