Both
Fair enough. Me too. There is a third need though, which is just a bizzaro version of getting praises - wanting to be judged and criticized, as in, first getting the acknowledgment that all of your bad parts are very much real, as they are. But then you step it up a notch and seek confirmation that they should be frowned upon just like you think they should.
I'm afraid I'm in love with an idealized version of him, with someone who doesn't really exist.
"To fall in love is to create a religion that has a fallible god."
- Jorge Luis Borges
This is invariable. He's doing the same thing with you. You are doing the same thing with yourself, although sometimes what you most love/hate (love and hate are the same in that effect) about yourself is your own suffering.
I don't trust my judgement anymore.
Good. Self-doubt is deterimental if you are chasing something, but it's beneficial if the chase leads you in circles.
I don't understand him, I've never met anyone like him. Why is he still so kind & patient? Why isn't he afraid? Is it possible that he's actually wise & shit? How could someone so bad at life, a shy, unemployable alcoholic, know something that I don't? He seems to have access to something I don't. He's not supposed to be stronger & more reliable than me, he's a drunk ffs!
I'm sure he is afraid. He must be self-destructive for a reason. He just has different ways of coping. It doesn't matter why. The why is hidden behind everything that he knows and you don't - only his whole life. Everybody knows something that you don't (I didn't need J. Peterson to tell me that lol), be it a fact, an insight, a memory or a feeling. It must be so.
Wisdom comes in many forms. It's wise to be a realist, even a nihilist - life is objectively painful, treatcherous, tragic and sensless, without exception. But being an idealist, being kind, even naively so, can be wise too. Maybe your bf is so afraid, so traumatized that he chose, deliberately or not (based on all the things he knows that you don't) to keep his misery to himself and do the best he can not to induce that same feeling in anybody else. The way I function in that regard, for example, is I'm so revolted by this death force that brews inside me that my natural instincts to be kind reinforced as a form of protest. On one level I know that life is a painful ordeal and I'm doing my best/worst to numb that awful feeling, but on another I know that good breeds good. Resluts do vary and are not guaranteed, my willpower varies too, but the fact remains - there is no other way to make things better, not one that I can directly affect (except ctb ofc). Sometimes I get this feeling that the biggest middle finger one can give this crooked life is playing it clean and fair. I may be working very hard to destroy myself. The only, only thing I can do about that, as far as I can see, is to make it easier for other people. I don't ever want for anybody to feel the way I do. In fact, I want them to feel the opposite. But that's just me...
Funny you should mention open-heartedness; the other day I showed him Madonna's "Frozen" video & I said that everything about that song & vid was perfect except the predictable & slightly dumb lyrics. I've always been embarrassed by the fact that I love most of her "Ray of Light" album because a lot of her output is boring crap & her public persona is fake & obnoxious af. I made sure to emphasize that the album's producer was a genius 20 years ago & that "Ray of Light" is her best song because it's a cover!
He read the lyrics to "Frozen" & said they were beautiful & true, that the best thing about the song was Madonna's sincere vocal delivery & that her mother died when she was a kid.
You're frozen when your heart's not open
You're broken when your heart's not open
If I could melt your heart, we'd never be apart
Give yourself to me, you hold the key
"Frozen" is hands down my favorite Madonna song, along with "American Pie" (because it's a cover
). What's your opinion on his opinion btw?
