Yesterday was a day for managing the Wounded Man – three of them. First, “Señor,” with whom I was learning to be a dominatrix,” until the morning of September 2, the morning of our second playdate, when I received an email from him saying, “I will not be able to continue. I’m hurting very badly inside and need to do more healing. Please respect this and let it be and don’t contact me. It was a mistake on my part to be involved in any way. Peace, Señor.”
I really wanted to write back saying “WTF?” but respected his wishes. Then yesterday, to my mailing list, I sent out a notice of most recent publication on Reality Sandwich,
Holy Weirdness, co-written with Coyote Marie. Señor replied, thanking me, and said, “Sincere apologies for disappearing like that. That’s not really like me. Did you have a nice visit with your friend? Also, is my stuff still at your place [a paddle, rope, clothespins, lubricant]?”
Amy: Thanks for asking about me. My week with CM could not have been better. I am going to California to be with her in November.
That was pathetic of you to disappear like that. So disrespectful toward me. I needed us to have at least a little open discussion about it - and then it would have been fine.
Of course your stuff is still here.
Señor: Thanks. I'm glad it is working out for you with CM. I understand your feelings about the disappearance. Apologies again. I would love to stop by some time and pick up that stuff and if you choose you can take your frustrations out on me.
Amy: I forgive you sweetheart. I would like to talk about what happened with you, if we may - and yes I may be open to taking my frustrations out on you.
Señor: Thanks. I would also like to talk about it with you. Talk in person? [fin]
So, he is coming over this evening.
I really need to experience this. It so empowers and balances me. Normally, around people I am like a lamb, and as a dominatrix I can be a lion.
Wounded Man #2 was my brother, who had a psychotic break a couple weeks ago. Now, he is in a hospital being treated for alcoholism and bi-polar disorder – neither of which he has. He does have a serious gambling problem.
His psychotic break is being overlooked as the avenue to the new life he says he wants. Part of his psychosis has involved suddenly stepping outside of the constructs that used to define him – a dream where he kills a bloated, disgusting personage of himself. He thinks he is a sort of second Jesus whose message the world needs.
I wrote him a note that read in part:
“I have been living outside of social constructs since I was 13. And let me say that money is a construct you are still enslaved to. Jesus doesn’t gamble.
“It is nothing new to the world that you stepped out your old constructs. There are libraries documenting how people have been doing it. In fact, there is a whole school of philosophy about it called “Deconstructionsim.” You don’t have anything to say that is not already known, although there may be people who need to hear you say it.
“Outside of worldly constructs there is whole universe of spiritual constructs you know next to nothing about. I would be glad to offer some reading suggestions.
“It really stinks that you and others have passed judgment on me without listening to me and without reading my writing. I know you will say you didn’t have enough time – and admittedly, to understand where I am coming from takes some time – but I am worth it; and you treated me like I wasn’t worth it.”
Wounded Man #3: let’s call him “Myron.”
Myron: It's great that the week with Coyote Marie lived up to your expectations. It sounds as though you are in love.
I would be interested in talking with you about the experience, as well as about the situation with your brother, but, given our lack of communication over the last few months, it is not clear that we are still really friends. [fin]
I let that steep overnight, and in the morning received this note from Myron:
As to whether or not we are "spiritually out of sync"--I have no reason to think that we are. As friends, however, we seem to be definitely out of sync. There comes a time when passive lack of responsiveness becomes an active statement of disinterest in the friendship. Sadly, we are approaching that point. If we do have any issues to resolve, I hope you will fill me in.
Amy: That I did not promptly respond yesterday to your first email was not a sign of passive disinterest. I was very busy, and had every intention of responding today, which I am doing now. Perhaps it seemed like disinterest because you were sending me a signal that you feel I am neglecting our friendship. Frankly, I am not eager to respond to such signals.
Numerous times your insecurities about my investment in our friendship have caused me to assuage them, and I did sincerely, even honoring you with the blog about the library security guard. But maybe you did not need to be assuaged so much as for me to be more consistently engaging with you. I engage with you as I am moved. For me that does not mean we are not friends.
