This is my favorite scene in the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and every time I see this scene, I am reminded of a future with Amber. It also makes me think of Jonathan and Martine as well.
Tune: “Hair like snow” by Jay Chou
Drink: Green tea
Mood: A bit depressed
Madhu recently told me that each individual is responsible for their own outlook in life, aka their own happiness and I agree with this. However, she missed my point in the part about others cheering me up. The point was that others recognized my stress and irritations and they tried to cheer me up. My friends know I don’t volunteer my feelings unless they ask me and even then, it takes some prodding, normally in the form of a thumb up my ass or fart on my pillow. *sigh* This is their way of showing me love. 8|
Another thing is about comparing Amber’s experiences with mine and bringing up my past intimate partners as a point of reference. She basically pointed out that none of any of that matters if I unconditionally give my love to her. So in other words, blind love.
When I was still friends with Albert, the biggest thing I hated about him was how he assigned value to his intimate relationship with Jenny. He constantly brought up that Jenny should be more attentive to his needs, since he bought her so many gifts and spent so much time doing things for her.
In the grey area between not assigning value and assigning value, these feelings of discontinuity and inactivity on Amber’s part has gradually chipped away at our already frail connection. Let me tell you something: I never assigned value to what I have done for her. What happened was that for everything I have tried to do, I have constantly received no reaction from her. What does that tell you?
Let’s say Madhu emails me and I never respond or I respond with one word answers, what do you think will happen to our friendship? It will obviously falter. Let’s say Jason calls me once every couple of days just to get a hold of me to hang out and I never pick up or I pick up and rarely go out, do you think Jason will continue to call me in the future to hang out? Obviously, he will tire of the non-responsiveness and stop calling me. This is the same with intimacy. This is the number two biggest reason why intimate relationships fail.
The fact of the matter is that I have a broader range of intimate experiences, so I will obviously use them as a point of reference for my future intimate endeavors. That is how people learn what works and what doesn’t. If you are inexperienced in love and friendship, you will have a much higher chance of getting into relationships with incompatible people. If you have experience in love and friendship, you will have a much higher chance of connecting with the ideal type of people.
One thing Amber had told me was that she appreciated that I told her my feelings and point out when it seems like she is retracting herself. This way, she is able to try to mitigate it and do something about it. This is all fine and dandy, but the problem is that she will have an immediate period of positive change for a couple of weeks, then suddenly out of the blue, become distant and inactive for a month and more. Then in those months where she is inactive, I do my best to shed away my pride and yield to her issues. However, there is a limit to how much I can tolerate and my friends know that my tolerance is quite mind numbingly tolerant, even though I say it isn’t very tolerant.
What saddens me the most is when I think about all the grief I have put her through. I know I am a ‘difficult’ person, but I have a difficult and complicated life I have to tend to. I would like to have someone whom I can trust and adore to interactively share my thoughts and feelings with. My friends do their best when they can to help ‘cheer me up’ and/or to help ease my mind in their own ways and I thank them for that. I just wished Amber could do the same because my goal was to build a long life with her. Unfortunately, at this moment in time, no matter how ’empty’ I feel right now, I also feel that our relationship has strained to the point where there is barely anything left. I am sure Amber’s words to me are sincere whenever she tells me she misses me and that she loves me, but I don’t feel words as much as I do actions. Anyone can say “I miss you” or “I love you”, but where are the actions to prove that those words are sincere words?
It should feel like I *need* her to be with me now and it did at one time in the past, but now, I don’t have that urge nor ‘calling’ and I really really really wish I still do. Furthermore, this is made more difficult with the fact that I am constantly tempted with other women whom have been randomly flirting with me or getting in touch with me to see if I’m available to hang out. Most of you may not realize this, but I’ve literally locked myself in this house for at least six days out of a week for the last few weeks, unless it was for a meeting with clients. Michelle may scold me and say: “GET OUT MORE LEE! THIS IS UNHEALTHY!” and I will nod and hand her a plastic duck, but I do this to keep me insanely sane. At the moment, I resemble this:
Not as nasty, but close enough.
