Sometimes you just have to say goodbye

This post is perhaps a supplement to my prior one about people being in your life for a reason, a season, or a lifetime.

There are some people in my life, whether you would call them friends or not, who I need to stop communicating with.  Ninety-nine percent of them are guys, and ninety-nine percent of them are guys I've been intimate with.  That may be a little more information than I want to provide, but it's the truth.  They are the black sheep of my cell phone contacts, trying to pull me back in from time to time, only to let me down once more.

I believe there is a strange behavior pattern that occurs once you've been intimate with a guy: if it was a casual intimacy, then they automatically earn the right to treat you like crap whenever they want.  Why do I put up with it?  Habit I suppose.  But tomorrow is the first day of a brand new year, and it's a good time to distance myself from people who bring me down.  I say "distance myself" as opposed to "end the relationship" because I don't want to burn bridges.  I am cautious to burn any bridges for the fear that they may affect my professional life or other relationships.  Besides, this big city is actually a small town, and the world is getting smaller and smaller every day.

I am sitting at home on New Year's Eve, after declining at least four invitations to join people in their festivities.  Why did I do that?  Well, I held out hoping that one of the most recent "black sheep" would invite me to join him in whatever he's doing.  He did not.  I feel sad because at this moment I've let it affect me a lot.  I feel regretful that I did not take charge of my own situation and make my own plans.  I feel foolish that I interpret actions to mean so much more than they actually do.

In the past couple of years I've started being more honest with people and I will pledge to continue to do so in 2014.  By being honest with others about how I feel in negative situations, it usually brings out the truth and provides some relief.  In a culture that has really started to over-share (i.e. Facebook) we usually don't reveal what is going on deep down, and that's the stuff that actually matters.

Happy New Year - hoping to gain more insight and honesty in 2014.