Breakfast with Charlie

So not too much to update about recently. I just got to Palm Springs and will spend Christmas here with the family. It was originally just going to be the four of us but it’s turned into a huge party and we expect 10-12 people now. So that will be super fun. I’ll give you an update after to see how it goes.

I talked to my therapist about the way my dad screams at my mom sometimes and he said I need to stand up to him and tell him “I don’t appreciate you speaking to mom that way.” We will see if I have the guts to do it. But we also spent a lot of time talking about how that impacted me and my ability to ask for what I WANT or NEED in relationships in general. I’m scared to say anything to dad when he’s like that. My therapist suggested to maybe wait until later to bring it up again with him privately. We’ll seeeee.

The other night, got a text from Charles. He hadn’t texted me since the Saturday hang out. Basically he said that he’s not an easy person to get along with but “neither are you”. His phrasing of things was a little annoying. Basically saying I’m sorry but you are a problem as well. Anyway, he said he wanted to try and work on things and make friends work because it was “important to him”.

I replied the next morning because I wanted to think about how to approach this, everyone was telling me to just ignore him, Don’t write back. But we texted back and forth a little bit but I said this is better talked about in person. So we met for breakfast.

I was pretty harsh (I’m sure some would say not harsh enough) with him but I think it was needed. I told him how I didn’t think he respected me, how he didn’t stand up to Eric (I wanted to say more, IE “standing up to him looks like you saying “Eric, I know you don’t like [chris] but this is my partner and my boyfriend, the person I love. You need to at least be polite to him and respect my decision to be with him””) and told him about how it’s not that he forgets, it’s that he doesn’t care. He said he did care…. But I kinda just let that drop. I told him that looking back, re-reading all my old posts. It was clear we should have never dated from the start, there were too many red flags, too much negativity already early on. He asked if I regretted our relationship. I absolutely do not, I think it was a growing and learning point for both of us. He told me he’s learned a lot from this relationship as well.

I told him that all I really want out of him right now is a sincere apology. We’ll see if I ever get that or not. I’m still waiting on that letter and for him to “come over anytime he wants”.

I scolded him a little bit about how he’s leading on these two guys he’s dating now and told him he needs to set boundaries with them. He needs to stop acting like he’s dating them if all he wants to do is fuck them.

I was a bit annoyed to hear about how his boys are cooking him dinner, bringing him shit to work. Stuff I used to do for him. Stuff I thought was special but I guess not. I’m apparently easily replaceable. He also told me how the “sex is amazing”. Which really pissed me off.

I think it was a productive discussion, at least I hope so. I hope he is understanding his actions and how things impact other people. I gave him the link to this blog. I started him off with “Hi Chris“. He said he would read it when he had a chance. We’ll see. My hope is that he can gain a perspective about our relationship and how his actions impacted the other party (IE ME). I want him to be happy, I want him to know he is LOVED, I want him to know that people care about him. But it’s also ok to be single, to be alone. For him to stop chasing that “first love” feeling and be ok with the BORING partner, to be ok with compromise and arguments and everything else that a relationship has.

ALSO, I’m not saying I was perfect in this relationship either! I could have done a lot of things better.

Although, I did hear yet another rumor that perhaps he cheated on me while we were together. But it might have been during the one breakup that lasted for four days where I went camping. I may or may not ask him about it, but honestly it doesn’t’ really matter now. IN my mind, he was always very loyal to me. One thing I miss most is him coming home and just plopping down on the couch and cuddling with me, falling asleep in my arms.

On the other hand, I’ve honestly been really well. Things with Kellie are going well, we’re already starting to plan some things for February. Other stuff in life is going well, I’m making better connections with friends. I haven’t been this happy in a while. Sure there are still things that get me down, sure there’s still a lot of stress. But I’m generally happy. I want to start doing more, I want to get back to the happiness I had in LA. Friends dinners, hikes, climbing, exploring and enjoying the world and life. No regrets, no holding back. Just be free and live.

Glenn tells me to just quit, stop stressing over the money. Which is honestly true. This year I’ll be grossing a tad over $950k (which honestly is SHOCKING to me, I sure don’t FEEL like I made that much); paying almost $200k in taxes alone. I can fucking quit and live my life. But I just am scared it’s not “enough”. I’m scared about getting cancer or not being able to pay for healthcare mostly. I’m scared that in 20 or 30 years, I’ll be broke and have to go take a greater job at Walmart, I’m sure those jobs will be replaced by robots by then.

I have this one FWB now too that I feel like we’re becoming better friends, he even went out of his way to come meet me at the Apple Store to buy my new MacBook with me.. He wants me to meet his husband which might be a bit awk. If things go well with meeting his husband then we both want to plan a weekend get away.

Charles, Irish, Kellie.

Warning, this will be a long post. The past week has been a whirlwind of emotions and shit.

