Please don't take this too seriously.

[pchang]

misery loves company.

[The Mad Monk]

Does she know you post here, and your handle? She may have done already.

[Lorizael]

She knows I post here, and she probably knows my handle. I used to show her threads from Poly, especially the threads that were about her. We always got a kick out of them. But I doubt she's read this thread. If she were concerned about me for any reason, she'd just message me by some means, or contact our mutual friend.

[pchang]

Pretty typical for an asymmetric relationship. You care way more about her than she cares about you.

[Lorizael]

She cared a ****ton about me. That just didn't stop her from (unconsciously) manipulating me.

[pchang]

She cared a ****ton about me. That just didn't stop her from (unconsciously) manipulating me.

Don't mistake absolute values with relative values. "She cared a ****ton about me" is not inconsistent with "You care way more about her than she cares for you". How much of your time was spent obsessing over her? How much time do you think she spend obsessing over you?

[Sava]

"Obsessing" can be a symptom... and should not be used to measure levels of like/care/love.

[Lorizael]

I'm not sure if time spent obsessing is a good measure of how much we cared about each other. She cared about me a lot. When I was dirt **** poor but she was slightly less dirt **** poor, she offered me money. When I was an inconsolable slobbering mess because of a fight with a girlfriend, she dropped everything to come comfort me. She was way more honest with me than I was with her. She was incredibly patient with me and my passive and stubborn ways. There is so much she did to show me how much she cared for me. Letters she would write me. Voicemails she would leave me. There was very little I did to show her I cared, because, again, I'm a very passive kind of friend.

And there's a whole lot wrong with the way she treated me, too, which is why I don't talk to her anymore. But it's not so one-sided as Poly believes.

[pchang]

I'm not sure if time spent obsessing is a good measure of how much we cared about each other. She cared about me a lot. When I was dirt **** poor but she was slightly less dirt **** poor, she offered me money. When I was an inconsolable slobbering mess because of a fight with a girlfriend, she dropped everything to come comfort me. She was way more honest with me than I was with her. She was incredibly patient with me and my passive and stubborn ways. There is so much she did to show me how much she cared for me. Letters she would write me. Voicemails she would leave me. There was very little I did to show her I cared, because, again, I'm a very passive kind of friend.

And there's a whole lot wrong with the way she treated me, too, which is why I don't talk to her anymore. But it's not so one-sided as Poly believes.

That was then. How about now?

[Lorizael]

Now she doesn't talk to me because she knows I don't want her to.

[Aeson]

Well, with 7 billion people and only 1 worst or best at anything......

But if we're specific enough, there's way more than 7 billion things to be best or worst at!

I am simultaneously the best and worst at moving to a third world country to set up a farm and own Apolyton ... all while not doing podcasts, living in Chicago, or being Greek.

[Aeson]

Lorizael is the best CivBE wiki admin at making me threads about love lost ... IN THE WORLD, maybe even the UNIVERSE!

[Sava]

Lori

[Lorizael]

Hahahaha. Failures. You're all failures. Wait. No. I'm the failure. Because I'm the one with no self-control. That's right. Hahahaha.

[Lorizael]

Lori: you're not planning on getting on a plane any time in the near future, are you?

EBF: Er, no, I don't believe so. Why?

Lori: Oh, you know, I had a dream where you died in a horrible plane crash.

EBF: Crashed and burned, eh?

Lori: Broke apart in mid-air for some reason, then crashed and burned.

EBF: how metaphorical

Lori: Is it?

EBF: Cruisin' along when unexpectedly things fall apart and crash and burn? ::shrug::

Lori: I'm not entirely sure what that would be a metaphor for. I feel like I'm missing something.

EBF: Oh, uh, your relationship to me in life?

Lori: Ah. No. Our relationship crashing and burning wasn't unexpected. I know this, because from time to time I obsessively read over old chat logs (not just yours, but definitely yours), and I definitely saw it coming.

EBF: I remember it was something you feared and talked about not wanting to happen, but I don't know if that was because you saw it coming or because you were afraid of it.
Also, good god, reading over old chat logs makes me want to commit seppuku.

Lori: Me too. That's why I do it.

EBF: I think I deleted them all at some point to save myself.

Lori: People often tell me I should delete my chat logs. I know this, because I obsessively read my chat logs.

EBF: Why you do that?

Lori: It's a safe, easy way for me to access emotions I don't otherwise have access to. (By safe, I mean it's better than me going out and having unprotected sex with whores or something.)

EBF: Emotions like...

Lori: Closeness and companionship. Intimacy of any sort. (I even read over old arguments, because there are definitely feelings there.)

EBF: :/

Lori: The same lack of feeling causes me to make other bad decisions, such as messaging you...

EBF: Well, I'm not convinced that's so bad, but if you are you probably shouldn't do it.

Lori: I'm mixed on that. If I were to ask the good people of Apolyton, for example, they would be quite vociferous in the sentiment that I shouldn't talk to you. On the other hand, I don't like dreaming about you, or being angry when I think about you, or anything else like that. And my guess is doing what I've been doing for the last several years isn't going to make any of that stop.

EBF: No, probably not. I find writing never-to-be-sent letters to people I have unresolved issues with is a pretty useful tool for working that kind of emotional stuff out. Or at least giving me something to work with to keep moving forward with it.
Or, you know, we could talk about stuff if you want to.

Lori: I wouldn't even know where to begin talking about stuff. I've never written a latter about this stuff, but I've had these conversations with you a dozen times in my head.

EBF: It doesn't have to be well-organized. If something pops in your head, we can try talking about it.
Or you could try writing said letter(s) and see if it helps you organize what you want to talk about specifically.

Lori: Well, the gist of why I get so angry when I think about you is that I believe you (unconsciously, I hope) got me addicted to you. (I played a role in this, too, but I get plenty angry at myself and that's not something I need to talk to you about.)

EBF: Got you addicted to me?

Lori: Yeah. Our bestfriendship was ridiculously unhealthy for a kid with tendencies to obsess over women.

EBF: I thought it was a beautiful relationship between two kids who had deep love and respect for each other and helped each other survive and grow into better versions of themselves

Lori: Yeah, there's that part, too. Then there's the part where our relationship was partly responsible for breaking up two of my romantic relationships. And that was just a symptom of a deeper problem.

EBF: Can a relationship be responsible for something?
What was the deeper problem?

Lori: Hey, you and I were the same person, right? So our relationship was just the manifestation of the one person that was us, right? And if anything can be responsible for something, it's a person.

EBF: No, we weren't the same person.

Lori: No, we weren't the same person.
But we said we were.

EBF: Sure. There's good reason for that. We were very, very close and very... aligned? I'm still convinced we essentially read each other's minds.
But, of course, we were not literally the same person. Relationships don't have personhood.

Lori: I could have a very long discussion about personhood, but it's not really pertinent.
My point was about the language we used. How we talked about each other. How we interacted with each other. We weren't just friends. We were super special best friends. Who shared everything and were always honest with each other (not true, but beside the point). When I was in love with you, when I had a habit of obsessing over unattainable women, the constant reinforcement of this idea that we had this perfect, beautiful, and magically superior relationship was not healthy for me at all.

EBF: I was completely honest with you
and I still believe we did indeed have a super special friendship
I have to go for now. I'd like to talk more soon.

Lori: Okay