Attachment

I’ve referenced the following Red Smith quote before. “There’s nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.” I feel if I were to cut myself, crude oil would spill where blood should.

I feel sensitivity is my life’s blood, without it, I may as well be a man. Selfish, with little thought for how I interact with the world around me and those within it.

I don’t ovulate, I don’t cry, nor do I crave the affection of others.

I don’t even get road rage anymore.

Sometimes I’ll catch myself saying “really cunt”, but only the latter half makes it out of my mouth, and it’s without any passion. I used to form long narratives and imagine that the men who tailgated me did so to reclaim a sense of personal power. That they were the trope of a man who held authority at work and sought to balance this dynamic through the company of women who’d walk them around on a pink leash. That they’d erupt in their pants at the notion that they were below someone, or even worthless, begging with their eyes to be called a “little bitch” or to receive derogatory comments about their manhood. 

God, what has become of me. 

I’ve become passive, and it’s evolved beyond the implementation of social mechanisms to maintain a peaceful work environment. What was originally a behaviour formed for the sake of equilibrium, in avoidance of upsetting egos or perceivable hierarchy, has been replaced by indifference.

I fear I’m drifting towards becoming like those that disgusted Dante. A lukewarm soul, made to wait in the Vestibule of Hell. Rejected from both Heaven and what lies below for my neutrality. Condemned to be stung by hornets and wasps for all eternity.

I haven’t quite reached the level that will allow me to reserve an Admit One ticket to the first circle of Hell, but it certainly feels like I’m on my way.

I have lost much of my capacity to care and am more detached than a stoner who’s two years deep into derealisation. It worries me, but never for more than a minute before my mind moves on to a topic of greater interest.

I give in less and less to the ‘woe is me’ speeches that used to be the foundation of my most intimate relationships. Now, I see it more as an avenue that individuals derive pleasure from, where they self-loathe and revel in guilt, sentiments birthed from ‘I’m a piece of shit.’ It’s like bearing witness to an ouroboros, but instead of a strong figure like a dragon or snake eating itself, it’s a court jester, the kind Kings once hired as a form of entertainment that involved the humiliation of self.

My brain processes the events and complaints of some as if I’ve been gifted the ability of invisibility. Watching them hit, punch or slap themselves in private, and then having to muster up the compassion of someone who didn’t witness this affliction, as they come crying, bruised and bloodied.

My bandwidth and tolerance for anything that operates outside of optimal function has been reduced. I know now that I have a social battery of three to four hours. Any more than that and I risk offending those in my company with a deadpan stare and lack of responsiveness.

I noticed this when I was on a first date last month: forcing my eyelids to stay open with all the physical strength I had while initiating small talk to fill the dead air during the car ride home.

My companion was a man I knew at a fairly superficial proximity for around a year, give or take a few months.

I was initially excited when he asked me out. This feeling dissipated over the week and a half between him asking me out and the date itself. When he’d text me, it felt more like a work obligation to reply than something I actually wanted for myself.

The day of the date I thought about cancelling, I wondered if this was due to the fact that I hadn’t even spoken to a man or thought about pursuing a romantic connection, since my last ex was incarcerated for crimes I consider worse than murder.

Somewhere in my programming as a woman, I thought “What if he ends up being my husband?” A sentiment I now scrunch my nose at and consider more of a life sentence, but at the time I wanted to give it a chance.

When we were first introduced, I had long hair that reached down to my lower back. I cut it to shoulder length a month or so before he asked me out. Upon seeing this change in appearance, he queried, “Do you regret cutting your hair?” At the time, it felt like an indirect way for him to communicate that he preferred me with long hair. Given that English was his second language, I gave him the benefit of the doubt.

I received a similar comment from my boss who tried to joke that he half expects to see me with extensions next week. I didn’t respond and will admit I enjoyed watching him sit in the discomfort of silence.

My hair has never been this short, except for the developmental years in which it first grew to be this length.

When I was nineteen or twenty, I had it cut just above shoulder length to deter an ex who once proclaimed he didn’t like girls with short hair; short hair made a woman undesirable. I saw an appointment at a hair salon as my way out, an opportunity to be left alone. But this hope quickly dwindled when he continued to pursue me, the way men often do when they believe it’s their right to have unconditional access to a woman, or rather, her body.

On the morning of the date I had booked to have my hair cut again, shorter. Half out of experimentation and half out of spite. A test. To assess how a man from a culture that associates long hair with status and femininity would respond to the alteration.