Last Wed or Thursday I posted a story about this stalker that I have. Charles replied and we started talking. It was a pretty good talk, TBH. We were just chatting about my life, the stalker. I told him about the troubles with my tennis buddy and how I need a new one. He then said “I guess since you’re telling me about your life I should tell you about mine”.

I was excited but also nervous. I was hoping he’d just tell me about the issues with Serge, or something about Eric or his family. But instead he choose to tell me about the two guys he’s been seeing and how they want more then he wants right now and blah blah blah. Honestly the worst possible thing for him to tell me about.

I’d been purposely avoiding telling him about guys I’m dating, out of respect for his feelings. But he choose to go there. Whatever. It really annoyed me. I mean fine that he’s seeing guys but why tell me about them like that right now. He still knows how I feel about him.

Then the next day, I posted the song by JP Saxe – The Good Parts. He replied with a crying emoji and then we started talking about things. He said “did you listen to the first verse” then sent me the lyrics.

The way you turned to me in bed
And the way you said, “Can I have my spot?”
Put your head against my chest, asked me to rub your neck
Put on British Bake Show or some other stupid show we’d watch

He said that part makes laugh and cry at the same time because it’s so perfect for us. The whole song is perfect for us. We talked a lot about random stuff that morning. It was a really good chat TBH. Made me feel good that maybe we were making progress to being friends and being able to be open and honest. Those last 24 hours he was so open, so willing to chat. He was the Charles I loved for those moments.

So I invited him to lunch with Jay & James and I on Saturday. He said “maybe”. Which is fine. I honestly didn’t expect him to ever show up.

Friday night I went out (more on that later) and didn’t get home until 4am. I texted Charles around 3am asking if he was going to come or not and he replied “I’m a hard maybe”. I asked WTF are you doing up this late and he said he was out with Serge’s roommates. I assumed that was a def no, based on the fact he was out that late.

Saturday I got up and went to the city. On my way there he texted asking If we were still doing lunch. I told him we were and he said “I can’t make it on time”. I told him that’s fine we were hanging out for the day after, it’s up to him if he wants to join.

So he joined us after lunch and we were all just walking around, went to a bar, went to the gingerbread houses. He was clearly hung the fuck over. I was hung the fuck over. We were both miserable but for me, I didn’t want it to end.

Why did he decide to join? What was the point of him coming?

As we were walking around we passed a bunch of stuff he and I had done together as a couple. He pointed those things out. “Remember when we went to a concert there”; “Oh that’s the place we went to that comedy show”. Why go out of your way to point those items out.

He told us how Eric is hanging out with serge randomly. I got upset because in 2 fucking years Eric couldn’t even be NICE to me but now Eric is so chill and fun that he’s hanging with serge? WTF. Charles said “get over it, it doesn’t matter now”

At one point, he was telling James: “we should make a 4 day weekend and go to the snow sometime”. This is something I had PLANNED for us to do. But he said “I don’t like the cold/snow” so we didn’t go.

He told me how he went to a concert in the city, I asked who and he said it was some artist he didn’t really know. You know how many concerts I suggested of artist he DID know and he said ‘No, I don’t like them enough to go see them in person.”

He told us how Friday night he went skinny dipping with his roommate and his boy and other people. I couldn’t even get him to skinny dip with JUST ME at my parents private pool.

It hurts me he’s doing these things, things that _I_ wanted and tried to do with him. And he’s doing them with these random people. He refused to do them with the person he said he loved. But it’s ok to do them with these randoms.

The whole time, he was also busy just texting people back and forth. Serge, Eric, I assume his two boys. Who knows who else.

But honestly, for the most part it as nice. I thought we were having a good time even though both of us were crazy hung over.

Then, it all crashed and burned. The four of us were sitting at dinner together and Charles blatantly opens grindr right in front of me. How fucking rude.

After dinner we all decide to go home. I had taken BART to the city, Charles had driven. If it had been Eric, serge, one of his boys, anyone else. He would have offered them a ride. But to me, he just said goodnight. And off I went. You know how many times we went hella out of our way to drop Eric off somewhere or pick Eric up. But he can’t have the respect or caring for me to do the same?

So I texted him “No offer for a ride”;
Him: “You could have asked”
Me: “I didn’t want to invite myself”
Him: “Wouldn’t hurt to ask”

I guess he was right, I could have asked. Maybe we could have had a nice ride home together. But then he said: “You’re upset I know. But we’re friend level now and there’s only so much interaction I can take right now. I was nervous you were gonna bring boys you were going on dates with. But I would have been ok with it and trust that you will find your happy”

I replied: “I found my happy…. I wouldn’t do that to you. And you getting on Grindr in front of me was a huge slap in the face. I’ve wanted you to meet Matt for a long time. It sucks it happens now. But I’m glad you got to meet him”

He replied: “Sorry but that’s just something you have to get used to being a friend”

I replied: “It’s too soon charles. And you should know that ”

He replied: “You’re dating!! That’s soon”

I replied: “I gotta try and move on. I dunno what else to do to move on from you. I’m tired of crying every night over you. I’m tired of having a random song come on and crying.

