To the Girl having the Uncomfortable "Do you see me in your future" conversation, I see you.
Different place. Different people. Different time.
Same conversation.
It wasn't my intention to eavesdrop but their body language was something I couldn't help but tune into. The two at the table right next to me whom I had to look through to see my partner, entertaining musically, right above them.
On a pause, I heard her say, "What are we?"
"What am I to you?"
"Are you trying to tell me, I'm just a friend to you?"
She had questions, rightfully so.
Which made a lot of sense, as an expert, sitting next to them while I had my own.
She listened intently to him, leaning in, while he leaned back.
She didn't speak except but to respond to him in a warmth, she tried so hard to be cool about it was almost chilling to watch.
Does she always hold space for him like this? I wondered.
Have they been together long? I wondered.
Does this girl realize he's like...way more into himself...than he is, her? I wondered.
He danced around all of her questions, asking her to answer them, telling her he isn't in a position to make promises, and then she grabbed at anything and said..."Do you see me in your future?"
I remember it so well. Being her.
Being the therapy to the guy that needed a therapist. Seeing everything in someone who saw very, very little in me. Holding space for potential rather than facing reality. Thinking one day, he'd finally see I'd been there all along.
Her question "do you see me in your future?" while I watched her hold out hope in her smile, faith coating her teeth and tears in her eyes all at the same time, made me want to give her a huge hug & my business card.
She's the strong woman type, in the softest and most loving of ways.
Waiting to be chosen by the one she's chosen.
Who, my guess is, makes her feel chosen on a daily basis but when asked to choose, he refuses, which is a mind fuck in and of itself.
Trying to make sense of it all as he dodges his inconsistencies with lip service, she wants to know if there's something "else" she should be waiting for. As in, 'are you gonna get clear one day about the fact that I'm here and I love you and you love me but you're too fucking stupid to let be true, what is true..."
But the thing is...she's already waiting. She's already NOT getting what she deserves.
She's already more in love with the potential of a reality than a reality that actually has potential.
If she waits for the future, chances are, she'll get more of "this," not more of all that "clarity" she hopes he'll come to one day on her watch.
She allows for ambivalence and sticks by it thinking "sticking" to it, will unstick it from itself; which, it won't. It'll just be all...sticky.
Which is what was happening at their table.
The most pressing thing I want all women to know, who are the hers of the world at current, is, if the man you're sitting across from stumbles when you ask him the question, "do you see me in your future..." he doesn't see you in the present.
And you my love, are a present, not to go unseen.
If he doesn't see you now, THAT is a fucking problem, not "how do I get him to commit to me?"
If he doesn't commit to seeing you NOW, he doesn't deserve you putting your life on hold on a potential that he MAY see the amazing person sitting right in front of his face...one day.
Don't wait for it.
Doesn't mean you have to run from it.
But by ALL means, most definitely...don't wait for it.
You deserve MORE than someone's potential.
You deserve an ACTUAL person, who shows up for you actualized because they're in it with you, not into you, being into them.
His honesty and ambivalence over his relationship to you doesn't make you special. To be fair, in his world, it probably makes you "normal." Sometimes people use honesty as a repellent, rather than a conjuring of shared vulnerability but the bleeding hearts of the world cannot conceptualize this fact in pulse.
If he can't answer you, but answers you in complete "honesty"...get honest with yourself and walk. You may be for him. But he...ain't for you.