Packing up the Infatuation Baggage

"we can't be friends
because you like me too much
and we are wrong for each other."

Truly, I have to commemorate these gems from Artboy because he says things no one else would ever say to me.  He is a special kind of special.

Let the record show that after this conversation, the one that eventually made me cry, he messaged me again an hour or two later with idle chatter.  And the next morning.  And last night.  And so it goes.

I know everyone thinks I need to block him.  Cut him off.  Throw him to the wolves for being a jackass.  Believe me, I am not denying his jackassery.  I am the first in line to speak of it, for I've known it firsthand many times.  But at least for now, I'm not going to quit him to that degree.

If I can just retrain my thoughts about him, then chatting with him via IM or text about complete nonsense or just day to day randomness will not be a problem.  Maybe it's wrong, but he amuses me generally, and I enjoy puzzling out what he's saying to me because half the time I have to google it to know what he means.  He is unlike anyone I've ever met. 

I am not actually in love with him. 
I am not pining for him.
I am not denying that he has hurt me.

But the bottom line here is that since almost the very beginning, he has been very honest and forthright about what he can give me and who he is.  I am the one who turned him into more than that in my own mind.  It was the product of a weird infatuation I've had with him.  Right now, when I imagine how I will look back on Artboy in the future, I feel like he will be the quirky, moody artistic boy I dated very briefly, then stayed tangled up with for a summer.  I feel like he will be, in the tiniest of ways, the one who got away because he couldn't handle what I brought to the table.  It's not about me and my lacking, but about him and his.

Maybe in a few months or a year I will look back at this and laugh.  Maybe I will be amused at how much I overvalued him, and I will realize that in the end, he was just the moody, artistic, quirky guy I dated briefly.  That whatever I felt for him was a product of where I was in my life, what I was ready for, and what I needed at the time.  That really, I was never even a little bit in love with him. 

It will be what it will be.  And for now I will talk to him as I talk to him.  However, do know that I will no longer be suggesting we get together.  I will no longer be going out of my way to prove my friendship to him.  I will no longer be throwing myself at him, or drunk texting him, or enticing him in any way.  I do have some measure of pride, somewhere in there. 

Perhaps you all think I am naive for my approach.  Maybe you just absolutely know that I won't be able to keep the lines, and that I will purposefully or even inadvertently put myself out there again down the line only to get hurt.  Maybe you are right.  I do have trouble filtering my thoughts to him.  I tend to just say exactly what is on my mind.  It was liberating for awhile, but at this point clearly all it's done is overexpose my heart to him, and caused him to panic and pull back.  So be it.  I can't change what I've said and done already, and really, I don't want to.

It's weird.  Setting aside the hurt, it feels good to have had that kind of direct honesty with someone.  I spend so much time calculating and considering and hypothesizing and just generally overthinking, and with Artboy...pretty much everything I've said in here about him I've said to him.  It's true.  Was it crazy to do?  I don't know, maybe.  But it feels good to know that I was totally honest with him about how I felt about him, even if it was to my own detriment. 

I'm not going to try to have conversations about how we actually are friends, or why we should or shouldn't date.  I'm not going to try to save him from himself, or anything like that.  But I'm not going to close the door on him entirely.  I am going to put myself to the test.  I will not just assume that I am going to fail in this new tactic.  I am capable of reframing my attitude about him, and my expectations of him, and that is what I'm going to do.

As of today, September 2nd, Artboy is still a part of my life.  His role is shifting and adjusting as I type, but he has not been cut from the cast.  He is still there, in the background, intriguing me a little, entertaining me a little, and yes, probably pissing me off a little on occasion.  But that is Artboy.