My Truth Doesn't Belong to You

For years, I let someone else write my story.

I sat in a 210-square-foot apartment that felt more like a cell — my whole world reduced to four walls and a window I was afraid to look out of — and I let the lies someone was telling about me become the only version of me that existed. I didn't fight back. I didn't correct the record. I just... shrank. I became smaller and smaller until I nearly disappeared altogether.

The man who did this to me was someone I loved. Not casually — deeply. When he was about to lose his housing, I gave him my bedroom and slept on my own couch. When he was hungry, I fed him. When he needed money, I gave him what I had, even when I couldn't afford to. I didn't do those things to earn something from him. I did them because that's who I am. That's what I do for the people I love.

And when he decided I was his enemy — based on assumptions he never gave me the chance to address, conclusions he reached without ever asking me a single question — he didn't just walk away. He burned the ground behind him. He told people things about me that were so far from the truth they barely qualified as fiction. He painted me as something monstrous, and he did it so convincingly that every friend I had introduced him to chose his side overnight. My phone went quiet. My social circle evaporated. My name became something people whispered about with disgust.

I will not catalog his specific lies here. They are documented, and they will be addressed in their proper venue. What I will say is this: the things he accused me of are not just false — they are the opposite of who I am. And he would have known that if he had spent thirty seconds asking me instead of spending three years telling everyone else.

The isolation nearly killed me. I don't say that for dramatic effect. I mean it literally. There were nights in that apartment when I sat with the mathematics of my own disappearance and found the numbers persuasive. The only reason I'm writing this today is that something in me — some stubborn, defiant thread that refused to be cut — held on long enough for me to get help. I did get help. I am still getting help. And I am still here.

For a long time, I grieved him the way you grieve someone who has died. Because the man I thought I knew — the one who laughed with me, leaned on me, trusted me — that man is gone. Maybe he never existed. Maybe I loved a version of him that he couldn't sustain. I don't know. What I do know is that I spent months — years — aching for him to learn the truth. Believing that if he just knew, if someone just showed him the evidence, he would understand. He would come back. He would apologize. The wound would close.

And then one day, sitting in that same small apartment, I realized something that changed everything:

My truth doesn't belong to him.

It never did. I know what I did and what I didn't do. I know the care I gave. I know the records that prove my innocence. I know the settings on the server. I know what the lab results say. I know what the FBI's response says. I have always known. And his belief or disbelief doesn't change a single one of those facts.

His opinion of me is not my biography. His delusion is not my identity.

That revelation didn't erase the pain. But it rearranged it. It took the grief I'd been carrying for the loss of my best friend and turned it into something else — something closer to clarity.

Because here is what I see now, with clear eyes:

A real friend would have asked. A real friend, upon stumbling across something that concerned him, would have come to me — the man who had given him everything I had to give — and said, "Shannon, I need to talk to you about something." Thirty seconds. That's all it would have taken. And I would have shown him. I would have explained. I would have put every fear to rest, because the truth was always on my side and I was never hiding it from him.

He didn't ask. He chose to believe the worst possible version of me without giving me a single chance to speak. And then he chose to spread that version to everyone who would listen.

That is not the behavior of a friend. That is not even the behavior of a fair adversary. That is the behavior of someone who needed a villain more than he needed the truth.

I've stopped waiting for his apology. I've stopped rehearsing the conversation in which he finally sees what he did. I've stopped scanning for his name in my periphery, hoping and dreading in equal measure. That chapter is closed — not because the story resolved, but because I finally understood that resolution doesn't require his participation.

I feel something for him now that surprises me. It's not anger, though the anger still visits. It's not hatred — I don't think I'm built for that. It's closer to sorrow.

Because I know something he doesn't know yet.

He lost me.

Not the monster he invented. Not the villain in the story he's been telling. Me. The real one. The one who would have driven across the city at 2:00 a.m. if he'd called. The one who gave him the last of his savings without being asked to. The one who loved him with the kind of loyalty that doesn't come with conditions or expiration dates.

That person is still here. Still generous. Still capable of that kind of love. Still offering it to the world — just not to him. Never again to him.

And one day — maybe not soon, maybe not for years — he will look back on what happened between us with something other than the righteous certainty he carries now. The lies will get harder to maintain as the years pile on top of them. The story will stop making sense, the way all false stories eventually do. And when that moment comes — when the scaffolding finally gives way and he has to sit with the bare, undecorated truth of what he did to someone who loved him — I hope he finds it survivable.

I did.

I'm still here. And my life is no longer his to write.

Fill In The Blanks

What If Death Grants Us An Audience With Truth?

AI-Generated artwork - The personification of Truth

Ever since I was a small child, maybe 6 or 8 years old, I have had this recurring fantasy or daydream, if you will, about what happens after we die. I've always imagined myself landing in what I suppose you might call heaven (though what makes me think that's on the itinerary is beyond me) and being greeted by what I can only describe as a saintly embodiment of truth. It is a being that contains every fact that ever was and ever will be, and its purpose in my fantasy is to answer questions about the things that happened during my life on Earth.

I picture myself walking through heaven alongside this entity and coming to a stop in a secluded little area that is shaded, cool, and home to a rather plain, run-of-the-mill looking stone well. Standing against the grey stones that make up the well's waist-high wall, I peer down into the darkness at the glasslike surface of the pure, cold water deep down inside the well's shadowy bottom and see our reflections. My guide tells me I can ask any question, and he will give me the true answer from his enormous Book of Truths, which he has pulled out from who knows where and lain upon the stone well, ready to open at my first inquiry. 

I imagine myself pondering the life I've lived, trying to think of a question worthy of being my first step toward enlightenment. It feels monumental, so I dig deep for a burning question to match the magnitude of this moment. 

"How many bugs did I eat during my lifetime without knowing?", I ask. I'm certain there have been creepy crawlies in my food that managed to evade detection, and I am just curious to know exactly how many there were. (Magnitude? Check.)

