Don't play, can't win

Let me tell you a story.

Many years ago, I met someone. We swiftly began dating, it was nice to be around them. However, soon after we started, they informed me that they had a long-term boyfriend. They were not telling him about this, so for about the six months we knew each other, it was all secretive. Espionage thriller, but more grinding sadness.

I didn't have an issue of being "the other person" necessarily. It would never be truly fulfilling, I knew I would never be first in any decisions. In this particular instance, walking immediately would have been the most protective of my feelings. I had put myself in a prison with unlocked gates.

Since childhood, loss aversion has defined how I make decisions. That mindset hurts me. It hurts others, people I have to some degree said I care about. Anhedonia is a powerful influence; because sensations of joy are muted and dull for me, what remains is the sense that I am losing something.

I don't leave social relationships like the one I started this post with. I have a lack of boundaries with how people treat me, because if they leave then I have nothing. If they stay, I have something - even if that something is absolute fucking poison.

in, past couple of years I have constantly been juggling connections, often very early in the process of getting to know one another, and all my effort turning to sludge in my hands. People, rightly, feel I am superficially interested in them. Not because that is my intention from the start, but I'm trying to make every person fit into a finite schedule. It's exhausting. Logistics are a particular challenge with my disability, and the breakdowns and failures make the hurt flood in.

The quest today is pretty simple. Extract from relationships that are toxic or otherwise will not lead to good things. Invest more time in the people I already know and care about. This means my social schedule is pretty empty, but also I'm spending time with people I'm confident care about me. It is much easier to do logistical things with those that have known preferences and predictable responses. I'm doing to a makers' fair this weekend. It's fun, we went to a lot of farmer's markets during the warm months. We made tinctures of cherries and rosemary.

It was nice. I want to keep that.

I read a feature article in Defector a few months back, about the lesbian romance film Desert Hearts (1986). Taking place in Reno in the late fifties, gambling is a key conduit in the film's messaging. At one point in the novel the film is adapted from, Cay tells her older lover Vivian that "If you don't play, you can't lose." The director for the film changed this to the very different "If you don’t play, you can’t win." There is a reading that is about holding on to things - to let loss aversion flood the amygdala and cortex. Grasp things every tighter in my talons.

There's also the idea that holding on to things that do not work and never will is preventing us from finding what genuinely fulfills us. The scariest thing for me is to let go and enter the unknown. Every happy period I've had as an adult is because I let go and let the weave of the universe do its work.

I'm skeptical if that approach actually leads to sustained happiness- I have bipolar disorder, I'm skeptical of sustained periods of anything. I want to hold what is important to me, and I only have so much room in my embrace.

Artemis