My dad was at the hospital with granny all last night, so I had to get up at the butt crack of dawn to go handle some shit at the office. After that, I came home since this bug has pretty much shut down my family and therefore work. I wrote some emails and started writing, trying not to fret over shit that I can’t do anything about. During a break, I went to the bathroom to take a piss.

A couple of weeks ago, I adopted a stray kitten that I found sitting outside of work one night when I was leaving. It was either take her home or let her die there. She’s a tuxedo cat named Nikita, only a few weeks old. Her litter box is in my bathroom, so every time I have to do my business, I take care of her business as well. This particular morning, I picked up the scooper only to discover that this kitten had stepped in her own shit and tracked it all over the bathroom floor.

Really, bitch? Really? All the money I put into finding the perfect shallow but long box to maximize your turning area? The fancy all natural expensive litter, the fucking diaper genie I bought to collect your personal poops? All this effort toward a clean and pleasant living experience, and of all the places to step, you aim for your own shit?

I almost thought it was intentional. Long gone are the days of co-dependent kitty, curling around my feet looking for a hug. Nikita has fully embraced her charmed life and has become a rambunctious teenager that pounces on anything that moves. As such, I keep her out of my room when I’m writing so that she doesn’t go after my hands. Maybe she knew what I was up to and decided to distract me. Fucking sneaky cats. This is why I never voluntarily had one before.

So I’m looking at the poo tracks, and my science background kicks into overdrive. I’m thinking, This whole damn bathroom is contaminated. I’ve probably got cat poo on the soles of my feet right now. So I bust out the cleaning supplies and clean everything like the whole damn bathroom needs a Silkwood shower, even shit that the cat can’t reach like the shower rail.

Meanwhile, this kitten is pouncing around my feet like we playin’. She thinks this shit is a game, and maybe she’ll do the same thing every morning to liven me up.

But I had a fix for her ass. After I cleaned up everything, I gave her a bath.

Afterward we sat on the couch. I held her in a towel while I did her flea treatment, and she cut her eyes at me resentfully. And then I laughed because there I was, taking prodigious care of a cat that I don’t even really want. There I was with a baby even though I don’t really want kids.

The Big G is always throwing things at me to take care of, I guess because I’m good at it, but also every boulder in the path is a reminder that life’s not over yet. Every time I have to reach deeper to deal with something, I’m reminded that life is trusting me with bigger things than it did before. Karma is trusting me with the lives of other people and other creatures.

It’s an honor. A thankless shit shoveling honor.

As per the blog that I just wrote, he read what I had to say and called me with an argument, even though I’ve told him dozens of times that my blog is my space to work my shit out. His feelings got hurt so he called me to be angry about the fact that I’m writing about how I feel instead of talking to him. Meanwhile, his reaction pretty much confirms why I feel that I can’t talk to him. Above and beyond that, he came at me like clearing my head in my own blog is a betrayal, came at me with an accusation of hiding things from him even though everything in that blog is old news. The fact that I blog about us is old news. The fact that I don’t like to talk on the phone about daily bullshit is old news to anybody who knows me.

It’s also old news that when he gets emotional, he takes things too hard, doesn’t see things clearly, and says things that he doesn’t mean. I reminded him that those facts are the very reason why we are in the situation that we’re in, but he didn’t listen. He can’t be reasoned with, when he’s in a state. He either wants to wallow in his feelings or spew them out all over me and the situation, turning something that is supposed to be about us both into The Halo Show. That’s what happened over our vacation. I’m not here for more of the same.

He’s acting like Mum, and that’s how the don’t push button got pushed. He’s not crazy like her, but he doesn’t know how to rein in his emotions when it comes to me and our relationship, which is a personality trait that she also shares. Halo’s really good about being level headed and diplomatic with other people and in his work life. I don’t know why it falls apart with me, but I’ve had enough of it. I already know this song and dance. We argue, he says he doesn’t mean it and retreats, only to do the same damn thing the next time around. That’s how it is with mum, a scary-go-round of emotional ups and downs. No love is worth that constant headache, or me having to walk around with the fear that anything I say about our relationship, anything critical or from my perspective in my own fucking blog, will set off his feelings and turn into an argument. The whole point of me having a blog is for me to have a safe space for my own mind. If he’s going to be threatened by what I write, by who I am, I don’t need him in my life. I’m done walking on eggshells.

