Intentions Be Damned

I started to write about a friendship that went south a couple days ago. I laid out blow by blow details and even changed the names to protect those involved. I had my longest blog entry to date and with 2 clicks I accidentally closed the window and hadn't saved a word.

I was pissed for a minute then the more i thought about it the more i realized this was, without trying to sound too grand, god doing for me what i wasn't doing for myself. I'm not the kind of person to air dirty laundry, and i was about to do just that. Happily in hindsight, i'm glad i didn't.

My world is mine to absorb, process, enjoy, unravel, and navigate. I choose to let people into it and to let them know certain things. Those closest to me know most things. those furthest (who actually still know who I am) know only what they happen to perceive. Sometimes what they perceive is what I intend, but sometimes what is perceived is no where close to who i am or what I think I am showing people, and that's where the trouble arises.

I recently was perceived by a friend to be making moves toward his boyfriend. I was also recently perceived to be and called "a party boy on a downward spiral who retreats to the ghetto" or something to that effect. I was also perceived as someone being duplicitous with those around me. Now to clarify the first one, i did flirt with a friend boyfriend, after that boyfriend flirted with me and told me it was ok and that my friend was cool with it. As for the second, well that was the result of a facebook political debate I foolishly decided to throw my two cents into and proceeded to get ripped apart by anyone who chimed in and had all my opinions dismissed and insulted.

Good times.

All of this has lead me to analyze my side of the street. To look at my own actions and see what I could have done differently. After all, that's all I could have controlled. With regard to the "friend", I could have not flirted with his boyfriend. But he's also the one who would run and talk to my partner about anything I did that he thought my partner might not no about and he felt should know... I ended up writing a lengthy letter (as opposed to a phone call where I knew I would get flustered, and say something I regret rather than what I had intended to say), basically severing the friendship, citing 3 very specific reasons, one being that my partner knows everything this friend did and then some, long before he ever did.  that's the nice thing about honesty in relationships - you tell each other a lot. I realized that he was seeing a person that didn't exist. he was seeing who he had already decided I was based on .... I have no idea what. And that's not the kind of  friend I want to have.

With regard to the political debate, I unfriended the prick. Done. I never met him in person anyway.

So in looking at my side of the street, I've realized that my actions don't always convey my intentions. Though my intentions may be innocent or innocuous in my mind, they affect others in ways I couldn't even think of ahead of time. People are going to see what they want to see, intentions be damned. The best I can do is be myself. If I am misunderstood, then the best I can do is try to help the person understand, if they are willing to hear it. If they're not, like in the case of my "friend" I had to let go, then it's their loss, but it's my lesson. A lesson that I'll probably have to be reminded of again in the future.