Back Again At Misery Inc

Well after so many months of not having to write on this blog and profess how my life was deciding to screw me this time, I thought finally I might never have to write here again. Well I'm back, so obviously I'm wrong. Only this time, just like the stakes in life, the messes are bigger. It seems that as you grow up the problems grow with you. Spilling your drink and having your mum growl at you might seem like a huge problem when you're young. A girl dumping you might be one when you're a teenager. The problems get more and more mature as you do.

In the past few months I've matured a lot. I've learnt the trade of being a man. I don't know why now of all times, but I have. Jess taught me a lot - for a fling which I wasn't taking seriously, she sure has taught me how to be more forgiving, caring, and mature. We haven't spoken in a while, but things have been plain sailing ever since; I've started university and have begun to make friends; was beginning to get on consistently with my parents; be confident in myself and make decisions with the maturity you'd expect. Everything was great. Until yesterday.

I've been with my cricket team for two years now. Last season was great - I was the youngest there with lots of older guys teaching me how to play properly and friends to make. This season however, our keeper was selected as selector for the team. This unfortunately, spelled the end of my time at the cricket club. Our keeper is an okay guy, a bit of a he-man and definitely not someone I'd befriend, but he also plays indoor cricket. If you've ever played club cricket, then you'll know all about how indoor cricket can be violent, aggressive and unsporting at times. So with his election to selector, he invited all of his indoor cricket buddies over (they of course knowing they'd have a place in the team).

Almost immediately, the team dynamic changed. Most of the nice guys from the previous season left, with only a few older guys overlooking the newcomers. Because I was youngest, naturally these guys were going to assert their place in the team by singling me out. One guy in particular, we'll refer to him as Fag from now on, has been particularly harsh on me, with snide comments being made whenever he batted with me or whenever I made a mistake, he was always first to criticize. I can take constructive criticism, but he went above and beyond to be obnoxious. A few of the others joined in occasionally, but never on that level. The newer players never showed good sportsmanship, consistently arguing with the umpires and other teams. I play for fun and never say a bad word against anyone, no matter what. Some people just don't think that notion is viable.

Not being one for confrontations, I just let it slide. I can take a lot of pain. I'd come home distraught and beat myself up about my mistakes. But it was only one guy, so it wasn't so bad. But this weekend, it seemed as though most of the team had turned against me. Fag kept bossing me around when it wasn't his place, and when I missed a ball off his bowling (and to be honest, no one on the team could've reached it and it was only hit so far and fast because of his poor bowling) he continued to ridicule me and when I reacted, he told me to shut my mouth. Fuming, I continued, safe in the knowledge that his girlfriend is a chubby whale who keeps him under the thumb. But then at half time, the last straw was struck.

"Oh great, so you're opening the batting?" says I to Fred. "Yep" he replies. "You should go out there and smash it." To that, Fred replies, "I'm not taking batting advice from you Spawn Man." I wasn't giving any, nor was I attempting to be serious in my comment. One player being a prick to me was forgivable. Two? Well that was it. I rang my parents to pick me up. A mistake? Maybe. Did I do it? Yes. Can I change it? Nope.

My parents came and pretty much began swearing at the other players in my team who'd wronged me. To tell the truth, sure I'd have liked it to be handled differently, but my parents had been battling with my misery from the taunts at the club all season and had had enough - a mother bear protecting her cub as my mother put it. I was embarrassed and numb. I still am pretty numb about the entire debacle. I'd wanted to talk to them and possibly get them to help me talk to some of the older members of the team. But it went out of my hands and control rapidly, too rapidly for me to pull back before the bridges were burnt. I don't blame them - I know they were doing what they did from a good place and that they only want the best for me. I'm just annoyed they didn't consult with me before changing my life forever, but it's done now.

I left the ground with everyone looking back. Some were looking astonished. Some confused. Others with angry scowls on their faces. It does feel like a death. I had friends there. I felt like I was part of something. A team. And now it's gone. Forever. Forever is a long time. I sent a message to the team saying why I was leaving and that I was sorry it was to end like that. Since I've had a couple of replies and apologies, and a few saying that my parents were pathetic and that I should be ashamed and not come back to the team.

