Wait so he expected you to be a broken desperate girl ready to jump on the first guy to hold out his hand? You sure you don't want me to punch him?
Yes (sort of; it was more about getting a broken, desperate girl who he'd fix and would be eternally grateful to the fixer), and no. As good as it would make me feel, I don't think that would really help anything.
Seriously, find a way to bring him down.
I don't think I can, and I don't want to dedicate my time to that =/ He already "stole" my entire group of friends. He has so much more societal clout than I do that there's nothing that I can do. And, even if I could do anything, I'd feel terrible about it.
Raging about it is only going to hurt you, Vector. Regardless of the wrongs I do not doubt he commited, you won't ever have peace over this unless you can let go of your anger about it.
I don't want peace. I want to complain because I hurt. I am reavowing that I will never permit anyone to do this to me again. I have no goal to become at peace with the universe; I have no goal to end this feud; I have no desire to just settle down and somehow make this okay.
The thing you seem to not understand is this.
This society prefers people to remain silent when they have been abused. It is rewarded. But I say no, because I refuse to hurt alone. If I had some ability to magically become not-angry, and to just turn it off--well, maybe. But part of the healing process is raging, once in a while, when things have been terribly unfair.
This is the first time in my entire life that I've been able to understand some parts of this extremely fucked up relationship. I am healing, and part of healing is looking over the old things again and saying: "No, Vector, you didn't deserve that at all."
Because, you know, he told me I did.
So thank you for your attempted kindness (really, honestly), but this isn't eating me alive. It's just something that is taking a long time to process. There's no plotting of revenge. There's no being consumed by anything. I'm just really angry today, and in a while I'll feel more okay about things. But I'm allowing myself to feel my anger, because back when I didn't that nearly drove me mad.
...Was this the guy trying to apologise? I don't think he can when he hasn't even begun to understand what he did. I guess you could try to explain at some point in the future (using a non face to face medium, obviously).
I think he's trying to apologize, though in a very indirect sort of way. I think he may be starting to understand what he did; it was a year and a half ago, maybe, that he told me this. But I don't know if he understands that more than a year is a perfectly good amount of time to be hurt over this sort of thing, and still be unpacking all of what happened.
I'm also vaguely scared that he only wants to be on good terms so that he can check the "is on good terms with all of his ex-girlfriends" box. Back when we were dating, it felt a lot like he wanted a girlfriend just so that he could say he had a girlfriend. That he was succeeding in life. He'd often offer me things he didn't actually ever follow through on... an offer so that he could give the appearance of offering. He was that sort of person. He was also the sort of person who objectified me by turning me into a brain that did math, much like other dudes will objectify a woman by turning her into a pair of breasts. I whinged once or twice about not feeling as pretty as the other women I saw out and about, and he said something about "being beautiful when you're doing math." Erm =/
So I don't trust his friendly overtures now. I also don't really want to take the energy to explain.
Wow. Just wow. Well, I guess that's the male equivalent of the woman who is looking for a "wild male" she can "tame". It's objectification in a very warped sort of way. I guess I'd be like, "Who the hell made you Francis of Assisi, that you think you can 'heal' anybody? Physician, heal thy motherfuckin' self."
Yeah, if any guy ever comes up to me again and goes "Ooooh, okay, I'll make you a super-positive and optimistic person by dating you, and THEN we'll have a great relationship
" I'm just going to give him a withering glare, feed him that line, and move on.
Seriously, how fucking disgusting is it to want to heal someone for your own advantage, rather than mostly for theirs? Auuuuuuuugh.
Best advice I can offer: Listen to some angry music while focusing intensely on something productive. Not a long-term solution, but a good way to work out those energies, so you can eventually think straight again.
Yeah, I'm listening to some loud piano music. Thanks for the suggestion