Indifference

A mutual friend of ours insists that the opposite of love isn’t hate but indifference, as to allow yourself to hate someone is to put them on a certain pedestal. They consume a part of your energy.

And, god, sometimes I wish I could indifference you. To wake up someday and simply not think of you, not unless you pop into my twitter feed or some other outside force. For you to stop inhabiting my space and become like the first ex, a shadow I can reflect on for think pieces and little more.

The energy I devote to the memory of us could be better used in so many other spaces. We want to be friends but friends don’t cause this kind of pain to each other. But I guess some people can work it out; but that requires, you know, working it out.

Sometimes I wish I could make like Jim Carrey and wipe myself clean of you; but I’ve been shaped too much by your presence. And the truth is that you’re not the one making me like this; I know the answers you don’t share. But I still care in a way you don’t, and that sometimes makes this idea of friendship seem impossible. You wound more than you soothe at times; every slight is amplified.

I rather quickly became bored of my first ex; why can’t you bore me? Why do I have to see you and have this faint hope that you’ll want to just chill sometime? That I could be your video game buddy you promised I would be in the months after the breakup. I can’t comprehend why simply chatting like we used to about movies seems so impossible. Why keep up this pretense of wanting to remain friends when you show no interest in what made us friends in the first place?

I made you angry a bit ago and it gave me this nauseating sense of pleasure; not that I hurt your feelings but that I mattered enough that what I said could still hurt you. I tried to apologize, but you instead went silent for several days. Once you got back to me, I realized I didn’t want to speak to you – perhaps the first time I felt that way since we met.

But of course I responded to you; not there, but here. To this feeling. God, I wish this feeling could last; that I could convince myself I never want to speak to you again, cut this all away and move on. To accept how much easier it would be to lock you away as a memory and nothing more. Or even just have the power to turn away when you speak.

But this is my angry place. In a week I’ll have turned. We’ll get back on track, whatever that track really is these days. Whatever wounds we have yet again inflicted upon each other will be swept beneath the rug until we again choose to do harm. With us, it’s so easy.

But right now, I’m allowing myself to hate you. To detest you with every fiber of my being. I want to watch you suffer, suffer until I again allow myself to feel pity, feel pity until I seek to comfort you, seek until you pull back again, feel you pull away until I want to watch you suffer. I want us trapped in this tormentous cycle eternally, reminding ourselves we could be around anyone else. You’re my personal hell right now, but maybe I can have the pleasure of being yours, too.

Because then I’d at least be something to you.