You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened. I just wrote her for the first time in a couple months to ask if she could refer me to good professional help in Virginia – where she and my psychotic brother live – since she used to be a psychologist there. Now that she and I are less in touch, I don’t think either of us feels our friendship is threatened in the least. Friendships have seasons. For me, one season feeling warmer than another does not mean a friendship is on the brink. I have never been in a friendship where the other person was so critical of my engagement in it.
I feel like you take my unwillingness to trek to your city as a sign of my distance – seemingly dismissive of how terrifically stressful it is for me to travel. Also, it is really stressful for me to speak on the phone. I don’t feel that you appreciate either of these difficulties, which makes me feel you are more concerned with what I have to offer our friendship than for my well-being.
The demanding attitude you have had of me is unlike anything one would expect from an enlightened being such as you. My sense is that comes from damage to your feminine side, to your receptivity; a fear of abandonment. I don’t abandon people. I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great.
I hope I have said nothing to further offend you, and if I have please let me apologize in advance.
Please let’s just be friends as we are.
Myron: I am very much aware of how stressful it is for you to make the trip to my city….Believe me when I say that I appreciate all of the efforts that you made in this direction.
I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together. I celebrate your complex nature, and would not ask that you be anything other than you are.
You may perhaps have less a sense of what my weaknesses and fears and vulnerabilities are, or of where they originate, or of what throws them into high relief - but trust me, they are there; and they coexist with whatever enlightenment I have managed to access. I would ask that you honor all of the contradictory aspects of my nature, as I do yours.
Amy: I certainly do.
Myron: You are dealing with many challenges of your own, and I do not wish to subject you to any unnecessary stress or any unreasonable demands. Please forgive me if I have done so. There have been times when I have felt that our communication has been unexpectedly cut off, and this has been frustrating since I have come to look forward to your feedback and your insights.
Amy: Sorry about that Myron. It’s just how I flow from day to day – not predictably enough to participate in the wage-earning workforce for nine years.
Myron: Part of my frustration, however, has nothing at all to do with you. Over the past year and a half or so, I have made a systematic effort to put myself out into the world again - to post work, to initiate new dialogues and to contact friends with whom I have long been out of touch. So far, I would have to say that the results are mixed.
This experiment is not something that I have really discussed with you.
Amy: You have discussed it with me some.
Myron: There have been old friends with whom it has been difficult to reestablish a shared world. There have been new contacts - such as Mr. A and Ms. - who, after some period of infatuation, have become unexpectedly harsh and judgmental before breaking off communication. So yes, I do feel a bit vulnerable at times, and this stirs up unresolved childhood issues.
Amy: I appreciate that.
Myron: BTW: You probably have your performance planned out down to the last detail. If you wanted to add another presenter to the bill, however, I would be interested in reading a piece or two at the beginning or the end.—Just an idea.
Amy: I do have the performance planned in detail, and while I would love to have you on board, this is a time for me to be utterly alone in the spotlight. It won’t have to be that way in the future.
Myron: No problem. Just thought that I would offer, since this may be our last chance to do a performance together before your move to California.
You wrote, "You know of Kelley, my cyberfriend. We were very tight for several months; and that lightened."--This perhaps goes to the heart of our misunderstanding. From the time that I first began to post comments on the Internet, I have not been sure of what to do with this concept of the "cyberfriend." Perhaps this is a kind of generational divide - those who are comfortable with the concept of the "cyberfriend", and those who are not.
Amy: Yes, I think it asks for more fluidity than traditional ways of building friendship.
Myron: You are the first person that I met in this fashion, and the only one with whom I have maintained a relatively consistent dialogue. With the other people that I have met in this way, and who continue to be important, communication is, as you describe, sporadic.
