Questions of Toxicity in A transparent lockbox

There has been something about today that has made me think about different aspects of myself. Everything has felt relatively fast, action-packed, and intense in all I’ve done. I was listening to a lecture about death and thinking about what I want to do before I eventually go, the things that I sometimes resist but hope to at least know of. One of those things is to see if I’m capable of romantic love. I’ve dated and tried to grow attachments but they’ve never felt like anything beyond friendships that were a little too intimate. I know that love exists, I have seen it, and I feel love for my family and pets, but I’m just unsure if the ability to foster it romantically is something I’m capable of. To be honest, I am fine if I’m aromantic and am single forever, that’s my current plan anyway. But I want to give it a try, just see if I can find anything that resembles that spark and passion. At least if I truly try and never feel anything, I’ll be able to know that I’m not missing out on anything that would make my life any better.
I also was hanging out with someone I have known for decades, and I realized that being around this person doesn’t leave me feeling good about myself. She tried to corner me into admitting I have a problem with alcohol, which honestly is none of her business since I haven’t ever drank around her and she has never dealt with me drunk, only heard a few stories. But she tried anyway to tell me I had a problem and was trying to change the subject when I talked about it. I haven’t drunk in 6 months and I’m pretty private with my life in general, so I found it gross and disrespectful for someone to attempt to pry into me and shame me for it. So of course I wasn’t going to divulge my feelings on alcoholism and addiction concerning myself with someone who never seemed to care until it was a pawn. It wasn’t a tone of concern, she was making remarks, almost trying to make me feel embarrassed and ashamed about it while our other friend was there.
Toxicity is another topic that has been on my mind. It is something I have been introspective about today because while I was at that lecture I mentioned earlier, I saw the background of someone’s computer and it was a collage of the most stupid things for motivation, like an A+ and pictures of salads and the ocean. This person with the computer was very obviously Type-A because her computer was organized to a T and I could see how high-strung she was from how quickly she was scrambling to write. I am in nearly every sense a Type-B person. I approach things very calmly and prefer the tension possible. Something I live by is Wu Wei which essentially means go with the flow, be the water that erodes the rock. And just being around this girl in front of me, made me tense. I was thinking “god, why does she have to be so uptight and why does she have to make a whole motivational collage?” and then it came to mind “You know what, she is probably far happier than I am. I am sitting here judging her approach to this, and she is just passionate about what she is doing”. This few minutes of thought made me think about how maybe I don’t have the healthiest outlook on my social experiences, and that maybe I am just a toxic person. None of what she was doing harmed me in any way, she just made me feel a little uneasy with her desire for perfection. So why the fuck did I let myself think negatively about it rather than just go with the flow or feel neutral?
That experience just made me think about the behaviours that I do that others have commented on as toxic or unhealthy. One of these things is that I am not willing to fight for a relationship or connection with someone. If something goes wrong like a huge disagreement or a feeling of disrespect, I will just stop answering and disappear from your life if you don’t try to mend things. The way I prefer it is practically blocking and deleting everything so that you are forced to forget that I exist. It is something that brings me peace and a feeling of security. Even with my mother, I didn’t talk to her for 9 months because we once got into such a big fight of screaming and it turned violent on her part, where she held a fork to my throat and told me how capable she is of making my life miserable. Our relationship has never been the same since that, but I ended up talking to her again because our family kept trying to make me feel guilty and telling me life was too short to continue this. Sometimes I regret that we talk again, she isn’t a very healthy or stable person and it does drag me down, but I am not in a position where I can cut her off fully due to some family ties. Some people are like “I want them to see how much better than them I am and that I am unaffected” when something goes wrong. I just want them to know nothing at all about me, because sometimes that’s all people deserve. It feels like an act of karmic neutrality when I do that because I’m not picking fights but I’m also not trying to keep anyone in my life if it isn’t meant to be. All that leaves me wondering, what are the connections that I am supposed to fight for? How awful am I of a person to be so blasé about burning bridges? Does it count as holding a grudge if I just refuse to acknowledge them for my peace of mind?
There are just all these grey areas about who I want to be, what I want to do, if I’m an awful person, if I’m a balanced person, or if any of it means anything at all. I’m not familiar with giving second chances, and I am not comfortable with connections in my life that don’t feel easy and natural, so what does that make me? Maybe I’ve never felt unconditional love, so I’m incapable of giving it.

Last updated January 09, 2024