Last night, I dreamt I got in a fight — a real fight with punches and kicks and such — with K__’s “boyfriend” (as I call him; I’m not sure it’s official), T__. I’ve certainly fantasized about such things plenty enough, so it comes as no surprise to find my subconscious cooking them up. Realistically, it’s a wonder I wasn’t having similar dreams months ago and with high frequency.
I don’t remember most of the details, only that everything seemed to happen in slow motion and my blows never seemed to land in the satisfying and destructive manner I intended. I also couldn’t tell if this was due to my own incompetence at hand-to-hand combat or T__’s Army Reserve training.
“Why now?” turns out to be a very interesting question. I told B__ (my girlfriend?) about it this morning. The obvious answer is that my conversations with her about my history/situation have reopened those memories and brought the accompanying emotions back to the forefront.
Then, I thought of another interpretation. B__ wanted to know why I (clearly) had so much anger at T__ when it was K__ who was my wife, who’d actually broken her promises. T__, afterall, could be held to no such standard. That’s true, I explained, but I’d also considered him a friend, if not a very close one. He’d violated my trust, and our relationship, however casual, definitely was serious enough that The Guy Code™ was unquestionably infringed.
While ruminating on trust, I couldn’t help thinking about how quickly my current relationship has gotten serious. It wasn’t specifically meant to be that way, nor was it not meant to. Both B__ and I are a bit weirded out by how not-weirded-out we are. The lack of warning signs and the fun we’re having has us contemplating plans much further into the future than our short history would suggest is wise. Perhaps then, my dream about T__ wasn’t really about him at all.
My buddy L__ also gently questioned the wisdom of getting too involved too fast. I try to take that at face value and not make it about his own commitment issues. And by “commitment issues” I mean, “desire to sow his wild oats without fear of retribution.”
I simply don’t know how to handle things any other way. Despite my well-deserved reputation for cynicism, I trust people until I have a reason not to. I care about the people I get involved with and generally only get involved with people I care about. If nothing else, it makes the sex way better.