Today's metaphor: plugging something into a socket. You try it once, twice, three times, and it's unresponsive. Maybe it works, once, to give you hope, then not again. Then, you plug something in, cause, well, maybe this time it'll work, and it sparks and blows out the whole circuit.

That was my night last night in S's flat, which I feel horribly guilty about, though a phone call from Mo (helpfully brought about by J) reassured me that it sounded like a bad socket, not something I actively messed up. It's being taken care of, and S was a dear, not mad or anything- we're sorting it out. Crisis averted.

However, this incident sounds achingly familiar to the meeting I had earlier that day with TB, whom I've decided needs a different nickname as he is no longer a thingboy and tuberculosis is too romantic an illness for him. Therefore, he will hereafter be Sh, for shingles.

Anyway. It's more drama, constant drama. And as much as it frustrated me that he continually struggled with how we met- now I'm beginning to think it really did make a difference, and I doubt more and more that I would ever take a professional relationship personal again. Meeting people at work? Overrated. Yes, I wanted us to stay friends, yes, I thought we could, but it's become clear that he wants to stay in contact to either add to his own suffering or try to make me suffer with him. I'm interested in neither.

We kept finding resolution and then he'd get upset again. I think Sh wants, maybe even needs me to react more than I am, but I can't and won't. Like the socket, I keep trying, and sometimes it's ok and usually it's not- I'm just not sure I'll know, really, when the socket blows.

I said to him I wanted us to start over. I reiterated that I would not play with him until he could come to me and say yes, this is what he wanted, and knew who he was. He says he doesn't want to play ever again. For me, I rarely close a door, but I get closer and closer to it. He seems inclined to blame me for all his current suffering, which won't get him far in terms of healing it. And I can't help anymore.

So, another chapter closed, I suppose. Sh told me to move on, and I am. I wish he would too, but that's not my problem.