I'm struggling with that - should I have dealt with the problem on my own? Maybe they're right in the fact that I shouldn't have let my parents fight my battles (not that I asked them to). I feel more mature than ever, but am I really after this? By saying that their actions were okay, am I saying that I think it's okay to resolve issues like that? I don't want my parents to think that I despise what they did, but the way things ended doesn't sit right with me either. I can't make heads or tails of it right now. I feel exactly the same way as when my cat died and when I broke up with Vikki. I've been crying and upset, but now I feel like it's all a dream.

The worst thing is that it was cricket. If you know me, then you know I love two things more than anything: Cricket and Batman. And now I have to give one up because of the behaviour of the few assholes in my cricket team. Maybe I was the problem? Maybe I just took things too seriously? I always have a way of crashing and burning with any friendship, club or relationship I've ever had. Maybe I'm the problem as per usual? It's like my conscience is set to overdrive - anything unfair is flagged and I just cannot reconcile it and then my parents come in to swoop me up. I like the feeling of being swooped up, but I feel like a martyr. I miss out on what I love.

I don't know what I'm feeling. Just when life was getting good, it gets worse. If I could take the day back, I would. For the love of God I definitely would. I know ultimately, I'll overcome it and that it was the right thing, but if I could, I'd have confronted Fag myself and if I'd needed to leave, I would have. But there are no do-overs in life. I have loving parents and a life ahead of me, but boy do I have a way of being miserable.

Who Am I?

I used to be the good guy. The one who could be the perfect boyfriend and the one you could always trust. I've been slipping. If you were to look back even two years in my life, you would not recognize me. Some changes have been good. Some bad. And lately it feels as though the bad has outweighed the good by a large margin. From someone who would never even dream of having a girlfriend, to someone who cheats on them, even if it is virtually. What have I become? I've been left with a bitter taste towards women and have beaten myself up over what I've done more times than I should have. The lies, the masks, the screw ups; I'm just scared I'm drifting too far from where I was happy. Sure I was an introverted, fat little guy, but at least I knew I was a good person. Now, I'm not too sure any more.

Vikki really screwed me up. I'll admit that I played a role in our demise, but what happened with her has damaged my views towards women and the ones I've met since have not helped my negative outlook. I know a few women read this blog, but I'll be blunt - my encounters have shown me that women, despite the tradition, are just as unintuitive and flawed as men. I'm not saying men are any better, because they're not, but women are supposed to be the sensitive ones. The caring and compassionate ones. Vikki and Jess showed me what it's like to be lied to. What it's like to be undermined and kicked to the curb. To be hurt. Maybe I'm just too damn sensitive. Some days I feel like I'm the most sensitive person in the world.

In these past few years I've been through a lot. It's no excuse for how I've been drifting lately, but I've been through a lot of new experiences which have left me reeling for a way to react. Deaths, suicides, the loss of my family and friends, schools and clubs, fights and love and heartbreak. I've lost weight and grown up and have really started to enter the adult world of university and work. I've made mistakes - huge mistakes - and lost a lot as a result. And I've cheated. Whatever has happened in the last few years I can excuse, but cheating I cannot. Even the most marginal of infidelity I cannot excuse when the perpetrator is me. I continue to come back to that moment again and again. I know the effects of adultery first hand. It ruined my childhood and shaped me in ways I shouldn't have been. And yet I still did it. A girl I was frustrated with in a world that wasn't real. It was set up for me to fail and I walked into it like a fool.

