Breaking Open

 There we are again. Another little story that ended as fast as it had begun. It was quick and in its whole a total misunderstanding on all levels or... Something that I may have looked through entirely, rising from my experiences and finally hitting the nail on the head just in time, just in the right moment, exposing what was masked behind intelligence, intellect, good manners and smooth talk. Something that was meant to stay hidden not to ruin the chance of being truly seen, uncovering the darkness, the blindness, the things we deny so we cannot be truly seen, to keep this image of ourselves that we've build up so carefully to impress, to be loved, to be admired, to be accepted and wanted. To matter.

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Starting as an average quick pick up in the bar nights of Berlin I did not expect any further contact, let alone another meeting to get to know each other. I did not get any vibe from him that he was interested, especially since he didn't text or reflect back to me that he had enjoyed the time with me or would like to meet me again or any of that sort. After a few days of silence though I receive a message asking to meet up. Totally out of nowhere. Without knowing why or what was happening. I'm open and surprised but don't know exactly what to think of it. When I'm offering to go for a walk because I'm sick and am not sure how much energy I have, he asks me instead to come to his place. His counter offer gives me mixed feelings, not seeing that he cares much about what I had written in the first place but instead asking someone who doesn't feel well to come to his place. I don't know his intentions or what other thoughts were behind his message but from all I can see it's not specifically accommodating or considerate towards me and my condition. I decide not to reply as I don't wanna put myself out there for someone I don't know and who doesn't exactly show much efforts or explains what his intentions are. If he has an interest he will come back to me. 

Being who I am, I first assume the best, sometimes, most of the times even to an extent of idealism that is clouding the reality of how someone actually is presenting themselves to me, putting up with low level communication or treatment. Bare minimum. Not this time. I learn. I want to leave it open to him to come to me if he's interested and see if there is a chance that there is more than the bare minimum communication. Otherwise I don't expect anything from this encounter at all. After all why would I? I don't know him at all. Sure enough he's coming back to me a few days later on a Sunday night and I accept his offer to meet for drinks.

The evening is going surprisingly well. He seems more committed and wholehearted than I would have expected. From the moment he arrives greeting me almost as if I was his girlfriend, a person he was frankly happy to see and spend time with. Someone familiar, someone that he had no doubt about having a connection with it seemed. He behaved very interested, curious, open about me, invested, having an actual interest in getting to know who I am to a point that I found it almost irritating, confusing, strange because I have not experienced any effort towards my person from any guy in what seems like ages. He is even physically near me, holding my hand or leaning over for kisses. I can feel it in every fiber of my body, almost being in shock of how smooth our conversations go, how attentive and intentional he is, how deep our conversations go and how little he's trying to present himself. He seems grounded and not like all these guys whose only goal is to constantly present themselves, showing off how great they are when really they have nothing to offer. And yet I confuse this well adjusted behavior with effort. Not that there was anything missing at all but also there is not much of effort needed to go out to a bar and behave decently. As he did.

He is cultivated, well mannered, educated, intellectual, smart, charismatic and seems frankly interested in me and in wanting to know me. The real me. A man from world, one who cares and who knows how to behave around women. And yet again this surface shell, this kind of behavior can be attained easily through practice like playing a role in a theater play even when we don't realize it ourselves. I see potential in him. He seems sincerely caring. Something that could become something else. Almost feeling some sort of connection, ease in our flow and how we open up including the ability to talk about difficult topics with lightness. Something rare that I haven't had in quite some time... and yet my intuition also sends me different signals along the way. Very subtle, softly... after all this it's only our second meeting so I am still confronted with a stranger and stay open, yet attentive to the signals I receive on a much more subtle level. I've learned this lesson the hardest way over the last years, along the way that in most of the cases I was totally blinded and wrong about the person I got to know in the beginning. The picture they would paint of themselves knowingly or unknowingly. The picture would flip quickly and another side that I hadn't seen before would come to light. And so I stayed present and attentive while enjoying his company and our newly born bond.