He opens the book and thumbs through it as if trying to find a section conveniently titled "Insect Consumption" or something. Coming to a stop about a quarter of the way through this huge tome of infinite knowledge, he scans a page and recites the figures to me.

"During your life on Earth, you inadvertently ate 10,700,244 insects, including their eggs and larvae in various pieces and parts. That amounts to approximately 90 pounds of insect material consumed in your lifetime without you knowing it." He pauses and assesses my ability to hear more. "Do you want the breakdown by bug type? There were a surprising number of weevils. . ."

"That's okay! I'm good.", I interrupt. Even in heaven I suppose one can feel sick to one's ghostly stomach. 

I catch my breath and look at him in the eye, thinking my next question to him in my mind. "Which truth should I be asking for right now? Which one is most important for me to know?"

Discerning my mental inquiry without a word, Mr. Truth turns back to the book and flips through until he reaches the middle and runs his finger down a page, landing near the bottom edge. His face becomes very earnest, as he looks down at me leaning against the edge of the well, looking back at him inquisitively and impatient. I brace myself for the truth he is about to give me. 

That's where my little recurring daydream ends. I don't know which truth will be the most impactful or the most disturbing or the furthest reaching as far as the impact it had on my life and the lives of others around me. But I like to think that one day I'll find out. It's something I can look forward to after death, which doesn't frighten me at all. I confronted my own mortality early in life, and I have been expecting death since I was 19. Death and I have danced together several times over the years, flirting with one another but never sealing the deal. When we do, maybe I'll find myself in a shady glade in front of a stone well being gifted amazing truths about my life. 

In writing this post, I learned that this fantasy may fall under the term, gnosophilia, which refers to a deep devotion to knowing, not through intellectual pursuit, but through a soul-level understanding or intuition. It's about the soul's craving for truth and a knowing that resonates deep within, often described as a feeling that something is true in one's bones. This differs from the mind's logical pursuit of answers.   (see more about gnosophilia here.)

Lately, my daydream has changed a bit. I've been imagining others from my life going to the well and being read to from the Book of Truth by their guides into the afterlife. I find a sense of comfort in imagining them finding out that the things they believed about me were wrong, that the actions they took to punish me were unfounded, and that their hatred of me formed around a misperception and many wrong assumptions that led them to abandon our friendship for no reason other than their own stubborn, willful ignorance of the truth. My heart craves the sight of this revelation on their faces as they realize the gravity of their mistake. It's perhaps petty to want such painful knowledge to be imparted on someone, but I never said I was above being petty.

I know that's not going to happen. These people will walk around believing what they want to believe and spreading their misguided version of me to others they come across, ultimately tainting entire groups of people against me based on their mistaken belief in things I never did. And there's nothing I will ever be able to do that will convince them they are wrong, that their opinions of me were tainted by misinformation intentionally planted in their ears by malicious and monstrous individuals that thought playing with my life was a game. But that's a painful and bitter truth to swallow, so you'll forgive me if I indulge myself with a sip or two of fantasy to help that stinging truth go down and settle. 

If you find yourself being told by a friend or acquaintance about their negative experience with an individual that you do not personally know, try to remember that what they are describing is an experience unique them. No one is just one thing. To them, this person might have been clingy, might have ignored boundaries and demanded too much of their attention and time. He may have crossed lines they thought were threatening or controlling or manipulative, so they think of that person as an adversary that they will avoid. 

You will likely not hear your friend talk at length about the kindness, affection, and support he received from this awful person, or about how routinely your friend refused to accept any accountability for any of the conflict that occurred between them.

But try to picture the other guy's perspective for a moment. To him, your friend might have been disrespectful, might have broken commitments routinely and prioritized others over him so consistently that he felt frequently hurt by your friend's treatment of him. He might have tried to reason with your friend, communicating openly with them about how he felt and wanted to find compromise that would help stabilize their friendship and meet both their needs. 

Your friend might have ignored this person, belittled him and dismissed his feelings as if they weren't valid. He might have emotionally abused this person for months while using him for financial and emotional support. 

To this man, your friend might be viewed as a betrayer who was once a dear friend. This man might have spent months or years grieving the loss of his friendship with your friend, unable to stop your friend from badmouthing him and influencing others' opinions of him. 

You can't know from one person's telling of their experience what the other person's side of a story is, so how can you form a reliable, fair opinion of them based on someone's inherently subjective experience? 

We could all do a better job of giving the benefit of the doubt when it comes to making new acquaintances and letting people into our lives. Shutting others out because of gossip and rumors is not only cruel, it's ignorant. I can't respect anyone who doesn't have the conviction to form their own opinions of me based on our interactions rather than those I've had with another person. If I did, I'd be missing out on potentially wonderful relationships with decent folks who I wrote off for no good reason other than so-and-so's history with them. And that would be and ugly truth forever waiting for me in that big, beautiful Book of Truth. 

Buy My New Book - The Wall Between Us

 My Book, The Wall Between Us, Available on Amazon

Based on real events first revealed here on this blog, The Wall Between Us tells the tragic story of Cody and Sean, an unlikely pair of friends whose bond forms quickly only to be ripped apart way too early. Dive into the emotionally raw and unflinching look at how trauma can shape our lives in unexpected ways and how addiction and insecurity can destroy connection from within. Available now on Amazon.com in hardcover, softcover, and Kindle e-book formats. Get your copy of The Wall Between Us by Oscar Silvestre today!

I Wish I Never Met You

 

Hope It Gives You Hell

 Petty? Perhaps. But It Feels Right.

After what's been done, the lies that have been told, and the damage done to each other, all I can say at this point is that I really, really do hope I serve as a thorn in his side every time he has to come near my door or walk past my window. When he's parking, I hope there's a moment when he has to ask himself if I can see him and drives around some more to look for another option. I want to know that as much as he hates it, I'm on his mind every damned day, and I hope it's utter hell.

