Antithetical

“People don’t give a shit about your problems, they only want what you can give them. They need things that they can’t give themselves, so they have to ask someone else and you are that someone, and nothing more. Some people just want to get off, and you have to live with that; even if you want more, even if it hurts to realize you can’t get it, a relationship is a transaction, it’s all about what you give and what you get out of it. If you’re giving more than you’re getting, then it’s a losing proposition.

“Love is real, but only in the worst way possible. It’s real like a knife to your thigh or a desperate text to someone constructed only to make them feel guilty for not replying, that they never will is something you should’ve already accepted. Love is real in the real pain it causes, and it’s real in every moment of doubt and insecurity; it grows out of every cut and crack, every wound constructs the infrastructure, the twisting webs in the reality of love.

“If you get hurt enough, love stops looking so lovely. It’s not out of fear that people stop looking for happiness, but the displacement of happiness, the ending of happiness, the unraveling of happiness and it’s death at the hands of its own mythology. To be in love is a mental illness, to find happiness is to become insane.”

He said this all to me in a text which he expected me to answer in turn, answer either in astoundment or with an equally vague, equally trite aphorism about some deep problem which people have been grappling with for however so long. But, even though he expected an answer, because I’d been so diligent with answering him before, and it was always about an answer with him, always about receiving the answer, always about hearing back, I decided not to. I decided to not respond to his texts, since it was going to be more of this, more of this uttering and disaffection and romantically tinged criticism—like he was so above everything. And it’s not like I ever had to see him again; I had him on my hook. He wanted to hear from me. He had no way to see me unless I asked.

It continued like this for about a week. At first he texted me plenty, thinking maybe I was busy; then he wanted to know about our plans, then he started answering his own questions. After a few missed calls, he stopped contacting me altogether.

It was cruel, sure; but cruelty is the only answer for guys like him, guys who are obsessed with an answer, guys who expect someone to answer just because they have a problem like nobody fucking else has a fucking problem in the world.

I don’t fucking care anymore.

It didn’t even matter.

It wasn’t even anything.

I wished he could’ve shut up for one second. Maybe it we could keep it chill, y’know, maybe not talk all the time? You need to be fucking mommied, huh? You need someone to be there? How cute. I can’t fucking deal with you all day.

And I can’t even call him, or text him, because that would be mean; he probably hates me. It would be too cruel.

Is there another side of things, or is this it; how many “sides” are there of the same coin?