and she said.. "how you interpret the dream is probably more important than the dream itself"

Talk of infidelity over at my-soliloquy which only reminds me of an old ex I once had. Well, I guess she is still my ex.. but at one time we were full-fledged 4-year relationship people.. fully into things in a way only possible with a few years under your belt. We knew all the things we hated about eachother, all the things we hated about our respective families.. all the weird shit that people just get upset over for no reason whatsoever..

which means we could push eachother's buttons like no other.

To me it was a great place to be.. there is closeness in that sort of vunerability.

One of the problems, though, was that she suffered from severe insecurities. I don't know if it was a lack of maturity at that age or if it was a more deeply rooted issue in her psychology but it was tough. The main manifestation of this insecurity was her insistence that every single girl friend of mine was, in fact, after me. I don't know if it was a woman's intuition thing or what, but I personally thought she was crazy.. at the time.

Now, looking back through years of experience, I see that there was some truth in her antics. Almost all of the women she was "scared" of back then have since made a pit stop in my bed, so to speak, and I have to wonder at this point how the social fabric bends like that.

If I step back from the situation I can say a few things about the situation. Number one is that there was no cheating going on between me and any of these women while we were dating. Did I find some of these girls attractive? Sure. Did I like them as people? Sure. So her worries were not completely out of the wild blue. But she always verbalized her worries in such a way as to make the other girls sound like harpies who were going to swoop down and seduce me when she was not looking..

ridiculus, I have will power of the gods, nerves of steal.

plus, none of them ever swooped down on me.

But on occasion there would be sitting on laps or arms-around-the-shoulders sort of things at parties or group-gatherings. To me, in my perhaps overly-naive mind, I thought we were friends. Brother-and-sister like. Innocence at it's best.

She never believed in innocence.

There is something scary that comes out of a childhood full of questionable uncle's and disbelieving parents. There is something scary, a small dark spot in the mind, in every girl or boy who has had to endure an inappropriate situation with an adult. Sexual or otherwise. You can see it if you look hard enough, even if you know nothing of the person's past, and looking into that dark spot is like staring into a black hole - the light getting sucked into it and only the severe darkness of cynicism is left to stare back at you.

She undoubtably was a bit paranoid, as well, but that's another story.. point number two is that she herself was not innocent of the infidelity. One particular occasion had me listening to her on the phone (hours away at college) while she sobbed out a story of accidental alcohol-induced makeout. I said it was alright, I said mistakes happen, I said I'll deal, she said "you're not going to yell at me?".

"No. You seem remorseful. Yelling will accomplish nothing."

For better or worse, right or wrong, I could not get raging mad about a hole I knew I too could have fallen into. There are traps everywhere in life.. to think we are safe is to be unwary is to be foolish is to fall, into, those, holes.

It was a blow, to her. It was a big question mark on our love. For me not to rage, scream, cry into the phone. For me not to threaten. She wanted a big session where she could attempt to defend herself. She wanted to be yelled at - a sort of punishment for her sins. I was just happy she chose to be honest with me.

When we finally broke up she came to my house to deliver the news.

"So.. yah. I think we should break up." she said while I typed out an email.

"uhh.. alright." I said - not in a whatever tone, but more of an accepting i-saw-it-coming tone.

"But.. so. That's it?" she expected a fight.

"Yeah, I guess that's it. I mean let's be honest, we knew this was coming" she expected a fight because in the four years we spent together every time I tried to break up with her (not once for another girl, always only because I thought we were emotionally draining eachother) she would fight fight fight kicking and screaming and crying and in the end we would walk away still as a couple. I could never cut the cord, not when she was hurting so badly.

"So..." she looked wounded, "you're not going to cry?"

"No, I'm not going to cry" I never cry. I hadn't cried in over three years at that point. Not by choice, but just because I can't.

She couldn't understand that I accepted her decision to leave. She wanted to see some passion, maybe, but I saw that this time was for real and she wasn't coming back so there was no reason to bare my soul to a dying cause. If you love them let them go, they need to do what the need to do, for better, for worse, for nothing at all.

After that I did not believe in love for some time. Not negatively or with sadness in my thoughts but just factually, as if that were just the way it is. I did some dark things. I did more physically then I did emotionally. Certain special areas of me were closed for business, doors shut and locked up, "gone to florida, back in the summer".

I wasn't perfect then as I am not perfect now but I can say truthfully that I am a worse person now than I was then. The years of life have worn away at my spirit like the sands of time and some rougher spots have been exposed. Road weary and maybe more cynical in some ways, I am more self and less people now. I am wounded, scarred, beaten down by the love that comes and goes in this world every year every month every week every day. I am hurt but I am blessed with the luck like irish and my childhood remains golden, in tact, my parents still love me, no one close to me has died, life - in fact - is pretty grand.

So as wounded as I may be, as tired as I may feel, I am okay. I really shouldn't complain, and I'm not.. just examining. What exactly is infidelity. If I did not have the carnal thoughts at that time but I have since fooled around with a girl - was I an infidel for letting her put her arm around me at a party? Did I expose the possibility only because, by being attached, I was friendly and unassuming and therefore built a repore with these girls in a way that never would have been possible if I was single? Did the social fabric bend and twist on my actions or did fate plan it all out in front of me?

What is infidelity?