Be Careful With The Family You Choose

Part 1: How Inviting A Friend To Join My Google Family Ruined Everything

The Premise:

In late March 2023, while my new friend, whose name I should not mention for legal reasons -- let's call him Cody -- was living with me while he was trying to get back on his feet and find a home of his own, I thought it would be a nice demonstration of friendship and trust to add him to my Google Family. Adding him would give him shared access to certain folders and files on my Google Drive and allow him to control the IoT devices in my apartment linked to my Google account. So, I added him and sent him an invitation to alert him of it. 

The Confrontation:

Fast forward a few weeks, during which time there was no mention or acknowledgement of my invitation from Cody. I had completely forgotten about the whole thing until one afternoon in late April, following a series of very kind, appreciative text messages from Cody thanking me for being such a great friend, when he sent me a text message that contained just a screenshot of an email he had received showing him as a "Family Member (Limited Access)" on my Google Family account. I responded, recalling the invitation I'd sent, and asked if he was okay with my having added him. He responded in a fit of rage, asking me why I had added him and what made me think he would accept the invitation at all. 

Surprised and honestly bewildered by his unexpected anger over what I had considered to be a friendly, innocent gesture, I tried to assure him that I'd not done anything surreptitiously and was keeping nothing from him. I hadn't even fully grasped the extent of the accusation he had just hurled at me yet because I was so shocked to be suspected of violating Cody's trust. It just wasn't something that had ever occurred to me to do.

The Fight:

He continued screaming at me via text for a while, deaf to my protests and my explanations. It didn't help matters that he had been awake for several days, or that he had been hanging around with a low life who was notorious for hacking into people's networks and stealing identities. Cody was a ticking time bomb of paranoia, and he aimed the full force of that at me.

I was hurt by the accusation. To be doubted by someone in whom I had complete trust and in whom I thought I had instilled a mutual sense of understanding was a blow to the heart. I tried my hardest not to let my hurt feelings color the conversation, because I realized how vital this discussion was. 

I tried so hard to convince him to come and see me in person and not to force us to hash this out over text messaging. But when Cody is enraged, there's no reasoning with him. This was the first time I was seeing that side of him, and it was heartbreaking.

The Proof:

After some time had passed, I was able to retrace my steps in adding him and discovered a Google Help article that explained the process of adding a family member in greater detail. It turns out that when you add someone as a member of your family, Google does indeed send them an invitation to inform them they have been added, an invitation that must be accepted before its two-week expiration in order to make the addition of that family member final. 

But at the same time, when they are added, they show up in the Family group as a "Family Member (limited access)". This is the initial status that would have changed to simply "Family Member" had he or anyone else accepted the invitation before it expired. 

Cody simply hadn't seen the invitation when I sent it, and there's a very good chance he had deleted it or that it went to his junk mail folder. In any case, I thought I'd stumbled upon the perfect piece of evidence to show him once and for all that I had not violated his trust and was innocent of his accusation that I had hacked his network and gained access to his email account so that I could accept the invitation secretly on his behalf and delete it before he could see it. I took a screenshot of the help page and sent it to him.

He was not convinced. Despite what amounted to a completely unbiased and trustworthy piece of evidence directly from Google itself, he still held onto the suspicion that I had hacked him. And though he eventually dropped the matter and spoke of it no more, I would find out many months later that this encounter had distorted his perception of me and that every single thing I did from that point on was viewed by him through the fucked-up lens that he had crafted during this simple and innocent misunderstanding. 

It was, as I had predicted - the beginning of the end for our friendship. And despite the prophecy having sprung from my own message, I didn't see it coming until it was too late.

An Unexpected Reunion

How My Ex Best Friend Came To Be Asleep In My Living Room On His Birthday

It may come as a great surprise to learn that for the last two and a half days, my apartment has become stuffed with an ex bestie who recently did some fucked up shit to me, half of his belongings, and his cat. But it's true. Not only is my head spinning from the 180° turn of events, but my heart has not yet understood what exactly the fuck is going on. It knows it wants to rage, to burst into a fiery ball of molten pain and sear the flesh right off of his stupid face, but it doesn't quite comprehend how to reflexively cause more pain to someone who is clearly already in a bad position.

Nearly 2 weeks ago just as I was finishing work at around 7:00 PM, I received a DM on Sniffies from a profile I'd never seen before except for saying hello to it maybe half an hour earlier. The DM contained a screenshot of a profile that featured a 10-year old photo of me with an untrimmed beard and about 50 extra pounds of weight, and the name on the profile was "N.A.M.B.L.A.?", implying that I am an overweight, shaggy pedophile. It also contained my full name and private cell phone number, which was captioned in red ink with the words, "Sub-Human Toilet. Shit in my mouth. I have a rim chair.", scrawled across the top of the photo.

I immediately knew it as Shawn's handiwork. He had shown up on the apps just 75 feet away from my apartment a while earlier but refused to answer my messages asking him what he wanted here. It was supremely creepy. And then, to follow that up with the bold proclamation that the greater Tacoma/Pierce County area and beyond now had visibility to my private contact information, even the long list of men I've blocked over the course of the 3-and-a-half years that I have lived here.

No sooner had I realized that than the messages started rolling in. The first guy texting me from an unknown number asked, "Hi, Shannon. I got a huge dump for you. Hungry, baby?" I blocked him. A second message arrived only minutes later, also from a number I didn't recognize. It asked, "Hey, Shannon Murdock! What's the youngest you've ever been with? Mine was 11." I blocked him, too, and hurriedly deleted both conversations. I felt sick at my stomach as dozens more similarly disgusting text messages and voicemails streamed in over the next 24 hours.

My every instinct begged to hurt him, to lash out blindly but explosively and to eradicate Shawn Schneider from the face of the planet for what he'd done to me. Of all the people in the world, he knew better than anyone how things whispered behind my back about me were my Achilles heel. There wasn't any assault he could have made on me that would have done more damage, and I felt him revel in it. 