I want to be over you. It hurts me to hear you wanting to go do shit that I wanted to do with you. Things I had planners that we never got to do.

I’m trying to do it politely to you. Im trying to gently talk about those things. But not be right in your face with it.

If we want to make friends work. I think we have to be respectful of each other. Talk about things but be understanding of our feelings.”

And that was the end of it. No reply back from him. It’s been four days and not a word..

I texted Jay and James, I asked James if this was sustainable and he basically replied with “No, but you need to sleep on it” .

I slept on it, well barely. I was awake most of the night.

I decided, it’s clear he doesn’t respect me. He hasn’t in a long time. He doesn’t truly care about me as a person, about my feelings. Him opening grindr right in front of me. Him never defending me against Eric. Him not offering me a ride home. Him just ignoring my texts. It’s just time after time after time he direspects me. Doesn’t care about me. Only cares about HIMSELF.

The whole grindr thing. Instead of saying “I’m sorry” PERIOD or “I’m sorry, I should have thought about your feelings” he just says “Sorry, get over it”

I made the hard decision to block him on instagram. I left the line of communication open via iMessage. He can message or call me if he wants to talk. But I can’t keep seeing his face popup on all my stories. When he posts a story, I can’t have my heart skip a beat wondering what it is.

I told James, if he contacts you asking about it. Just tell him that I am open to discussing it with him. But it’s been four days. James said he still hasn’t said anything to him. He hasn’t said anything to me.

On Sunday night, I found out something else that confirmed my decision to block him. I was talking to this Kellie (again, more on him later) and come to find out he and Eric went on a few dates. During those dates apparently Eric spent enough time talking about Charles and his “Toxic bf” that It stuck. Kellie said “It was clear Eric was in love with Charles”. And the fact that again in two fucking years, Charles could never stand up to Eric and say, “Look this is the guy I love, I choose to be with. You don’t have to like him but you need to be polite to him, to respect him and my decision to be with him”. Instead Eric is out there telling random ass boys about how “toxic” I am apparently.

ANYWAY… Let’s switch topics. Irish.. I know I wrote a goodbye to him, but I should probably give a bit more of an update. Basically we hung out every moment we could over the past three weeks. He would come over for coffee, go to the gym, he would sneak out of his house late at night just to come see me for an hour or two and hang out. On Friday night we went out to the city and had a FUN ass time. We just danced, talked, etc. at one of the bars these two other filipinos came up and started talking to us. Kellie and Ace. I ended up making out with Kellie and then the four of us went to breakfast at 3am. I didn’t get home until 4am.

Saturday while I was out with everyone in the city, Irish texted me and said he probably wouldn’t get to see me again before he left. That made me really sad. But in the end we found time to hang out Sunday and Monday before he left. IT’s been amazing. even little tiny things make me so happy after Charles. IE I texted Irish “have a good day” and he replied “Thanks. You too”. When I would text that to Charles he would just say “thanks”. That extra little “You too” is such a huge thing to me.

Irish texts me in the morning, calls me randomly just to talk. But there’s things there that would never work. He’s just coming out, just figuring himself out. He needs time to write his own story, to explore life, to fuck boys, to date other guys. I don’t want to be his first everything.

He came over Sunday and we were just cuddling on the couch, talking about what is love and his love life past. He told me about this girl that broke his heart. I asked if there was anyone else and he hinted yes. Basically saying it was me.

Monday we had little impromptu going away at my house with Ace, Hugo, Andrew and myself.. Irish stayed for a bit after everyone left and we had a nice last cuddle, make out session, talk about life.

He’s back home now. I miss him. He texted me yesterday “Goodnight, Love you”. And that broke my heart. I care about him a lot already, do I love him, I dunno yet. He’s a great guy. I enjoyed our time but to me it was just a vacation romance. I cannot be a bf to him. He has too much story of his own to write, too much of his own life to live. If we were to date, he would break my heart in the future when he realizes what he missed out on by not living his life now.

And then… Kellie, as I mentioned, I met Kellie at the bar on Friday night and we made out. Sunday he and I spent an hour on the phone talking about random stuff. Tuesday we had a date and it was great. We went to San Jose, walked around down town. Holding hands, arms linked. Unlike with Francis though holding hands with Kellie felt natural. Last night we talked on the phone again for an hour and a half.

Obviously this is still VERY VERY early. There’s still a lot to figure out about him (IE, is he top or bottom). But I’m currently excited to see where this goes.