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The whole scene would flip more quickly than expected the next day when I share with him my thoughts about his first message the week before. How it made me feel, how I perceived him as Mr. Bare Minimum when he communicated the way he did, that I didn't feel considered. He reads about it in my personal expressions and despite knowing about it from me personally and despite having learned about all my difficult experiences in the past, he fails to manage to even find the tiniest spark of empathy for my story, for where I'm coming from, for what I am sharing with him. Instead I receive a long very well worded message, intellectually top notch informing me about him being extremely unhappy with what I'd written, feeling uncomfortable and portrayed unfairly as the 'villain' when really he didn't do anything wrong and he still things his message was 'polite'. Having had caused him discomfort makes me choke. I feel him and myself. Nothing lies further from my intention than causing someone discomfort or hurt and yet he only feels himself. No way through to my side. Instead he claims this is all a big projection from my side and my bad experiences. A big red flag is waving over me although I cannot yet identify it as such as in contrary to him, I do truly feel him and understand that he is hurt as he is taking it personally. He is unable to extract what I've written, coming from how I perceive his actions from who he feels he truly is. And this is where key is buried. 

He feels uncomfortable with what I've expressed because it touches something inside him that's true. A part of him that he doesn't wanna acknowledge so it discomfort when being stirred up. If I hadn't touched any of his identity he would have felt as I did. Compassion, empathy, understanding. Apologizing for making me feel uncomfortable and understanding my side of the story. But he does not. He can only see himself and his side. And yet for me naturally I come to apologize. It's literally a natural reaction that comes out of me when I read how he feels about it, I get a tight knot in my throat and chest and just wanna cry. (Later I interpret it differently as it is a stress reaction that truly represents threat in my physical body, fear, feeling anxious about someone's actions toward me). I truly feel sorry for having hurt his feelings, for causing him such feelings of discomfort. I wish I could take it back and even deactivate the post without having to be asked.

And him... He feels threatened in his identity. Someone coming to see through him as far as (maybe) he cannot even see himself. Doesn't want to. Isn't it the classic? Over and over and over again? My all time favorite occurrence of where relationships break. Right there when the mirror shows something we don't wanna see. Once we are mirrored in the spots we try to look away from, we don't wanna see, we can't see, we don't see, that we are truly blind for, self defense kicks in immediately. We start to break the mirror, defending our self imagine that we've created so carefully with our lives no matter what they say. The fortress is strong and no one is meant to climb it, claim it, aim for it. The defense force is undefeatable. The pain, the shame, the fear to become vulnerable, be seen for who we truly are, becoming weak, defenseless is too high of a price to pay to connect to someone. After all this was the whole point of building a socially accepted, well mannered and behaved persona. To function, to be heard and seen, yet not for who we truly are but who we would like to display. To not have to show all the deeply buried sorrows we carry inside. To make sure we stay safe and unharmed. And we will. We will stay safe in our castle as long as we fight the ones who are trying to break through our walls, through to us. Our real I, our real core with all our fears and pains and dark stories.

We will stay safe. And so has he. He has won if the goal was to stay safe. He has lost if the goal was to build a connection. Something true. Something real. Something with substance that can last. Unless we allow someone to mirror our inside, we will stay alone. Disconnected, creating the distance between us and the others to never truly bond, to never truly become vulnerable and intimate with another person. Staying safe also means staying lonely. Alone in the castle, alone with our secrets. 

The clarity of it all hits me directly 24 hours later. When he gives me once again the time and space to process what had happened. Unintentionally by not talking to me the next day like he did the week before, by leaving me in the dark about the situation, his intention or anything that's on his mind concerning us, our encounter and interaction, by not connecting to me and building a healthy interpersonal communication but instead defending his identity; he gives me the space for the truth to hit me right in my face like a big awakening. 

