But somehow I manage...

C and one of her partners came over last night.

They hung out in my kitchen making taquitos while I showered. We're no strangers to each other's bodies, given the amount of time I spent couchsurfing with her, wandering around my apartment naked while the water grew hot was nothing out of the ordinary.

She's been seeing this new guy, not the one that was with us last night. I don't like him much. He's very controlling, but in the way that makes you think he's doing you a favor, or that he "really respects your decisions". His hands are cold and damp, his haircut too feminine, his posture lacking.

The four of us are going to a Cinco de Mayo event next week. C, her two guys, and myself. He didn't want to go with us. He wanted to have her to himself, didn't want to share. Doesn't want to get to know the other people she spends so much of her life with.

My right arm has been aching lately, as it often does when I overuse it. Too much time playing keyboard jockey, too many nights falling asleep with my hands clenched into light fists, jaw locked shut, grinding my teeth.

I find myself daydreaming about a male arm sliding around my waist, pulling me into him for more contact while we sleep.

I find myself at a club in conversation with a one-night stand from two years ago, discussing how his girlfriend finds me desirable, and how that interest is, oddly enough, returned. Imagining a threesome- he's tall, well-dressed red-head, she's a leggy blonde, and I've my dark hair and swishy curves.

It'd look good. The three of us would look gorgeous together.

I spend my days talking with Roman, text, IMs, phone calls. Constant companionship of the platonic variety. I'm comfortable with him, comfortable talking with him, arguing with him, teasing him.

Found myself shooting emails back and forth with a man who I've been interested in for several years. When it trickled down from several paragraph exchanges to one or two sentences, I shrugged and moved along.

His loss.

I actually thought that. Without a trace of snark, but a sincere observation. I don't have interest in playing "chase the overworked businessman". He can hunt me down if he so desires.

Got a comment on an earlier entry. One sentence. Saying something like, "Damaged... so very damaged."

Had that mild rage rise up.

Probably not that rage one would expect.

But the rage that comes from being confronted with another set of beliefs that rolls egocentric in nature.

To express to someone that they are damaged is to say that you are healthy enough to comment on their state of being. Not only that, but that how they feel, how they experience life, their value system, is entirely incorrect. That you know, you know exactly how to be healthy and happy.

That one truth to living. You've got it.

Unfortunately, since it's a single sentence comment, that Ultimate Truth of happiness and health isn't being shared. There's nothing supportive or constructive.

No, it's just a drive-by comment. Unneeded. Expressing to the poster their superiority, the recipient, their inferiority. Nothing further to be communicated.

The buck stops here. Whatever that means, exactly.

It means that the opinions being expressed in the post were indiciative of damage. Meaning those opinions were unhealthy. Meaning that unhealthiness is wrong. Meaning those opinions were wrong.

But the commenter, the commenter is oh-so right. Because they know. They know that their opinions are right. Which means their opinions are healthy. Which means they are healthy.

When speaking with Roman on a similar, but totally unrelated topic, I can only that this to mean that the commenter, or anyone expressing such egocentricity, knows what the universe wants. Knows the Ultimate Right, the Ultimate Goal, the Ultimate Path to happiness.

At the time, I described it as the girl in question being on the other side of a double-ended dildo shared with the universe.

I swear that it made sense ...I think.

I have no tolerance for such mindsets, as hypocritcal as that may sound. I will argue with people whose worldviews I agree with if I feel like they believe they know the Right Way to Be, in whatever forum that may occur. Religion, social, sexual, political... I won't discuss their beliefs with them, but I will rip them a new one (as Roman discovered yesterday) if they're platforming for the Ultimate Right.

It's one of my biggest peeves, one of the things that will be guaranteed to either set me off of make me leave a room. I have walked out of family dinners with the sentence: "Let me know when this discussion is over."

Back to the initial starting point for this topic.

Am I damaged?

In my opinion, yes, I am damaged.

And that's the only opinion that matters on this subject.