Something to say.

Is it possible to be a muse for psychological musings? Whenever I read a post at Gempires I seem to end up spilling my emotional ramblings into a comment box on her site. Well, this time I wrote it all down, then didn't post it to her blog. The problem is I clearly have something to get off my chest that reading her post has triggered, but I am unable to latch on to what it is. So, here is the full comment I would have posted, had it been an actual comment rather than a dump of some broken part of my psyche, some unformed truth of existence I am struggling to grasp:

Nice to see you back. You never know how good something is until it is gone.

Now to a most difficult comment. Difficult because I have always been one to put up with the discomfort of seeing someone in pain rather than lending a helping hand, empathising but not wanting the reckless insertion of opinions to make matters worse. Events have occurred in my life that have made me realise it is better to try to help and make matters worse than it is to stand by and watch. It is also difficult, as I shun seriousness. Difficult, because I am not sure if it is something I need to say or something you would want to hear.

So, if I may, here is some reckless insertion of opinion. Everything you say is absolutely spot on. Much of what you say about men, while painted with a broad brush, is true. But I am not sure you should get jaded about motives.

Consider what it is like to be someone who is not loved by all they encounter. Someone who isn't immediately attractive to the opposite sex in a world where such a thing is considered abnormal. Someone who has those same incorrect preconceptions about what is attractive and loveable. Preconceptions that you, and many women, do not seem to have or can put aside. Imagine then what it must feel like when someone like that is confronted by the blinding, brute force that is being loved, or even liked! The sheer un-nerving truth of it. That it is nothing like it is in the movies. That it is a responsibility. It carries a heavy burden. You are suddenly responsible for the well being of another person's emotions. That emotion isn't black and white but every shade of grey there is.

The closest thing to this is being suddenly confronted with someone who is angry with you and you don't know why. Or, better yet, it is like agreeing to a friendly tennis game and realising after the first serve that you are playing against a pro. And, when it comes to love, the potential responses are similar: you can shy away from the barrage, unclear on how to continue or you can try and give as good as you get. The first response will appear to be insensitive, when it isn't. Unfortunately for the struggle for peace amongst the sexes, it is more often than not the response we males offer.

There is hope, however. In case you haven't guessed, I have been through a similar set of problems. Men are not equipped mentally to deal with emotion, except in small packets. It is actually a function of brain design, not a decision made. But, we can learn to give as good as we get. It takes practice, and a forgiving mentor. It seems to me, Gem, that you have a lot of feelings (good and bad) in this situation, but that is better than not having feelings at all. Whether you think there is a way forward or not, whether there is hope of teaching a slow student or not, my opinion (just to make that clear) is you shouldn't be jaded about it. In fact, you should take some solace in the fact that you are not only a better master of your own emotions than most, but you are better at putting them in words. Keep it up.

What a mess. The tragedy is I touched what I wanted to say briefly with the very end of my finger before it fell into the abyss. Sometimes I think I might be more fucked up than I give myself credit for.

But, fear not, apart from a post I have brewing in my subconscious about how I feel about an impending 10 year high school reunion, there shouldn't be too many of these diary style emotional dump blog entries to bore the crap out everybody. It just aint my style.