It is no doubt unfair of me to expect our communication to be otherwise. It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance –
Amy: It’s not carefully controlled. I am following my instincts. They control me. My instinct is not been to flow away from you (although it is when I feel you are being demanding) – it is to flow toward a multiplicity of things of which you are one.
It is true I have emotional needs you cannot fulfill. One reason is that you speak more to my mind than to my heart. I enjoy and admire you immensely, and love you – but I don’t feel you are naked enough for me to be fully naked with you. I can’t be naked with anyone who is at all demanding.
Myron: It is clearly important to you to maintain a fixed - or at least carefully controlled - emotional distance – as evidenced by your statements, "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand - statements suitable for a goddess -
Amy: I never thought of them as such.
Myron: I cannot help but question, however, whether this is not a means for always acting and speaking from behind a mask of omnipotence.
Amy: It’s not a mask. It’s an explanation.
Myron: It can be uncomfortable to accept that someone has seen behind this mask…
Amy: I’m not that superficial.
Myron: For whatever reason, from the beginning I have placed you in the more traditional category of “friend” as opposed to “cyberfriend”, and this has probably led to a certain amount of confusion.
Amy: It’s all right. Let’s just be friends – whatever that means….
…Lukumi separates us. I can only be so close to anyone who willfully channels spirit as such. I accept fully that it is your family’s practice to embrace that, and pass no judgment on it, but I must say that it alienates me because it is contrary to my orientation.
Myron: I have no idea really what you mean by this. In any case, I have as much of a tangential relationship to Lukumi as I do to all other systems and traditions.
Amy: How Lukumi and other systems alienate me is the same across the board; and can be summed in this dream you may have seen before:
A teacher tells me that everyone is looking outside themselves for a name so that they can tell the world they are one thing or another, thus fusing their identity to something solid and agreed on by everyone as perceivable. The great teacher of the dream found his own name. His philosophy and practises resemble those of a certain obscure religious sect, but really, as he is, as everyone ultimately is, totally unique and naked in the world. Religion is relative to him. There is no need for him to alter himself artificially for the sake of religionThe slightest hint that religion may eclipse The Stooge alienates me.
I don’t believe in Christianity. I believe in Christ. I don’t believe in Buddhism. I believe in Buddha. I have never felt that anyone really understand what I mean by this except for Coyote Marie.
Myron: I do think that I have developed a good sense of how your strengths and weaknesses and insights and fears and sense of higher purpose and vulnerabilities fit together.
Amy: While you may to an extent, there are depths to these that are hidden from you by my inability to be naked with you.
It’s one thing to remark neutrality on a friend’s behaviors – and it’s another to say, “I get you.” When you imply that you do, I immediately feel clothed and alienated.
And this I found smug and patronizing: << "I engage with you as I am moved." and "I’m a river. I go where I will; and if I flow through your town, then great, if you flow through mine, then also great." This sounds very grand—statements suitable for a goddess;>>
Myron: Please forgive me for calling attention to the fact that over the past few months we have barely been in touch. I should not have mentioned it - or at least not in the particular way that I did - and would prefer to have not set any negative dialogue in motion. For this, I must take full responsibility.
Nonetheless, your comments over the past few days have stuck me as harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental. They have upset me greatly, and I really have no idea of how to respond.
I don't believe that email is serving us well at the moment. Before things spin any further out of control, perhaps we should reboot our communication, and do whatever may be necessary to treat each other nicely. I value you greatly as a friend, and do not wish us to be at odds.
Amy: I'm sorry that you feel hurt. I had no intention of hurting you.
I know that was you calling before - and I did not pick up because of how it hurts me to talk on the phone. I can't apologize for that. I don't think I can apologize for anything I have said either. I was being forthright, nakedly honest, unhidden - I would not offer a friend anything less. Anything less would be disrespectful.
CM & I have compiled over 700 pages of correspondence this year, which does not leave a lot of time to correspond widely with other people. I'm in love with her - not you - and for me this does not have to be such a threat to our friendship...When people pair off it's just what happens. You know that.
