I won't go into details, but....

 

This will be a short entry to replace the one I had originally posted.  I pissed off someone who I didn't want to piss off because of another communication failure between us.  The way we are going, I'm afraid we might never speak again.  And that's a shame.  Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa.

Those of you who saw the original entry will understand what happened.  Those of you who didn't, well - I won't go into things here.  All I can say is that I hope we can patch things up.....

Looking back at two friendships.

 

The above picture is of me and my former cruise partner (FCP) who shall not be named here.  The other day, she came up in an exchange of text messages between me and my ex girlfriend. Although I can sense some of my ex's ambivalence about how we handled our differences, I know that she may be learning something by chatting with me this way.  Whether or not we end up being good friends again is up to fate.  But with everything that went on in my life last year, she may have been in a worse place without losing anyone important in her life. And that could be the explanation why she fought so hard then and why she is ambivalent about a friendship now.  But I digress....

The ex and FCP have met once during the pandemic and have chatted on the phone several times.  It seems like the ex inherits friendships whenever she breaks up with a man - and now she has FCP for a friend.  I know that FCP and I will likely never find a way to patch things up - and I can't blame her for feeling as she does.

Several days ago, I had a dream that referenced FCP, and it wasn't pleasant.  I feel that I needed to send an indirect message to find out whether she is OK or not. And thus, the mention of this dream to my ex. I'm hoping that all is still OK with FCP, as last the ex heard, things were OK, as FCP has hunkered down with her pets for the duration.

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You might wonder why I once sent FCP a terse apology that may have sounded "matter of fact" and nothing more.  The answer is simple: If I were to say a "Mea Culpa, Mea Culpa, Mea Maxima Culpa" to her, she'd find a way to use the written word against me.  Thus, I don't want anything communicated in a form that could be used against me.

Regarding the ex, I want her as a friend, the type of friendship we could have had at the first time we broke up.  I don't push her.  Both of us still have some feelings that might complicate things if a friendship is rushed.   So I find it better to go slowly and work at rebuilding trust.  In our last conversation, I mentioned that there was a subtle wall between us during the relationship - and she gave as part of her explanation: "I didn't think about it."  People who build walls between themselves and others (and I'm including myself here as well), don't think of things that the other person feels should be obvious.  Over time, they may become obvious to the person, and by then it is often too late to fix things between the two people.  This is why I believe that an occasional argument between two people is a healthy thing - the walls we build are not started by our conscious minds, but can only be breached by our conscious minds.

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Some of my readers might remember that the big problems with the ex started with our breakup and how we handled things.  I am careful NOT to mention what's going on with my dating life with her, as it is none of her business.  If she were to ask, I'd give her the information she asked for, but I'd warn her that she might not like what she were to hear. (Whether she'd be pleased or not is not my concern if she were to ask the question.  But I think she'd be pleasantly surprised to find out certain things that I have not mentioned in this blog.)  Hopefully, this will not be an issue for us in the future.

As I've said earlier, I'm just trying to develop the friendship that my ex and I should have developed years ago.  Yet, at times, I feel that we're doing a delicate dance around an elephant in the room (not to be confused with the hose connecting us to our CPAP machines). Would either of us be able to overcome a fear of being hurt to risk opening up to a relationship again?  And if so, could either of us deal with potential rejection, or with a potential relationship failure in the future?  Right now, I'm only looking for a friendship, as that is the only realistic option open to us at the moment....