PopUpStopShop's Diary

[PopUpStopShop]

So things aren't going all that terribly for me right now, but I feel angry and stressed and don't really have people I can talk to about it. I found this podcast awhile ago, but I live with my parents and just felt weird listening to it with the chance that they might hear it, unless it was at night. Then lately I've felt less weird about it, but I can't listen to too many episodes in a row, and I just feel more and more that I need to decompress somehow.

So, I'm 26, female, I didn't have sex until last year. I still feel somewhat abnormal, but I think I have mostly adjusted to the idea that it did finally, actually happen. It's been just over a year at this point. But, I've only had sex/made out/anything at all less than ten times total, all in the last 18 months. My first kiss was on my 25th birthday, I had sex about 6 months later, and I've still never had a boyfriend.

The guy doesn't want to be my boyfriend, and I have interpreted that he doesn't want to hook up any more. I thought that was true last fall, though, and then he showed up again in the spring. He's apparently mad at me for not accepting his friendship, but I feel like he's just trying to tie things up with a neat bow, and say that we're friends, but then not see me again.

In July there was an arts festival, ongoing over 3 weeks, that I knew he would be at, and he knew I'd be at. It's actually how we first met, three years ago. I saw him early on and he acted happy to see me, said we should go to events, I hung out with him in a group and asked for a ride home. Then, I saw him about a week later, also hung out in a group, also asked for a ride home. I can't drive (I could take public transport then walk for 15 minutes). For a year or more we'd see each other in a group of friends, he'd always offer to drive me home, I guess as part of an effort to hook up with me.

Early this year, I asked to just hang out, for no reason, something that didn't usually happen. We had each other's undivided attention for a couple of hours and, at one point, he was telling me his opinions about me not being able to find a job. One of the reasons I actually wanted to see him was because I had found a temporary job, but was really stressed out about messing something up (I was watching 8-10 year old kids). He was saying stuff about being confident and, "I've been offered every job I interviewed for." I said something like, "That's great for you..." and then he got mad at me and basically talked angrily at me for the next hour. This included things like "Why do you even hang out with me?" "Do you have other friends? Do you know how to be friends with people?" "Don't you know how to have relationships?" and that he always gave me rides and I was never grateful. It all seemed to float around this idea that I was using him. I thought we were going to hook up that night and didn't. I have no clue if he was mad at me for wanting to hook up with him, or because he thought I didn't want to, but still wanted his time and attention. We didn't see each other for three months, until a friend's event, and then when he saw me across May and June, there didn't seem to be an issue about rides (we also hooked up each time).

So, he agreed to give me a ride this time, but acted like I should know not to ask, and then we got into some passive aggressive state. I said I "just want a ride," but he avoided saying anything like "we're definitely not hooking up anymore" or whatever it was he was mad about. I saw him briefly a couple more times, then over the last week of the festival, pretty much each day for like five days in a row. He would be happy to see me at first, invite me to hang out in the group he was in, but then it felt like he was avoiding talking to me directly. But then I'd doubt myself and feel crazy, like I was trying to dominate his time with other people. But at one point I was trying to get his attention to gain (moderate) privacy to ask about a ride, and he seemed to just be outright ignoring me, then I had to ask in a way that drew the attention of the people around us.

I thought back on it, the other times I saw him in the previous two weeks, I'd been in the group with him, but I don't think we talked individually then, either. He also said stuff about how I should be networking, and would introduce me to people in a networking, career kind of way. I feel like he was doing that to prove he was being a "good friend," but it doesn't feel genuine, it feels like it's more about having that "proof." The last two days of the festival I gave him more space, the very last day I went over at one point and he kind of brushed me off then when I didn't leave he said he and his friend were about to have "The Conversation" (about how he thinks he's the kind of person who shouldn't get married (also, apparently, not have any kind of committed relationship, either)). He said, "She doesn't like The Conversation," then something about finding me later. I reacted a little sharply, saying "But you're not going to." I think I mostly felt embarrassed, like that one snide comment would expose me to his friend, and like he'd been avoiding me. Then I left for more than an hour, walked by where he was (to use the bathroom), came back out, talked to someone in that area, then went over to him again, and it turned out he had texted me 15 minutes earlier, saying he couldn't find me.

