“Do I starve you emotionally?”
I hit send and tried to calm my racing heart. The time to come clean to my boyfriend and myself had come, and I could not pretend any longer. For weeks, I had flirted with the various ways I could have asked the question. I thought about bringing it up one day when we had an argument, one I had definitely instigated; I would bring it up in the heat of everything and find out his actual thoughts.
I thought about setting a trap in a conversation, and the only way he would be able to get himself out of the hole would be to tell me his real feelings. I even toyed with the idea of threatening to break up with him, he would get angry and eventually tell me everything. I eventually settled on asking him directly because, in the long run, he preferred straight-to-the-point questions.
This is not a post to absolve myself of my wrongs. I simply want to chronicle my journey to awareness. I am aware that a lot of people are more comfortable with the cloth on their eyes; for some people, the world seems like a better place when nobody has to face the many ills in it.
For a long time, I would ignore that little tug in my chest whenever I started “manifesting”. To an extent, it felt like I had two different personalities cohabiting my body. One part would try to warn me to stop doing whatever I was doing, and the other, that got gratification from the sounds of thirsty panting, would urge me on. I think it is already very evident that, more times than not, I ignored the first personality.
I met my boyfriend like every other introvert meets their partner- in a public chat group. We did not talk directly on the group, but I did notice that whenever I made a comment, he would always try to engage me. Something about him always seemed awfully familiar. Later, he would tell me he was convinced we had been soulmates in our former lives. He then sent me a private message and we hit it off immediately. I had never in my life felt the rush of energy I felt whenever I heard his voice. I waited eagerly for his calls and messages.
No matter how urgently I needed to speak with him, my prideful self would never go out of her way to do that. I stared at my phone for hours waiting for him to call and always wanted to have any form of communication with him- even if it meant to hear him softly breathing while he slept.
Needless to say, I fell hard. In less than two months, he had invaded my whole being. I always thought about him, always made up silly excuses for him not to hang-up. It literally felt like we were in a desert and he held the last keg of water. Whenever I did not get a text on time, I got worried, scared and then convinced that he meant to cut off all communication with me. That was my first inkling that I had attachment issues.
Reading this, you would imagine that a person deliriously in love would treat the object of that emotion pricelessly. The reverse is the case. Whenever he called, I hardly bothered to answer. It delighted me to no end watching my phone light up with his name on the screen. I enjoyed him begging to know why I suddenly spurned him.
I made him walk on eggshells around me. The feelings I had for him were so overwhelming they squeezed my throat most nights. He became very careful with his words around me. Sometimes, I would intentionally not talk to him just to know his reaction. I knew he had trust issues from his past relationship, and that he craved normalcy and stability, so my mind was made up to deprive him of those very things.
He fell for me even faster. Outside this highly manipulative personality, I am an all-round good person. I am intelligent and well versed. I am not like THE Brainiac, but my ADHD [undiagnosed] has made me gather little snippets of knowledge from practically every discipline in education. I can sustain a conversation with anyone, immediately I get over my nervousness.
Many times, I have been told I have an attractive aura that draws people in, but then my temperance, or lack thereof, sends then straight back to where they came from. I am not Monroe pretty, but I have looks, brain and energy- so I come highly priced. He said he fell for my soul first. It sounded cheesy at first, but I thought about it and concluded that was the only logical explanation for a person falling truly, madly and deeply in love with me.
His love and blatant adoration of me totally unleashed the devious puta in me. His understanding nature was my undoing. Whenever I wreaked havoc in his normal life, he sought to put everything back in place, and was not above pining the blame solely on himself. He loved me so much and that was the most prized ammunition in my arsenal.
I would dangle the threat of leaving over his head day and night to keep him in place. I needed him to always remember that I could leave him in the blink of an eye, and although I loved him, he would be the one more depressed. Sometimes, I would stage faux quarrels to find out how his principles were aligned. Whatever did not please me had to be discarded immediately, or else I threatened to break up with him.
On some level, I felt that a man that was not willing to bend over backwards for my sake could not possibly be serious about me. I made him go through impossible hoops just to prove his love for me, and I delighted in watching him rack his brain on the different ways to please me. Whenever he tried to protest, I panicked and forced him to retract it. Looking back, the panic I felt could be likened to how a farmer feels when an animal of his escapes or attempts to escape.
“Am I selfish?”
I asked this question yesterday and he told me I am very selfish. Apparently, I love taking from people but find it very hard to give. I could give but I never gave the things that mattered. The things I should have been giving that people needed from me were not physical items.
People did not always want a new bag or shoe, as I am accustomed to buying for those around me. They needed something bigger. Time, respect, and attention. The same things I have demanded from people several times are the same things I found impossibly hard to give.
Selfishness is not an alien term to me. I have been called selfish a number of times. It is a common belief that the first child of a family be accustomed to sharing and sacrifice; but I am a firm believer that there are numerous ways to eat your cake and have it. when I make something mine, it becomes mine forever.
I do not give out of the goodness of my heart and I do not expect to collect things from others from the goodness of theirs as well. Deep down, I believe that the act of giving out/dashing out stuff is as transactional as it gets. Rather than the terms being spelled out, the receiver owes some kind of unspoken feudal loyalty to the giver. It then goes without saying that: when trouble comes, you have a duty to stand behind me.
I already knew I was selfish before he replied. What else do you call a sadistic behaviour such as looking him in the eyes while denying him a kiss, or gleefully watching my phone light up when he would call multiple times?
The thrill that goes through my body at the moment he feels helpless is second to none. It is exhilarating, like a burst of happiness that makes its way gradually from my chest to the other parts of my body and sparks mini-fires at my nerve endings.
It is that warm, calm, “wanted” feeling that sweeps through your entity and holds you at the precipice of mind-blowing joy- hence, the need to take that power further.
