lurkette

Many of you know that ratbastid and I had a polyamorous relationship with some good friends of ours - D&S - last year. I'm bisexual, and wanted to experiment, and she was game, so off we went but it wasn't just the two of us, it was all four of us. Until she decided that she didn't want to sleep with ratbastid any more. And then commenced long negotiations between me and ratbastid about whether I could continue to have any kind of sexual relationship with her, since things now didn't include him in that way.

While all this is going on, D and I are still very good friends. In fact, all four of us are very good friends. Hell, we're moving 3 blocks from them on Tuesday. But D and I in particular are in this kind of limbo state where we're not sure what we are to each other. I really want a girlfriend, but she's content just to drool over me and flirt and maybe occasionally make out. I love her to death, but she aggravates me so, sometimes. Recently I've been really frustrated with her. She's constantly busy and it seems like every conversation we have revolves around her and her very busy very important life and crises. I've stopped even trying to be heard. I start to feel unloved and unimportant if she doesn't dance with me, doesn't call me as often as I think she should, doesn't make an effort to spend time with me.

I'm testing her love for me, certain she doesn't really love me and couldn't ever love me because I'm inherently unlovable. I feel like a total fuck-up with a dull, uninteresting life and why the hell would she love me? So everything looks to me like I'm not important. I'm pretty clear this is my perception, not reality. However, she feels like why should she even bother, since nothing she ever does is going to be good enough to convince me that she loves me. After a couple of tense weeks in which I was furiously mad with her and even madder with myself for being mad at her, we made up, (on Tuesday) and things have been back to the way they were before I went insane and started making her try to prove she loves me.

So last night she and S came over to help us pack, and then we went out dancing. We got along great and were flirting with each other and being all huggy and nuzzly, but when we got to the dance, this woman who's been flirting with both of us started hitting on her, and she told me about it, in a way that indicated she wasn't going to say no, exactly. And I got flip-out jealous. I have no "claim" to her, but it just drives me insane that she tells me how much she loves me and values me, but she doesn't need to have sex with me; but then she gets all juicy over this woman she doesn't even know. A huge part of the problem is that I could share someone I felt secure with (witness ratbastid, whom I can share with minimal mental/emotional acrobatics) but with D, I have no idea where I stand. What are we to each other? Anyhow, because she feels like nothing she does will ever be good enough to convince me she loves me, she feels like she has no freedom to even look at what we are to each other. Incidentally, this "you couldn't possibly love me" crap is exactly the same stuff I pulled on ratbastid in our relationship, and it didn't stop until things between us got to the brink of divorce. I don't want to lose her, but I'm having a really hard time articulating what I need from this relationship, and telling the difference between what I need and why my frightened "I'm unlovable" ego needs to satisfy it.

God, I'd love some advice. Ratbastid's advice is probably the best I've had: "lighten up!" but I feel absolutely sick about the whole thing. I wonder sometimes why I am trying so hard to make things work with D, whether it's really worth it. I don't know if I'm really in love with her or if I just hate myself so much I don't think any other woman would ever want me. (The fact that this woman at the dance hit on her and not me is just, perversely, evidence to fuel my self-loathing.)

Oh, please help.

__________________
"If ten million people believe a foolish thing, it is still a foolish thing."

- Anatole France