It took every atom and inkling of restraint in my being to refrain from enacting his utter annihilation right then and there. Images of me on the northbound express bus flashed in my mind, followed by a street altercation and blood, so much blood everywhere that my mind's eye saw only in crimson tones. Instead, I took several deep breaths, put my phone away, and slowed my racing heart to something more closely resembling a seated human male in his forties. I messaged him back, thanking him for the attention he'd brought me and letting him know how surprised I was at receiving such a gift from him - all these attractive men contacting me for sex? Yowsers! Gracias, pendejo.

But the truth was I was horrified. Even now, two weeks later, I'm afraid to go out in public for fear that one of those perverts could be anywhere around me. Was the barista the one who had molested that 11-year-old? Was the bus driver the guy who'd offered me his shit? Does the cashier at the convenience store think I am a pedophile? I've stayed inside even more than when I was strictly adhering to the coronavirus quarantine. 

Then, out of nowhere, my doorbell rang at 5:55AM this Monday morning. I looked through the peephole and saw a tall, lanky figure dressed in a hoodie and wearing a hat that hid his face from the light. I didn't recognize the person, but assumed it must be one of my friends who frequently come over to visit, so I opened the door and invited the mysterious figure in. My eyes searched his face for some recognizable feature just as he turned to me and said, "We need to talk.". In that moment I knew exactly who had just invaded my personal space, and he was every kind of unwelcome there is.

Yet I still held back the instinctive scream that threatened to rush out of my mouth
and shred him with a thousand tiny blades, each honed by my rage and my hurt. "Yeah. We really do.", I said, closing the door and ushering him into the sitting area. "Thanks for the flattering profiles you left for me and everyone around town last week.", I added bitterly.

"Oh, you saw that, huh?", he grinned, not even trying to disguise his smirk. "Yeah, that wasn't me. I'm sorry. I mean that was ME, but it wasn't the me I want to be. You know what I mean?"

"What exactly are you sorry for, Shawn? For body shaming me with that 300-pound photo of me and saying I weighed 350? Or is it that you published my name and my phone number to every psycho and pervert in a hundred miles, who have all, I might add, been blowing up my phone with the sickest shit you can imagine until I finally changed my number."

"Both.", he said flatly, almost sullen in his sudden shame. "I didn't know you'd changed your number.", he said. "That's why you didn't get any of my texts this morning. I've been sitting outside in my truck at the end of the alley for nearly an hour debating what I was going to do when I got to your door, and I texted you all these messages challenging you to come outside and face me. I said, 'I know you're reading these, Murdock. Don't be a coward.', and a bunch of other stuff you didn't reply to. So I finally called you about fifteen minutes ago, and that's when I got the message saying your number was no longer in service or whatever."

"Of course I had to change it. What did you think was going to happen when you made that information public, Shawn? My phone blew up." I stared across the living room at him, sunken into the chair, eyes wide and almost confused, his clothes hanging off of him like rags on a wire hanger. He looked exhausted and a little crazy.

"And what do you mean 'deciding what I was going to do'? What did you decide, exactly?", I asked, remembering the threat I'd detected in that sentence before and fearing a snap was coming any second. I straightened and glanced left and right looking around for anything I could grab to protect myself if he lunged. My eye settled on the heavy glass ashtray in front of me on the coffee table, then met is again to monitor his movements.

"Nothing. Talk. Just talk.", he said with a telling crack in his voice like puberty was making a second house call just as he started to speak. "I haven't slept in days, and I'm paranoid as fuck right now. Somebody, I'm not saying you, but somebody has been putting up profiles everywhere chasing me all over the country saying shit about me and throwing shit in my face everywhere I go." He paused for half a beat, then continued, "If it is you, stop it. Please. Just stop."

"Look.", I started. "I've already told Corey and Tyler both a hundred times that it's not me. I'm so sick of getting blamed for whatever hell you've brought on yourself, either from one of them or some other poor schmuck that you've pissed off in your dealings. I'm going to say this one more time, and then I am not going to discuss it again. I am not responsible for the fake profiles being placed on Grindr and Sniffies." My voice was steady and stern, making my point as confident and final as I needed it to be. "I even managed to capture a conversation with the asshole in screenshots a couple of weeks ago, and I sent that shit to both your exes as proof that it wasn't me. Did they not show you? Don't tell me you haven't been tied to Corey at the waist for the last two weeks, either."

"No, I'm not speaking to Tyler, because -- uh, whole other kind of crazy -- and Corey and I aren't talking. But okay. If you say you didn't do it, I'll take you at your word. It's just that whoever it was mentioned something in one of the profiles about my Opa this time, and I saw red. It took two people to hold me back or I would have been here last night and this whole thing would have gone down a lot differently."

"What, would you have brought your favorite putter and practiced your swing on me again?", I asked with so much contempt that the snark was practically dripping from the words.

"Something like that.", he admitted and then looked away. "It's driving me crazy. Everywhere I go I'm paranoid that he's watching me. He says shit about who I'm with all the time, and like, it's not always right. Like half the time he's wrong, but half the time he's right. And so it's like he's got eyes on me all the time to the point I can't sleep. I leave town and he follows me. He followed me all the way to Atlanta and fucked with me there. On my flight home, I stopped in Dallas for an hour, and there he was with another profile showing up in DFW. I don't know many people that are smart enough to do that kind of shit with computers. You are probably the smartest person I know. So tell me the truth. Is it you? No threat, no fight. Just tell me."

"I already did. We're done with this subject.", I answered, refusing to back down from my line in the sand. 

"Then it has to be Tyler.", he posited. "I've noticed in some of the profiles there are certain typos and misspellings."

"I don't do typos or misspellings. I'm incapable. You know that."

"I do know that. Which is why I'm pretty sure now that it's got to be Tyler.", Shawn concluded. "He's smart. -Ish. But also dumb. You know what I mean? There are words he always spells wrong in everything, and I've seen them spelled wrong in some of these profiles." 

"Then you should be defaming him up in Des Moines instead of dragging my good name through the mud down here. You did that shit to me for something I didn't even do!" I was livid once more. Tears threatened to erupt from my eyes as I clenched my jaw tightly and held them back with nothing but sheer will. I  had to appear stronger than he remembered me. I needed him to see how hardened my heart had become in the wake of his abandonment of me this spring.

