About Taylor's Moms And Keeping Watch

At what point does my being "watchful" evolve into stalking? Or my occasional check-ins start to border on the pathetic? I wonder if I'm slightly just in denial. Telling myself that she values my friendship when, in reality, she might only appreciate my presence when it's convenient.

"Convenient." One of my homeboys is writing a book at the moment that's focused on relationships and he's been kind enough to let me take a look at some of the early chapters. The most recent one he sent me was about "The Friend Zone" - that not-so-coveted position one finds themselves in when they are friends with another person who they catch feelings for, but the feelings aren't mutual on the other end. He wrote that women in general take advantage of men who are "too available," and that being too available is an express route to being friend zoned.

I usually take a lot of pride in being the person who people can come to when they need something. My female friends, especially. I once wrote in an entry that I appreciated my female friends being able to come to me when they needed anything. I understood that that often meant I might be friend-boxed, but I liked knowing that I was that trustworthy and that they felt they could share things with me that they might not have shared with a good majority of other people. But having read my friend's chapter, I'm strongly reconsidering my "availability."

The Leo who I struggled to get over for the better part of almost two years, who I wrote about here, I literally waned myself off of consistent communication with her. That was necessary. Difficult but necessary, because I knew maintaining a friendship with someone I wanted so much more with would be very hard. I have interacted with her a couple of times but not nearly as frequently as I used to. And it was funny a little because when I started being hard to reach, she started doing the most to get in touch with me. But she got engaged this year... and she made a great effort to let me know, even inviting me to her engagement dinner. I didn't go; not so much because I felt some kinda way about it (though I'd be lying if I said I didn't at all) but because I didn't see the point. There was a time when I literally checked in on her, via her facebook and twitter - I watched to see how she was doing, what she was tweeting about, and so on. Not so much anymore.

But bringing this full circle to what prompted my questions at the start of this entry, that same watchful eye of mine rolled over to another recent failure of mine, another girl I tried to go after but who I just wasn't a fit for. lol I have a bad habit of recent, it seems, of being interested in girls with a ratchet side and she had that, but she was also very... she had a light about her. That's what attracted me to her. She moved to Houston. I attempted to build something with her as minimally as I could. It didn't pan out. After she got in a tight spot, I helped her fly back to her home state. I didn't feel entitled to anything. But then I hadn't expected to catch feelings for her the way that I did.

I ask her friends in Florida about her, friends who I developed a rapport with because of her. And I read her writings, I read her tweets. Sometimes I'll follow them. I'll bite back jealousy when she mentions dudes because it's just twitter and there's literally nothing I can do states away. I see the pictures she posts - she models... no, seriously - and she looks gorgeous. She comes to me when she wants to vent occasionally and I do appreciate that. I try to encourage her but also be real with her. The irony is that her friends want me to come down to Florida this summer; I likely won't see her. It'd be nice but it's clear that she won't see me as more than a friend regardless.

So, I ask myself if that kind of "breakaway" will be necessary for her. Maybe my inner masochist "likes" the torture - likes knowing that I can't have her but that I still look out for her like she means something to me (because she does). I hope it isn't necessary. I just hope this isn't creepy or stalkerish to continue to keep watch of her progress.

If only I were more of a street n*gga. lol

The Ride... Or Leaving Your Friends Behind

"You won't feel me until everybody say they love you, but it's not love..."

It's nearly 3 in the morning here in Missouri City, Texas. I'm epically behind on schoolwork that I don't feel like doing, unmotivated, discouraged, and my thoughts are flying all over the place. Primarily because I've had something on my mind for a minute. I got pretty good at holding in vents or my feelings for a while but with so much coming at me now, I feel compelled to unload.

As has become a sort of custom for me, I gave up social networking for Lent. That meant no twitter and no facebook from mid-February on through the last day of March. It's something I do to check myself because I spend a lot of time on social media - I still do, in some ways - and this was the first time that I'd opted to give up both twitter AND facebook (I usually give up one but continue to interact with the other).

A group of friends that I've had since my UT years and I are part of a facebook circle called "The Thread." It's ultimately just a place for us to bullshit but also discuss issues, exchange laughs, personal news, and the like. Shortly before I went on my fast this year, a funny thing happened on The Thread.

