Later

I think if you had loved me when I wanted, you would have been ennobled by it.

You were out of my league. I will only admit that on career path and current earnings- not wit, intelligence, physical attractiveness, anything else, but by earnings you were completely out of my league. I wonder why you picked on me, and then that bloke, who also had an income rather less, but it is clearer after you dumped him. Possibly insecurity, or a desire to be completely in control, but you wanted someone who would be far more attracted to you than you were to her. Or him. That is parasitic, and exploitative. It is a sign of being damaged: having a complete lack of trust.

I hate the way you imposed complete control, from below. I had to make the pass, though I was frightened of you and could not believe my “luck”. I was trying the same game, actually, as I am “feminine” too, but you won. A dozen emails to arrange one phone call, because you did not want to speak on the phone. It is my bad luck that I was taken off the hormones just then: my emotions went completely wild. Two days before our second proper date, you cancelled it to see a friend from Leeds instead.

When I chauffeured you about, I was a bit down because of something else. You lost interest, yet gave mixed messages: hugging me and whispering in my ear “You know I came here just for you, don’t you?” then vanishing- what shall I say? “Upset me”, perhaps, I really don’t have the words- as did dancing so close at your party, then going to bed with someone else.

When three months later you invited me to your flat so that I would leave just after he arrived, that was to torture him rather than me. That- upset me- but that was not your primary purpose. That was March 2012, after I first told this story here.

My healing process from this is still ongoing. I resent that, for so long after, I thought of your casual derogatory remark about me, when you had lost interest, as The Truth about me. For so long, if you were near I would be intensely conscious of you, follow you round like a puppy at any opportunity, and be utterly miserable after. I felt wronged, though Bradley Headstone ran in my mind, protecting me from wrongdoing. And this Rupert Brooke poem, which has lived in me since I was twenty.

Success:

I THINK if you had loved me when I wanted;
If I’d looked up one day, and seen your eyes,
And found my wild sick blasphemous prayer granted,
And your brown face, that’s full of pity and wise,
Flushed suddenly; the white godhead in new fear
Intolerably so struggling, and so shamed;
Most holy and far, if you’d come all too near,
If earth had seen Earth’s lordliest wild limbs tamed,
Shaken, and trapped, and shivering, for My touch—
Myself should I have slain? or that foul you?
But this the strange gods, who had given so much,
To have seen and known you, this they might not do.
One last shame’s spared me, one black word’s unspoken;
And I’m alone; and you have not awoken.

I have at last ceased to worship you. At least the hurt and anger I feel is no longer mixed with desire.