I am loved and wanted, it’s amazing how now I have boys wanting me. What’s changed over the past two years while I was with Charles? Before I was always chasing boys. Now boys are chasing me, boys are falling in love with me. Maybe my therapy is working. I’m being more open and honest with people. We shall see what the future brings. Hopefully 2024 will be amazing for me.

And sorry for the fucking LONG ASS POST. I told you the last few days have been insane.

Goodbye Irish

It’s been amazing getting to know you over the past three weeks and you’ve really made me catch some feelings for you.

You’re a great guy with a lot ahead of you. I hope you take the next year to really figure yourself out and grow.

I hope that I’ve been a positive influence in your life and you remember your first experiences in California with fondness.

Wish we were both in different life spaces so we could continue to get to know each other, but this is the end of our story together. I hope we can stay in touch as friends.

Love you boy.

A last letter to Charles

Dearest Charles,

I loved you with everything I had. I gave you every ounce of love, every thing you asked for. I tried to make you as happy as I could.

When we first started dating you were kind, caring, texted me all the time, called me randomly just to talk. You were open and beautiful. But then you changed. You became cold, uncaring, unchanging, rude to a point.

Now I hear stories about your best friend telling random dates about how “toxic” I was.

You were the one who couldn’t communicate. You were the one who couldn’t be open. You were the one who couldn’t respect me, say I’m sorry, forgive and move on. You held everything against me.

YOU forgot my birthday, but yet you blamed me first for “not reminding you” (I DID!) and then for not planning anything and you said “well it didn’t seem that important to you”

YOU are the one who couldn’t understand how coming home at 11:30 at night and turning all the lights on could bother your partner.

YOU are the one who couldn’t understand that setting off alarms for over an hour at 5am could be annoying to your partner.

YOU are the one who never put in effort to plan anything or even commit to what I had planned

YOU are the one who forgot events time after time.

YOU are the one who prioritized your ex-bf/best friend over your partner. You never stood up to him and said “this is the man I love and am in a relationship with you need to be respectful and nice to him”

YOU are the one who couldn’t see that I wanted to encourage you to play tennis, not “hold you back” as you claim. I just wanted to be INVITED.

YOU are the one who got on GRINDR right in front of me and instead of saying “I’m sorry, I should have been more respectful” you just basically said “get over it”

YOU are the one who told me “oh, I’m not a very good texter” but then you sit there and text people constantly.

YOU are the one who said “Oh, I can’t contribute much to this trip” but then went off and spent THOUSANDS on yourself for a sleeve tattoo.

You’re selfish Charles, you’re rude, you don’t give a flying fuck about anything about me. You said you loved me but you didn’t SHOW it to me.

I tried, I tried to give you what you wanted. I tried to show you that I cared. I tried to encourage you to do better things.

I don’t get your motivations. You said to me the other day. “I hope we can be close forever” but then when we hung out the very next day you treated me like shit. You sat there texting other people all day, you got on grindr right in front of me, you didn’t offer me a ride home. You ignored my texts after.

But yet you went out of your way to COME hang out? Why? Why did you come hang out? Why did you keep pointing out things we had done together. Why?

What is it that you WANT. You act like you’re upset that I’m dating, but you’re the one who broke up with me, you’re the one who ended things. What is it that you care about me dating?

I want that Charles I had when we first started dating. But this Charles, this is a fucking asshole. You’re a terrible person the way you are right now to me.

I don’t fucking get it. I gave you everything. I loved you hard, I did what I could for you. Yes, I failed too. I failed by not telling you my needs better. I failed you by getting up set when you shut down. I failed by maybe doing too much for you. I failed…

In the end, I deserve so much better. I’ve already written multiple times about what I deserve, and it’s way more than what you gave me.

Why does he treat me like this?

He’s perfectly CAPABLE of being a kind, caring, responsive human being. BUT YET he chooses to treat me like total SHIT

Last night, he could have offered me a ride home. If it were Eric or serge. He would have. But when I question him he says “You should have asked”.

He always told me, he’s bad at texting, but yet he sits there when we hang out, texting serge and Eric and who ever else constantly.

I tried to plan us nice trips, get aways. He always said “I can’t commit due to work”. But then he’s trying to plan shit with Jay and James. I even suggested last year we just go spend ONE DAY. I wanted to spend ONE DAY in the snow. Get a cute cabin, go snowmobiling, etc. And he said “No, I don’t like the snow”. but now he’s trying to do the exact same thing with them.

He just ignores my text and doesn’t even bother to reply.

When we were together, I would suggest we go to random concerts just to enjoy the experience. But he would say “No, I don’t know them” or “I don’t like them that much”. But now he’s single and he’s going to random concerts he doesn’t know.

He’s just a fucking asshole.

I DESERVE BETTER. TREAT ME LIKE A FUCKING HUMAN BEING.

I should just block him. He doesn’t even deserve me in his life. I’m too good for him.