Whatever Happened to The Waitresses?

I struggle with honesty. It's an every day battle where I have to make the decision of when and how I'm going to be honest with the people in my life, from my co-workers to my family.

I've found that I can remain honest 98% of the time, it's just a question of wording. Knowing what to say to which people at which times. If I don't think that I can be honest with one person without betraying the confidence of another, I might duck out of an impending conversation altogether.

If you know me, I'm not doing that to avoid conflict. Hell, I fucking LOVE conflict. I just don't like that uneasy queasy feeling that I get in the pit of my stomach when I start to hold something back from someone. Even if the person that I'm holding back information from is a person that I love and/or respect.

In my romantic life, I have rarely been an outright liar. There was a point when I was cheating on an old boyfriend, and since he was such a trusting sod, whenever I would head out to go hook up with the other penis person in my life, all I would tell him was that I was going out "with a friend." He never suspected anything. Which was almost stupid on his part considering that all of my friends at the time were male.

Normally I'm not a cheater. I don't start falling into that mode of operation until I'm bored with the relationship and there's something in me that still likes the guy (we don't fight, he's nice to me, all that white Wonder bread shit that drives my confrontational ass up the wall after the 4 month honeymoon period) and just doesn't know how to break up with him like a normal, honest human being. In my defense, this has only happened twice in my life.

Most of the time when things go sour, I say so. If I'm unhappy, that's the best time to get the brutal truth out of me, damned the proper timing. I started piecing together why it is that I'm so angrily honest when I'm unhappy and I managed to tie it to the fact that my opinion of myself is so low at these times that I just figure I should show everyone else just how low they should be thinking of me as well.

Let's start doing the calculations, shall we? I cheat when I get bored. I am honest, but mainly in a manipulative way. I'm viciously mean with my honesty when I'm in a raging emo-centric mood. Oh, and most of my friends are male. Well, most of the ones that I dedicate personal time with are. (Meaning: longer phone conversations, more in-depth discussions about favorite topics, and that lovely habit of mine where I get intrusive and ask personal questions that I probably shouldn't be asking, not because I'm flirting but just because it gets me off in a way.)

This all adds up to me being a pathetically bad girlfriend. I don't dote. I don't soothe broken egos after you've had a bad day at work. I don't bend in constructive ways to make your life easier.

I'm also demanding, irrational, lazy, loud, obnoxious, opinionated to the point of being obstinate and will drop everything in my life for my child first, myself second and you... dead last. I assume that if you're with me, you're capable of taking care of yourself.

I'm getting older now, so my filter on when its appropriate to tell the full honest truth is becoming thinner. I'm gaining more and more of the "I don't give a fuck" gene, perhaps realizing that it gets me far better results than if I play the omission game.

I'm telling everything to the ManPerson. Even the stuff that I wouldn't have told him in the past. That I leave suggestive texts to other males. That I send pictures of my cleavage to other men. Granted, I give him the explanation for why I'm doing it and he knows who they're going to, but I keep thinking that this isn't something that I should be doing.

No, not the texting. The telling him that I'm doing it. Or the telling him who these things are going to. He's not angry about it. He's not happy about it either, but his position is that he's glad that he knows that if he asks me what I'm doing, I tell him. Even when the information might not be something that he wants to hear.

Now I'm just worried that the warm reception to my honesty is going to leave me with nothing to rebel about. I'm confused, really. I LOVE being able to tell him anything. I finally feel good about talking freely and openly about what's going on in my head, from detailing sex dreams that I have about other people to my worries about our potential future sexual boredom. (Don't even tell me that y'all don't/didn't have times in a great relationship when the sex got boring.)

I don't share these things with him to get a rise out of him. That's the first healthy sign for me. Because he's been so non-judgmental of my life and what I do with it, I really do trust him with all the thoughts that go through my head. In the past, I might have know that certain information would be received poorly and tell the guy just to see him go off into a tizzy.

I'm a seeker at heart. I like to seek out interesting people, places and information. When I meet people, I tend to ask them a lot of questions, leading to them thinking I'm an obsessive stalker or becoming weird when they realize that they just opened up and told me their life. I love to ask personal questions, to hear their stories about the most intimate details in their lives because I'm curious. It's as if my brain goes seeking out these bits of info in an informal survey that it's been conducting within my memory for years. I have never really done anything with the information. I could write volumes on what people have disclosed to me, if only I wrote down their specifics. But I just like knowing that they're living up there in my head.

I hate people as a whole. I love people as individuals. I'm just weird that way.

In a few more months the ManPerson will be moving to California. Midget and I will be taking up residence with him. I've been doing all I can to prepare him for what life will be like living with me. That it will at times feel like he's gained a roommate that he can fuck and not some pink princess girlfriend ideal. Hell, most of the time it's going to feel like that.

I've been honest. Really honest. It's quite a new thing for me. I have high hopes but I'm also scared as fuck.

But I promise to live by the AwesomeRule. What that is, I'll explain later. I've mentally meandered long enough.