necessary and inevitable. the only thing that would really suck is if those social standards played a large part in keeping us from being close after. but i mean its also possibly a good thing thatll force me to get other friends, like it would be maybe pretty boring not to have

any irl friends, but I don't want "bro" friends. queer ppl would prob be good place to go, but at this point i dont rly understnad how making friends works so thatll be weird. Ill be forced to do a lot of things outside my comfort zone now, :/ but also good for me prob

for some reason tho i really wish we could talk about the sex stuff. maybe its just bc i feel guilty and want her to validate me, but i think (or hope) it might be more than that. she was the only other one there, and I think her perspective would be valuable. ideally she would

have thought about it ahead of time, and we could just chat things out. And part of me thinks, so what? if she disagreed with me and thought I was like the worst person in the world, thats her problem. but like i really dont want to be blinded by just having my personal bias

like despite it all being in the past and i wont act like that again, i think it would be nice to break it down and be forced to be confronted with that stuff. and the other thing is i think shes really smart and i respect her opinion when she spends the time on issues

that all being said, I know that closure is kinda just some elusive thing that doesn't really happen and I dont think this fairy tale will ever happen. 2022 will probably have some awkward texts, maybe we'll meet up once, but yeah idk. even if we do remain friends (dont see how

Which makes breakup like even more inevitable, if the relationship im looking for has constant communication on a meta level about whats going on and what we want it to be and processing what is happening, its just super challenging to do that with someone who its not their style

like she def leaned back on the hueristics of dating and how things should be and then worked from there, rather than designing those things for herself. which tbf is super fucking hard and im incredibly privileged to have the time and space to think about that stuff, and its

also just my preference. Our differences definitely became apparent at the end, and I suppose the breakup is for the best, bc i dont think she could deal with any other way. like the category of "boyfriend" provided a lot of utility to her in the same way that gender does, and

those types of categories were rapidly becoming not my style in any way. Im aware that it was too fast and radical and I didn't handle that well, but tbf she didnt really want to talk about it much either. idk the whole thing is messy.

I really wish we could still have a relationship (not like a *relationship* but like a friendship). I really valued talking with her and I miss the intimacy of knowing someone that well and them knowing me that well. I understand that she needs time and ultimately I think its

for the best for our relationship, but its times like these when the relationship anarchy stuff is just so appealing. Like oh this part of our relationship doesn't work anymore? lets communicate and reform how it works. It would be nice to process and look back on things with her

Tbh tho more than anything I wish we addressed things properly as they came up, so that all this reflection wouldnt be neccessary. Obv this was not achievable at high school level, we just werent mature enough. And in college, she either had no desire to or was too busy,prob both

and its just too mcuh pressure for her to come forward and explain everything to me like how its harmful and not cool, and she tried too, we just never ended up resolving it bc it was a hard and tricky convo and i dont think we had the vocabulary and understanding to explain it

to each other. idk, i really wish we would have talked more about it, and i wish i could talk with her now. she never really liked to do the introspection stuff or have like breakdowns of normativity and stuff, but felt rly strong about the conclusions of feminism,anti-racism,etc

which is fine yknow like most people dont like that stuff but for me thats how I learn things by breaking down and analyzing and introspection so its hard to communicate across that, especially when it feels like I have to opine on her emotions and then do the introspection

for her. frustrating to know if I had done something wrong and how, most I could usually gather is that I had done something wrong. Im trying to process these emotions and I know that theyre important and a big piece of the disconnect between us, but Im not saying by any means

that the sexual stuff was her fault for not communicating. Clearly clearly clearly that is on me, I'm my own agent I make my choices that impact others. I had just stumbled into another thing to dissect that was relevant for me to think about.

playing defense rn. regardless of my intent, my actions carry weight and are important. So for instance in high school i would ask her if she wanted to do things, and she would express that she wasn't really feeling comfortable, which makes sense and is reasonalbe and blah

im just gonna type without caveat much bc i think its annoying and will slow this down

basically she says nah, and then i sort of take it as my role to keep pushing, which is so fucking stupid. like the way it worked in my head at the time was "well one of us is overly cautious, so i will play the opposite role of being like extra pursuing which is really gross lol

yeah yikes looking back on this is rough. it was such ridiculous toxic masc propaganda shit god. its so fucking cringe that i inflicted that on her. like at no point was I thinking that this was wrong ig, thats just rly gross

I just saw another tweet that made me want to reflect some more. It said "no does not mean "convince me"". Obv thats true, and it took me an embarrasingly long time to realize that. I mean I def was not to the level of like maliciously doing whatever blah but im not interested in

And if I could try to psychoanalyze her I'd probably say that she stopped expressing her sexuality out of fear that I would take that and run with it, and that she had trouble backing out because she wanted to do stuff too, and wanted to make me happy, and I was pressuring

