Was talking with a friend last night, on my way home from work.

This is a man I am... decently close to. He shares my feelings of alienation, even though the source is not the same, even though we cannot truly relate to one another on what makes us feel disconnected, and the ways we each handle it are different, how we view it... it's still there.

Yesterday, we were talking about my disconnect. Well, for the most part. Conversations with him tend to easily derail, frustratingly so.

It was actually funny.

Started off with a general, "I'm sick of taking lovers that I can never relax around, never be myself around."

With him advising, "Well, be yourself and then those who can accept you will find you and you'll relax."

And by the end of the conversation, oh a good thirty, forty minutes later, he was saying:

"Yeah, maybe you should just keep those parts of you inside and just act normal around your lovers."

When I started laughing at him for the differing advice, he backtracked, but didn't really retract his ending sentiment.

The frustration I feel so often pervades my male-centered relationships. The need for self-control, for accepting, the need to be low-maintenance and low-drama because I am able to do so. Lying in bed with one, watching his face, watching his body language, laughing at his jokes, picking apart his words, looking at him with adoration, doing everything I can to please him, type depending on who I'm with.

Blond and Studly, Darkeyes, and Ev preferred the girl next-door/independent woman combo.
GV8 and Stuntcock preferred the strong woman turned sex-starved sub.
SFPlayboy prefers the strong woman-player, turned sex-starved sub for him.
Riot of Tattoos is simple, preferring the submissive slut at all times.
Zat and VG prefer the girl next-door.

Hardwood Floors and Wolfboy were the closest I have gotten in a long, long while of just being able to be myself.

But with Wolfboy, I still have to be gentle. God, do I have to be gentle with him.

I have to be gentle with all of them, though with Playboy I can be a little more me.

I'm too nice, too concerned.

Maybe it's atonement, as I sometimes suspect. Making up for misdeeds, for the damages and pain I have caused others, and my relatively new ability to actually be empathetic.

Maybe it's my constant need to please, to serve, taking the edge off of the fact that I have had no one to truly focus my submissive nature on for almost a year. I miss that. I maybe need to find a dom, something every two or three weeks to allow me to focus on myself and, of course, to allow my body to heal.

That's probably not the answer, though.

It'd be nice, but I doubt it would do anything other than relieve my need and take another chunk of time out of my schedule.

Anyhow, back to where I was.

Talking with my friend, having him advise me to just keep things inside. To not let my partners know how much I study them, how much I read them, how much I adjust myself and my behaviors based on their feedback, based on creating a web of self-disclosure where I disclose stuff that should be so personal (and it does sound as such) causing them to disclose stuff that is actually personal so I can use that information as I see fit.

I mentioned, a few posts ago, about getting a guy so wrapped around me that he ended up slamming his head into the hood of his car repeatedly, and I was apathetic and slightly amused. I did not mention the next day, where I spotted a male friend and proceeded to act upset over the events of the previous night, and he held me, comforted me, consoled me, continuing with my own internal apathy and amusement on how easy it was to do these things.

That was... hm, I was seventeen. Second semester in college. Probably Spring semester, 2001. Eight and a half years ago.

Fortunately, several months later, I managed to complete my process of burn-out. Destroying everything that I found sacred, my little trial by fire.

Cheating on the boyfriend, purposeful alcohol poisoning, squatting by the traintracks smoking left-over roaches, Mountain Dew can for a bong in the alley, drugged up threesome, cutting myself just to fuck with my closest friends (still have the scars, yay), alluding to my parents the things I was doing that they had no control over just to destroy that relationship with them, stealing thousands and thousands of dollars of merchandise that I did not even want, finding the sleazest, most strung-out guys I could just to make myself part of them, making out with the boyfriend of my bestfriend, picking up horrible men in front of my friends who were so worried about me just to hurt them, flunking out of college, picking up men online, men so much older than me, never learning their names, going back to their places with no knowledge or thought of safety, being used, leaking semen out of whatever orifice they felt fit to use. Heh, using one of my friend's houses as a pick up point. They had no idea what to do. The men that used me, used me. The men that loved me, liked me, cared for me, I purposely fucked with like I did with Jake. Taking my parents' money, my mother going to bed in tears.

Yes, I know this.

I know all of this.

The things that set you apart.

Burning myself out so well that my own mother admits that while she loves who I am now, she mourns who I used to be. That she never envisioned this life for me, how I am such a different person than I was, that it is like the girl I used to be died and she was given another child grown.

People wonder why I am not more cynical, how I can still believe in love, if I am even capable of love.

People wonder how I am not as damaged as I should be.

They didn't see the years of work. The sitting down and taking count of what I did, how I did it, why I did it, and what it did to me. And the battles I had to fight, the behaviors I had to recognize and change, the people who believed in me and supported me, who put up with my internal struggles.

I'm healthy. Not 100%, but certainly more than most of the people I know. Given my history, it's surprising, not only to me, but to others.

But I'm not normal.

You don't get to be "normal" again.

You get to learn how to fit in, you get to learn what to say, what not to say, how to present yourself so people aren't necessarily aware of any difference between us. You learn how to hide, how to camoflauge yourself. You know that when you enter a social group the first few times, the easiest thing to do is shut your mouth and observe until you know who outranks who and in what way you can integrate yourself and how much you can relax into who you are, what skin will fit and how much maintenance it will take.

To exercise parts of yourself, you keep different social groups with different values, different ideas of morals, of what is acceptable. Alternate through them so you don't feel too trapped in one role. Multiple lovers means multiple avenues of exercise. You don't have to wear the same face, and you find that some of them adore you, are intrigued by your internal struggle, by your different faces, and you learn to identify that. They want to protect you, want to be special.

They can't. And they never are.

You're told that you're like so many others, but when you give input, you're told that it is invalid because you're an outlier and you find yourself more amused than frustrated.

My friend, the one I started this post off about, he's one of the few who has recognized, without being told, that I have more walls up than anyone ever realizes. Everyone considers me so open, so out there and honest and easy to get along with, easy to talk to, easy to confess to... because of the openness that doesn't actually exist.

I don't like being told that I'm crazy. I don't like being told that I'm cold and calculating. I don't like being told that I'm manipulative and studied, that being the way I am is the wrong way to be and normal people, normal people aren't like me and I need to seek psychological help because I need to fall in line so people feel safe around me.

Not everyone is the same. The line that I should fall into is one I would not care to join. It hurts every time someone sees me, sees what I'm doing, and tells me I am horrible for being the way I am, for viewing the world the way I do, like it was a choice I made or a symptom of horrific damage and if only I dealt with my psychological damage, my baseline would change and I would be a different, happier person.

Because I couldn't possibly be happy as I am.

And they never believe me, can't wrap their brains around how happy I am, how much I enjoy life, enjoy the people in it.

It's apparently impossible to be different and happy.

But somehow I manage.