day twenty-eight

i wrote a thing the other day, called basic bitch

in it i lay out what i think i see him wanting in his partner. i’ve come to believe he doesn’t actually want a partner, he wants a bitch. and the takeaway is i can’t be his bitch, i’m too strong for the role

it’s probably a break-up letter, truly

i haven’t given it to him

but that might be happening anyway. i don’t know. it’s all still a simmering mess

i stayed home for about two and a half weeks, then i popped up to wyoming for a couple days to hang with mom for her birfday. mom is also incredibly worried about me, of course, and we discussed my relationships a bunch

i got back yesterday afternoon and cheetah had suddenly decided he wants to be friends again. like, i said hi as i walked past, and he kinda tried to start a conversation. i answered, and we ended up actually having a bit of a strained conversation

then we made out for a little while because that seemed easier and better. then he went to work

while he was at work i chatted with fox, who reminded me that just three days prior cheetah tweeted: “I need my own place, cause I’m always the bad guy. I’m so sick of being around people who let problems fester and play victim. Go and confront your issues and work out the fucking problem. I won’t feel sorry for you and no one sure as fuck feels sorry for me. Bitch!”

fox also reminded me that cheetah often gets affectionate about a week or so after a drug trip. i reminded him that is often true but sometimes the opposite is, like the time a few weeks ago when he decided he didn’t want anything to do with me at all, was no longer gay, and took the gay stickers out of his phone case

yesterday afternoon cheetah told me in so many words that he was gay again, and yes, a rainbow sticker was back in his phone case

anyway, i was asleep by the time he got home. but he stayed up late, i woke up early, we both put some try into it, and we managed to successfully negotiate our way through sex

we needed that, truly

sex is a fundamental glue of our togetherness. i’m not great in bed, but i am good in bed. for someone with cheetah’s experience and needs, that really matters. he could not date someone who is just average. for my side, he’s spoiled me for anyone else, ever. my own promiscuity count would make a nun blush, and i’ll vouch cheetah is the absolute best in bed of anyone i’ve ever been with

it’s not the only part of our togetherness of course. the guy is generally just fascinating to me. when my other loved ones are trying to get me to understand that cheetah is abusive to me, one of the things i occasionally fess to is that it’s not so totally clear cut. half of the philosophy and ethics things that i’ve written in the last several years have roots in my interactions with cheetah, studying how his mind works. there is a part of me that desperately wants to solve cheetah, maybe even because nobody else has ever been able to

and finally, i do value some of the challenge he gives me. it’s rough sometimes because there are no sacred cows with cheetah. there is no issue, feeling, goal, concept, nor idea that i can discuss with cheetah that he will not challenge me on. that is extremely wearying. but at the same time, it is also valuable. it’s valuable because he is actually incredibly rational. his beliefs are all over the place, but his ability to reason and justify are top notch. so basically, when the structures behind my own beliefs are not strong enough to stand against cheetah’s nay-saying, then i work on finding better beliefs. in this way, he has been a core driver of my own self-evolution for years

so yes, i accept a certain amount of emotional abusiveness from cheetah. it is not pleasant, but at the same time it is inseparable from the value he brings to me. simultaneously, i will admit my own reasons for being interested in him are not the most equitable

anyway, back to the story

we totally avoided talking about the really big issues before we succeeded in sexing. instead we talked about what we’d been up to. i said i’d been doing a lot of writing. he talked about his hookups and dating life during the weeks i’ve been hiding from him

i do appreciate his openness on the topic, and he’s told me in the past he appreciates that he can be open with me on the topic. he was definitely looking for a girlfriend, and i guess he interviewed two candidates, but neither one stuck. he also told me a story where a guy tried to pick him up right outside of work, and he let the dude buy him three drinks, before setting his empty glass down and leaving without a goodbye, right in the middle of the man saying something to him

i mean, i feel for the guy, but you have to admit, it is kind of funny. as the neighbor and i sometimes quip to each other, cheetah is a lot

he also fessed that sometime a week or so back he actually did another drug trip. that surprised me a bit, because i had not noticed him being high this time around. i mean, we weren’t talking, but still, he kept this one subtle

and we managed to avoid saying anything about whether we were actually together again. he told me the way he explained it to his coworkers last night was “no, but we are fucking later”

after we sexed this morning, our conversation finally got to the meat of the matter

it was honestly a pretty solid conversation. we both kept our tempers. we talked about victimhood, and jail, and that there is a world of difference between throwing water at someone and trying to beat the shit out of them

apparently the guards offered to get him mcdonalds. sigh. that’s cheetah for ya

i found out the legal system told us both we were victims. the judge talked to cheetah for multiple minutes, telling him that he needs to get away from me, before dismissing charges. for me, the district attorneys filed motion to dismiss charges, and the judge never even glanced my direction

but that’s where i kind of agreed with the premise he was narrating anyway

so i don’t know. maybe we are breaking up?

