the solipsist in love

Last night I dreamt about my most recent ex, Poly Dude. In the dream I had an opportunity to see him, and he almost canceled on me at the last minute. This made me realize that I was actually really excited to see him and that I would have been sad if I hadn’t gotten the chance. He was moving in a couple of days and I wanted a last afternoon with him to be his friend and enjoy his company. I still liked him, and respected him, and appreciated all of the things he brought into my life. I actually told him all of this in my dream, face to face. His beautiful stupid face.

When I woke up I noted that:

a) he was actually going to be moving in the next day or so, if he wasn’t already gone;

b) I really did still like him and maybe I wanted to see him, and wished that he could still be in my life without causing me a great deal of pain.

This pissed me off.

After I break up with a lover – it doesn’t matter who initiated the separation – I go through a period of vilifying him and refusing to think about any of his positive qualities or my tender feelings for him. Maybe this isn’t entirely healthy, but it does help prevent me from spiraling into the “What did I do wrong? Oh god, I’ve ruined this great relationship and no one will ever want or love me” nonsense. Temporarily blaming the other person relieves me of obsessing over all of my own shortcomings and my worth as a girlfriend/human being. Even as it’s happening I know it’s a distortion of reality, but that’s okay with me. After a month or so, the storm of unruly emotion passes and I can go about assessing the relationship and the breakup more calmly, seeing what went wrong, noting how I contributed to it and how I can do better next time, and then remembering that I did (and probably do still) care about my ex, that he was a good guy in some ways and worthy of my love.

I don’t know whether I’m really ready to step into that space with Poly Dude yet. It’s been about a month since the breakup and I’m still feeling hurt and rejected and unworthy, so I’m thinking probably not. But then why did I have the dream? Why did my unconscious feel the need to remind me that I do still have feelings for him, that I don’t just think he’s a complete asshole who is completely responsible for how shitty I feel and all the things that went wrong between us? God damn it. I don’t really know what to make  of it, though I do think it’s sort of funny that my unconscious seems to be taking on Poly Dude’s old role of pushing me into doing things I’m not comfortable with, in the name of accelerating my personal development. It was easy enough to flip him off (even when I took him seriously), but dismissing my own psychic impulse to speed the healing process is more difficult.

Anyway, I’m definitely too stubborn and fragile to contact him and tell him I still have feelings for him. Let him think I still want him to rot in hell. Most of me does.

Photo by Hamed Masoumi.