boring

too much add, garrett. getting tired of it.

eww bday

garretts friends bday is this week and i think he wants me to go. im not going. no way. last year was sucky enough and i dont want to, or have to, do it again. i dont like going out to a place at night when im not totally sure where i am or being the designated driver to a person who doesn't have very much self control and lets ppl sway his decisions. its the same with going to see his family up north and spending turkey day at his house and xmas. its a situation where i feel somewhat trapped. and the best part is i can say NO if i feel like it. so no.

Apparently garrett doesn't wanna talk to me or make it better. I think he just wants to run away and hide. It's kind of pissing me off.

I think this is gonna be a sucky semester. Argh.

Letter

Garrett,

We need to have a serious talk. Don't get scared because the reason I want to talk is to try and help us. I'm going to write some of the stuff I want to discuss in this letter first so that we have a solid picture of what we need to talk about.

I need you to listen to me. I mean really listen and understand what I'm telling you. If you do that I think alot of our problems will be fixed. I will listen to you too. We are approaching the point of possibly talking about marriage. Scary and serious. That is why I need you to really listen to me and pay attention. Remember the problems we had in London? I'm scared that if we decided to get married, we would still have those problems. So I want to work with you to fix them first to make sure we would be okay. There are four main things that bother me about you. They are fixable. And there is one fifth thing that may or may not be fixable. The first four are:

1. I want you to listen to me, intently. Understand me.
2. I don't want you to make up excuses or give me bullshit when I'm mad at you about something.
3. I want you to be a man. Be mature. Take responsibility for the things that you want.
4. I don't want you to be a leech when it comes to money and school. I think it's only fair that we each do our own school work and buy our own stuff.

The fifth one is a question of how much you love me and that is up to you. I think the most important thing is that. I sometimes think that the other four problems might be stemed in how much you care. But I'm not sure, I need to talk to you about that. If you want you can write the things about me that you don't like and tell me so we can work together. I don't know if it is only me that thinks this, but sometimes I get the feeling that we are headed downhill and it kinda hurts because I can see where the problems are. We just need to fix them. At the point where we are now I could handle staying with you. But if we were to get married things would HAVE to change otherwise I would be unhappy for a very long time and I don't want that.

I don't care if this letter looks stupid. If it takes looking stupid to help, then I think it's worth it.

In London we fought about stupid things every day and I get the feeling that's how marriage would be. I'm not sure why you were fighting with me, but I fought with you because of those four things above. I would get frustrated when you would not listen to me when I would talk to you about something. Even if it was a little thing like what I wanted to do when I got back home to the states. There were some times when a sentence I said would go right over your head and you never heard it. Even if what I had to say wasn't that important, you listening to it shows me that you love me enough to hear it and pay attention to it.

I know that you use the art of bullshitting because I've seen you do it with your mom. What you say to your mom is your business but sometimes you do it to me. I know when you are doing it, just like I know when you are thinking about something, and I'd be much happier if you would just tell me the truth instead. I'll tell you the next time you do it to me.

I want you to be mature. This goes for both number 3 and 4. I realize that you could use some help with school and that sometimes picking up dinner is convenient but alot of the time you can do these things for yourself. I think part of being mature is doing things for yourself even if sometimes they are out of your way. School is hard and reading takes time and gives you headaches. It gives me headaches too. But someday I'll be able to buy all the headache pills I'll need for the rest of my life because of it. Doing good in school is not all about being "good at it". It's not really a talent. You need to have the right attitude and then everything will fall into place. Please believe me and try it. You will be happy if you do. The attitude to have is "I can get better." The first semester you really use this attitude is not guaranteed success. You will make mistakes on taking notes and probably take the wrong ones. But you will then know which notes you should have taken. At the end you cant let yourself get depressed over the mistakes. Swallow them and use them the next semester. If you do you will do better that time. I promise you.

I think you may have already done that semester though. You took some bad notes and you bombed a test or two but thats okay. The point is that I saw you try and you learned something from the mistakes. The reason you took bad notes was because you let your mom get in the way. You need to block it out and realize that when you are in class, the priority it to pay full attention to the lecture. Thinking about your problems at home while you are at school, is not going to help you move out of your home.

The money thing is not that big of a problem, it's just a little annoying sometimes. It hasn't happened lately so I don't have much to say about it right now.

I want you to think about what I said about school. A little while back you told me you were thinking of quitting school and I think that would be a big mistake. Your mom might have told you the same thing I am telling you but that doesn't matter. What matters is that I know that what I am saying is true and that it works. It takes time but you already did some time. Anthropology was a good step and to get a C from that teacher the first time taking him is actually very good. So don't be upset about it at all. He designes his classes to be VERY notes oriented. So, yes you can take good notes. You can take better notes the next time if you believe that you can be a better student.

So those are the things I need you to work on. You told me in London that you wanted to work on whatever problems you had. I'm making it clear what they are. The absolute most important thing is that you listen and think about them before get mad at any of them. After that, if you are still mad, then that's okay and you can tell me.

