Unknowing Hostages…

We have all likely been them, and also probably kept a few of our own. People we have engaged in our lives that we aren’t really ready to let go of, but aren’t likely going to keep either. There are varied reasons for the taking of hostages, all real, just with varying degrees of culpability.

We don’t bind these people with chains or ropes or any real life actual restraint, no we bind them to us with words. Words unspoken but eagerly awaited. Or words of manipulation or out right lies. We hold these people hostage to the fickleness of our interest, bandwidth and selfishness.

How many times have you stayed in relationship with someone because you just can’t figure out where you stand with them. They are hot, then cold, then warm and inviting, then distant and vacant. The communication comes in drips and drabs, just enough to keep you thinking that this might actually work out. Or blossom to full potential. Or something…

Most of who have taken these hostages know we have done so, even if we refuse to admit it. We know the other person wants more from us, craves our attention, praise, interest and love. But we are reluctant, doling out ourselves in tiny particles that are just enough nourishment to keep the person on life support and hanging on.

The reasons why we do it are way less interesting than the fact that we do it. I mean, seriously, if you are not crazy about the other person and they don’t feel the same, isn’t it better just to walk away? Allowing for space and time for someone else to walk on in and stay awhile? Why does it feel so horribly good to have someone in your life that gives you just enough attention and love to never satisfy you, but to keep you mired in the situationship.

Because we all want love. And we are all a little fucked up about how we go about it, how we will accept it, and how it might show up for us. We all have our own version of “magical thinking” that allows for a varied or different ending than the most plausible one: just another person that came into our lives, touched but only briefly, leaving nothing but a few reopened wounds or new brilliant scars.

I cannot mention how many times I have stayed in something just waiting for the other person to acknowledge my worth, my value to them. How many slings and arrows I suffered because I just wanted them to like me, see me, want me like they once professed they did. That feeling when someone puts you as a focal point in their lives and you reciprocate. There is no bigger high that I know of. A heart on fire is a beautiful thing, right up until it scalds your entire chest cavity and mangles your future ability to love and be loved.

The reason I have done it to others is because I was selfish. I cared more about me getting fed than I did what I was doing to the other person. I diminished their feelings, their value and in turn my own by the engagement in completely self serving behavior. I am not proud of this, this confession is the result of a great deal of inventory and a strong commitment not to do it anymore. Ever. To anyone.

But the commitment to not engage with people who want to take me hostage, hanging on by a text thread that is on life support. The communication that was once robust and full of flirty, kind or caring texts, now replete with the echoing sounds of crickets as the text thread sits idle and dying as night descends.

My own commitment to walk from these particularly damaging situations is harder won and longer fought. That unexpected text that feels sincere is just enough to kick start my belief that perhaps I misjudged, perhaps there is life left in this last gasping relationship after all.

So far, my decision to remain, has never been correct. When the communication begins to die, so does the relationship. When someone used to text you first thing in the morning, then throughout the day, and ends the day with a call or text, dwindles to maybe one text per day, it is all but over. It is really now about who blinks first and just pulls the plug and allows what once held promise and interest to just blessedly die.

I am not sure where the value of human connection became so unimportant. I am not sure where the feelings of another just ceased to matter, or mattered less than our insatiable egoic need to be bolstered by the constant dings from our phones.

I hate it all. I hate that I have done it. I hate that it has been done to me. And I am really doing the work to ensure that neither situation plagues my future. I do not want to be the one who strangles another with the invisible cord of less and less communication no more than I want this done to me.

We cannot be all things to all people. But I know, for me, I have to be more honest, earlier on. And when I feel the communication wane, I have to be willing to speak up about how I feel about it instead of filling in the blanks with wide, sweeping self created explanations of another’s insensitive behavior or largely granted passes to excuse my own.

I do not want hostages in my life. Instead, I would really like to have the people in my life to know that if you are here, you are valued, wanted and important. And if I suddenly change my response time, my flow of communication, my love and my initiation of contact, I would like for you to call me out. Ask me why I have suddenly changed from being a person who responded quickly and often to someone who appears like they can’t be bothered. Please, ask me. It might be just a busy day. It could be I need some time to sort some things through. But know that it is never because I want you to doubt my sincerity to you.

And if I am the one on the receiving end of curtailed, abbreviated and truncated communication, I hope you know I am going to ask. I am going to do my best to be brave and ask you why the change. Please, do me the honor of just answering the question. Please do not gaslight me and tell me it hasn’t changed. I am going to take you at your word. So if you are done with me/us, please just tell me. I may not like it but I will at least respect you as we go our separate ways.

I can see now this is one place my blank filling has fucked me up time and time again. I just take the change in communication to mean that you are no longer interested, have met someone else or just are a selfish jerk. And then I have been very guilty of just moving on, no further communication required. And I know that sometimes that was a good call on my part. But I also know that it was just a chicken’s way of exiting. I didn’t bring it up because I didn’t really want to know the answer. I was more afraid to be rejected than I was to become a phantom in my own life and the lives of others. And I really don’t want to do that anymore.

I do not want hostage situations in my life. I do not want to be held against my will and I do not want to hold others against theirs. I do not want to ghost or be ghosted. I just would really like to start a movement towards owning that which I feel coupled with a sincere desire to share that truth as kindly and as honestly as I possibly can.

I may not always get it right, but, at least, I will never get it that wrong again. I would rather hurt you with the truth than to deceive you with a lie. If I like you, I should show you. If I don’t, I should tell you. Instead of the way it seems to go these days: If I like you I tell you, and if I don’t I show you. I mean, both are effective, but the later methodology causes a great deal more hurt than is warranted or required. In today’s world, isn’t there enough pain, suffering, hurt and sorrow to go around?

I think so…

Again, still.