i mean, i didn’t really say that we’re breaking up, and neither did he. just when he finally left my room to go brood about it, and i stayed here to brood about it, it was with the understanding between us that i don’t really want to live with him anymore, and the reason for that is the trying to beat the shit out of me thing

his takeaway point for me was that when the fight happened he had been telling me for days that he needed space and i wasn’t hearing him

i grant the point: i never heard him say he needed me to give him space

apparently i pursue too much. i ask why too much. and i walk all over him. i can see and understand the first two, but the last charge has me flumoxed

during the discussion i got to pontificate on the word “please.” one of the things that’s pissed cheetah off over this winter is that i’ve been asking for pleases and thank yous. today i tried to explain it to him: please changes a command into a request. if you tell someone to do something, you are not respecting their autonomy. but if you add the word please it makes it a request, and that respects their autonomy

the context of this was driving him to work. he’s hated asking me to drive him anywhere because i wanted him to express appreciation for it. you know, i wrote a lot about this way back on days one and two. i maintain i can’t ever recall a time he’s ever asked me to drive him anywhere, he kinda just tells me to do it. to him it’s one and the same thing. to me, the distinction really matters

these are the kinds of arguments we have

this is why arguing with him is valuable to me, because it forces me to make sure i’ve got solid reasons to back up my beliefs

in this case, autonomy is a core axis of bioethics, which is the field of study where all the best modern psychology, physical medicine, and philosophy come together and work out how we should actually be treating each other

there was a time last summer at the start of the two and a half months when we weren’t talking to each other when he actually invoked a therapist to mediate between us. he scheduled us an appointment, and was so happy that he was going to finally have someone who could help me see reason. we went to see her, and she was totally overwhelmed by us. we are a lot

what i remember she told me was that she felt i was “articulating my point clearly”

we had a second meeting with her, and by then cheetah and i had simplified her out of our conversation. we were just talking to each other while she was in the room. at the end of that session, she booked a next appointment with cheetah, kind of deliberately excluding me, and i rolled with it. i think he only met with her one more time maybe? he told me later she said to him she wasn’t sure why i had shown up the second time

i have a friend i was chatting with about all this, and he was really urging me towards therapy. i probably should try it someday, on principle, just so i can shut everyone up about it. my expectation is that it’s unlikely there is a therapist in western colorady who would be useful to me. i would solve them easier than they would solve me

but my buddy made the case that if i went to therapy i’d have someone with a ph.d. in psychology with whom i could argue about my theory of mind. honestly that’s the most cogent argument any friend or loved one has made about why i should see a therapist, ever

cheetah has had many therapists over the years. there is exactly one who he believes was helpful for him. there’s a piece of artwork he made for her and wants to make fancier and give to her someday. it’s been sitting out on his desk for the last few weeks again

so i don’t know what we’re doing. the guy is fascinating to me in ways that absolutely no other human on this planet ever has been. and those ways are still true and valid, if maybe not fair. he still has no place to live besides here. but i really am sick and fucking tired of our fights getting physical. i’ve had ten prior relationships, and not one person i’ve dated before would ever say i punched them in the head, facebutted them, or gouged at their eyes

in the video i recorded that night, there is one gap of about two seconds where the pitch of my voice rises because he hurt me and it actually upsets me. there is no other point where i sound at all out of control. conversely, there is no point in the recording where cheetah sounds like he has control of himself at all

during today’s discussion i mentioned that this fight felt like he tried to hurt me more than i ever felt him try before

one of the key points i’ve been musing on for the last three weeks is if i want to hurt him now. like, if we ever have another fight, i’ve kind of been feeling like some level of protection might be gone now, like i might actually beat the shit out of him for once, just so he knows what it’s like

i mean, on some level, i know he knows what it’s like, he’s been hurt a lot, that’s kind of part of why his mind is so fractured

but in pretty much the last thing i said to him before he left my room, i promised i wouldn’t

him: “what would you do if i threw water at you?”

me: “i’d be okay, i sure as hell wouldn’t try to beat the shit out of you, because that’s not who i am!”

i guess when shoved on the issue, i still believe that’s not who i am

i also honestly believe that on some inner level of cheetah, he would want to push me, to get me to achieve that level, where i am willing to beat the shit out of him, because in that way he would see himself as having strengthened me

right now, i’ve once again come to believe that we should not be together. we’re too similar, we’re too strong, and we both want the other to be more submissive. we’ll end up fighting about this forever

but at the same time, we should be together. we’re each other’s equal in ways nobody else in either of our lives ever has been before

i mean, first time we sexed after he moved in, the psychic power of our climax blew out the electric power across the whole neighborhood. that’s gotta count for something, right?

if we ever found a way to unite, the world could not stop us

but i think i’ve lost faith again that such a thing is possible

but but, if i do fully urge him out, i would really miss his cats

and the sex

but mostly the cats. as covid lockdown proved to me, i can go without sex. i would really really miss these two little kitties though