I'm pretty angry and confused about garrett right now. Today at 9pm I came back from a run (which I took to get the anger he caused, out) he said he was leaving in a few minutes. He left at 12.30 am. This bothers me not because he spent a few more hours here but because he spent a few more hours here with my dad in front of his computer. And he does it all the time despite the fact that I let him know it bothers me. He's a lot like my mom in that he'll listen to what I have to say and try to fix it but after a few days, he's back to his old ways. I think I'm starting to see that he will never change and it makes me think that I can't go on like this. I'm not happy and he's making me more unhappy by doing things like this.

I have to admit something to myself. I can tell that he doesn't care that much about me. He doesn't REALLY want me. Because if he did he would listen to me when I talk about serious things and he would listen when I talk about little things, like what I did yesterday (without interrupting me to talk about a tv or some shit he read online). And if he wanted me he would come over to my house primarily to be with me, not with my dad. He would have gone with me to the beach. This is something I told him I wanted to do like 6 months ago, and we live less than 30 minutes from the beach. We have not gone once. If he really listened to me, we would have gone long before now.

I get headaches when he comes over and spends the entire day in the computer room with my dad and he knows this because I told him. But today he did it anyway. It was probably wrong of me to give him a kiss before he left because that shows him that I'm not that mad. Maybe I'm not so much mad as I am disappointed in realizing this is probably going to come to an end.

14 monthes. I'm approaching my relationship deadline, where most end, somewhere between a year and a half and two years. I don't think it's a problem with me, I really don't. We used to fight because we aren't very good at communicating. He pointed it out in such a way that sounded like the problem was only mine or mostly mine at least. I listened to him and I tried to get better and I have gotten better. I have figured out ways to understand what my problem is and present it clearly in words. I did my part and I am still doing it. The communication problem is still there though because he wont admit that he's got a problem too. Why? becuase he does not listen.

When garrett talks he hears nothing other people have to say. I think he thinks the things he has to say are the most important and most interesting things to be heard so he puts all his effort into speaking and not into listening. Today we were walking and talking about tvs. He was talking about a high def tv for a thousand bucks. I said that was nice and we discussed where in the house it might go. That thought was done and so I said I'd like to move my current tv to a certain location. The key words here are "my tv". He kept on going about putting the high def tv where I want to put the current tv. He did not hear "my tv". He does not listen to me. This is just one example of so many others that happen on a daily basis.

At this point there is nothing that is sort of forcing us to stay together. We are back from London and I am done with my wisdom teeth now. I think if we were going to break up before London it would have sucked too much so I didn't say anything.

I wonder how many last chances I have given him. It's not that I thought he might change when we started dating. It's just that it took this long for me to see the things that bother me about him. I think I'm gonna have to try and get him to listen one more time. He needs to hear that I am not happy about his not really wanting me. If he wants me he needs to show it in some way. If he cant show it then I can't live with him for the rest of my life. I have enough headaches from my mom. I'm not happy with his immaturity either. If he says he is going to do something then he better do it. It's like crying wolf and man I'm really getting to the breaking point with hearing him cry wolf. I'm not happy about his laziness either. He grew up seeing that you can rely on people to do things for you. So he thinks I will do his school work for him, basically. And that if I do well in a class, so will he. He calls this 'working together'. It's a huge load of bullshit. I have a heavy load of classes this semester and if he bogs me down more than necessary, I will not let it get in the way of school. He needs to know that and UNDERSTAND IT. Because knowing and understanding are two different things.

The little things don't really even bother me much anymore like spending money. Money can be made. A relationship isn't as easy as that. It is either a good match or a bad match. And an inbetween match should be classified as a bad match because it means you are not as happy as you could be. I've got an inbetween match right now which defaults to a bad match. The thing is that sometimes (not often) you can get the person to change his or her bad habits. I'm not very optimistic about his though because he's stubborn, very set in his ways, and he grew up surrounded by these habits. He thinks they are a normal part of life.

I will make a list here of the things that really bother me about him but I don't think I'll show him the list because he will be shocked and very upset if he sees it. Its just so I can have a point of reference when i talk to him about them.

1. Not following though on plans.
2. Laziness.
3. Not listening.
4. Not caring.
5. Bullshit.
6. Blaming others becuase they are crazy in his opinion.
7. Germ phobia.
8. Immaturity.
9. Computer/TV.
10. Leech (money, school, food etc.)

Those things are not in order and not all are THAT bad. The big ones are not listening, bullshitting, leeching, and blaming others. Those are things he can change. The caring thing is a matter of what is important to him and that is not my decision or anyone elses. If he would listen that would be the key to fixing the other problems. But that seems nearly impossible. Now when I get mad at him for something he makes up some bullshit to cover his ass with. Like if I'm upset that he wants me to pick him up which I do all the time when he could just as well drive himself and not get in my way he'll say "well no, I just thought you were going out anyways." His bullshit nearly always starts with "well no, i just thought" and he'll have the perplexed expression on his face to go with it. He does it to his mom and he does it to me. If I tell him that I know he's bullshitting he gets upset and acts like a baby instead of just admitting it and telling me the truth. Thats part of his own problem with communication. He needs to be honest.

It kind of hurts me and its sad that I'm having thoughts of breaking up with him. I think before I jump to that I need to do my part at least and make it clear that if he can't change those things it will be over.

I want somebody that wants me back equally. I'm sorry but I don't think that is too much to ask. I want somebody that shows me that they care and spends time with me (because they want to do it, not because they are trying to keep me happy).