You Need Me, I Don't Need You

Do you ever watch yourself being awful to someone, and consciously make the decision to do it anyway? It's almost an "out of body" experience.. Like, you can watch yourself in slow-motion and you still make the choice to act that way regardless. 



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I'm not quite sure when I learned to manipulate other people. Honestly, (at risk of sounding melodramatic), I think it started when I took on the responsibility of mediating between my two sets of estranged parents. I learned to tell my step-mom whatever it took to satisfy her desire to make me hate my mother, and I told my mom whatever she needed to hear in order for her to be able to sleep at night. Even as a seven year-old, I knew that in order to keep peace between my households everyone needed to hear something.

I became adept at being able to determine what everyone wanted to hear, and then I served it to them in a way that it made it sound like it was my own original thought. It worked really well, and it definitely kept tensions between my sets of parents to a minimum (the minimum was still pretty concentrated).

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Last night I was out with a guy. I like him well enough and he's decently cute, but he's not all that motivated and he doesn't really challenge me intellectually. He reminds me a lot of Eric Matthews from Boy Meets World: adorable but about as deep as a hot tub. That combination of characteristics doesn't exactly mix to concoct the kind of guy I keep around for very long.

It was about nine o'clock at night and were down on the beach. It had just been pouring rain a couple hours before, so the whole world looked new and refreshed. Like all the ugly had been washed away with the hot Florida rain.

We were sitting there on the bench kissing and he was making me laugh because he is such a goofball. He looked down at me (because he's 6"1 and I'm 5"2) and asked if he was the only guy I was involved with. Before I could even respond he included that he really liked me and I was the only girl he was or wanted to be involved with. 

I made the choice to tell him what he wanted to hear. What he wanted to hear was that I was head over heels for him and that there was no one else I could picture myself with. The truth was and is, that I am involved in one way or another with three other guys, not including him.

I watched myself lie to him as if it were a movie playing right on a movie screen right in front of me. As the words were falling out of my mouth, I started questioning who I was all of a sudden that I could lie in order to keep using someone for what they are worth to me right that moment. For all the years that has been done to me, I swore I wouldn't do that to someone else if I could help it..and yet, here I am doing it to this kid (who's not technically a kid, because he's 4 years older than me).

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When did I become capable of doing that to someone? Am I the only one who thinks that's awful? Why do I give a shit about anyone feelings but my own?

I don't want to live my life always doing the most considerate thing for people who don't mean anything to me. But maybe I should.. I don't know.

There never seems to be a right answer to anything anymore.