A whole world of pain.

Firstly apologies, you’re reading a blog on a site dedicated to sexual pleasure and you find one entitled a “whole world of pain” so you’ve set yourself up thinking ‘This’ll be good! something about BDSM or spanking… Alas no. This is not about the physical manifestation of pain but pain of the worst kind. The one that cannot be quenched or extinguished by pain killers, the pain that no distraction no matter how powerful can drag you away from for more than a few hours. A pain of unimaginable magnitude… I’m talking about the pain of a………….. break up.

At the end of a relationship, especially in one you yourself haven’t ended, by way of a defence mechanism you start to analyse the other persons shortcomings. A way of telling yourself that it wasn’t right anyway, convincing yourself that you’ve made a lucky escape? Cathartic? Maybe, it also doesn’t mean that they’re not true.

The reality for me though is I knew about these shortcomings before she bailed out and loved her in-spite of them or so I thought. Never the less I have been over and over them in my mind. Making excuses for her, making excuses for myself for not spotting them sooner or why I chose to ignore them.

What did I love about her anyway or how do I personally define love? I started to think about our relationship, firstly she (via a friend) asked me out. This was surprising in itself as she’s ten years younger than me and a flawless specimen of the human form (subjective of course)

When it was first muted as an idea, I was honest, I said I didn’t think we would be compatible for the following reasons.

I have children she does not.

Her last boyfriend had been able to lavish luxuries upon her such as sports cars, holidays, jewellery etc. I don’t have a pot to piss in.

I like culture art, learning, social anthropology. She likes fashion and teacup dogs.

Her reputation in the office was one of silly young girl. I’d like to think I’m respected for my intelligence and knowledge.

I had a pre-conceived idea of what sort of person she was, Tea Cup dogs, expensive handbags = shallow and vacuous

It was hardly a match made in heaven but i spent an afternoon with her through work and was honest enough to tell her why I didn’t think it would work and this is where she touched the right nerve. Myself being originally from a typical Northern working class back ground; the old fashioned type where it was a hand up not a hand out, she challenged me by saying ‘but how do you know I’m like that? You don’t know me yet’. I hasten to add she did clearly tell me at this point that she was indeed shallow. Inherent in me perhaps due to my roots, or maybe its learned through work but I always challenge pre conceptions including my own, so how could I refuse? I also took the fact that she had chosen to say this as having some ,as yet un-revealed depths. I also took her shallow comment as being self-deprecating.

Before I go too far and make out it was all based on logical thought processes I must hasten to add that I’m a very sexual person and I knew from our chats that she is too. The way she looks appealed to me as I’m sure it would to many men and I did what most men will do in that situation and followed my dick and not my brain. Taking the thinnest list of wants as a written reference to her suitability.    Something clicked. Maybe it was the sound of my zip straining or more likely it seems the sound of my brain switching off.  We kissed that first day and I wont give you the usual clichés about electricity and all that but it worked. We talked at length, I asking many questions about her, what she wanted, why she wanted those things and what in her head they looked like and fitting her brief answers into my own template, sometimes shoe horning them in to make them fit.

She professed a desire to be someone different, to no longer be shallow, to want more from life, to be in control, to have a family and be part of one, to be part of a team and to grow together with someone, yes she still wanted nice things but they would be secondary to the deeper joys of life she would forego the need for shiny chattels. I bought it, oh boy did I buy it. The whole lot, the t-shirt the mug (which now has my picture emblazoned on it) the scarf, everything.

My first instinct of incompatibility was borne out to be true. But how did we get there?

I’m a senior manager and she is on the lower rungs of the ladder, for her the attraction was I think the perceived seniority and also my sexual overtness; some conversations had taken place previously in the office that she had been party to, I think a general horniness and interest in erotic fiction had created some sort of scenario in her head.

I was obviously flattered and also as I’ve already said, like a dog on heat, I professed to a friend early in our relationship that I loved the ‘trophy girlfriend’ element of it, it wasn’t just that though, she made me feel wanted, desirable, sexy and special.