Which is really really sad tbh. That really sucks, and I really hope she can work that out so that she can enjoy herself in the future. I'd feel terrible if I ruined that part of her life forever. Also to be clear if she decides that being asexual is her preference thats obv

fine as well, it would just be unfortunate if she felt forced into that option as a result of the trauma of our relationship. Lol and again that sounds very dramatic and I'm not sure if either one of us would characterize the relationship that way, but at least sexually I think

it may be accurate. It's also possible that we were just really hormonal and horny in high school, and that just fell off over time, but idk. I mean I'm def a lot less horny than I used to be, but I think it'd be pretty dishonest to say that her sexuality was uninfluenced by

the grimy stuff in our relationship. I think at the time I was very much a nihilist, and lacked regard for others, and a lot of my opinions and life perspective were really shit. I think I have fixed a lot of these things going forward, so I'm not worried that this will continue

into future sexual relationships, but I also think its important to take ownership of the shit things of the past regardless. I don't think anything I did was anywhere near rape or what Sinatraa did, but it was a good catalyst to thinking.

Like thinking through this I think I'm convinced that I coerced or pressured her into having sex in an environment that she was not comfortable with, despite us both desiring that sex in better contexts. The tricky part is that we both wanted it, but there were only rare

opportunities where it could have actually worked out, like my parents both being busy away, my brother being out, and us getting off school early. So its possible maybe the answer was just to abstain until those opportunities.

And its also possible that the solution would have involved some sort of risk, but I don't think she had a fair and equal shot to negotiate the situation. And I don't think we had the maturity or communication skills to negotiate the situation correctly.

I think our best times for fair communication as at the start, when we played it very safe, in college, where I was more mature and willing to defer to her feelings, and the worst were during our "breakup" period where we still were having sex

double standard, but I can see patterns like that now that I didn't then. To me, it was just sort of a roll my eyes yea my parents are shitheads that are flaming you for no reason thats cringe, I don't think I really was able to empathize with her (or at all during that time lol)

And while thats like kinda shitty partner behavior but ultimately not terrible on its own, I think that lack of understanding how much it weighed on her made it easier for me to push her into uncomfortable positions. (I know im taking too many econ classes when im thinking about

internalizing the externality of her feelings lol). But yeah I think for the most part the sexual behavior would have been completely consensual (another weird word in these convos, too many varying concepts shoved into the word) if not for the atmosphere we were in.

Analyzing problematic aspects of the relationship is really tricky when it comes to sex stuff, especially when the shitty behavior is tangential and intertwined with sex, but maybe not the act itself.

Now this is where things get a little iffy. Was the reason we became more reckless due to me pushing? I'm not sure, but I imagine the answer is yes. I know that's maybe not like a massive deal in the grand scheme, but that still sucks and I would never want to do that again.

It's not cool or fun, really selfish and shitty. And its not so much about like that the actual actions themselves were non-consensual, because I think we both wanted to do them but lacked the appropriate space. The more fucked up part was subjecting her to feeling like she was

watched and that sex was something to be paranoid during yknow. Idk if I'm explaining that properly but yeah thats pretty gross. It didn't help that my mom constantly checked in as like her moral duty!!! to protect her innocence!!! and purity!!! and would basically tell that to

her face, like "what you're doing is wrong and would make your mom ashamed" and blah blah blah trash bullshit, and then just like "boys will be boys" @ me like wtf. But yeah I def was not nearly as woke on feminist shit like that before, I just thought it was like super bazaar

That being said, I think its very clear that my approach to sex in our relationship in high school was very problematic. I wish there were more gradation to describe what I'm going for, because there seems to be a large gulf between problematic, coercive, harmful, etc and assault

The situation we were in (only really being able to have sex at my parents house, and a lack of free time between my parents being home and us being off from school) was rough, and adding onto that was the fact that it felt like such a big deal to my parents, the threat of being

caught felt rough, as well as completely embarrassing. I feel like the embarrassing piece of it was the real challenge for her more than anything else. We were sexual for a while (grinding, heavy petting, etc) and were able to sneak that in often when hanging out.

I feel like this stuff was pretty fine, it was very non-committal and could be abandoned if we heard someone coming, and was just a fun flirty thing to do. However, after this became a bit of a habit, we became more reckless, and got caught a few times.

Cleo posted some stuff about Sinatraa today about how she was in an abusive relationship. Reading through it and seeing all of the evidence was really harsh, and she's very clearly telling the truth about a horrible relationship. I hope that isn't how she felt about things.

I know that when we talked she didn't make me out to be a sexual assaulter, but I'm not so sure how to feel about that. It's possible she could just be saying those things to protect her own emotions, or to protect my feelings, even if only subconsciously.

And I'm aware that the language around this sucks, like sexual assault is a loaded term that could include many things, but only implies the most serious offenses. And I'm aware that I was a young person, lacking plenty of life experience and maturity.

I do like this ring tho - weird how I have to think through things to enjoy them, like aesthetics or gender or ethics

I think I didn't know how to feel because I don't really put much emphasis on products or items, but at the same time these gifts show an incredible attention to detail and a lot of time and effort. Not to mention the expense, a lot of these things could not have been cheap.