Whenever I think naughty thoughts, I try to think about Amber and the thought of her ‘performing’ for me turns me on extensively. Wait, why did I mention this?
Anyway, I think I pretty much covered all, if not most of the things on my mind coinciding Amber and Madhu’s thoughts on this. All of this, exposing my rant previously and telling Amber to read my blog entry hasn’t made me feel any better and has in fact, made me feel worst. This is the same feeling I had when I broke up with Cindy all those years ago. It’s like a strange gloomy emptiness, as if my ‘routine’ is broken and/or that it feels like I no longer have something to look forward to or build towards to.
And on that bombshell, I need to eat something, then go to the bank and get money for my mom. Such is the life of Leeman.
Maybe you should just remain single, Lee.
Lee, where do you find these women? Have you spoken with Amber about any of this?
I have brought this up a few times already. Even when she recognizes the problems, she doesn’t do anything to solve it. Well, I’ll give her the credit of making some short-term adjustments in her life so far, but nothing solid and steady.
There is too much going on right now and all of this is dragging me down. I rather be single and deal with being alone than to have the illusion of being intimately involved and receive zero appreciation. I already asked her to read my previous blog entry which I removed earlier today. She had asked me to wake her up last night by giving her a call, but I told her it depended on whether she had read my blog entry and she told me that if it’s dependent on that, then I shouldn’t bother.
This is the sort of crap I have to deal with: no response, lack of action, only words, broken promises and she says she misses me, but goes to another web site to chat while my MSN is nearly constantly on. Last time I checked, when someone misses another, they actually do something about it instead of walk the other way.
It seems like she’s not the right woman for you but it looks like you really tried to make this work and it isn’t working out. Maybe you should try to meet someone locally. Didn’t you say one of your friends wanted to try Speed Dating with you? How did that go?
By the way, I had to resubmit this comment twice. Your captcha is a bit hard to use.
Okay, I need to go to bed after this, but basically I don’t feel comfortable doing Speed Dating. There is way too much pressure and I don’t like the feeling of going into something with the pretense of meeting up for that sort of thing. It just doesn’t feel natural. Plus, it was Patrick who first suggested it a few years ago, then again two years ago, then again with Jason last year. Just not my sort of thing.
I’ve tried local women – enough to realize that my luck here isn’t working out. It’s a coincidence that I had the chance to meet Erica, Iris and Amber and a few others online. I know what you’re probably thinking: “You’ve tried local women and now you’ve tried those online and both aren’t working out for you.” Yeah I know, I see it too. Maybe Madhu is right, it seems like it might be better I stay single – maybe ‘revert’ back to how I used to be with these casual relationships.
I really wanted this to work, but it really isn’t. I kept trying to justify why she doesn’t do anything, but ultimately, I cannot defend her non-actions and broken promises. It reminded me of what Cindy used to do. Sex was great, but the rest was crap. Of course, with Amber, it’s a bit better, but it’s still not that good anyhow.
In the last year, I turned down two women, at least one of which seemed very compatible with me. We stopped talking a few calls after that. I chose to stay ‘fiercely loyal’ to Amber – that’s what the girl said: “So you’re going to choose your long distance romance over me? You’re a fiercely loyal kind of guy aren’t you?” – something like that.
Anyway, I am super sleepy. It’s 9:52am right now and I haven’t slept yet, except an hour nap a few hours ago. It’s nice to see SOME comments pop in on my blog again.
Why are you hurting so much?
Because I invested my emotions into it.
Are you doing stuff to distract yourself? Maybe you should get some sleep.
O gawwwd! No, I don’t have those pics anymore. I wanted to send you some pics of me and my college buddies but my yahoo won’t load and I can’t seem to able to attach it through my phone either.
But I loved those pics of when you’re wet! They were so lovely.
Get over it…..I don’t have them anymore. Anyway, I need to take a nap. I haven’t been feeling very good either…seeing you hurt like this, since yesterday.
Well, it’ll take time. Thanks for your… You know. ^_^
You are right,I will scold you…. All those missed opportunities . I hate that vulnerable feeling too. You are going to have to fill me in on all the details…….
I’ll email you later about everything amongst other stuff. ^_^