I’m writing this while it’s fresh so that I remember a few things as I go forward. No more vanillas, and no more emotionally heavy alpha males. No more plans to live together. No more relationship status changes. From now on, I’m permanently single, no matter who’s in my life.

I’m sure I’ll think of some more things for this punch list later, but I’m pretty fucking depressed right now. A year and a half down the drain, on a dude who worried about our relationship and didn’t even know why, on a dude that I gave the opportunity to have everything an adventurous single guy could want plus a loyal, loving, and supportive relationship. So what the fuck ever to his worries. If he wants to think the worst of me every time he doesn’t get his way or his feelings get hurt, then that’s his problem. Unfounded worry is more commonly known as insecurity.

I haven’t been writing about the ins and outs of it because it seems pointless. Even in blogging about it, I have to worry about what kind of argument we’re going to end up having. I’m sick of the whole business of hashing things out. We keep having the same problem in which we have an issue, and he says or does something that he didn’t mean, and then I react to it by drawing a line in the sand, and then he backs off of the line. Nothing becomes of the original issue. It’s like filling up a bathtub and then pulling the plug over and over. A whole bunch of drama and emotional energy go down the drain, for nothing. Pointless, like I said. We even had the dumbest fight on Saturday. He said something that I thought was racist, but it turned out to be a communication problem. Still, it made me realize that I’ve stopped giving him the benefit of the doubt. Like, since when do I suspect him of all people of saying something racist? I don’t have that automatic trust anymore. I’m watching everything he does like a hawk. I’m not relaxed at all, just sitting still and listening, playing my part and waiting.

But because we aren’t arguing anymore, he seems to want to go on like everything will be okay. This is what I don’t understand about emotional people, and the way they say things that they don’t mean. Just because you take it back doesn’t mean that it didn’t happen. If you throw a grenade, it may explode and evaporate, but it will still leave a hole in something. I feel like I’m sitting on the ground the day after a battle, surrounded by holes, and waiting to see what’s going to happen next. Are we going to clean this shit up, is he going to stop throwing grenades, or do I need to walk away?

I don’t know everything that’s going on in his head, but calling me every day and playing his part still seems to comfort him. We have the same talk every day as though nothing’s wrong, and maybe to him, nothing is. He’s not the one asking for evolution, after all. He seems to find this daily maintenance emotionally satisfying.

But I don’t. Talking about the day to day details of my life is like talking about my car engine and how it works. Every life has a machine. We spend the bulk of our time maintaining that machine, upgrading it if possible, driving it back and forth for the routine things that we have to do to survive. A small part of my identity, my angst, and general satisfaction are caught up in how well the machine works or doesn’t, but that’s only a small part. My machine doesn’t define me, so why the fuck would I want to talk about it every day?

Before the battle, I participated in the daily chatter more easily, and was content with it being part of my routine the same way I’m content with having to go give my granny her medicine every day. There are other things I’d rather do, but because I have to, I was finding ways to maximize the pleasure I took in the task. I’ve lost my patience with him now. Now it feels like we’re talking about the machine because we can’t seem to talk about anything more profound without this motherfucker throwing grenades at everything I say and even at my character. He has questioned my character; how do I act like that didn’t happen? It makes shooting the shit every day feel like a farce.

Rather than the machine, the major part of my identity is in my creative impulse. I’m not just talking about writing. I have a drive to take what I have and make more out of it than was there before. I’m always trying to broaden my thoughts, my experiences, and the scope of my personality. I’m always trying to grow in my relationships, and make them richer and deeper. I always want to go to new places, meet new people, and even try the very things that I was afraid to try yesterday. I dream about tinkering with everything in my life. That’s what I want to talk about. My vibrance, my joy, and my motivation are in that conversation.