It was a whirlwind, we spent all our time together, we professed our undying love, we even moved in together….. and thats when everything changed.  She slowly withdrew, she took away some of the attention, started behaving subtly different, the things I had bought into, that she had sold me, the dream that I certainly was looking for started to evaporate. It was barely noticeable at first but when those things are removed, like an addict chasing the high, you look for it more. Unlike a dealer she began to hand it out with an ever increasing distaste and annoyance towards me as I become more needy, chasing that high that she offered for free at the start she now seemed reluctant to supply at any price.

She likes to tell people she’s a ‘say it how it is’ kind of person, well yeah she is sort of. She’ll say things like “I told you I was shallow” Or “I’m not very good at thinking about other people” This wouldn’t be so bad in itself if she was trying hard to change, trying to live up to the expectations she had set at the beginning but she wasn’t. These things were not said by way of an apology but simply as a statement. That’s how I am, tough, deal with it.

In the spirit of being a ‘a say it like it is’ kind of person I told her she treated me like a handbag. I realise not your traditional analogy but bear with me. First of all she coveted me, wanted me more than anything else, had to have me, put all the effort in to getting me and then started ‘dressing’ herself to fit. Parading me around, showing me off to everyone. But then like all possessions, she fancied a change, she still liked it and still wanedt it in her wardrobe for whenever she fancied giving it an outing. But it was also a lot of maintenance keeping it nice. There is also a catch, This handbag didn’t come on its own, this was a full set of baggage. Cumbersome to have to carry around the trunk and overnight bag all the time, when really all you want is the clutch. It was when she shrugged and dismissed this as ‘silly’ with no consideration for what I was actually saying that alarm bells first started ringing.

From my point of view I’d been promised all these things but gradually something was shifting, its such a subtle shift that you can’t put your finger on it, first doubt creeps in and you start to ask for reassurance. Of course you’re told you’re being silly, not to worry and such like but then it happens again, then more frequently, it’s the first stages of rejection. Insecurity starts to creep in, you become clingy, moodily testing the boundaries to see how the other person will react and hoping you get some reassurance in return. You do not. All that happens is you exacerbate how they are already feeling and this becomes the classic ‘self fulfilling prophecy’. It also gives the other person plenty of ammo to excuse their own behaviour and blame it on you. I know this because I’ve been guilty of it before.

The thing is during this process the other person is deciding whether they want to stay or go (Inevitably its just a matter of time but they haven’t realised this yet) so they drip feed you, giving you little pieces but ultimately always keeping you hungry, its this hunger that consumes you. So by the time you come to the inevitable separation point, you are so obsessed with feeding that hunger that you are left with a huge empty void. Heart broken as such. So is this feeling of pain actually love at all? Did I really love her that much or did it just eat away at me over time to become all consuming? Is it a male response to the ego being rejected? Would I say have loved her as much in six months had she not left? Would I have become more aware or less aware of those idiosyncrasies that she I was aware of?

That is I’m afraid the unanswerable question although part of the answer lies in the fact that I do not have a choice in answering it.

Let’s say you met somebody who had all the attributes that she did not, someone who cared about you openly, clearly wanted to be with you, wanted to share your life and all the things in it, was attractive, on a sexual par and clearly a genuinely lovely person, wouldn’t they be the person to be with? If faced with that person automatically your going to compare how you feel about them with how you felt about that other person. There is no way it can live up to that same level of intensity because its not eating up at you inside.

But without that intensity at least subsiding to a dull ache, there is no way you can possibly consider how you feel about somebody else, no matter how much you might want to.

So what does Love actually feel like? I’m not sure anymore. Right now if you held my hand under a tap unless I could see steam coming off it I’m not convinced I could tell you if it was hot or cold. Feelings for me right now are an out of control roller coaster, just as I think were coming to the end of the track or the loops are slowing down I’m thrust into another corkscrew and struggling to hold on to my lunch.

There is only one answer, If I’ve heard it once in the past month I’ve heard it a 100 times. Time is a great healer, well hurry up time because this is one ride I cant wait to get off.