SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]

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Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: July 26th, 2020
  • SoylentSnake [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.nettolabour@hexbear.net•John Maclean - New General Megathread for the 23th-25th of August 2024English
    10·
    1 month ago
    softboy/loverboy musings, break up posting

    i’m pretty functional following this most recent romantic loss vs past ones, even though it was a better connection than most of them. i guess i’m used to how this feels now. but i’m still hurting and it sucks how few people feel emotionally safe to go to to talk about the wounds i’m still healing from and the thoughts i’m still having. i’m realizing that most people are pretty dogshit at talking about romantic grief and break ups. there’s a strong cultural push toward immediately jumping to invalidation & minimization (“plenty of fish,” “just move on,” “just forget them,” “you’ll find love again/you’ll meet someone else” (this last one is less bad but still misses the mark imo)).

    i’m not sure why we’re so averse to letting people feel healthy sadness around the fact that this specific connection and person is gone from one’s life. letting those feelings rock is how you eventually process them and move on at a pace that’s healthy for you. maybe other people just naturally have a more detached/transactional relationship to romance than i do? when i attach at this level people really get etched into my heart. maybe because i rarely connect deeply enough to see love potential at that level - it’s happened maybe 3.5 times in my real adult life, so in the span of a decade+, and one of those people was my long-term partner. i’m also haunted by a lot of friends who have fallen out of my life longer than most seem to be. i can’t help but feel there’s a gendered dynamic at play also. like mascs are expected to be more stoic and “rational” through shit like this and on average women provide a lot more space for each others feelings of grief and vulnerability in this arena.

    in practice this just means i’m talking about it less than i usually do with the people in my life, like being more shallowly stoic about it. not out of some stiff upper lip bullshit, but more because i just know a lot of people in my life will only make me feel worse and it’s a way of guarding my heart. my own journal is a much better place to talk these feelings through than with a lot of the actual human beings i’m close with.