The hair at the back of my head now sat at the edge of my hairline, with the longest lengths at the side of my face reaching halfway down my neck. My date picked me up from my house to drive us to the restaurant he’d booked, and the first thing he said to me, in a perplexed, high-pitched tone, was, “You cut your hair again.”

Not long into the drive, he asked if I was nervous, and it probably would have been more polite of me to lie, but instead I said “It takes a lot for me to get nervous.” I didn’t feel much of anything that night except complacent.

We swapped stories on our childhoods, and he tried to reason with me to forgive my father for things he will deny even happened until death takes his hand. This came from a place of suffering more extreme abuse that he had forgiven his own father for. Still, he told me he had a good childhood, but I don’t consider routine beatings synonymous with a happy or functional upbringing.

The highlight of the night was a chance sighting of an owl I was awestruck by. After dinner, he had taken me to a lookout spot by the beach, when it swooped down to sit on a wooden barricade. I told him I was getting out of the car to take a closer look, and he reluctantly followed. In my approach, a cyclist went flying by, scaring my feathered friend to the presumed safety of a manmade height. Perching on a lamp post, I wanted to stand there staring at it until my eyes got burnt out by the light.

My date didn’t seem too interested. Looking back now, I’m sure his intention in taking me to that spot was to lay his lips on me. It may have even been disheartening to witness his date become re-animated by a bird, with her showing more excitement in the direction of an animal that hoots.

After identifying the bird as a Southern Boobook, he made the comment “Wow, you really love birds.” As if I didn’t have three very obvious and large bird tattoos on display, with two currently in his line of vision.

Home sweet home, I got through my front door with a hug goodbye and was glad to be alone, with the exception of my two dogs. As I was taking off my makeup for the night, I thought about how I would have had a better time with platonic friends or even by myself and decided that first date would be the last. At this stage, I don’t want a relationship; there are too many cons over pros for it to seem worthwhile.

Even if I were interested in pursuing a connection, cinematically it would resemble the movies from the Before trilogy, a romantic series not to be confused with the After franchise. With one key change that would have a butterfly effect: instead of Ethan Hawke staring as the romantic lead, Jesse Eisenberg would replace him, to more accurately represent my character.

I accidentally opened the message from my date, which I intended to read and reply to in the morning, but felt no pressure in addressing anything there and then. By 10 am the next day, I had sent the ‘I think we should just be friends’ speech via text, which was a genuine offer.

I told him I didn’t feel a romantic connection and, in knowing myself, I couldn’t see anything forming other than friendship, which I felt no hesitation in expressing. His initial response had a ‘thanks but no thanks, I’m looking for something more’ tone, which I respected.

Five hours later, there was a development with a follow-up message. A long paragraph with no breaks that contained:

If you are comfortable with me coming to see you with no romantic feelings just sex and cuddling we can do that.

Past me would have been enraged by this. By the presumptuous nature of it all.  The entitlement in asking, despite me not having invited anything of that nature. But all I cared to reply was “I don’t think I’d be comfortable with that.” Even now as I’m staring at this message exchange, I’m thinking, Jesus, I should have offered up a circumcision or anything to draw attention to the absurdity of his offer.

My gut tells me he was looking for an emotional reaction, to validate his feelings of rejection, or maybe even to hurt me and make me feel like he only saw me as a sex object.

I just didn’t care. It wasn’t a loss. Sure, I forfeited four hours of my time during that first date, but big whoop. If anything, it confirmed that I made the right call to end things quickly, to avoid drawing this out.

Then came a lengthy addition from him, with an apology and gratitude to me, explaining that he was in a really bad stage of his life and blah blah blah.

When friends ask me about the details of this man and date, I don’t see the point in expanding beyond the fact he seemed genuine at first, but turned out to be a lustful loser. Hardly a unique experience as a woman. And when they try to pry for more, it’s always attached to language that communicates this is somehow my doing. An intentional pulling of off-putting men into my orbit, a magnet for weird.

“Where do you find these guys?”

“Attracting gems as usual.”

I can’t completely disagree, but I still roll my eyes.

I think the issue has more to do with my attraction to men than with any personal tendency to seek these characters out. It’s not as if I saw literal devil horns attached to the heads of my exes, rubbed my hands together and said “oh goodie”.

Fucking skinwalkers.

