Trigger Warning.

I have decided to write about it. I have never laid words on a page about this experience of mine, but it has been very heavy on my mind lately. Many years ago, what feels like ages ago now, I was involved in a situation in which I did not want to participate. Without going into the details, all I can really say is that this particular event changed me. It took me a very long time to understand what happened in that short moment of time. In the process of trying to bring clarity to my experience, I spoke to the person who was there with me and told them what I felt about the circumstance. Naturally, they framed it only in the way that they remembered it and discredited any perspective that I may have had. This conversation did not clear anything up for me and left me feeling even more solidified in my experience. Surely, the defensiveness of my counterpart just meant they knew what had transpired and they were just refusing to look at it that way, right?

Through the years following the event, I built layers of myself on top of that time in my life and started to reframe it in my own mind. I started to look at it as more of a misunderstanding and told myself that maybe I hadn't been direct enough; although how much more direct can you get than "no"? Not that I ever needed the validation from the person who had experienced this moment with me, but I stopped looking or asking for it. Instead, I created a space where a friendship between us remained. I swallowed that memory whole and decided that I wanted peace between myself and them. Years continued to pass, and the friendship continued to be casual with neither of us ever revisiting that conversation. I have been telling myself that I am over it for a while now and I truly believed myself to be over it. Even though I developed triggers and a natural tendency to distrust, I was over it...right?

Fast forward five years after the event and I decide that it would just be oh so fun to get together with them. Thinking nothing of it, I prepare for the visit and set my mind on the positive that could come from getting together. With no intention or hope of sparking an old flame, I realized that I was looking forward to this get together. The nervousness started to show up when time was creeping up on the hour where I would be in the same room with them for the first time in about four years. They arrived and everything was flowing easily and effortlessly, it felt like a reunion of old friends that missed each other and had so many years of life to catch up on. This reunion would be going on for a few days and the nervousness began to fade because the old sense of comfort was there. Naturally, these old friends had to get drunk like the "good old days" and in one of these drunken nights, there was a kiss shared between us. In that moment, I was ok with it. They did not push me for anything more than that one kiss and I felt so good about that. They even acknowledged this about themselves and said, "I thought I would be with you again and immediately want to...but I really am having a good time just being with you!".

As one can imagine, this comment sent me soaring thinking how smart I was for accepting the suggestion to see each other again. I said to myself, "look how much we have both changed and matured!!! They are just satisfied with my company and are not pressing me for more!!!!". I enjoyed the rest of our visit, and I felt really satisfied with the person they had seemingly become. I may have never received the admission or acknowledgement that I used to search for but hey, at least they had done work on themselves to become this person who understood boundaries and saw the value in my company outside of my physicality. The rest of the visit was a breeze and when they left, I found myself feeling refreshed and like I had made the right choice agreeing to the reunion.

The weekend had come to a close and I was ready to go back to my routine. It was clear that nothing else was going to come to fruition after they departed, and I was satisfied with that. I went through the rest of my week and my usual routine. Less than two weeks later I saw something on the internet that made me want to crawl out of my skin and grow a new one. Less than two weeks after they drove away from me and the kiss shared between us, they were in a very public relationship. The issue with that was not jealousy or heartache. The issue with that is that I know them. I know that they would not just jump into a relationship after one week of spending time together. I know that for fact because at one point in time, it was me that they were cautious about and once we were together, I learned the ins and outs and ups and downs of this person. I KNOW that they had been with this woman for some amount of time before they visited with me. Thinking even farther into it- they probably planned to wait to make things official with her until after our visit.

What troubles me about this whole situation is that I once again feel dirty because of this person and their actions. The way that they tried to make me feel comfortable by saying they did not want to pursue intimacy after a kiss because they were happy just spending time with me was not the truth. They knew that they would feel some kind of guilt if they were to do anything with me when they knew they had her back home waiting. What troubles me is that I was once again, used. Used by someone who never took responsibility for the first inappropriate interaction between us. Used by someone who never took responsibility for all of the times I saw them again after that and was always pressured for contact with my body. Romantic history is not a reason to pressure someone into something and they never understood that. Clearly, they still do not understand the difference between honesty and deception and right and wrong. I went through so much time trying to paint a different picture in my head from what I actually experienced, and it almost feels as though I did that more for them and less for me. I distorted my memory so that they could live life feeling no shame for the actions that transpired between us. The shame that I feel around the entire experience stems from the inclination to believe that it was a misunderstanding, but I know for a fact that the word "no" came out of my mouth and over my lips to just be ignored. Why should I feel any shame for that? I did my part to express my lack of desire to participate, the shameful part is on the person who chose to ignore my verbal communication.

I have finally grasped that I will never get the recognition I want and deserve from the person who violated me all of those years ago. I have also grasped that the relationship I thought we held through the tumultuous years was not what I perceived, and that person feels no remorse or accountability for what transpired. I feel sickened seeing the photos of the two of them knowing that she is in the dark about our visit and receiving the harsh reminder that I turned into an object at some point and that cannot be reversed. I know that I am so much more than that and that my value is not determined by anyone else other than myself. It has just been a harsh and dry pill to swallow. Maybe more time will help to wash that pill down but for now, avoiding parts of the internet seems like the best choice.

01/06/2023