"I know, and I'm sorry.", he admitted quietly, almost whispering. "I'm not proud of that, that's why I took them all down. Well, one of them got taken down and banned as soon as it went up, and then I took the other two down, 'cause I felt bad."

"I only knew about 2 of them, and I reported them both to Sniffies and Grindr. Where was the other?", I inquired urgently. My mind raced, wondering how long the exposure had remained in place without my catching it.

"It was at Tyler's. I did one of the two of you. Two birds one stone kinda thing. But that one was the one that as soon as I finished and posted it it got yanked and banned by Grindr.", he answered. "I'm really sorry. I didn't know it wasn't you, and when it said that stuff about my Opa. . . I only talked to you about him, and I remember you using his name against me as a weapon before at the golf tournament in Federal Way that time. And I never, I don't think I ever talked to Tyler about Opa, so it's just weird that the profile would say, 'Your Opa would be proud.', is all. I believe you, it's just. . ."

"It. Wasn't. ME! I swear to God, Shawn, if I have to say. . ." I was incensed. 

"Okay. Okay. Okay, I know. I believe you.", he interrupted, aware of how close I was to losing my shit if he pushed any further and continued to doubt my honesty. "Hey.", he said, waiting for me to look up and meet his eyes. Holding my gaze he spoke. "I mean it. I'm sorry. I made a mistake, and I regret it. I'm sorry."

It was as if a year's worth of pain, doubt, anger, hurt, confusion, and heartache I'd been paralyzed by was suddenly sucked up by a big invisible hose, clearing my vision and leaving hardly any trace of those heavy, ugly emotions in view. I felt a relief the likes of which I haven't adequate words to describe, something akin to a weight that had permeated my body from head to toe and held me down for so long lifted, and I was able to see him for the scared, broken man he was in that moment and forgive him. 

We talked for over six hours that morning, covering everything from the infamous abandonment at Harborview in March to the robbery by Anthony and the rumor that I'd chased him all over Capitol Hill with a gun, ready to shoot him dead in the streets, which were fabricated by the very same friend who robbed me the following day. I steered the conversation toward some of the unanswered or contradicted questions he'd left me with when he bailed and took up with Tyler over me, and to my surprise, he kind of sorta answered me. Not in any useful way, like, with actual information that fills in a blank where there was no information before, but at least he gave me something instead of deploying his usual smoke screen of words and then running for the hills the second I look away.

He stuck to his original story on the subject of my being the one person he didn't want a relationship with. He said then and now that he came here wanting to be alone. He didn't want to be tied to the responsibility of keeping one person happy and not breaking their heart. He wanted to be free of any and all relationships more serious than a friend with benefits. After I'd confessed my feelings to him in late May 2019, he said he kind of freaked out and started trying to find ways to distance himself so that I would maybe lose some of that love. Of course at the time he told me we were totally fine, and that things weren't weird and he wasn't freaked out by my confession. He says he simply couldn't bring himself to say the harsh truth in full because he was afraid it would hurt me so badly that the entire friendship would end, so he tried to maneuver us in a way that only that unwanted love part would die.

As for the part about suddenly going from wanting no relationships at all to being in one up to his heart, he simply claimed that Tyler is a very good salesman and that he'd set his mind on Shawn, so he sold Shawn on the idea of being his boyfriend. In fact, he says that when it started, it wasn't even supposed to be true. He'd been on the phone with Tyler after fighting all day with Corey, who had been accusing Shawn of being in a relationship with Tyler, so Shawn jokingly said to Tyler, "So, did you know that you and me are boyfriends now?". He said Tyler took that to mean that they WERE boyfriends, and that was that. Hmmmph.

I don't know if I believe that, but I wasn't going to push him any further on the subject. He would have clammed up and I would get no more answers to the questions I still had for him. He's stubborn as hell, and he also really thinks that he's sparing me pain and suffering by not telling me his harsh truths, no matter how many times I assure him that's not the case.

By noon, we had come to a sort of uneasy truce; one that neither side had seen coming just hours before when we each had murder on our minds. It was bittersweet, having a slice of our previous friendship pop back to life and start dragging itself around my living room. I almost smiled, despite the soreness still surrounding my heart from all the hurt I'd held onto for so long. He saw that tears had welled up again in my eyes after his apology for how he left me, and he came across to the sofa to sit beside me as the sun shone through the patio window and turned us both into beautiful statues of gold.

When he left that day, I sat in stunned silence for an hour, replaying the morning's conversation over and over again looking for some sign that he'd been scamming me somehow. Had all that toxic animosity between us, all the fearful screening of friends for any signs they'd been in contact with him, all the anger and jealousy, and the pervasive feeling of betrayal all been so trivial that all it took to erase them was one honest conversation and a couple of tight, meaningful hugs? Apparently so. 

I'll tell you the rest in the next installment. I've already given way too many words in this post for most people to tolerate, so I won't push my luck by continuing on with the tale right now. He will be heading to Portland for the weekend, so that will give me time to think through this past week and all the unbelievable twists and turns that it brought into my life again. If you want to find out how he ended up here snoring while his cat kept my two cornered and hissing in the bedroom, check back later. For now, examine that feeling of confusion and curiosity that's swirling around your head right now. That's exactly how I feel now, too. Weird, isn't it?

The Best Conversation Ever

When There's Truth, There's Understanding

The Tragic Fall of Fuckboy, Part 1

As Was Foretold, What Befell Me Soon Befell Fuckboy

Was Everything A Lie?

Saying One Thing, But Proving Another - A Game Of Lie vs. Ty

I'm not sure how to see myself in the mirror's reflection when I'm actually able to tolerate the sight. Am I looking at the sexy, good looking, charming goofball that he told me I was all last year? Or is it the fat, AIDS-ridden, overbearing and unwanted loser whose pathetic need for validation makes him absolutely unattractive to anyone not looking to take something from him or use him in some way? 

