Through a scheduling conflict that might have been avoided if I were your regular plan-making sort, I appear to have screwed up a likely rendezvous with T__ later this week. The story itself is basic: I should have had Thursday free, but I always take I__ during K__’s bookclub (a monthly Thursday). I wasn’t thinking, and I told T__ I was free. I owe a night from last week, so there’s no appeal to fairness. Grandma is the go-to savior, and grandma needs a break.
So, in reply to a text message, I casually dropped that I needed to look for a sitter if we were hanging out Thursday night, and on the spot did our plans die a quick death. T__ insisted that I not “worry or bother” with it and “made other plans” before I could even hit send on my protests. I hit send anyway, and was not graced with a reply. (Ouch!)
I try not to let my expectations for how a relationship will go outpace the relationship itself. T__ herself set further, intersecting bounds, and I was thrilled with them. Plus, I’d already begun wondering how long it would take her idiosyncrasies to outweigh her charms, and I wasn’t really all that disappointed about having had the thought occur to me. I’d seen me-size holes in the notion that I’d ever fall helplessly in love — for instance. In short, my investment was small. In the abstract.
Concretely, I know she’s a little off kilter; I know to expect some chaos. This knowledge coupled with my emotional distance is supposed to protect me Goddammit! Why then, did this absolutely ruin my mood today? I can barely believe it, let alone explain it.
Well, ok, I can explain it.
It’s possible I’m misreading something — the tricky genre that is text messaging, T__s wild sense of humor, etc. But intent is far from my point.
If, I assume for a moment that T__ is messing with me on purpose, the whole thing is deftly explained away as an exercise in power and control. Easy. I don’t like the implication that I’m automatically the bottom, but the scenario makes fine sense.
If she’s not being manipulative on purpose, it means that I’ve abdicated this power to her voluntarily. Even worse, I somehow blindsided myself.
“There is another theory which states that this has already happened.”