Oh, the treason...!

It all started really innocently: a friend tagged me on Facebook on one of those inane 'tell things about yourself' posts that go around like wildfire. I thought it was funny and decided to write one, tongue firmly planted in cheek, of course.
I should have thought more carefully before I tagged people in mine: I included one of my exes. How that came to be is a LONG story. The good part is that I published that list unabridged here once and I remember it so I just cut and pasted it on Facebook. I thought it was cool and that it actually represented me. I kept it to only sixteen items but the gist is the same: I'm a nutjob with lots of issues and I know it.

The list goes something like this:

I am a flirt
I am a serial monogamist
I like Punk Rock
I love Shakira
I crave Krispy Creams
I'm obsessed with weight
I'm a dance music junkie
I seldom go dancing
I like crossword puzzles
I hate math
I like watching music videos
I would like to go to the gym and pump it up
I hate politics
I'm against right wing nuts
I eat string cheese with bananas
I want to be slim forever
I love cafe con leche
I hate Starbucks and everything it stands for
I like to read The Economist
I read tabloids in the supermarket checkout line
I'm not religious
I talk to an image of Shiva
I hate shaving
I like waxing
I would love to learn how to cook
I eat TV dinners
I have a master's in TESOL
I think I'm dumb
I would love to dress like a rock star
I would love to be able to buy Banana Republic
I love the internet
I don't know anything about computers
I'm a bitch
I'm shy
I live for today
I have my feet in the past
I'm a hopeless romantic
I'm selfish
I'm obsessed with time
I procastinate
I am me

The confession that threw me in hot water? The second one about being a serial monogamist. It just happens that years ago I had two lovers for a long period of time. I felt like Dona Flor, for real. I was in a relationship with an older man and wit a younger man at the same time. And deeply involved. Both relationships were known to my friends and both men were seen as my 'men'. How I pulled it off, I have no idea. But I did. And having things ended well, I would have ended up with the younger man, living together in a small college town and could even still be together. But things did not go very well and we broke up. I basically left the older man, too but my relationship with him is still solid and I consider him a member of my extended family (my sister still talks to him and we write to each other every day!).

As for the younger gentleman, he kept a grudge for years (even though it was him who decided not to join me in what was supposed to be our lives together) and with whom I subsequently broke up but who ended up studying and working at the same university I went to. I even recommended him to the person who chose him for an assistantship and he lived in the apartment I vacated when I left town. The irony.

So after I wrote the note on Facebook he berated me on my own wall, calling me a lying, cheating hobag -his words more or less- and riding off on his high horse as usual. I was not surprised, mind you. I know N's character and his penchant for being high maintenance.
Anyway, the idea behind the whole 'serial monogamist' part was true to my heart: I never thought that N was anything less than my boyfriend/husband/lover whatever you call the man you love. Never. He was never 'the other'. We even set house almost together and I spent more time with him than with my other significant other at the time. I basically had two husbands. Like Dona Flor. Give or take a touch of fantastic realism and all the emotional draining that catering to two men's emotional needs brings.

Was I sneaky? Yes, but only with the older guy, to whom I never talked openly about the younger one. Not that I hid anything, I just never left him. And that burns N to this day. N, who knew all along that I had another relationship and still accepted the relationship we had and even told me he loved me. And looking back, I think I never left J for N because I knew that that was something N wanted to prove himself important. All the years (yes, years) that we spent together notwithstanding. He never felt like he was 'my husband' or whatever you wanna call your man. I think he always felt he was 'the other man', even though we had decided at the end we would live together and it was him who broke that promise.
Was I cheating? Technically, yes. But I was cheating N with J because I never stopped loving J in a way I could never love N. It was a crazy time in my life. Sometime I'll blog about that. Meanwhile, back to the present and the joys of Facebook. So I have decided to take it lightly and let N run his mouth.
And does the whole thing have a sad part? I think it does. Maybe that I was so totally broken when N and I broke up that I got myself involved in one of the most unhealthy relationships I've had in years. Only to have my heart broken again. And then again. But here I am. Still standing. And there he is, having a relationship with a man I believe he loves and whom I trust loves him back. I think this may be just another battle of the words between us (we've had several) and he will eventually stop being so grudgy and so high maintenance and will start talking to me again in normal tones.

At least that's what I hope. Because between you an me, I think my life would have been completely different having stayed with him. And I don't know if that would have been a good thing. Things happen for a reason. That's something I've come to learn the hard way.
Ohm Namah Shivaya.

Oh, the fab pic? Throm the movie Boy Culture. Loves it!