VIRGO
I wish it were true that the forces of darkness are lined up in opposition to the forces of light. Life would be so much easier for you. But I'm afraid it's not that simple and clear. In my view, a more accurate metaphor might be that the energies of smokey grey are squaring off with the energies of dusky beige. Each side has a touch of both wrongness and rightness, a bit of ugliness and beauty. So what is the most honorable role you can play in this showdown? My suggestion is to develop a third side, an alternate way.
Theory: Not being "in love" back makes people shitty. They can sense you want to mean it. That breaks them into multiple shitty personalities disorder. Just making you say on command over and over I love you too like a "speak!" trick, it's shitty and fucked up.
Case study: (gray) beard v beige (heart)
At Como Park, chasing kids, the place filled with men, dispatched there with children to get out from under women's feet. As the only woman there, pretty soon I'm watching all the kids - the little boys are insanely going up all slides and making girls complain about mud on their skirts, toddlers of every kind are accidentally almost killing themselves variously, girls have quickly clumped and exchanged names and are whispering plots, my little psycho is patting and talking to a tree by herself dangerously near a treeline into which I know she will disappear if given a moment's chance (as I would).
The men are all looking at their smart watches. I am texting my daughter but have my hands full, so I switch to voice and loud enough for all these men to hear me, I say (truthfully) "I am so sick of every damn thing, I'd go with with the first lumberjack who carried me off." I feel them all hear me, smartwatch guys freeze like prey. I read my daughter's response, a woodsy quiet type would be right up your alley, but are there any of those? I say out loud, laughing with purposeful volume, "good point, where have all the cowboys gone?!"
Men are everywhere, they'll send you dick pics just like "p.s." I assume if I had a penis, I'd maybe want to show it to everyone (?) (I'm not the judgey type). It is irritating, though, how everywhere men are, but try getting into one. I've long suspected authenticity is trained out of them. Trained to think/be one thing and do/say something else. To go down the slide properly and shut up about it.
I want to march up a slide, stepping over the offending boys and complaining girls, then turn around and slide down, getting all my own mud on my own ass. THAT'S HOW YOU DO IT YA LITTLE SHITS. (My urge is always to teach).
In the distance is a dog park, my people! (The dogs, I mean.) "I'm going on that naked bike ride later, so I'm taking it easy right now", I say loudly at my phone. There is no naked bike ride, I'm just idly daring anyone to have the balls to ask where to find it. A little boy stops in his tracks, "Do you ride your bike NAKED?" It might be a little cold for that today actually, what do you think? "I would!"
His father calls him back, says "sorry" in my direction. I look the man over from under my hair, I can see the outline of his dick through his tracks pants and I like the peppery stubble. He stands up straighter. I close my eyes a moment and pull it up my spine, this power that you left me with. I open my eyes and throw it at the man, like silly string made of plastic intention. He starts to walk towards me. I don't smile, I don't look directly at him, I just roll up the strings, my spine like an anchor spool on a boat winding in. "Cmon, lunch!" A woman's voice. He stops. Now I lock eyes with him. His son runs past towards his mother, "I like you!" he calls to me as goodbye. I cut the silly strings (NO ✂️) and go back to watching kids play. His father follows the boy to his wife, I presume.
See how easy this is? But it doesn't work. Even if the man responds, even if he is a fan of cunnilingus and his dick works 👍, even if everything works it still doesn't work. My magic works on them, but theirs does not work on me. If I really really try, if I let the man get close enough, then technically executed orgasms may be had, good for my pelvic floor. I even let a man get an engagement ring onto my hand in exchange. But I just make that man (all men?) miserable.
It's a shame, how much a man may want to be consumed, and how much he may sense my hunger to make contact, but the two just cannot assuage each other.
This process makes me feel guilty, inevitably. I'll create a need inside someone that cannot be met, and I will let him and everyone down (again). If I can't (don't want to = cannot) explore each molecule with my tongue until all his life force has gathered and is responding to my witchy sexthew, it's just a body. And my body knows that, responds like my stomach does to wax fruit.
Nebraska will be here again soon; I will always be like this. It feels increasingly untenable to me as an oft-repeated combination of facts. I can act loving, I can do loving things, my behavior toward him can be acceptable. I can be faithful, dutiful, supportive. I could even marry him and make him very happy for a minute, until it inevitably turned him into some kind of asshole ft I wanted offleash as soon as I was on it.
So. I am guilty of all this. But I am also fed up with feeling guilty. I mean, ya think I like this? No. Barking "I love you toos" on command (I will not anymore, No), not to mention all the yessing I've had to cough up at work (also not doing that anymore, No 🖕) surrounded by constraining behavior demands in every direction like a failing-to-be-domesticated-enough animal? Brimming with love that I cannot feel except for my kids? And the kids cannot take from me the other brimming(s) I am, obviously. Nobody can.
So, what is the "honorable third alternative"? Even if I knew, which I do not, the words would probably get stuck in my throat like chicken bones.