So when Halo cuts me off from talking about my kink, he’s cutting me off from tinkering with my life. It’s not even really about sex. It’s about creativity and freedom, about reaching as far as my dreams extend, about feeling like I’m living for more than my machine. He gives me the world’s hardest fucking time about those topics, to the point that I’m not even trying anymore. I can’t count the number of times I’ve said “Whatever” in the past few weeks just to cut short another argument. I shouldn’t even have to live with a constant expectation of an argument about my dreams, when he told me that he wanted them to become our shared dreams. That hasn’t happened yet, but meanwhile, I’m forced to talk about the fucking machine every goddamn day?

A relationship even has a machine, consisting of your ability to communicate, to spend time together, to fuck decently. You spend the first few years of a relationship setting up that machine and making sure it runs smoothly. I thought we had that down, and were going to move on to bigger things. Now I feel like the tension in our relationship is because he’s happy with out machine and doesn’t really see the need for more, except me moving to Europe, whereas to me, this is only basic maintenance. What we have right now is only what’s necessary to keep a couple healthy and together. My profound levels of love will starve on this.

I put a part of myself in a cage in the early part of our relationship, with the understanding that when he was ready, he would approach the feral part of me and learn to run wild with her. That hasn’t happened, and so that feral part is beginning to starve. That’s why it feels like life and death. I’m starving and he’s throwing grenades, instead of feeding me. That’s what I need to change. I’ve never let a man kill my spirit before, and I’m not about to start with him.

I don’t want to think of what’s going down between us as a battle, but I’m not sure what else to call it. You seem to think that because you aren’t intentionally trying to be a dickhead, that I should be more understanding and more patient. To me, that’s kind of like saying, “I didn’t mean to shoot you, so while you sit there and bleed to death, I’m going to angst over why I didn’t mean to do it and struggle to accept that I don’t have a right to shoot you in the future.”

We had a huge fight that started with me telling you that I’m not coming to see you in July for North Sea Jazz. I’ve decided to wait until September. After my last blog post about what happened in Florida, I realized that I’ve already been through this cycle of getting a bad reaction from you about things that challenge your male pride, and then having a fight, and then having to defend myself and make a case for why I don’t deserve your suspicion or rudeness. In the moment, you seem to understand what I’m saying, and you say that you trust me and respect me, and won’t react that way again. And yet, you keep doing it. The cycle repeats. Why should I be endlessly patient with a cycle that is hurting me?

No matter how I try to reinforce that I’m arguing with you about the fact that you don’t have a right to police me, and that you should give me the same respect that I give to you, all you seems to focus on is why, from your perspective, you continue to do the former and not enough of the latter. Today, you told me that you talked to your guy friends about the situation, and they all agreed that I shouldn’t have let the dude sit in the chair, because that’s not how guys do things in Rotterdam. Like the opinion of a bunch of other men is supposed to matter to me, a grown woman? Does one of them have a relationship that you admire so much that you’re trying to duplicate it, and thus their opinions carry some weight? Last time I checked, I’m not in a relationship with any of them, but maybe you should be if what they think means more to you than what I think.

Then in Florida when we argued about the incident, and I told you that you have no business being suspicious of me because I’m not, in fact, the one who cheated in this relationship, you brought up Treble as something hurtful that I’ve done to you. Because you were uncomfortable about that, you spoke to me as though I’d done something wrong, even though I asked you if I could have a sub, and I told you that I was interviewing people for you to meet after I was there with you, becuase that’s what would make you fucking comfortable. I arranged my whole program around making it easier for you, and informed you every step of the way, giving you every chance to say how you felt and consent to it. That’s not AT ALL the same fucking thing has having videophone sex with Tori and tell me about it afterward.

So it seems to be the case that you hold me responsible for making you comfortable and soothing your pride. Even the last days of our vacation were about how you felt, and I simply had to react to your feelings, either by trying to make you feel better or fighting with you about it. Either way, it was all about you, just like my trio with my friend ended up being about you and your mistakes, and this guy at the club ended up being about your pride instead of being a fun moment for me of being noticed and admired. And that’s exactly what male privilege is: the expectation that my life is going to be a mirror for you and accommodate everything about you.