So who am I? As if having my masks wasn't hard enough. Now one of them is not one even I like to wear. Or is it me? Have I really turned into the person I don't want to be? Maybe I should give myself a break. It was a terrible mistake to make granted, but maybe I should stop beating myself up about it. The only one hurt was me; I'm just glad that I was able to learn from it during a relationship I wasn't involved in physically or emotionally, rather than one with someone I really loved in real life. If I've learnt from my transgression and won't do it again, then why can't I forgive myself? I need to know I'm still a good person, and if I keep nailing this cross into my mind, then I'll never get that back. I know for certain that I'll never get involved online again; it's too easy to slip up when you can't see your lover's face and how they hurt, and ultimately, always ends in heartbreak. I never proclaimed to know myself, my capabilities to hurt and be hurt, or that I knew anything in life. Maybe in time this feeling will go, and maybe, just maybe, I'll know what it's like to have confidence in myself and my actions again. To know I'm a good person.

Complicated... As Per Usual

As if online hook-ups with strangers after lying wasn't bad enough! I am currently back with the girl, who we'll call Jess, but not only that, tonight I hit on her best friend Lisa! So not only am I still reaping the fruits of my lies in the form of online sexual encounters, but I now have been unfaithful too! As you can see I'm pretty confused and worried right now, so let's start from the beginning and unravel my mind together. Because let's face it, when it comes to the vast and varied enigma that is my fucked up head, you know as much as me.

"Why can't I have a little fun? Why do I always have to finish last and never get a little naughty?" This is what I was thinking when I spoke to Jess right before we began our relationship again. And really, why not? Why can't I have some fun and muck around with some girl? Sure it's not real in the physical sense, and maybe I wasn't entirely truthful when entering into it, but this time it felt right. It didn't feel so debauched. And indeed we've had some very intimate moments over the weeks we've been continuing our relationship. We know it's just a bit of fun. A bit of closeness for two wounded individuals in this cold world. But is a one night stand and casual sex in the real world the same as its' cyber equivalent? Can either be acceptable for someone like me, someone who supposedly respects women and nurtured relationships?

Whatever the morality, I was in the relationship once again with Jess, like an inevitable gravity pulling me ever towards her no matter how hard I tried to escape. But as you may know already, this is not the only thing pulling me (excuse the crude pun). For always in the background is the web of disaster and woe drawing me ever into its' tangled maze. Like a small child gazing at candy laid in a convenient line all the way to a gingerbread house, I am forever drawn to completely and unequivocally fucking everything up.

Jess lives with her best friend Lisa. Both have befriended me online and have become close friends. To tell the truth, Lisa is far more my type of woman than Jess will ever be. The irony is that Lisa likes me only as a friend and would never have an online relationship with me. As much as I hate to admit it, it seems that no matter my intentions, I have fallen for the easy one. I know it sounds cruel and I hate myself for saying it, but it's true. What little relationship we had outside of online sex, Jess made me promise not to do it with anyone else. So what do I go and do? Not only do I express my interest in a girl, I make sure that girl is, out of all 3.3 billion of them on this planet, Lisa, Jess' best friend.

Oh what a fool. I even knew Lisa liked me only as a friend before I asked her, which she confirmed after I had sufficiently made a fool of myself. "X". One little letter. An implied kiss and now I have broken my unbreakable vow. Don't cheat. Don't be unfaithful. I've witnessed the effects and the hurt of infidelity first hand through several years of my life. And now I have, even though it's only in the world of pixels and data, done just the thing I spent my whole like making sure I'd never. And for all the low morality I feel for me and Jess' "relationship", I still know there's a real girl on the end of that line. Someone with a beating heart. With feelings. Feelings to hurt.

I knew it was a mistake as soon as I told Lisa. Sure in real life, maybe we'd be best friends and maybe we could go on a date. Maybe me and Jess could too. But online, this can never be and I've put the only one who is willing to be intimate with me, the only one who is willing to share themselves and be vulnerable, at risk of being betrayed. And in all this is me. I feel lost in it. Foremost on my mind is what is happening to me. First online sex. Now I'm cheating. What's next? Will I continue to cheat? It was so easy. Just a slip. One careless moment thinking only of myself. Only to see if I could hopelessly fall in love with yet another faceless spirit through my lies and deceit. Is it even that big of a deal?