What have I written that was judgmental?
Myron: Misunderstanding seems to have piled on misunderstanding. I could not be more delighted that you and Coyote Marie have found each other, and it is not a threat to our friendship in the least.
After my initial, poorly worded emails, I have done my best to be conciliatory. It does not seem to have had any effect. At the moment, I feel that I am walking through a minefield, and that anything I say will be taken the wrong way. You seem intent on prolonging and escalating this conflict which I inadvertently set in motion.
As to why your comments over the last few days have struck me as “harsh and opinionated and hurtful and judgmental” - I suggest that you look at almost any of them; if this description doesn’t resonate, then there is nothing that I can really do to fill you in. This is totally unlike you, and I have no idea of who I am dealing with.
To describe or attempt to respond any further to what I see as judgmental comments would quickly force me to appear judgmental in return. Again, I can only ask that we “reboot” our conversation, and move on to subjects that are of greater benefit to us both.
Amy: I’m sorry. I can’t reboot the discussion. Friends have discussions like this. They don’t shy away from conflict when it rears its head. When a friend rubs us the wrong way, friendship obligates us to address the issue – regardless of the emotions and feelings it may call forth. Friends can do that because the essence of friendship is trust.
If you meant my comment of “smug and patronizing” was judgmental – I can’t imagine what else could be construed as such – I have the right to express how things you say make me feel. Or would you rather me be hurt by what you say and not say anything?
These issues that are coming up are not novel. They have been brewing the entire length of our friendship – so many times have you accused me of not holding my end of the partnership. Frankly, I am tired of the accusations and feel it is time to address the underlying issues from them, which are yours not mine. If anyone is seeing under a mask, it’s me; and our dance has led us there.
If you feel threatened, there is no need to. I’ll never judge you. All psyches are babies in my hands. If think I am full of it, then you don’t know me.
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I am not intent on prolonging and escalating conflict. I am not even experiencing conflict. You are calling discussing personal issues “conflict,” and I won’t.
I feel as if calling you to task really calls up your defenses. I am not attacking you. I feel you feeling attacked, and I wish you didn’t, but I am not responsible for your feelings.
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Like I said in my previous email, you don’t know me as well you think – and to anyone who does not know another person as well as they think, I would say this is a symptom of not knowing oneself as well as one thinks one does.
You try to control the friendship more than me. Friendship has to be let happen, or it cannot easily go forward. Any relationship needs to be let happen, which is why I am a polyamorista.
My sense (not a judgment, just a sense) is that the paradigm you are coming from is one in which the world is so empty that a friend needs to be contained. That world was an illusion.
On the Internet there are so many people to dance with, in ways as different as each of us. I have had dances of all types - very intense short-term, light and longer term and all permutations thereof.
While airing out all the laundry, let me add that your response to my relationship with Christ – last summer – acting like you understand something about it that I don’t was hurtful and alienating.
Let me say, too, that this note is not about me knowing things about you that you don’t. I am dancing with you, and there is nothing I can do about it if the dance is hurtful and alienating.
I am naked and I let my friends be, too; regardless of whether my naked dancing is perceived as conflictual. I write this and anticipate you mocking me for having delusions of grandeur: “Fine for a goddess, but…”
How can the world end if these issues are not addressed?
My sense is that facing issues that have come up could be productive. You have so much untapped to offer the world. Your insightfulness can be brilliant, but only speaks to the most highly spiritualized. Nothing can be more moving that the simplest story. What was it?: “Anthony and the Dinosaur”? But even in that story, how you poeticize it will alienate many readers and keep you obscure. Maybe you don’t care how obscure you are – you are purer than a sell-out. But I really believe inviting the collective in while artfully speaking of deeply meaningful issues is a great achievement for an artist.
To all wounded men:
heath & goodness & peace & hearts
Amy
On Monday, Wednesday and Friday updates are posted to Amy George’s other blog Ask the Dream Queen, for which she interprets reader-submitted dreams.