It feels like a covert way to burden women, an attempt to elicit shame for the shortcomings of man. Infantilising themselves with the “waaaah waaah” cries that women should be responsible for the rearing of grown men.

Why should I bear the brunt of another person’s failings in the relationship, when they manufactured a false personality to obtain access to me?

Those weren’t my actions, so why should I be looked down upon for the nefarious actions of another?

I could say all that, but why waste my breath only for it to fall on deaf ears?

In reflecting on the person I used to be, I’m reminded of the time I was a burned-out dancer. Not so much quick to anger but always on edge, ready to strike out, not as an attack but in defence.

A man would raise his hand, motioning towards the flesh of my ass or breast, and I would swat it away as if it were a fly covered in shit. He’d start with a pathetic “You’re just so hard to resist”, and I would correct sharply, with a “So, what you’re saying is it’s hard for you not to sexually assault me”. They’d protest with “Oh, no no no”, trying to plead a case they had already lost, and I would close with “You need to control yourself.”

When they ignored this or successfully made contact, they would throw a tantrum and attempt to cause property damage to the building upon being kicked out.

I’m so thankful I no longer dance like a circus animal for the entertainment of the depraved. Grateful for the monotony of my days.

Everything is so matter-of-fact now. I’ve described the way I feel to some as if my real, expressive self is imprisoned inside of me. Confined to a cage, screaming and crying to be let out, but to no avail. Maybe it’s better this way.

I don’t find myself second-guessing anything I think anymore. I have confidence in my decisions that cannot be intercepted, and I’m less attached to the outcome. I only interact with activities that I naturally gravitate towards, and anything that feels like too much effort or doesn’t sound enjoyable falls to the wayside.

But some days, I feel it creeping up on me. Like I’m stuck in purgatory. Stood, waiting in line, knowing that each day brings me one step closer to the moment when my brain finally cracks under the weight of all the pressure I currently seem unaffected by.

I wonder at times if this change in me is a natural maturation, a necessary death of someone who formerly cared about being pleasant above all else. Or perhaps what I consider a restriction of emotional capability is the culmination of events I’ve experienced in my lifetime. That I suffered so much that it was time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction.

Then, I’m reminded of a woman much wiser than I: what I’m experiencing is a side effect of a hormonal medication.

In expressing my concerns of the sudden separation and detachment of emotions, she offers solace: “It’s a gift.”

I wrestle with that a lot. All my life, I fought so hard against my sensitive nature, and had recently come to not just accept it, but to value it highly, as a trait to be cherished. Now, I have to reconcile with the fact that it may have just been symptomatic of oestrogen dominance; my body’s inability to appropriately regulate hormones.

Even so, besides chronic pain, the most I feel is slight agitation. I experienced road rage the other day that was characteristic of me before my newfound hormone balance, and considered it a minor miracle; a short reprieve from total apathy.

I know the news I received from my estranged mother is impacting me on a subconscious level, but there’s no translation into the world where I’m awake. When I’m stressed, I have persistent nightmares, and on the day I read an email from the woman who I was cut from, I dreamt that I watched my childhood best friend as she was shot to death before me. I then had to recount the events to her distraught mother, and the guilt I felt tied to my helplessness, knowing that I could have intervened but was too scared to.

I awoke, face contorted, ready for an outburst, but as my mind snapped back to reality, my grief was removed almost surgically, the same way a blood clot on my mother’s brain had been.

Oh yeah, the whole blood clot on my mother’s brain, the left side more specifically, well that was the news I received via email. She was in another country for my brother’s destination wedding, an event I was invited to three days prior, again, via email.

Estrangement or not, this news would have ordinarily ignited something in me. Fear, pain, anger, immense sadness, but I felt nothing. The only thoughts that sprang to life were born out of surprise. That it wasn’t something else she was reporting, like late-stage melanoma or a respiratory disease. But I guess blood clots are more likely when you abuse pain relief medications and strong pharmaceuticals belonging to the benzo family.

In her last update, she detailed plans to be transferred for stroke rehabilitation. She still can’t walk and has limited mobility, and with no familial connection to her, I can only feel bad for the impact this has on my brother.

I can’t cry. I’ve attempted to bring it about the way hospitals induce the birth of a child with abortifacients.

I trail down lists of Movies You Should Only Watch Once, attempting to usher in any emotion before my mind settles on Mysterious Skin (2004). I think if I’m able to watch that without crying, it is an indicator I’ve lost all humanity.