I feel compelled to tell Jess. Maybe because I feel guilt and want to confess. Maybe because I know it will drive her away and cease what has been a very troubled and confusing time for me. I'm still coming to grips as to why and what happened. Everything is pointing at me being someone far lesser than what I had imagined myself to be. I'm having trouble coming to terms with the fact that maybe I'm just as flawed as everyone else. I knew I was troubled, but never for this.

On the scale of cheating, I'd say this was low. I placed a letter and flirted with someone who did not return my glances. I knew it was wrong and I certainly do not wish to continue or hide my lapse. Perhaps in real life I might not be so foolish. Maybe the boundless edges of cyberspace have done my head in - too many new experiences and not enough familiar ones to reign me in. Regardless of the cause, I have but one question - what now? Should I even be in a relationship at all of this nature? Is the nature degrading my morals? Am I bad for even thinking that a nice girl should be considered as having lesser morals for partaking in such a relationship? Was it really cheating? Should I tell Jess? In real life would I still go for the "easy" girl or for Lisa who I get along with and like more?

Once again my questions bounce unheard off the glass of my computer screen, the incessant tapping of my keyboard the only thing keeping me from giving up completely. Maybe me and girls just do not mix. I'm sure other guys would see a way around this. Maybe just lie, find a way to have both or just not screw up in the first place. Hopefully when I tell Jess, I'll have figured out not only the words, but the cause too. And maybe she'll forgive me. I doubt it. For such a care-free relationship, I sure did managed to screw it up. A lot.

Messing With My Mind

This whole online sex saga is really messing with my mind. Have I really become one of those guys I've always loathed? The kind which use women for sex and then cast them aside? The kind which are only interested in getting a girl's panties and not in the romance of it all? I know my intentions were never to harm or use her, but maybe it's just one step on the road to my demise.

My thoughts are a jumble and I feel like dirt. I feel like somehow what I did was wrong - but was the mindless urge to do these things with this girl wrong or was it how I did them that was? Normally I love the courtship, but when I was with her, being intimate in a very erotic way was exciting. At least until I realized it wasn't for me. And thus is my confusion. Do I enjoy romance or do I enjoy plain eroticism? Must the two be separate? Is my type of girl the one who would do that with me online? I think not. So why did I do it?

Time and again I frustrate myself. Most guys would be slapping each other high fives over snagging some girl online. Me? I have a life crisis. So maybe all is not lost. Maybe I was just in want of intimacy or confirmation that I was still desirable and found that was not the way best suited for me to find it. Or maybe I was just bored. Whatever the case, I'm questioning myself yet again and I don't like the answers.

I pride myself on being a gentleman. I knew when I was saying these things to her I was not being one. I knew I was going against my morals. It wasn't the intimacy of a couple who have been together for many years and want to share something special. No, it was of a back room screw. I think I've had my first dose of lust. I feel like a babe sucking on a lemon for the first time. The bright colours seem enticing, but it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. And now that I've had my first taste, where will it lead me? To make sure I never make the same mistake again? Or down a path for more?

I will admit, I am ashamed. Some may question why, but if you know me, I respect women. I know she said yes too, but I did something which was not in my nature and it scares me. If I can do this once, what else am I capable of? I feel the eyes of my peers upon me. Even you my readers. The kind, caring depressive is now just like every other bonehead you can find in a Girls Gone Wild video.

Maybe I should just forget about girls. I've got my studies. My work. My friends. time and again they give me nothing but heartache when I pursue them. Maybe I should just live my life and hopefully, in time, I'll be able to see what is normal and healthy for me in a relationship.

And maybe I'll have the guts to call myself a gentleman again.

Ghosts Of Years Gone By

I've come to this point in my life where I find myself looking back on my life more and more with each passing day. That point on the proverbial mountain we are all climbing, far short of the peak and yet so far from the ground, when we take a break and look back behind us on how high we've climbed. Some of us may look back on that rambling trail which leads us to this point and regret walking it. Others may see happy times filled with friends and family. I look back and see what's gone. 

