I DEFINE ME.

After over 8 years of friendship (online and in person),
I just became not-friends with a woman who lives overseas. She's a brilliantly talented opera singer, conductor, researcher, composer, and educator.

This personal blog is not much "about" her ... as it is about reflecting on what builds relationships, what defines those, and what destroys them.

For future reference, this automatically applies to anyone and everyone close enough (in my heart) to matter.

Whichever way(s) someone treats me ... is how they make themselves known to me.

Likewise, over time, however I treat you (no matter who you are) ... is the person I am manifesting as;
and thus the person you'll know me as.

I can only hope the people I'm investing in ... won't mistake my casual (and consistent) flow of positive, thoughtful engagement ... as naivete.
Nor misunderstand my choice to be altruistic and forgiving ... as self-abandonment.

I have standards.
And I DO enforce those standards. But this may not be obvious until it becomes necessary.

In years gone by, ...
As a true Empath, 
I unwittingly self-abandoned.

Because of the way female psychology actually works ... that only made women devalue me even worse.

Granted, when I used to signal low self-value, I really did feel low self-value. 
But the bulk of the love and self-sacrifice was not born from that low self-value. Only a small measure of it ... sometimes was. 

Flash forward to pre-COVID and ever since, ...
 I have a consistently high self-value. 
So while I seldom over-give, I still naturally give generously.

However, as it turned out, ... 
Women do not value tremendous investment and sacrifice.

They can only respect men who carefully treat their personal resources (time, attention, passion, adoration, money, and other forms of expressed love and sacrifice) .... as scarce and thus rationed out like torn chunks of delicious baked bread during a famine.

 It's fucked up. But that's just how most women are, according to both anecdotal experience and modern science. 
I just didn't realize that until fairly recently. 

Granted, my exfriend from Israel stopped seeing me as a potential romantic partner several years ago. -After I diplomatically passed on that opportunity.
But when she was crushing on me, it was because she thought I was both:
a.) selfishly half-investing, which is very attractive to women.
and 
She thought I was 
b.) "safe" for her ego; such that I'd never see any fault in her, no matter how she behaved.

She had misunderstood both of those things.

It was simply easy to let her get away with absolute bullshittery ... because I didn't care enough to care.
That's why I wasn't calling her out for her behaviors.
- which is what made her assume I never would.
-which is what made me "safe" (enough to date and/or be friends with). 
 
I don't make those kinds of mistakes anymore. 

The only reason I was selfish with how I shared personal resources with her when she wanted to date me ... was because I wasn't very into her. I didn't realize (at first) that treating my resources like a privilege to be earned and then rationed ...was attractive to women. Women's brains are wired backwards. It's so weird that being too loving is a turn-off, ... But making erratic hot/cold/confusing investments is a turn-on. With that being the case, such women (most women; apparently) actually deserve all the loneliness and lack of passion they choose, ... until they stop choosing it. Realizing this, I'm honestly surprised women aren't ordering pizzas without cheese. We wouldn't want them to overwhelm themselves with too much joy. Or opting for Band-Aids when stitches are needed. We wouldn't want those wounds to close. Or opting for dollar-store velcro when true bonding is needed. We wouldn't want them to be terrified by stable connections. Or opting for two cups connected by a string (i.e., digital texts) when actual voice communication technology exists. We wouldn't want them feeling too heard.

Or opting for dimly lit shadows when soft, warm, yet bright lamps are lit and waiting.

We wouldn't want them to feel too seen.

I am always taking notes.

I can tell when I matter.
I can tell when I don't.
But along the way, I learned that this can change.

I can tell when I'm respected and valued.
I can tell when I'm not.
I now realize that this, too, can change.
However, such changes cannot come about from me begging, appealing, or even trying to inspire and love someone into making those changes.
Those efforts literally never work.
Such changes can only come about when the person harboring those dysfunctions realizes they are harming themselves by harming me.

When someone decides to be healthy. When they decide they'd rather be the sort of person that they themselves can be proud of. When they decide they'd rather heal and grow instead of letting their traumas define and control them.

They'll let me know.
 And they'll do so by SHOWING it; rather than whispering something vague "to the effect" when prompted. 

Devaluation, of course, becomes a lot more obvious whenever words are directly and dramatically abusive.

But even when it's subtle, I notice.
-Like when it's so subtle that it takes the form of things carefully unsaid.
Or times when someone would literaly rather be bored, or lonely, or soaking in their own traumas ... than to spend an hour having fun, interesting, usefully-distracting, trauma-abating, or bridge-building conversations with me. This isn't about sex, or even romance. I AM a wellspring of healing, humor, and wonder.

