Something weird is happening and I’m letting it. It’s an open secret, between me and my neurosis, my friends, ex-therapists, and partners, that I am weird about commitment. This doesn’t manifest so much in me running away or shutting down, which I find insanely boring, even when I do it. Instead, it takes its insidious form through my brand of pseudo-commitment that I push into myself and onto others, only to be left depleted when it all falls apart.
I understand this to be a part of my disorganized attachment style, which I have been dissecting and attempting to heal since 2021 when I read Amir Levine and Rachel S. Heller’s Attached while stoned and in bed with a friend I had just helped move into his Flatbush apartment. When he went out to meet his boyfriend for dinner I got on Tinder and wrote “around for one nite only!” and made a date with a videographer two miles away from me, and we had drinks underneath a tiny awning in the pouring rain (he was the first person I told I was leaving to Mexico City) and then we did molly and danced at Bossa Nova, and our night ended at his place, making out in his bedroom, lit by blue early sunlight and surrounded by camera equipment. I crawled back into my friend’s bed at seven in the morning and texted back the guy I had just started to see in Boston. The videographer reached out to me here and there for the better part of the year and I entertained it, until one day I never heard from him again, and I never really saved his number. Meanwhile, my old roommate’s partner borrowed my copy of Attached and never returned it.
The man I had just started seeing when I went out with my one nite only! friend and I ended our relationship with one another either that fall, this past year, or a week ago, depending on what you count. In the spirit of laying out all my bad habits here, we were never that faithful to each other; we both engaged in outside affairs; for me, it was an escape when things were stagnantly bad between us. Sex was just sex with other people, but with him, it was love, although it was the kind only allowed to be expressed in bed. I was very good at disappearing when things “ended” but I was even better at picking up the phone when he called weeks after. We had our pattern perfectly weaved out — one of us would leave but both of us would loop back around.
This isn’t the first situationship I’ve let linger, but it was the most consecutive and therefore the most painful. But that’s the thing, I can sit here nursing my wounds and play ex-prisoner (my feelings were real, and feelings are powerful detractors of common sense) but I can also admit that I was an active participant, that I insisted on sticking around until there wasn’t much left, just my dignity like small prey on the side of the road, waiting to get struck by a speeding car. This is me pseudo-committing at best, my stubbornness to stay, hurt and get hurt, fuck, make-up, repeat; when I could have just gotten up and found something nice with anyone else. It’s so much easier to see self-implication when it’s reflected onto you in a post-clarity, Miyazaki-style puddle. If I took this giant situationship and reduced it to its core it would mirror many smaller relationships with people that were never gonna last beyond the parameters I willingly helped construct. I’ve previously written about my rage but what about my complicity?
The day I got the latest slew of texts from someone I casually fuck telling me he couldn’t date, I was in a car with a friend, stuck in Boston after work traffic. I told her what the text said (“i need to solo dog it” ) and she guffawed and said, “Okay, pathetic. Whatever.” I had written and deleted paragraphs in response but nothing felt right. I could have typed out that I was irked about his assumption I wanted to date, irked that we fucked after he confirmed I wasn’t seeing anyone like it meant anything, or I could have kicked and screamed and insulted but that especially didn’t feel right; nothing bad had been inflicted on me with this text, it was just the reality of someone who didn’t want to commit. So nothing felt right, but it all felt tired because every situationship I had saved in my what-if or for later folders had in the past months slipped out of their file and into the shredder — and I, exhausted from the actual heartbreak pseudo committing brought me — simply didn’t care enough to act out in any more scenes. This is the weird thing that I am letting happen. We drove onto Storrow as I talked to her about this and we both agreed on the value of this development; how anytime one of my distractions self-discards I feel the fog lift, like a mini reverse lobotomy, and I inch closer to something that I actually want that wants me back too. Accepting this feels like opening my shell to a vulnerability I am often so terrified to access for fear of getting hurt, but deep down know it’s essential to living. So, hours later, with my response, I let the dog go in peace, alongside many who also wanted to walk alone.
I have been thinking about this term that appeared to me on my phone screen that day, solo dog. Every friend I’ve mentioned this to laughs, it’s ridiculous but I like it; it’s slightly coated with the intimidation of its cousin the Lone Wolf but not as threatening. I picture a dog of an undisclosed breed along that road I laid out as prey, with a collar and leash, dragging alongside it. It doesn’t bark, bite, or growl, but also doesn’t sleep in a pile of warm other dogs or share a meal or look at constellations in the company of another creature. It has no secrets to share but it feels no human feeling of loneliness. But as everything evolves, grows, and dies, it continues, unawarely on the same path of nothing over and over again.
Sorry I was late this week — I am not sleeping again, have a bunch of freelance work to catch up on, and my bangs are growing out so yeah, I am suffering <3
Things that brought me joy despite my hardships (sigh) this week:
✿ Adrianne Lenker’s album, Bright Future is finally out! Free Machine and Donut Seam do things to my soul I didn’t think possible. Honestly, every song is a treasure, please listen to it all in one sitting while staring out a window if you haven’t yet.
✿ I’m not often prone to food cravings, but all I want to eat lately is scrambled eggs. I don’t know. But the Julia Child method is the way to go.
✿ I thrifted this bird tape dispenser for 83 cents!! A very cool older woman at Boomerangs saw it in my hand and said it was a great find and if it’s one thing I know, it’s to trust old ladies at thrift stores.
Finally, a big thank you to Bri, who drove around with me and inspired me to write this by saying, loosely, fuck it, it’s art.
We will be back on our regular Monday schedule next week :)
woof,
-gabo