Every decision we make, every second, leading directly to this one specific place and time. If anything was different, my current reality might be radically different from the one I am living. A sentence said, or not said, could have an everlasting impact on our lives and I grow so very sad thinking of all the small things that have passed in my life, because they're not small at all. Like a bridge with so much water flowing beneath it, I can feel the toll of time taking its' price on me already. The people I have met and lost, the friendships and the loves. The places I miss and the memories I may have forgotten.

These things which have shaped me, and yet I am so high I have forgotten their touch. I feel alone sometimes, on this mountain, and looking back on everything I've left behind only intensifies this feeling inside me. On my mind lately has been my friend who committed suicide last year. Did she too look back on her life before she did it? Did she stop too on that mountainside and decide the peak was too far and the weight of her past was too great to continue?

What will really matter when we reach the top of that mountain? What will that trail behind my back whisper to me? So I sit, looking deep into it, reliving the past to hold onto what's dear. What's shaped me this far. When I sit back down in ten or twenty years, I wonder what that trail will say. Whatever it chooses, I hope I know, so I won't look back and regret.

Plan And Act

Vikki is on my mind now and I can't shake her off. I look at my poor, frail little hand and I can only imagine her holding it. I try to think of another girl and they just don't compare. I only want her. I have to speak to her, face to face. Even if it's only to be rejected. And so, I've come up with a plan. I'm going to fly to her country and meet her. I don't know where she lives now and I have no idea where I'd start, but I need to do this.

University finishes in a few weeks and I've got the money, but my parents will never let me go. I've got the money just sitting there for what? For a house? A life? This is my life! I need to find out if Vikki still feels for me and God dammit, I'm going to fight for her. It's going to cost over $500 to get there, and I don't know what's going to happen with passports, accommodation and food, but I know this is never going to end until I meet her.

I don't know what else to do. She's on my mind. I can't breathe again and I crave her. But this is a turning point in my life. I need to fight for my life and Vikki is the one I'm meant to be with. Even if I go over and she rejects me flat-out, it'd still be worth it. Even if it's just as a funny story and anecdote for my life when I find someone else.

But I can't keep having these dreams of touching her, meeting her, hugging her and waking up knowing it's not real. This ends here. It'll take me about a month to make the money back up, but I know I can. Nothing else is happening in my life and this is far more important.

This is for love and when I told Vikki I'd cross the earth for her, I meant it.

Now where do I start?

I Hate Dreams

All that email-sending to Vikki last night must have triggered either some fantasy or true feelings deep down in my core, because all I dreamt about last night was her. In my dream she came over to my country with her family and asked if we should start again. And I took her back in a heart beat. It was like it was real. She was there. I touched her thigh. I took her on a date. We tried our best to fix things. We hugged. Everything was perfect. And that was the worst.

Because there was that horrible few moments after you wake up where this alternate reality seems real. For a split second, you think everything is right with the world and that your true feelings have been realized. And then you realize it's a just a dream. Just a dream. I've cried all morning. I have this regret and I can't do anything about it. Vikki doesn't want to help me. I try my best to suppress this feeling of love for her, but it's there all the same. I'm flailing.

I guess school has brought up all this feeling again; when I was preoccupied and busy and felt like I was needed somewhere, Vikki didn't even register in my thoughts. But now, school is gone. The stress was killing me. Now the most I have to look forward to is a new video game or a movie or a girl which I hope will come in my future to save me from this nightmare. And really it's a nightmare. Those dreams from which I wake and cry are the harpies. They tear the flesh from my bones and leave me begging to a God I no longer believe in. I have no one left to save me any more.

Reader. If anyone ever reads this. I have regrets and I feel like dying. Like pulling my eyes out so I never have to see this world again. For me, please do not have regrets. If someone loves you and you love them, don't wait. Life is too short. If you love someone and they don't know it, tell them. Be happy. I can't seem to be happy no matter what I do. So for God's sake reader, do it for me. If this blog - if my insane and dumb writing - does anything, I hope it tells you to not make mistakes. Even if you're hurting, if you love someone and never want to leave them, keep them safe in your arms forever. Don't do what I did.

Be happy for me.