In the Pink

This year, I have managed to rid myself of two people from my life.

I did so semi-intentionally -- it's all a part of the growing-up process (one does tend to wonder when said process will end, since I am already in my forties) to be able to accurately ascertain that someone is just plain bad for you.

I've never been one to burn bridges. To whit, my entire range of years in puberty were spent trying desperately to fit in with a crowd, with the vast majority of whom I had little to nothing in common. The more I was rejected, the more I pushed for acceptance. I freely admit that this is likely a tale with which many can identify -- the years of puberty being the hormone-strewn classic nightmare that they are for so many. I did have some good friends in the crowd, but precious few, and I am in touch today with only a smattering of them.

But I'm "FB friends" with many of the original crowd. Why? Dunno. They friended me, mostly, likely to swell their friend lists. These are mostly those who didn't dislike me, but with whom i was never particularly close, a fact borne out by the photos i see of old gang reunions to which I am never invited.

I don't need them on my list to prove I had friends in the past -- god knows, once i grew up and accepted that my lifestyle would be very different from these people and I therefore should waste no more time in futile pursuit of their grudging and patronizing acceptance, I began to blossom and thrive. I accepted their friendship s because in a way, I felt affectionately towards them. My own judgment, or lack thereof, aside, it was nice to say hi, and see how they are and where and what and all that fun stuff. I'm very happy with my life, therefore looking back nostalgically is largely a fun pastime.

The two people of whom I initially spoke were nothing to do with my former years as a freshfaced and eager youthful idealist.

One is a former Dom. The other is a former love of my life.

The Dom is an oddity in and of himself. He claims to be in recovery from a particularly unpleasant behavioral disorder, and for this reason is always truthful and very open about his behaviour and limitations as a result of the affliction. I told the Big Bad Cat about him from the beginning. I knew the Dom way before the BBC and I met and fell in love. The Dom pursued me for a year before we finally met in the flesh, we had a number of sessions, and in between them he made it very clear that I was expected to be his 24*7, and obey his whims regardless of non-proximity. This was OK, or at least, it was OK then, because I was just beginning to experience BDSM, and believed that "this was the one twue way to be a sub".

One twue way my sizeable ass.

The Dom and I broke up when i realized that I was not happy with the arrangement. While I was doing everything that he requested of me, he was withholding communication from me, and leaving me feeling isolated and abandoned. When I broached this subject, he told me that he was no longer happy with our arrangement for various reasons not connected to me. We ended ostensibly friends, although over the following year, as I learned more and more about the lifestyle, I realized how things had been wrongly handled (to put it mildly) from the beginning. Over time, I communicated to him how I felt, and eventually we worked things out and became, for want of a better term, friends.

After a while, the subject came up of sexual arousal -- specifically, ours -- redux. It had never ceased to exist, we'd always been very sexually attracted to one another. However, in the course of trying to make it work, appointment after appointment ended up being cancelled. Basically, life got in the way -- and he took this as a personal insult. And with his reaction of petulant, pram-toy-expulsion tantrum, so expired my feelings for him.

The former love of my life was the one who made the choice to depart from my life -- but things had gotten to the stage where I couldn't continue to be in his life without him understanding how difficult he made it to be around him.

He'd suffered a personal tragedy that we should none of us ever know about -- the tragic loss of a child. It had profoundly depressed him, although it didn't change who he was all that significantly. He was always a self-destructive, conflicted and manipulative man with wild mood swings and an innate sense of "pity me". It took me a long time to realise how he was playing me, years and years in face -- but eventually, the penny dropped. I wrote to him, when I realised that I had to do something, and I asked him to face up to what he was doing to me. It was a long, carefully thought-out and constructed letter, that set out facts: what I could no longer handle in terms of his behaviour towards me, and how he made me feel. We are all of us responsible for 100% of our 50% of the equation, and I hoped he'd understand that.

He didn't. He did not reply, and has dropped me from his mental list of friends --- evidenced by his actions on various social networking sites.

And I'm OK with that. It's such a relief to close a door that opens onto a yawning chasm of self-doubt and potential hurt. And unusually -- since I am not a bridge-burner by nature -- I feel stronger and happier.

Yes, it's difficult to lose people in life, but it's even more difficult to know when they need to remain lost. I cherish the people I keep in my life, even more so when I acknowledge that I keep them there intentionally. Some people will never be lost to me, and I will always be here for them. These two -- they're history.

To those of you who read here, with many of whom I have had the privilege of becoming friends -- just know that you don't get rid of me that easily.

😄