Someone really has to hate themselves to refrain. But I can do nothing to help those who are afraid to be more alive. I can, sometimes, ease someone into it. However, at some point, I have to respect myself enough to let them go without ... if they keep not choosing it for themselves. I think a lot of people have an "avoidant personality" disorder, or similar attachment/detachment trauma-based relationship behaviors. But I think most such people just aren't self-aware enough to realize how mutually-sabotaging, and unaccountable, and yet FIXABLE that is. No matter the reasons why, ... I realize when someone sees me as unworthy or otherwise non-valuable.

Repeating choices reveal what solicited words conceal. 

I understand exactly what it all means.
I even *usually* know which underlying traumas are causing it.
But if I didn't cause those traumas,
then they aren't mine to carry, nor to answer to.

Over time, I adjust accordingly.

Eventually, I will stop making the effort if someone isn't even trying to meet me halfway. 

Some doors close.
But I'm never the one who locks them.

Anyone and everyone are always welcome to come back into my life ... if they grow enough to realize they never had a valid reason to be destructive, ... and if they develop enough compassion and/or basic human decency ... to do #WhateverItTakes to mutually heal and rebuild.

People
are
not
disposable.

You (whoever is reading this) are not disposable.

I am not disposable either.

But some people, sometimes, fail to realize it.
So they end up throwing themselves out ... by throwing me out.

Whenever that happens, I have to allow it because their journey belongs to them.

The difficult thing for me is to keep sight of a person's truth and beauty after they've lost sight of mine.

 In the wake of a loved one's judgments, the disconnect of their absence, and deafening, psychologically violent silence,
... It used to be hard for me to remember WHO someone really is.

However, this became easier for me recently, due to recent growth. 

And yet, I've also realized the need to never again allow my ego to become dependent on someone else's inability to accurately see or value me.

If we all lived in reasonably small tribes, we could go to the village elders for counsel and guidance through healing, reconnection, and rebuilding.
But we have no such system. And because we do not have that, there is usually nothing that can be done once *a person* (any person at all) decides they don't WANT to resolve and rebuild.

But I've learned that no amount of discard ... needs to remain (nor is assured to remain) permanent.

In any case, ...
I cannot be torn down.
Far-former iterations of "me" could be ... and were torn down.
But I survived.
I grew.
Over time, I took ownership of my identity.

In fact, literally right now, I am going through the (mostly) painful process of being born into my final and enduring form.
From day to day, I can tell the difference. How I felt about people and situations two months ago, and even just last week, ... has changed significantly. Ironically, this is what led to my Israeli friend giving up on me and then trying to tear me down via grossly narcissistic, verbally expressed psychosocial abuse and gaslighting. When a true empath self-liberates from a lifetime of being hostage to (and defined by) other people's unhealed traumas ... 
Everyone outside of the Empath loses all power over the Empath.

Over time, I have redefined (and am still evolving) what it means to be "James Apperson".

I am not tissue paper for people to blow their unhealed-trauma-snot into.
Nor to be casually tossed away like I never mattered.  
Nor do I let haters co-author my story of self.

Although I do welcome them to co-author the details of their character within my, their, and our story, if they can do so without exploiting that as an opportunity to tear me down.

I have limits and failings.
I'm even willing to list and discuss those.
I'm also always willing to be helped in discovering failings I haven't yet discovered and owned.
But I know the difference.
I know when someone's ego is so triggered that they're trying to tear me down so they don't have to look inward.

I know when someone's pain (caused by entirely other people) is preventing them from seeing and valuing the ME that actually manifests.

I am not tissue paper.

I am titanium: resilient, immensely valuable, and uncompromising.
And after years of polishing ... so shiny the sun itself glances my way to see if it's having a good hair day.

And yet, at the same time, ... if there were an all-seeing eye watching from me the heavens, I am quite certain that they'd sometimes switch into their best Hank (King Of The) Hill voice and mutter "That boy ain't right".

I do have some issues.
 Dents. 
Warps.  
A few jagged edges.
 
And I do sometimes fail to be ... admirable; or even merely fair.

But I always recover, and then laugh at myself for the sheer stupidity of my own dysfunctions.

IF nobody was around to witness such a moment, then the only person I need to apologize to ... is me.

However, if I hurt someone else, then I also apologize to them.
Each time that happens, I also offer Restorative Justice.

But then, having EARNED a clean conscience, I shake it off.
I don't let it become a source of shame.
Instead, I re-manifest in brilliance.

Every new day is a new choice.

I encourage everyone to ask themselves the same thing I ask myself every day.

Who do you want to be known as?
And does that match the way you treat the people who care?