I used to have a better picture of my own. Before my world went dark and spun off into cold isolation at the whim of a narcissistic liar, I actually trusted in my own beautiful traits and virtues. All of the pillars upon which right and wrong or up and down were based seem to have been toppled at the realization of his cowardly lies. And the fact that he maintains them as truth keeps them fixed in disarray in this upside down calamity.

Six months ago, I was still under the mistaken impression that Shawn was a good person who simply wasn't wired for the kind of romantic relationship I'd come to want with him. That, in and of itself, would have been regrettable but understandable, had it been true. It was not. We fought and reconciled and tried again a few times throughout August and September, and by October, he'd shut me out once again. His birthday came near the end of the month, and lo and behold, "Holden" had suddenly found a new guy to replace me as his best buddy, and what's more, he was in a relationship with him. A seemingly happy one, at that. Shawn was in love. 

He did have the capacity to love and be loved. He wasn't completely unwilling to be in any romantic relationship with anyone, as he'd repeatedly insisted to me for months. Shawn was perfectly okay having a boyfriend a little on the chunky side who was HIV positive and older than him. He just didn't want me.

And even that truth, hurtful though it might be, would have been an excusable one that I could have accepted had he simply had the balls to say that was the case. Had he simply sat me down and talked it out, explaining what it was about me that was wrong for him in that regard, I could have gotten the lesson I needed from it and moved on. But for him to hide behind a soft lie and let me think he loved me but couldn't handle a new relationship so soon after the dissolution of his 13 years with Corey was an unforgivable bit of laziness and convenience. It excused him from having to say the hard words he was too afraid to watch me hear. Then, when he'd found someone so similar to me in so many ways and became enamored himself, did he finally step up and tell me the truth, cutting me loose with some tears, a bit of heartache, and some closure? No. Not Shawn.Not him.

At first he pretended to let me be back in his orbit, hiding as much of his actual life from me as he could while feeding me lies and making excuses for not seeing me in person. When I grew suspicious of his odd behavior and went to see him unannounced, he was caught off guard and fed me a bullshit story he thought I'd want to hear about how he was simply using this dumb, dumpy rich guy for his car and apartment until he could rebound from his eviction and get back on his feet. 

It excused him from having to say the hard words he was too afraid to watch me hear.

He looked me in the eye and told me that this fuckboy, (who publicly claims to be 36 but is actually 40 years old, and who had to be shamed in front of Shawn into being honest about his HIV status with the men they were fucking) was no more his boyfriend than I had been, and that he still wasn't looking to be in a relationship. He claimed that he was selfishly allowing the new guy to believe what he wanted to believe. That was precisely what he was doing -- to me. The moment I dropped him off at his apartment in the wee hours of the night, he literally fled into the night as if he had escaped some maniac's clutches. Like he was afraid of me. It ripped me apart. What the hell had happened? He was afraid of almost having had to face the lies that he'd amassed. That's why he ran.

He leaves love notes in his boyfriend's car.

That feeling of betrayal eats at my guts like I'm corroding and rotting from the inside. I cry every single day, no matter how hard I try not to think about him, some memory invariably bubbles up to the surface, triggered by some sight or sound or smell. It isn't him that I dwell on, per se, so much as the messy end to our friendship and the lack of identity I am left with as a result of his cowardice. It's unacceptable. My story, more specifically the the part that I shared with him, deserves a just ending. He should have to face me and tell me the truths he hid from me and finally show me the world as it is, not as he would have me believe it.

But I can't make him do what he should. Nothing I say will change his mind or persuade him to suffer the discomfort that telling the truth sometimes requires. He has moved on to greener pastures having had to feel none of the anguish he left me to suffer. He comforts himself with poorly formed philosophical bullshit about letting go of the past, not fearing the future, and making the best of the present. He detaches and forgives all of his bad behaviors by simply writing off the past as something we just shouldn't dwell on. And as long as he can sidestep any collision with me, he will never have to care what he did by doing nothing. Karma will have to be his justice, and I won't even get the pleasure of seeing that unfold. I'm certain it will be magnificent and terrible in its weaving of his next incarnation's circumstances, and what a sight that would be indeed.

Reconciling His Words With His Actions

Going In Circles Recovering From Abandonment

As much as it pains me to admit it, there has not been one day in the months since I was made irrelevant in the life of my best friend, whom I loved very much, that I have been more than one stray thought away from tears. The smallest trigger can set me off no matter where I am or whom I'm with. All of the pain - every ounce of loss - comes sliding down on top of me, crushing me under its weight and holding me in this hopeless pattern that has prevented me from healing even a little since he threw me away. 

The reason, I think, that I'm so stuck is that my brain can't reconcile all of the things he said to me over and over for months with the eventual 180° about face he made after pushing me out of his day-to-day life. I keep trying to repair my decimated sense of self worth by telling myself all the positive and wonderful traits I know to be true of myself, but they won't stick, because they can't be as true as I though if they weren't good enough to let me be loved back by someone. It makes no sense that he could harbor deep, sincere feelings for me one moment while maintaining a barrier between us and the "boyfriend" label he was so afraid of, and the next moment he is head over heels in giddy schoolboy love with a total bossy bottom bitch of a fuckboy who is a disrespectful liar, a manipulator, a controller, and an all around nasty fucking person.

It's like I'm having to question every little aspect of myself, examining them more closely in search of some clue about which truth applies - am I a good, kind, funny, and lovable person that any man in his right mind would be grateful to call his partner? Or am I a depressing, needy, clingy, impatient, and unattractive old fool whose only true value is in his ability to pay for things and offer emotional support or entertainment? It took me years to finally get past the terrible programming my childhood cursed me with and to begin to believe those better things about me to be true. Those things actually started feeling fully legitimate with the occasional validation he gave me to support their validity. But then he took it all away by willfully shutting me out, intentionally flaunting this new relationship, and spreading lies and rumors about me around a community I already don't feel welcome in from the start. 

