Sick and tired and very, very angry.

I am sick and tired and very, very angry.

I am sick of boys who pretend to be men.
I am sick of men who take advantage where they should treasure; with women.
I am tired of women who put up with it.
I am tired of women who say they are just having fun for now, but give away their hearts.
I am very, very angry at the boys who have broken my best friend's hearts in such sickeningly similar scenarios.
And I am very, very angry with myself for seeing all of this and saying little. And also for having so little to give because I fell for one of these acts myself.

The problem doesn't start with one or the other, it builds on both.
Good people with intent get stuck in a pool that participates in a game:
Men pursue where they have no intent; Women attract and flirt where they have no intent.
Everyone uses the same language; everyone means different things.
"I love you". What does it really mean?
I am one of the people who says this often. That does not mean that I take it lightly.
Grownup love involves sacrifice; sticking it when life is rough; digging, knowing, selflessly caring.

The kind of relationship that is making me angry involves invoking that kind of love, dancing into that kind of love and then completely dropping the ball. My friends thought they were going to avoid the female stereotypes by refusing to worry about the direction of the relationship. Their guys then monopolized their time with fun, sex, trips, possible future plans. They were the shoulder for my friends to cry on in difficult times, even. They got my friends to give their hearts away. Then they dropped my friends. Out of the blue. And I am very, very angry.

The problem is this, really; that I don't even think these relationships were worth saving. My friends were treated abominably, and I'm surprised that these guys could change their stories so quickly, but I'm not surprised that these relationships ended. I don't even think (anymore) that the relationship that broke my heart was worth saving. I am surprised at how I was treated (now) but no longer that surprised that it ended. Yet its ending was catastrophic. I can see it was inevitable and good, but I am still not over it. My friends will bear these wounds for a long time, these scars perhaps forever. What is to be done? Can this be prevented?

I'm not sure if sex can be blamed alone. I don't think it can be entirely ignored, either. Sex certainly creates a more intimate, vulnerable, rip-you-to-shreds-when-you-break-it bond. Christians get hung up when you mention the sex. They want to blame it all on the sex; the whole of the relational difficulties, the reason it fell apart, why you feel so god-forsakenly-awful when it's over and how you feel so used. Love can be irrational and blind and emotionally vulnerable even without sex. There is more grey, more threads, more complications to it than that, although Christians are onto something that the world wants you to forget. What kills is, yes, that this other person has seen you naked, knows your tricks and your sounds and the faces you make when you experience pleasure. But not just. What also kills is that you had dreams for the future that involved this person, movies you were going to see together, places you were going to visit together, a life you were going to share with each other. These are the agonies in small razor blades; the death of slow blood loss from skin-shallow cuts. Memories of foods shared, inside jokes that can never again be referenced because no one else understands, songs ruined until numbness conquers the overwhelming sadness where happiness once reigned.
The great pain is the stab of rejection-- how well you were known before dropped. The deeper, the more sincere and real the relationship, the worse these wounds are. This is the dagger driven deeper the more naked you got, but here I'm not just talking about the removal of clothes. The more masks you removed, they more facets you showed, the more opinions you entrusted, the more interests and passions you shared, the more ground you have given by which to be rejected. Does it hurt to be rejected sexually or intellectually more? I don't know. I didn't cry over the man I shared only my bed with but did over the friend I'd shared my heart with. But I cried most over the boy I'd shared both with. Abstinence is not a sufficient breastplate against this dagger, but it helps.

To love involves risk. Without it, it would not be love. That magnificent play between vulnerability and trust, care and truth. I want a love that is better than what has been lost for my friends (and for myself). My worry for them is that they do not know it exists; that they are not looking for it. My worry for all of us is that we will not recognize it, find it, or be able to engage in it when we do. Can I hold my boundaries and bide my patient time for a man worthy of my love? Can I recognize such a man when I meet him? Is my love really even worthy of such a man, especially when I have squandered it on lesser boys so recently?
Can I love even a worthy man when I am sick and tired and very, very angry?