Sunday, August 29, 2010

Paul and The Open Relationship

I must be a sadist.

I must just love to torture myself and make myself feel all icky and awful inside. Why, you ask, my dear readers?

I ran into a high school aquintence last week. Normally I cringe at seeing people from my old salt mine but this particular person was kind and sweet person that I had known off and on during my youth so no crinding was had. We chatted for a few moments and she asked me if I still talked to Paul, my first boyfriend. At that comment, I did cringe. And shutter. And I felt a little bit like throwing up. She told me she ran into him working some meanial job in a coffee shop and he looked stoned, like he had been up all night. She friended him on facebook and said she was a little shocked to find him posted as "In an Open Relationship".

(I have to note she told me he was listed as both interested in "Men and Women". I never knew him to be 'interested' in men. But that was some time ago. I guess that's a whole other blog...)

Let me also note, this guy messed me up. Hardcore. The mind games, lies, the disappointments, the times he left me all alone on a street corner or at a party, the times he forgot me, the other girls... so many girls. I was played and everyone knew and didn't tell me. I was the fool, the joke of everyone. He was/is a true sociopath. And for those that think I'm illiterating, not this time. He literally had a "pervasive pattern of disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others..." (taken from the APA) It basically means, in his case, a lack of empathy, irresponsibility, disregard for social norms and rules, lacking a feeling of guilt for wrong doing, and blaming others for their situations. Throw in some massive maniplations and charisma and that is Paul. There is no treatment that has been found effective yet. His parents had sent him to a shrink some years ago but it didn't take.

Never in my life have I been more humiliated, hurt and angry about a relationship. I heard he had been working at a sandwhich shop I had visited a few months ago and the idea that we could have been in the same building make me have a small yet alarming panic attack. It's a pain that I have yet to work through.

But I digress. My high school friend and I begain to discuss the idea of an open relationship. She thought them to be a total farce, a lie girls would tell themselves or was told to them by the boyfriends/husbands that can't keep it in their pants. I countered that it isn't always the case. There are some people that really feel that they can love more than one. I think there are some who can pull that off. I don't think it ends well most of the time though.

I told her thought that it seems obvious that in Paul's case, the idea of an open relationship is mearly a ploy some poor girl was talked into so that he could have free reign of any of the girls he wanted without losing this one girl. That's what he did to me. I hope for this girl's sake, I'm wrong and she wants this open relationship as much as he does.

Even a one time only extra partner, even one agreed upon by both people, rarely ends well. I know I'm not one of those people that can have my husband, boyfriend, whomever, sleeping with someone else for any reason and be 'ok' with it... But that's me.

Things ended with Paul quietly. I was moving to New York and decided it was a good time to break away since I couldn't seem to find a way to do it while still living so close to him. He fought to keep me but only a little. After he stopped calling, he sent me an email saying he was dating someone with my same name.

I'm going to be truthful and say the thing you're not supposed to say: I used to wish him harm. I used to have fantasies that he would be hit by a car and while lying in the hospital, his brains rescrambled, rewired to feel empathy, guilt, love, finally realized what he had done to all the people in his life he had screwed over. His parents, whom he had stolen, lied and scammed over and over. His friends whom he manipulated into doing the things he wanted. And all the girls that he lied to, hurt, said that they were the only ones. All without a shred of guilt or empathy for those he hurt. Or sometimes I would just fantasize about him just getting hit by a car.

Even though those thought sometimes creep into my head when his name is brought up, I mostly pity him now. Pity that he will never know true love. Pity that no one with any self respect can love him. Pity that he will forever be search for that something missing within him, a kind a fullfillment that will never come. And as I understand it he spends his time searching through drugs, young girls and escape on trips with his father's money.

I'll hang on to my empathy and monogomy, thanks.

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