I Got Played

Dear AZ: I no longer have access to a printer unless I find some ink for mine, so until then, and since I’m not much in the mood to write longhand, e-mail will have to do. I’m exceptionally troubled. I’m not sure how to approach it. Part of me wants to believe that I’m way off base but the bigger part of me says, "Girl, you are right on!" I was wondering what Lex said to you about he and I going to the movies. The reason is because he was so totally into me there for a while again, and suddenly he just kinda dropped off the face of the Earth. Yeah, I know he’s got school, work, and homework but he basically has ignored me and I couldn’t think of what it could be until I realized that his "attention" coincided with your trip out of town and his lack of "attention" coincided with your return. Plus, some of the things he has said has set off my "I’m-so-fucking-jealous-of-him" radar. "Him" being you, of course. I’ll throw this out there too. Lex is an empath, and he is very adept at hiding his feelings yet continues to read yours and mine. Frankly, out there, and up front, not hiding anything, you’ll always be special to me. That is something very difficult to hide inside of myself. It is what it is. I accept it. I accept it as much as you accept your feelings for me. I’ll quantify that by saying, not THOSE kinds of feelings, but the other kind of feelings that are not romantic but just a bond of friendship, time, and acceptance of the limitations of where our feelings can go. It does not hide within each of us, that small twinge of jealousy that erupts on occasion. That very wrong and intense feeling that we somehow "belong" to one another and what we have, in way of friends or otherwise, is not to be infringed upon by outsiders. And while you and I may be very well schooled to hide any outward, visible indication of jealousy or irritation, it is not lost on an empath, who, due to our collective busyness, both of mind and body, has time to sit back and worm his way into our emotions and feed each of us enough information to see if we react, internally, EMOTIONALLY, to his fucking little games so he can feed off of our collective feelings like a leech and come away with an exceptionally smug feeling of somehow knowing something he shouldn’t. I think Lex forgets though, that you and I are also both empathic. While you may not have time, nor, frankly, any reason to dissect, analyze, and basically rummage around in Lex’s covert feelings, I have every reason to. He forgets that I am just as adept at accessing him from afar as I am from close up. He’s not the only sneaky bastard out there. I’m not above being an empathic bitch and breaking the rules of empathic access to hit him when he least expects it. I have to swallow a huge portion of pride to admit what brought this on. It was my acceptance at Tamarack. I was so busy with my beadwork and my new job, Nate, etc. that I really haven’t been "on my guard" so to speak. *Swallowing pride* I’ve been very upset. Okay, that’s an understatement. I’m crushed that none of my close friends, other than you, have even cared about it. T-Bird has stopped calling me and Lex has ignored any attempt to talk about it. My mother had a decidedly lackluster response. While I keep telling myself that it doesn’t matter what they think, that it only matters that I’M proud of my accomplishment, it really hurts. A lot. And that hurt is what "woke me up" and I started searching, empathically, emotionally for answers. Some would say it’s only coincidence but I know better. (Sometimes I hate knowing.) But, that’s why I started examining all of this and in the process, determined why it was that suddenly I was Lex’s best girl, and then suddenly, I wasn’t. I hate being used. I loathe being used to try and invoke a response from you for someone else’s twisted bullshit. I loathe it worse that I played into it. I feel like a fool. And while I may not like it when I feel that way as far as you’re concerned, you’re AZ, and while I may call you on it, I don’t hold it against you. But he’s not you. And isn’t that the entire problem to start with? I guess you could call this "Revenge of the Empath - Menage Trois." And, it doesn’t help anything that in the middle of all this, I have found myself incredibly lonely. I figure Lex played off that too. Hu-rah. But, like I told AZ, time to stop whining, learn my lesson, and pull myself up by those bootstraps. I have beading to do. Fuck ‘em.