Pointing all that out, arguing, etc. hasn’t made you change, so the next step is providing a consequence to your actions. Because guess what? I shouldn’t even have to argue with you about why I deserve your equal respect. I shouldn’t have to defend myself at all, when I’ve given no reason to be distrusted or suspected. You don’t seem to understand that even in having these arguments and giving chances, as opposed to breaking up with your ass, I’ve been understanding and courteous already. I’ve shown my dedication simply in the fact of staying in this relationship, fighting to fix it, and forgiving all the times that you’ve been a dickhead to me. Because I don’t actually have to put up with your shit at all.

One more time: I don’t actually have to work this hard to be with you. I only choose to do it out of love.

And when I’m not there in July, you’ll remember that I haven’t said any vows, and don’t have to stay with you if you don’t come down off the fucking high horse of male privilege. Simply in reading this open and public reminder of who I am and what I stand for, you’ll remember that I’m not scared, motherfucker. Not scared of losing you, not scared of being single, not scared of insisting on what I deserve. You’ve been reading my blog for over a year, and if don’t know me by now, no amount of repeating myself is going to make you see that I am not a woman to be trifled with.

EVOLVE. Don’t call your male privilege “instincts” when it’s a disease that you’re only making worse by throwing in my face what other men think. It’s not my job to make it easier for you to accept that you’re not the boss of me. Simply stop coming at me like you are, period, or else expect me to be mad as hell about it! And if you can’t take me standing up for myself, go get one of those dick teasing bitches from your past to worship the ground you walk on. I’M NOT THE ONE.

And I’m not going to repeat myself again, so you’d better fucking memorize this shit.

But then today, he made the mistake of telling me yet another story about a woman who hit on him at work. If you’ve been following along, you know that I generally enjoy his flirtation stories and encourage him to soak in the ego strokes. Everyone likes to be appreciated. But after the way he took a flame thrower to my flirtation situation last week, I have no enthusiasm for him. The fact that he even came at me with this story makes me wonder if he learned a damn thing last week.

He was here for twelve days, and the first eight were pretty damn good. When Halo comes stateside, I show him a good time because he treats me like a queen when I go to see him. I planned everything ahead of time, reservations at his favorite spots, show tickets, a room at our favorite hotel, even bought his favorite liquor for him. I took the motherfucker to Florida to meet up with a few of my friends, go to the beach, and work on his tan, even though I’ve got a little vampire in me and get hives if I get too much UV. My lingerie was right; my dresses were tight. Everything was lovely, until we went out to a club Saturday night with two of my girlfriends.

The night started off fine. Halo played the gentleman and bought Moet for our table. We were scoping out chicks together, getting in the zone, and even danced our asses off. When the music got funky and not in a good way, we went back to our table, and Halo went outside to have a cigarette. Almost as soon as he left, a dude came up to me.

I’d seen him before, with two friends, glancing over at our table. I’d assumed that he wasn’t looking at me because I was obviously with Halo; our eye sex is impossible not to notice. The dude was White, clean cut, slightly metro, grown. He was tipsy and had a reformed frat boy air about him, so I expected to be amused by an arrogant line when he approached.

Instead, he asked if he could have the empty seat next to me.

I wasn’t sure if he just wanted the chair or if he wanted to sit. So I told him that my boyfriend was sitting there but had gone outside, and then I said that he could take the chair if he wanted it. I’d already talked to the girls about leaving soon, and figured we’d be out soon after Halo returned.

The dude pulled a casual mea culpa about me having a boyfriend, then chatted me up a bit. He was from the Carolinas like one of my friends, and loved Charleston, so that’s what I’ll call him. I introduced him to the girls, and redirected his conversation into a group chat. He was in Florida on business, blah blah, and though Charleston smiled at me a lot and sat down in the chair, he didn’t violate my cue to keep it friendly and not flirtatious. That was pretty astute and respectful for a tipsy Southern reformed frat boy.