So then I felt crazy, again. But at that point he was leaving. Later, when I was leaving, I was thinking about how he could've come over after texting me, since I'd been standing near him, or he could've actually talked to me before leaving. Like, delay leaving, and have a conversation longer than "So, I did actually try to find you." So, on my public transport ride home I sent him a text about some of these issues. He never responded in any way. I thought it was pared down and unemotional, but I guess doing it at all seemed aggressive/passive aggressive. But to me it felt like he must've been avoiding speaking to me in person, if I saw him five days in a row and still managed not to have a one-on-one conversation.

Basically, it feels like he's not interested in hooking up, but he won't cut me out completely. I don't know if he really cares about me being upset or being my friend on some real level, or if he just wants to be able to behave in a way that it would be "objectively" "crazy" for me to be upset, in a way that I can't prove that he's being a "bad friend." But if that's true, I don't see the point, either. We have like one or two real friends in common, all these other people in these groups at the festival are sort of superficial, larger network contacts, or are his real friends, not mine. I don't see the point in my wanting me to not be mad.

So, that's where I'm at, at the moment. I've also been stuck in my house since the festival ended, unemployed, with nothing really to do, except helping my mom make the house presentable for my sister's baby shower in 9 days. This is hard, everyone in the house is a bit of a hoarder, to differing degrees. I think I've gotten my stuff mostly under control, it all fits into my room. There's been a lot of my mom wanting to deal with things that are small or out of the way, whereas I am totally fine with hiding stuff in the rooms upstairs, making big, sweeping, totally superficial changes, then dealing with real "organization" after the party. My dad's stuff is mostly in the basement, so he thinks this has nothing to do with him. But his couple of "stations" like where he sits to watch TV, where he sits at the table, are genuinely dirty. Like he just leaves food trash around his TV chair.

Also, a few days ago I sort of huffily asked my dad to leave the kitchen so I could put a drawer back in place that I'd taken out to move things to another drawer in another room, that my mom wanted to be done. I walked to the kitchen, and my dad walked in right then. He took a packaged up sandwich from the fridge, put it straight into the microwave, which then started to spark and freak out. I pointed this out to him. He took it out. It turned out the outer layer on the sandwich was paper, the first layer was aluminum foil.

I then tried to ask him to stop for a second so I could finish what I was doing, he ignored me. I said, "Dad?" like five times in a row, he then acted like there was no reason to respond to what I said, then it escalated into, "This is my kitchen, I paid for it." "You have this absurd need for all eyes in the room to be directly on you." (Which relates to other issues) I asked if he thought he owed me attention "No, I don't owe you anything." I said something like, I think you do, I'm your biological daughter, to which he countered, "Well, we can't be sure about that."

Which is a really weird joke he's made once before, that other time was not in the middle of a fight, but did feel like it came out of nowhere. My sister and I look exactly alike, according to the rest of the world, so we obviously have the same parents. My dad was diagnosed with bipolar disorder almost 40 years ago, and my parents often sort of talked around this idea that I was obviously going to become bipolar, as well. I haven't, so far. And we all did online ancestry DNA tests, because I was really interested (and they used to include medical info). So, I actually DO know, since two Christmases ago, that he is definitely my genetic father.

He's been more actively nice since that fight. He still doesn't seem engaged in the process of making the house better, but I mentioned cleaning up around his chair, he said he knew it had to happen, but he hasn't done it yet. He was also just talking about how he took Benadryl and he thinks it made him lose wait, so everything's pretty much normal.

[manuel_moe_g]

Read your post. All the best to you, PopUpStopShop, please take care. Please be self-loving to yourself.