Flamengo, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil: 25 degrees, hot, sunny and stormy at the end of the day.
It has been 2 days since I went no contact with Julie. I feel guilty, but I also think it had to be done.
I am not proud of it, but I felt I needed a break, and the constant sense of being manipulated was too much. I thought it was beginning to affect the core of who I am and my mental health. It sounds dramatic, but the problem is the toxicity and the cost to yourself; respect is not.
I am starting to look back, gaining a perspective outside the fishbowl. Now I can see many details, situations, and things that happened that were oblivious to me at the time, even though I felt that something was wrong, but could not specifically put my finger on it, understand it, or spot it as clearly as I think I am now.
I am angry with myself for letting it reach such a point. How could I let myself get so involved, receiving so little? We had not gone to bed yet, so in a way it is a kind of blessing in disguise.
When thinking about it in this way, it gives a perspective that, to the normal person, without consummating the relationship, it could not have been so intense, but it was. It was enebriating. I became intoxicated by the situation and by what I was living, not by the actual person.
Again, I ask myself how I could have let myself down so easily. The most straightforward answer is that it can happen to anyone. I have repeated this many times on this blog: the importance of setting boundaries.
I think I had, in some ways and forms, and maybe if I had not been indirectly conscious, the damage could have been much worse. If I were completely and madly in love, I would be truly at fault, but what I truly feel is that I should not have got involved with the wrong person.
My intuition told me to walk away after the first date. I had seen the signs, tried superficially, but I gave in to my instincts.
That night we went to see Dune 2 at the cinema, which was a bit of a disaster for me. It was cold, clinical, a detached meeting. The next day, I felt disappointed about the night before and called her to say that maybe it would be better to be just friends. She insisted on continuing, and I gave in to her insistence, and now I’m paying the price.
I have said this many times, and I’m repeating myself about the same error: not listening to my intuition. Every time I do not listen to my intuition, I fuck myself. It happened in the past and has happened again now, and I am stupid for letting it happen.
At least I am old enough to see what has happened and try not to repeat it in future. We have to be humble enough to recognise our mistakes and learn from them. If not, we are stupid. These recurring mistakes are more than this. They are patterns, and that’s not just a one-off.
A pattern is something repetitive. With any psychological or behavioural pattern, we have to be intelligent and humble enough to see it, read it, and learn from it. Otherwise, it will be like a dog running in circles, chasing its own tail, which isn’t very intelligent.
We must see what our patterns are, accept them as a kind of weakness or something that needs attention, and work against them to improve; it’s not rocket science.
In bed by 11p.m.
Thank you.
Thanks for reading this blog post. Please explore my other posts and share your thoughts in the comments section.
Richard