Thus there was no reason for Halo to come in the door looking like Mean Face McGhee. There was no reason for him to look suspicious.

When Halo got to the table, Charleston got his ass up and left with a polite parting. Halo didn’t say much, but when I told him that we were all ready to go, he said he wanted to have another drink before we left. We all put in orders, and he went to the bar.

Then Charleston, who had moved on to scoping out other bitches at the bar, came back to my side. He continued to follow my lead and talk to all of us about the Carolinas, as I’d told him that we were going on a girl’s trip there in summer. Yeah, he was rather warm to me, but again, he didn’t say anything flirtatious ’cause I’d already cut him off from that kind of conversation. His admiring me wasn’t out of line because I was looking fuckin’ fly.

Now, when we argued about it later on, Halo insisted that Charleston coming back to the table was disrespectful to him personally, and he also said that he and the dude exchanged some kind of look that made it clear that Charleston didn’t think much of Halo. I didn’t see that look, and Halo didn’t take it up with the dude at the table at the time. When Halo came back with drinks, Charleston excused himself again, and that was the end of it. Charleston wasn’t disrespectful to me at all, so I didn’t think anymore of it.

He didn’t say anything about it, until the next day after we returned from the beach. We dropped off my friend, and then when we were alone in the hotel room, he got on my case about the guy from the night before. He started off trying to couch it in terms of his feelings of being disrespected, and cracked on me for making a comment to the girls about how I don’t trip when women hit on him. But his complaint very quickly escalated into, “Why was Charleston sitting in my chair? It was disrespectful. Why did you let him sit there?”

We had exactly the same problem when I was in Rotterdamn last summer. Halo took me to a club with a friend of his. We were all sitting in free seating along the wall of the club (i.e. not reserved seating, just like in Florida). He and his friend went into the smoking lounge for a cigarette, and a dude came up to me. He’d overheard me speaking English and was curious about where I was from. He sat down next to me. We were having a little chat, and then Mean Face McGhee busted out of the smoking lounge. Halo said something in Dutch that must’ve been rude as fuck because the dude split, and I was totally cut out of my own conversation.

Same as I had then, in Florida, I told him that he had no call to handle me like a socially insecure teenage girl. I’d done what he’d asked me to do in those situations: I’d told my admirer that I was with Halo and that my boyfriend would be coming back to the seat next to me. For proof—not that he should have needed it—Halo could ask my friends at the table, or even note the fact that the dude got his ass up as soon as Halo came back. If I hadn’t told Charleston what his place was, surely he would have raised an eyebrow when Halo made the scene.

Halo couldn’t argue with that, but he still wasn’t happy. He went on and on about how the dude disrespected him. “He gave me a look like he didn’t take me seriously.” But you should have heard his voice, children. His voice accused me of giving Charleston a reason to think he had a chance. He told me that I should have made Charleston stand up because that’s how they do it in Rotterdamn. Apparently none of his ex girlfriends in the hood would have let a dude sit down to have a chat.

Like I really want a motherfucking man hovering over me and leaning down to whisper in my ear? Body language, son. That would have invited a lot more intimacy than letting the dude sit on my level and have a conversation.

Pissed off, I reminded Halo that I’m not from his hood and not one of his old girls, so he needs to leave his traditional expectations back there. I’m not a girl period, and I’m not going to defend a fucking chair to soothe his ego. According to my standards of what’s polite, a dude who wants to converse with me can sit down as long as he gets his ass up when Halo comes back. What I’m not going to do is ward off anyone who comes near me with, “I have a man. Don’t sit here, and don’t get next to me because my man won’t like it.” I’m not Halo’s wifey; there’s no ring or last name declaring to the world that I am his fucking property. I told him that if he wants a bitch who is going to sit on her hands with her eyes down and count the seconds until he gets back, he should go get one of his ex girls because apparently they were good for doing that.

Except it wasn’t so satisfying that he stayed with their asses, did he?

