What I Need

I had dinner with Eben last night, and as I was talking through some of the things that are bothering me, I noticed him taking notes on a napkin. He was writing down personal needs that he heard me expressing, and the list he came up with and his explanations really helped me sort out some of my thoughts.

In no particular order...

Asking me where I want to be in five years is unfair. I have no idea and I don't need to. I think Aiden's asking me to provide a false sense of stability with that question. Even if I could give an answer, by a year from now it would probably be wrong.

Do I expect him to pretend, if he comes with me, that Shelby doesn't exist? No, that's warping reality in a really weird way. No one just pretends that their exes don't exist. What I would expect is for him to be loyal to me.

I need to be treated as an expert on myself. I've put several years of my life into learning and accepting this lesson that I am not into poly relationships, and asking me to try it again with a slightly different spin is just insulting. It makes me feel like I'm being dressed up in someone else's clothes when I've expressly stated that I will only wear my own clothes. I don't want someone in my life who tries to force me into the shape they want, particularly when I've made it clear that that shape is very painful for me.

I've reached my breaking point. I am out of patience, out of willpower, and I was really proud of myself when I finally found the courage to stand up and say that. Now that the end is in sight, I'm impatient that it isn't here already. I've spent the last two and a half years trying to be someone I wasn't, and hoping for a way out; Aiden has spent those years in relative contentment, and thus can't really see my viewpoint. That's half the reason I'm so itchy for him to make a decision.

The other half is that I realized I was associating reluctance to make a decision with reluctance to be in a relationship with me; I've been unconsciously assuming that if he has a hard time with this decision, it means he'll never be fully engaged with me. Under the light of logic, I think that's untrue. Before a decision and after it are very different head spaces.

I need to feel connected to the people I love. As backward as it may sound at first, that's why I don't want someone who just wants to do what I want to do all the time. Firstly, it puts pressure on me to always have a thing to do and always come up with the activities and the entertainment, and that's exhausting. Secondly, Aiden having things that he does gives me a way to connect to him. I found him interesting in the first place because he was different from myself. I already know me; why would I want to date me? If neither of us ever brought new experiences back home, we'd run out of things to talk about, and reasons to be interested in each other. This difference is where having a crush is centered.

Now that I've sorted some of that out, I'm regretting taking away the deadline. I regretted making it, and then I regretted unmaking it; what's happening here? I'm looking for an end to the uncertainty. I need to know when I'll know. I found a place to go physically, which allowed me to relax the deadline a little bit, but I'd like Aiden to suggest one. Not knowing how to go forward is driving me nuts, partly because leaving my life up in the air indefinitely is unfair and impractical and partly because The Vacation is still looming.