An apology would have gone a long way toward helping me heal. Seeing him feel his shame would have made me at least feel like he didn't get to sweep my suffering under a rug and move on to greener gay pastures guilt-free and unburdened by the consequences of his cowardly actions. But he didn't. He just fucking didn't.

He often pleaded with me not to hold on to anger or hate, explaining in his semi-literate way that they were heavy, toxic, burdensome emotions that only served to injure the one carrying them around and doing nothing to the subject of their intent. Truly I've never been one to hold a grudge for very long. Not until now, that is. I was almost able to shut out the hurt and ignore the daily feeling of betrayal that swirled sickeningly in the pit of my abdomen threatening to make me vomit at any moment. But he went and let his fuckboy talk to me like I was a crazy stalker who was making up stories about him in some smear campaign. He let that fuckboy diminish the friendship we shared before fuckboy was ever in the picture. Didn't say a word. Just handed over his phone and let fuckboy go to town on me. I could have forgiven a lot, but that and the fact that to this day he has made not one attempt to apologize to me for that or the greater damage he knows good and well that he caused me in the way he ended things between us. He has not had to suffer any of the loss or anguish I steeped in for three solid months. He moved on and fell in love. And I was left to try and put myself back together without a clue as to which pieces were me and which were parts he had used to prop me up for a while. I have completely lost myself and all sense of identity to this fucker.

I hate him. He deserves retribution, not that I am the one to give it, but there is a mighty big hole in my heart right now that has been screaming out for justice, and I don't think it will stop until either he gets his comeuppance and is left hurting, betrayed, alone, and without hope or anyone to turn to for support or until I die. If I still believed in myself, in even the smallest way, I would hold out hope for his getting what he deserves. But hope and justice and fairness are things only a weak, stupid, worthless old castoff holds onto when the world has shown him over and over again that there is no such thing as fairness. That kind of naivete is dangerous. It leaves one vulnerable to users who play off that sense of right and wrong. No, all that seems to fit anymore is the burning hot hatred that fills me when I see his stupid, happy, giddy fucking face. That's what he left in his wake. That's what I've become.

When I Needed A Villain, He Donned A Black Hat

He wasn't equipped to handle love, and I wasn't able to stop giving it, no matter the cost. He knew I needed to hate him before I could stop loving him, so he stepped out of his true self and into a suit of pure, selfish evil to help me get the rest of the way over him.

In doing so, Shawn helped to expedite what might have taken weeks if not months to finally wither and die. So, even though his actions over the last 72 hours have prompted a fierce and tenacious hatred to flare up in me, I have to credit him for the act of kindness hidden in so much cruelty. He hurt me like no one has ever done before, and I am damaged as a result. More damaged even than when I arrived on his doorstep in Yakima some 7 months ago in what would be our first face-to-face meeting after a year and a half of flirting and chatting on Scruff.

Had I known then his capacity for love was so limited, I would have turned my heart off and just enjoyed the hard fuck he was always so good at delivering. I would never have let myself attach so much importance to his opinion of me, nor would I have allowed myself to feel so nurturing and caring for him. I let him use me, and he let me use him. He gained from our relationship in material things, and I gained the illusion of love and intimacy he was willing to supply in such small, intentionally limited amounts.

That should have been enough, and had I let it be, we wouldn't find ourselves locked in an ever spiraling circle of mutual destruction the way we have these last few days. I will always love some part of Shawn, if for no other reason than that he knew when I needed to hate him and bore the weight of that need to its bitter end.

Thank you for being such a heartless fuck, you fucking amazing man. I hate you so much only because I loved you so hard. That is behind me, and I never want to see your face or hear your voice again. I really do wish you both the best in life and the worst that you deserve at once. May our paths remain mercifully uncrossed for the rest of our lives, so that the hate you bequeathed to me so easily can continue protecting me from loving you ever again.

Goodbye, Shawn. Go be selfish, loveless, and alone amid so many meaningless encounters, just the way you always wanted. And may you always regret what you threw away in me, because I could have been very good for you. Now you'll never know just how good. And that's for the best.

Inequitable Heartache

At some point, even the most self-loathing masochist reaches a point where he must acknowledge that the one-sided love he's been feeling is damaging his already crippled sense of self-worth. When the person he loves cares so little about seeing or spending time with him, what is a love sick fool to do? Berate himself for having been so blinded by feelings that he ignored every single sign and signal that the relationship was one of convenience for the other person? Or wallow in self-pity, worsening the contempt he already feels for himself by painting another layer of pathetic across his reflection in the mirror?

If you hadn't guessed, I'm the love sick masochist (and you're clearly an idiot). For months I've tried my damnedest to stop the growing fondness that developed between me and my friend, S. I knew from early on that he didn't share my fondness of  him; that my feelings were not reciprocated at all. And yet intensify they did. That's what happens, I suppose, to someone who subconsciously hates himself so much that he actually enjoys being treated poorly and disrespected at every turn. When his texts go unanswered and his intended goes around sticking his cock in any and every hole that'll take it - except his, of course - there seems to be some internal mechanism that turns that pain into sustenance and feeds on it as he sinks deeper and deeper in to depression.

Two weeks ago, I nearly killed myself. There wasn't any grab for attention. I didn't write a note or leave any hints for some friend or acquaintance to find. I simply drank what I knew to be a lethal amount of GHB, left my apartment so the cats wouldn't eat my corpse, and walked a few blocks to a semi-private place where I intended to die. I had taken a look at myself, at my prospects or lack thereof, and at how many years lay ahead of me during which I could look forward to worsening expectations of happiness as I aged and grew more sullen and somber. That wasn't a very attractive future for me, so I opted out of it.

Or at least I started the process of opting. What actually happened was that I chickened out at the last minute and puked my guts up all over the Spanish Steps just when that beautiful, thick honey feeling began to envelop me and make everything feel beautifully slow and sexy. The thought of my friends gathered to bid me farewell flashed before me, and I heard how they spoke of the waste of life I'd chosen. I was confronted by the fact that lying there slowly approaching death in perhaps the most chickenshit way possible, I was giving all of the power to S and reserving absolutely no agency in the matter for myself. I had surrendered my will and thrust all my worth and wellbeing upon his disinterested shoulders.