The argument got heated. His male privilege really started to show its ass. Just the day before, he’d come back to the hotel room from a smoking break, with a business card from some Russian chick who’d asked him to show her around. I didn’t trip over him coming back with a card, even though that showed wayward intentions on the woman’s part. A month or so ago, some chick at his job tried to make a play for him even after he said that he had a girlfriend, and he didn’t run screaming from her intentions either, which is fine by me. He was cordial and handled it in his own way. He enjoyed the moment but nothing came of it, which is why I don’t worry about that type of shit. I trust him not to follow through on other women’s schemes. Wouldn’t matter if the bitches showed him their tits. If he doesn’t touch them, it goes no further.

And sorry, I’m not threatened by stray chicks maybe because I can pull them too, or because I wouldn’t mind making his flirtations into our playmates, or simply because if Halo chooses to fuck up, I’ll be on to the next one and won’t have time to cry over his ass. Maybe that bothers him. Maybe his male privilege needs me to be the one hanging on to the thought of him, worried about losing him. Not gonna happen. I don’t have an insecurity button to be pushed.

Meanwhile, Halo really needs to check his buttons, because he doesn’t allow me to enjoy casual flirtation and admiration the way he gets to enjoy them in a relationship with me, as opposed to his old girls who probably would have lost their shit if he’d looked at another bitch. Dude, if you’re going to enjoy the privileges of being with me, return the fucking favor.

I don’t tear down the women who hit on him because that would lessen the value of his story. Whether the bitch was twenty and buxom or forty and desperate isn’t the point; as long as he enjoyed her notice, I’m happy for him.

So I called him out on trying to tell me what was wrong with Charleston, and how the dude was drunk and rude and hitting on every bitch at the bar and was only looking for a hook up. As far as me being admired, what does that matter? He wasn’t rude to me, number one. And before Charleston started trolling stray White girls at the bar, he was all in my mouth. In fact, he came back from those bitches to be around me. I was managing to enjoy that without letting it turn into something more, the same way Halo does with his bitches.

I told Halo that if the dude didn’t take him seriously, it was probably because Halo came in the door with his mouth poked out. That ain’t cute, especially if you’re supposed to be the counterpoint of a woman like me who clearly doesn’t give a fuck. Considering that Charleston followed right where I led the conversation, he knew exactly what kind of woman he was dealing with. Trufact, the men with balls, skills, and secure egos don’t sit up running their mouths about themselves, trying to impress a bitch to get some pussy. Real men listen to women, which was what Charleston did. If he wasn’t impressed with Halo acting threatened, maybe he couldn’t understand why a woman like me was on a date with a guy who was pouting.

Halo had a hard time accepting any of my points. He tried to pull the typical intimidation tactics and end the argument on his terms, but I told him that he didn’t get to police me, and then I called him out on his male privilege yet again. He didn’t have a leg to stand on and kept going back and forth to the bathroom, scrounging for things to say. I watched TV. Finally, he took a shower and then came back acting all emo, apologizing for his double standards and his rudeness.

I knew better than to believe him right then, because where the hell had his attitude come from in the first place, after a delay of a whole day? I tried to make him sleep in the other bed, but he wasn’t having that, so we called a truce and slept it off.

The next day, we drove back from Florida, and everything seemed to be going well until that evening. I took him out for his last big dinner in the US, and afterward, he got all emo on me again instead of getting his dick out and giving me a night to remember. Again, I watched TV and ate my leftover chicken wings, instead of coddling his ass. Then the next morning, the motherfucker tried to wake me up early to have sex. I’m not a morning person, and when I told him it would have to wait until I properly woke up, he got all pissy with me, claiming that I was wasting our last day together by sleeping in.

Really? You don’t want to take that tone with me in my fucking hotel suite. He almost got a cab called on his ass.

We had yet another big talk about everything, and called another truce. Uninterested in fighting, I tried to salvage the day by taking him to the movies. Then he took me to lunch, which went well until I said that I wanted to leave a little early to make my two hour drive back home, instead of staying with him at the airport until the last second before he had to board his flight. He acted like I was fucking abandoning him, and I was so fed up at that point that I just took his ass to the airport. We somewhat patched things up before he went in, but the whole business left a bad taste in my mouth.