Like a wave moving over me in the middle of the night, a big clarity arises, putting all the puzzle pieces together. My whole mind, body and spirit all on a sudden understand on an existential level what's been happening. It's happened so many times before. A clarity of truth that neither comes from mind nor heart but from a much deeper place of knowing washes over me and all on a sudden I feel a lightness coming back to me after a day of checking my phone if by some magical mistake this guy had sent me a message. All on a sudden I see the big picture and my emotions shift directly from feeling like I've done him wrong to feeling betrayed by him and his behavior in person, presenting himself to me as if he was interested when again this was nothing personal. It had nothing to do with me. Only with him wanting to have someone next to him reflecting to him what a great person he was. In the moment I don't, he distances himself.

The moment the realization hits me that once again meeting me wasn't about me makes me feel sad and disappointed and yet sets me free so easily that I feel light again, feeling grateful that I'd come to my realization this quickly without having to go through more dates, maybe growing closer to then realize that none of it was about me and to end up being broken again. I saved myself quickly enough this time. I learn. 

As soon as I wake up I would write a long letter to him. But I would keep it. My energy. My thoughts, my feelings. He didn't care to validate them in the first place, why would he now? There was no interest in me and my side of the situation. There was a way simple way to solve this like other people do who don't care as much as I do. Send a simple message telling him that I don't think it was working with our communication. The whole situation was synchronizing so well as the last details were exactly confirming his behavior and how I felt about it. When waking up in all my new light, having put his messages already in the archive folder, he drops a message that he's already feeling better with the infection. I look at the message and I just wanna make puking sounds. Self centeredness. He just wants to be seen like me. No capacity for me. It repulses me in a way even when I see what lies deeply below it. Compassion is the next step. For now it's recognition. Yes it's about him. As if I had even asked him how he was feeling. Again instead of checking in with me or apologizing for not getting back to me, he's checking in with himself, not even formulating a complete sentence just three words. Directly reflecting back to me my worth. How worthy I am of him, his time, his energy. 

People send the most direct messages without using words. I'm once more astonished how self absorbed a person can be about himself displaying it as confidence to communicate in such a degrading way without even noticing. Zero effort in the house literally. Same answer as I had already told my friends I will receive once I declare that I think it's better to end it. Of course he would not ask why or what was going on with me or why I would feel that way or asking if we could meet again in person to see through if we had a misunderstanding. No. Nothing of such sort. Because I meant absolutely nothing to him. Nothing. Not any thought, any notion, any feeling is of his concern. He of course is prepared to just say the same as if he was never interested because he actually never was. Giving a little side note from his side as he obviously has to have the last word and make sure he is more intelligent than me when he clearly has no clue what this was even about neither does he have an interest. Because the interest solely lies within himself. We exchange two last messages that reflect everything that had come to me as a truth the night before and I delete his number.

I take good memories from our encounter. For example that love begins when things become uncomfortable. He says. And yet he has not at all understood what that means as he's living exactly that pattern of disconnecting when he's being mirrored what he doesn't wanna see. I say that's just exactly right and this is where things have exactly ended for us. He doesn't understand and stays in silence. Forever.

He may be intellectual. He may be intelligent and a ‘literal’ sophisticated person. He may be able to use words like a poet. But he may not be mentally mature and connected enough to himself and his patterns to see what I've seen or to accept a different angle of what he's displaying. 

Stuck in his own mind and identity, staying emotionally disconnected to protect what he's built. Blind for his own behavior, refusing to seeing it in a different light reflected from the outside. 

Not wanting to belong to the species of men that has caused all this misery, abuse, danger, hurt and violence for women over centuries. As if this had nothing to do with him is how he cannot find empathy or understanding for what I've gone through half my life, walking through life as a wolf in sheep's clothing continuing exactly that vicious circle. Unprepared for his own reflection through a woman’s eyes who has learned the hard way how to understand manipulation and protect herself when she’s not being heard or seen. When her opinion, thoughts and feelings find no validation or consideration. 

Where do we come together as human beings? How can we truly connect with all that we are? Only when we shed our ego, our pride and identity that tries to protect us from pain. The pain we know so well. Only when we find the courage to open up. Break through. Break open and become vulnerable for one another to share. To share who we truly are and accept where we are coming from with the intention of changing what no longer serves us. What keeps us from the love we deserve and need.