My "friends" held what they called "a Bradford roast." I was used to the occasional slander and being poked fun at every now and then on The Thread - for example, there's a running nickname I was "given," "13radford," which mocks my lack of sports knowledge and the fact that I'm wordy - and I could always count on it coming from certain people on there. In this particular occasion, the "roast" was propelled forward by two people I thought were always in my corner when it came to the ridiculing. One of which made the claim that the "Bradford roast" was essentially her "revenge" for me poking fun at her in what I felt was particularly harmless joke.

"... [You] tellin' stories that nobody relate to..."

It was interesting to see my so-called friends bring up so many stories and past memories about me, most specifically about my failed attempts in love. It was interesting to see my so-called friends reference my grandfather in jest. It was interesting to see my so-called friend bring up my failure in one class that we shared together and to reference my failed attempt to holler at her homegirl by bringing her coffee at her job. It was interesting to see a so-called friend whose opinion I valued greatly completely dismantle my attempt to get a girl who, in retrospect, really was "out of my league" and quite stuck up. I watched as a so-called friend really pulled up a graduation picture of myself and a female friend and tore how I looked to shreds. The whole thing was... incredible to witness. It was like watching people who I trusted, whose opinions I valued, who I did care about, completely rip me to shreds.

So-called friends who followed my writings and claimed to support them... claimed to support me... when in reality, it seemed they had no absolutely no respect for the person I was. I laughed because it literally was all I could do to keep from crying. I recalled a conversation that I'd had with another friend a few years back who had, in a sense, "warned" me or attempted to warn me about how those in The Thread may have talked about me. I ignored it. I was foolishly loyal because I just knew MY friends, wouldn't do me like that.

It was convenient, in a sense, that Lent began the day after that "Bradford roast." I was able to take a break from it all, but their words stayed with me. How do you vent about something like that? You don't want to be the guy who "can't take a joke" but at the same time, when you're made to FEEL like a joke, how do you respond to that?Ironically, though I was off facebook, I still had text notifications being sent to my phone about The Thread's conversations... and interestingly enough, even while I was "gone," I was STILL being talked about in a negative light. Was it betrayal? Not really. They were just being honest about how they felt about me and I can't fault them for being honest. In every joke, there's always a little bit of truth.

After the roast was over, one of my so-called friends did send me an email apology, but I took it as completely reactive and so it wasn't sincere to me. I responded cordially. But I really beat myself up those 40 days wracking my brain as to whether the things they said had any merit. I assumed they did, since everyone cosigned them by either laughing along or adding to the roast. When I "returned" to The Thread on the Monday after Easter Sunday, I was given a "welcome" in a sense. But how can you accept a welcome in a place you no longer consider welcoming??

So, as I listen to Drake's song "The Ride," I reflect upon two things in particular. The first, is that this situation forced me to accept that things had changed. I didn't finish what I started at The University of Texas at Austin. And I was already subconsciously killing myself about that. I had felt that The Thread allowed me to at least retain my sense of community and my sense of connection to my UT people even though I wasn't alumni... though I'd always felt detached from them, like I was missing something they didn't have (and although one other person on The Thread didn't finish at UT either, he's still quite welcomed because everyone RESPECTS him). The roast affirmed that feeling of detachment for me - confirmed that I was right to believe that I was merely tolerated, and certainly no longer accepted, assuming I ever was.

The second, is that I may have outgrown them. I think you can care for someone so much or hold some people in such a high regard that, out of respect to them and the respect you have for them, you can't put up it with it when they feed you - pardon my language - bullshit. You HAVE to break away from them just so that the respect and love and admiration you had for them remains intact. Sometimes that means ending a friendship. I don't like ending friendships or cutting people off so that part will be difficult. But if I really expect to still like these people, then I can't allow them to just "tolerate" my presence. The masochist in me wants to stay just to further witness what will be said about me... to further witness the assaults on my character. If I were malicious, or perhaps even a bit more brave, I could have struck back. I could have blasted many of them - though not nearly with the same level of exposure - back just to feel better about myself, but hurt people hurt people and I've never been a revenge minded person (Damn, if I was, though...).

They don't feel me anymore. If they ever did at all. And thus, though my own loyalty should go without question, though I pride myself on being a ride or die... my "ride" with them, for the most part, appears to have ended.

"... and even though they hate you, they gon keep on sayin' that they feel you, nigga!..."