I sat on it for a few days and ended up talking to HotROD, who reminded me about Halo’s bottomless well of intense feelings. The last time he’d been in the States and at her house, he had also gotten moody a few days before the end of his trip. I hadn’t understood what his problem was then, and she reminded me of how he’s wired. This is the guy who loses his appetite and his sleep if he doesn’t hear my voice regularly. This is the guy who loves too much, but only gets carried away occasionally. He’s mine and it is what it is; even when he’s wrong, I have to work with him.

I understood what she was saying, and we discussed some things I could have to done to make Halo feel less threatened, like maybe just taking his hand when he walks up on me talking to a dude. Physical closeness goes a long way with him. And I know he’s slightly obsessive when it comes to me, which is romantic on a good day. I’ve committed to living with the shadow side of that, where all the Scorpio in him loses control. I love this man, even in dark territory.

But that doesn’t mean that I have to accept his double standards and territoriality. It’s entirely possible to be possessive without having a pissing contest with everyone other dude who gets near me. There was no reason for him to come at me, before he’d spoken to me or anybody at the table, with suspicion. There was no reason for him to make his beef with Charleston my problem, when I did my part according to the rules of our relationship.

Though Halo has since apologized, expressed regret and reassurances that it won’t happen again, how can I believe him when this is the fourth time he’s tripped on me about dealing with other men? He has behaved badly about two random guys at clubs, a sub that he said he was okay with me having, and then about me having a chat with Wood after Halo and old girl fucked up our burgeoning trio. As badly as he reacts, why would I even talk to him about anybody who admires me? Yet he came at me today with another charming story about a bitch admiring him? That sucks. He only seems to be okay with someone noticing me if it’s another woman, I guess because he doesn’t think that a woman’s attention is worth as much as a man’s? That’s bullshit. It offends me all around.

He listens to me when we have these clashes, he seems to learn, but how will I know that he really has learned until I see a change in behavior? That’s what I told him today. He got his fucking way, even in turning the last few days of our vacation into his personal angst fest. He got a certain measure of satisfaction out of that.

Meanwhile, I can’t get those days back, but I have to pick up the phone for his check up calls to make him happy? That’s why I cut him off. It’s a little petty, but I don’t know what else to do to get a little of my own back.

Over the weekend I was discussing this with my friends, and one says, “Well in his mind, you know you two are married.” Which means that he has all kinds of traditional expectations in his heart that I don’t plan on fulfilling. At present, our relationship is the most constricted that I hope it’ll ever be. I’m hoping it’ll open up. He’s told me that when I move there, he’ll relax and be ready to explore, but will he really? Or will I give up my autonomy and having my loved ones nearby, only to end up trapped with a man who treats me like his little wifey?

I don’t treat him like my property because I don’t need that kind of security. I don’t need him to prove that he loves me and is devoted to me by acting like there are no other women on the fucking planet, or like he’ll never be attracted to anyone else, because that’s bullshit. Instead of asking him to police himself, I keep our love tight by giving it in abundance. I write about him; I take care of him when I’m with him; I try to be there for what matters to him. I’m transparent about my plans and choices, and give him consent in what I do. I try to shine brighter and be better to him than anybody else, so it wouldn’t matter it fucking Sofia Vergara hit on him, he would still have to think twice about whether she offers a higher quality of love than I offer.

If all of that pales in one moment, if he forgets who I am and what I do because another man notices that I’m amazing, then I think Halo can’t really respect me as much as he does that motherfucking man. The threat of another dick apparently holds more weight with him than ME and everything he knows about how much I value him. I respect Halo and his will a lot more than the chicks who hit on him, which is why I don’t worry about those bitches. And it’s bullshit that he doesn’t give me the same respect. Especially after what happened last year with Tori, it’s total bullshit.

I didn’t come this far as a single woman to get in a relationship where I’ll have to spend the rest of my life fighting male privilege. If I wanted to be treated like someone’s little wifey, there were plenty of dudes in the past ready to put a ring on my other hand. I am not here for being treated like I have a leash around my neck.