May 8

You'll hear in two weeks.

Three weeks pass. I had already known though. So that's that. Some part of me wants to drive round to the guy's office and just yell at him, I'd have liked that job, you cunt, but you can't, can you?

People can lie to you, can hurt you, can disrespect you, and all you can do is curl ever tighter in a ball.

***

So B sometimes reads my blog. She wants to know what I have to say about her. Nothing much is the answer. There is nothing further to say about women who think that saying they love you is a passkey to taking whatever they need without giving you anything.

This is what I said about that six years ago (almost to the day, strangely) and I haven't changed my views, just become more disillusioned by the women I've met:

I am tired of being reflected through a mirror of expectation, but only ever expectation for you and not for me. When do I get to want, to feel, to need anything? It is the downfall of the stronger that they cannot be weak, that they are held to account for every weakness, every small flaw, as though they should be diamonds while all around them are permitted to be coal.

And I am stronger than you. Because I demand nothing, only love, and that is easier to give than service, only you don't know it.

I am tired of falling short of your targets, which you set for yourself but expect me to strike. You knew I was not perfect but you thought that just by knowing you I might become it; and yet, not perfect for me but perfect for you. But you don't care. Because you never asked what I wanted; you think I can just get by without wanting anything at all.

And I can. I can get by on just the whiff of being desired, just the merest scent of being wanted. You girls can troll me to oblivion and back if you will only send me the ghosts of kisses.

I am tired of the imposition of your dreams. I am not a pool you can see your face in. I am not still waters; I am the sea, endlessly turning over, restless and cruel. You think you are hurting me but you are not even touching me. You think you are meaning something to me but you are not even a stone in the water. I can lose anything if I have to. Do you think we get to forty and don't learn how? It is how we become men and you don't understand it.

I am tired of being loved. It is the burden of complicated men that women can see in them shards of what they take to be a whole pane but is only ever the reflection of sun on choppy water. You could love the sea; you could love to swim. But all you ever really want to do is admire yourselves in a looking-glass.

I am tired of you. You want to choke me, smother me, rein me in and cut my wind but I want to breathe. I am worth more than your desires. Come to me when you want to know me, not indulge your belief about what I can be if only I allow you to turn my key. Come to me when you want to love what is real, when you are ready to shed your skin, be my equal and live.

I know, that's fucking gold. It's a tragedy that the world doesn't have a need for someone who can write like that. You can't. No one you know can. I can and I can't even get paid a living wage for it. Sick life.

And B? Well, I guess she will join the crew of women who read my blog as a proxy for actually giving a shit about me. I guess they have their reasons but you know, from my point of view, people's selfish indulgence has zero value. In some cases, less than zero, because it hurts me that they can pretend to care about me by reading about how painful my life is without ever feeling any desire to lessen that pain by giving me some of what I want.

***

I do wish I lived in a world in which people would say, we just won't bother with you if we don't want you. Because the lying hurts more than the not being wanted. Knowing I am stuck in a place where people have no honour, no shame, is worse than anything.

People aren't like that in the UK. I mean, they can be rotten, but if they say you'll hear in two weeks, you hear in two weeks. They do not so frankly treat you like dirt. They have a nagging sense of shame that doesn't permit it.

***

And my people in Singapore have not even answered emails.

I am sick of you cowards. I am sick of people who do not have the balls to say fuck you to me. I am sorry that my abiding memory of B will be of her crying on the stairs instead of standing up for what she wanted, of someone who thought I could be manipulated like that instead of being negotiated with. Which I can. I wanted it to work and was willing to give so that it would. But not at any price. I mean, why should I? What was so good about being used that I would beg for it to continue?

***

When it came to it, I did not do what my sister thought I should. I did not get my family to the UK and then fuck Mrs Zen over. It's not that there's not part of me who wishes I had. After all, she fucked me over. She lied to me so that she could get what she wanted. She did not pay me what she owed me.

But mostly I felt good about it because I had been decent. Shit, I know it's old fashioned to think that being honourable is worth anything. But I knew how much I had hurt and would not do it to someone else.

Even if the whole world around me does, I don't. It's worth nothing -- integrity -- it's not worth a fucking thing, doesn't pay the rent, doesn't keep you warm at night, feeds only the monkey within.

I hate that I'm such an idiot. I could have trapped her there, where I could find work, where I had people I could trust and love, where there was life for me, and I chose honour.

Idiot.

posted by Dr Zen @ 7:30 pm