Fuck that noise. The thought of being so thought of was enough to start the nausea, and a quick diddling of my esophagus with my middle finger sufficiently finished the deed, causing the contents of my stomach to erupt in a sickening spray that decorated the historic steps with my sadness and disappointment. And also with corn.

And even after having narrowly dodged my own stupidity in that moment, even after the rage flooded in to replace the feeling of pity and sadness, still I went crawling back for more! What a piece of work is man indeed? This piece of work nearly offed himself because a self-centered man who took him for granted and made him often feel unwanted acted like a self-centered man. How unexpected!

I need some time, I guess, to feel the full brunt of hurt and withdrawal that has to happen before I can tolerate time spent without him in my life. I'm hopeful that I can come out the other side and be mature enough to still be his friend in some capacity, but I wouldn't lay odds on it with any hope of winning that bet. In all likelihood I'm going to have to hate him in order to stop loving him so hard. And in order to do that, I have to somehow find this hateful internal switch that transforms his disinterest into fuel for my self-hatred and thrives on the hurt that our fucked up relationship keeps causing me.

I regret having let my feelings for him drive me so close to the end. I never wanted to hang my toes over the precipice of suicide again, and yet there I was, guzzling death and welcoming it to the party all over again. Maybe it would have been the easier route around the hell that is to come. Perhaps the deep, dark nothingness that awaits would have been a kind of reward compared to all the fuckery that's about to unfold in my heart. I don't want to think about that. I just need to start feeling that hurt to its fullest measure and letting it corrode my feelings of love until they burn themselves into a bubbling tar of hate. Then I can survive it. That's when I'll be okay. I just have to kill the love for him, not myself.

So, I guess I'm off to commit a murder this weekend. Rest in peace, sweet love of mine. I wish you'd had a chance to flourish and thrive. But now I have to end you.

Brenda Gail

"Nobody in this whole great big world, no matter how far you go or how many people you meet, will ever love you as much as I do. You are my heart. I will always be proud of you. Nothing you say or do can change it."

Those are the words that stand out most clearly to me from the four-and-a-half hour cry-fest that was the conversation my Mom and I had the day I came out to her. In the years that followed, I certainly put that statement to the test as I ventured out into the world meeting all kinds of new people, learning who I was, and often dancing on the edge of a sword with no regard for my health or safety. None of it mattered to her. When I fell down, she was there to pick me up again, brush off the filth, and bandage whatever cuts and scrapes the world had given me.

Mom has always loved me so fiercely that I sometimes felt smothered by it. Her concern for me when it was clear I was in a bad situation felt stifling while my life managed to hold itself together, but so, so welcome each time the house of cards inevitably fell down around me. I suppose it's that way between lots of sons and their mothers, especially firstborn sons of very young mothers.

Even with so much love in her big, big heart for my little brother and me, Mom was never really able to love herself. We watched as she opened her heart, home, and bank account to undeserving men that treated her unkindly and took advantage of her need for love (or anything that passed for it) time after time after the passing of our step-father in the early 1990's. Her inherent generosity and kindness were repaid with theft, disloyalty, and emotional abuse. Over time, following some harsh truths from her sons, our mom flipped off the switch that had driven her out into the world in search of anyone who could give her the love she lacked for herself. Having almost recovered from a bankruptcy, she was injured at work and became physically unable to work, yet her case was contested by management and she had to fight for over a year through an attorney to get the surgery she needed to repair damage to her spine. By then, a number of other health issues had developed, she lost the house that she and my step-father built themselves from the ground up, and she quickly declined into a deep depression that prevented her from taking care of herself or her home.

Over the last the last ten years, I did my best to return the love she so readily gave to me when I was falling apart in my misspent youth. I frequently drove to visit her in Louisiana while I was living in Austin, TX so that I could get her to her doctors' appointments or meetings with her worker's compensation lawyer. I spent holidays with her when I could and sent her money and gifts when I couldn't be there in person. On more than one occasion, my brother and I took turns cleaning out the house she inherited from my grandmother, which she couldn't or wouldn't keep clean or uncluttered. She built around her a mess that I sometimes think represented what she felt she deserved to live in. Watching her give up on herself and growing more and more reclusive was heartbreaking for me, and I eventually moved back to Louisiana so that I could ensure that she was at least taking her medicine and keeping her appointments with the doctors for her chronic pain and her diabetes. But no matter how often I came to her and propped her back up, my mom no longer cared for herself and immediately fell back into the dark place she had resigned herself to.

For the last year, I stopped going to see my mom, telling my brother that it was too much, that I had tried in vain for too long, and that he needed to be more involved in trying to get her back on track. It had gotten to the point that I couldn't stay the night anymore for fear of my own health. Each time I left her, she would hug me hard and cry, and that left me an emotional wreck for days afterward. I eventually stopped going and started keeping in touch with her only by phone or text, while my little brother and his family took up the task of checking in on her and getting her through the last year's health crises.

My aunt, her sister, who lives next door to her, found Mom dead on her couch yesterday afternoon. Last night, I received the phone call from my sister-in-law letting me know that the one person in this great big world who would always love me - no matter what I said or did, no matter how little I sometimes deserved it, and no matter how poorly I often repaid it - was gone from me forever. I was her heart. I wish I had been able to love her enough for us both. I wish she had been able to be happy, and that she hadn't been made so afraid of the world that she closed herself off from its wonders or its possibilities. I wish that the defiant, adventurous spirit she nurtured in me had also remained within her so that she could have had the life she deserved. I wish that I could hit the rewind button and go back and change all the bad things that happened to her in her life. But most of all I wish I could hug her one more time and hear her tell me again how much she loves me and how proud of me she'll always be.

Rest in peace, Brenda Gail Hataway Murdock Prier. I love you.