Thursday, June 11, 2009

I'm a user, baby, so why don't you lose me?

Lately I've been reading Carolyn Hax, who can't be beat for succinct common sense. This letter in particular struck, shall we say, a personal chord with me:
I am having sex with three people right now. (Not literally, but you get the idea.) Two of them have no idea there is anyone else and the third one might. My friends say I'm being deceptive, but I say it's fair game as long as I don't pretend I'm being exclusive and we always use protection. Who's right?
Carolyn, as usual, cuts to the chase:

My evil twin hopes you fall hard for someone who treats you the same way you're treating these people.

The answer to your specific question is that you're telling a lie of omission. If you fear the truth would upset them, then you're being deliberately deceptive...

Indeed.

In my Dark Past, I ran into a lot of these characters. Their primary common characteristic was treating personal relationships like legal contracts. "Well, I didn't SAY we were exclusive, that I wanted kids, that I wanted a commitment, so I have no responsibility for your feelings of grief, betrayal, anger and frustration..."

There's little point in explaining what's wrong with this to someone who doesn't want to see it. But from my vantage point of being a Little Older Now, and having the opportunity to see some of the long-term consequences of this behavior in former associates, let me tell you--the reason that using people doesn't work is that eventually, you run out of things people want.

And then you've got nothing and nobody. Because when you use someone's genuine affection solely as a means of Getting Stuff--as a way of bolstering your ego--eventually you kill the affection. It's not true that Love Never Dies. It dies a slow, ignominious death when it is milked but not acknowledged; when it is used as the paper on which you write your disingenuous 'contracts.'





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Posted by Pretty Lady at 10:56 AM

6 comments:

Spatula said...

"Because when you use someone's genuine affection solely as a means of Getting Stuff--as a way of bolstering your ego--eventually you kill the affection."

Oh my god, how true. In my own Dark Past, I deeply, sincerely loved a guy who used my affection solely in order to get a superiority fix without which he can't seem to be able to get through his day.

I started out liking this person. Then, as I got to know his "wooing" self, I fell in deep, sincere love with him.

Then as he kept using me, and using me, and using me some more, I kept loving him until one day, I looked at him and realized, I don't have even the most basic shred of respect for this person. I not only not loved him anymore, he nauseated me.

And that is why he has to keep wooing women constantly in order to add to his harem - because eventually, everyone he captures, leaves.

And he's getting too old to pull this shit anymore, which is why I look forward to his one day dying alone.

Slow, ignominious death of love? You betcha. And all of it solely because of his being a user who did not respect the facts of love: when you don't value it, you behave in such a way as to eventually lose it.

Ugh, excuse me while I shower my soul.

6/11/2009 4:05 PM
Pretty Lady said...

Spatula, you and I have so much in common, it's scary.

I can tell you that the last time I saw my Dark Past, he was well on his way to dying alone and miserable. "The party ended after you left," he told me. I didn't call him back again.

This is also true of friendships, BTW. I recently 'defriended' someone who had been using my friendship as an ego-booster for years, and who started behaving spitefully because she hadn't gotten as many 'boosts' lately as she felt entitled to. You can't send a bill for honest affection.

6/11/2009 4:18 PM
Spatula said...

"I can tell you that the last time I saw my Dark Past, he was well on his way to dying alone and miserable. "The party ended after you left," he told me."

Hah! Translation: "Nobody lets me gorge on their life force with the same generosity as you did. Now I have to work for my feedings!"

Yeah... What never ceases to amaze me is just how MANY of them there are.

6/11/2009 7:31 PM
Pretty Lady said...

The sad thing about these kinds of people is that most of them honestly don't believe they are lovable; they genuinely believe that it's all a scam. Their 'financial transaction' behavior is the only way they know how to get their needs met, This is why people like you and I get sucked in--we desperately want to prove that Love Is Real, and that the person we love is loved.

Unfortunately, this rarely ever works. They end up damaging us, and we end up NOT healing them.

6/11/2009 8:05 PM
kel said...

While I agree that you should NEVER use people and their feelings, we don't actually know that the other people involved in this little love triangle (or is it a square?)actually WANT a relationship.....

6/12/2009 6:03 PM
Pretty Lady said...

Er, Kel? Having sex with someone on a regular basis IS a relationship, however twisted, superficial and disingenuous it might be. Unless of course we're talking about repeated rape, in which case there's probably kidnapping going on as well.

6/12/2009 10:25 PM

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