Valentine's pressure & expectations...

I feel completely drained.

I don't know if it's the pressure of Valentine's Day that's doing it to me, or if it's the fact that I feel like I haven't had a true mental break in so long that I can't remember.

Even as I type this, I'm sitting at work with my co-worker probably looking over her shoulder at me. I have to shut the window over and over again because I can't even sit for 5 minutes and write without something interfering with it. This is how compartmentalized my life has become, and it's starting to take its toll on me.

I walked from my car to work this morning (about a 7-10 minute walk) and all I could think about was how anxious I feel all the time.

I started to blame my girlfriend for this, but it can't be entirely her fault, because I was in this same state in my last relationship. Difference is, this time my girl actually seems to care if I'm happy. She can't be blamed for the fact that I allow her happiness to trump mine, even if it means pushing my own regard for my mental state out of the picture altogether until it finally catches up to me, like it did this morning.

I think I give off an air of confidence and complete mental stability, and that makes people around me feel like they don't need to worry about anything they do upsetting me, because I'm so quick to just make the situation relaxed for them, even if I'm not in the best mood. And for some reason, when it happens to be my girlfriend in that situation, it must just be in the female nature to want to push that person to the point where they can see just how upset or uncomfortable they can make me.

With L***, it was complete irrationality. She'd do something like ask me a question that there is no possible way to answer without either blatantly lying to her face or causing her to get upset. She seemed to always corner me in these situations when I just wanted to relax. She'd ask something like "if I had a penis, would you still love me?".

Now how does one answer something like that? I thought I pulled it off pretty well, actually--answering "of course I'd still love you, but I don't know how sexually attracted to you I would be". Makes sense--I'm not gay, and I don't really like any penises that aren't attached to my body, but mentally I felt we would still connect as we always had, and so the love would still be there.

This was not the right answer. The only way she would have been satisfied would have been if I straight up said, "yes, of course I'd still love you, and everything about you, including your new penis and I'd be just as sexually charged to make love to you and your penis". But then again, she'd know I was lying, because she'd see that I wasn't sincere. She would've peppered me with questions until I had to admit that it wasn't the truth and we'd be in the same situation we were in if I had answered the other way.

Damned if I do, damned if I don't.

With my girl now, it's nowhere near that dramatic. Thank God for that. But there are still little situations where she'll needle me and push every wrong button to the point where I lose it, seemingly because she's cranky or in a bad mood or just annoyed at my general sense of stability (which is for the most part a complete front just to keep the peace).

Example: last night. We're sitting doing nothing in particular, just watching TV, and she tells me to take my pants off. In all seriousness. Now, I wouldn't have a problem taking my pants off, if there's a reason for it. All she has to do is shoot me a look or lean over and she can get my pants off without much of a problem. But this wasn't really a sexual thing. It was just for her own entertainment, and I could tell. If I would have taken my pants off, she would have looked at me, and I'd just be sitting there, wondering why I didn't have pants on. So I said no. At least, not unless she was willing to do the same.

It wouldn't have felt right, because I don't like being someone's entertainment. It's like when she asks me to dance in my boxers, or take pictures of myself. It sounds like a little quick joke, like its something that could be chuckled off and forgotten about, but she isn't kidding when she asks this shit of me. How do I know that? Because she'll continue asking and stare at me, expecting a response. And that's when it gets uncomfortable. I don't think it's a matter of me having too much pride in myself to say that I don't want to dance in my boxers for you, or take off my pants, simply because you demand it. As a man, I have a very intricate system of sexuality that is grounded on my own self-confidence, and once you take that away from me by making me degrade myself for your entertainment, I'm no longer feeling it anymore, and you've turned yourself from an object of desire to the person responsible for me feeling the way I do, and that inner rage I feel gets bottled up, turns to anxiety and depression, and just kills all libido I would've had if you had simply treated me like I feel I deserve and saw that I'm not comfortable being your performing monkey.

So instead, I fight it because I'd rather fight that force than to go through feeling humiliated and lose my sexual desire for her. I'd rather not cater to those whims, because it sets a bad precedent for the future. If she knows she can say jump and I'll ask how high, she'll just continue pushing that until I'm doing things for her that I know deep down cause me nothing but remorse and anger. And I'm sure it'd lash out in other, more subtle ways that I don't want to get to.

So nip it in the bud, fight that fight right then and there, and hope that she understands why I don't want any part of that arrangement.

It's not the act of taking my pants off or dancing or whatever she asks of me that's the problem. The acts themselves are harmless and silly. If I'm feeling harmless and silly, I act on it and do harmless and silly things. It's the nature of the approach that bothers me. It's the "do it or I'm going to get pissed" aspect that leaves me dumbfounded. If you're giving me an ultimatum for something that's supposed to be intimate, then if I act on that, it's doing something I don't want to do to simply please you and not make you upset.

And sadly, when I refused yesterday, she seemed to genuinely get upset. She didn't want to show it, because I think she realized how ridiculous that was (another huge step up from the last relationship I was in--L*** would have never realized it and thought it perfectly acceptable to be pissed off at me for something like that). But it was obviously there. It came out in other ways, as it always will. She didn't get her way, I resisted her demands, and all of a sudden she was cranky and everything seemed to annoy her. Or maybe she had already felt that way, and this was her excuse for letting it out.

All in all, it wasn't a big deal, and we went to sleep saying I love you and there really wasn't any problems.

But now I've got a whole new set of problems with this weekend. Valentine's Day. I abhor Valentine's Day, just as I abhor any situation in which I'm coerced to make the perfect day. This includes Christmas, the girl's birthday and our anniversary. I immediately feel the pressure to make it a perfect day, and don't want anything to go wrong. And I always feel I fucked up or am going to fuck up. This year, I'm planning on making her a lasagna dinner, buying her wine, and getting a nice tiramisu cake. Here's the problem. What part do I make a surprise and which part do I tell her? If I want to make the tiramisu a surprise, do I go out Saturday morning to buy it, or will that look like I'm doing the old "last minute shopping" thing again, like I usually do? If I bring it home tonight, does it kill all the romance because everything is so prepared? If I mess up the dinner, is the night ruined? If I don't get her a gift, am I cheap? If I do get her a gift, what do I get her with the limited funds I have? Is she getting me a gift? I don't want her to get me something if I'm not getting her anything. I have to get her a card, but what kind of card? Something sappy? Funny? What do I write in it? I don't want to trump her card, but I don't want to get trumped by it either. What if they're out of cards?

I fucking hate these holidays. I like hanging out with her. I like going out with her. I like doing things for her. But I HATE being forced to do it. It's just like the requests from her. The acts themselves are not the issue. It's not the fact that I'm making dinner and wine and getting her a card and flowers. It's the coercion that angers me and makes me anxious. It's this pressure to make sure everything is right or else the day is ruined. It's the commercials, and the ads, and her friends' stories, and what she's going to tell them, and how they'll react, and how that'll make her feel, and how she'll bring it up to me, if ANYTHING goes wrong tomorrow night. The fact that so much hinges on this one night, or one weekend, or one week even, is too much for me to want to think about.

This is the reason why the 4th of July used to be my favorite holiday. I say used to be, because now it coincides with her birthday the next day, so that pressure is even there for that. So I guess Memorial Day replaces it as my favorite now. No pressure, just barbecuing and relaxing. That's it.

I haven't thought of a way to end this rant, so I'll just say that most likely this whole thing is in my head, and tomorrow will likely go off without any problems. At least, I can only hope so.