Revisionist History

I was just reading my post about Wall-E and how I cried throughout the entire movie, and I can tell you all now that it is, indeed, a very good movie, but perhaps not as touching as I found it right then. I was incredibly sad on a daily basis, already; I was watching my relationship shudder and jerk its way to a halt, and Wall-E is about robot love, about a robot who falls in love with the human race--and then another robot--and has so much love to share that he gets humans to become human again.

Perhaps saying that my relationship was shuddering and jerking to a halt is too harsh. I certainly felt very neglected, but perhaps I didn't know how to ask for what I wanted. Then again, I wasn't sure the LT would have dropped a pail of water on me if I had caught fire, so I figured that asking for more attention would be a waste of time. And besides--even if I had been sure of a welcome reception--it is so humiliating to ask for more attention, like Esther at the tip of King Xerxes sceptre. What are you supposed to say? "I want you to look happy when you see me"? "It has been a month since you've told me I was good looking, a compliment I get daily from strangers, and it would mean so much more coming from you, it would be like a glass of water on a hot day, PLEASE tell me you think I'm pretty. Please, otherwise, I might die."

And you DO die, lying in bed looking at someone's back, little bit by little bit, starved for attention, crying yourself to sleep softly because he might hear and you don't want to say how needy you've become, jumping at his every word, trying to make him happy, so that he might smile at you again and give you some hope that he still likes you. You don't want to admit that his opinion means more to you than anything, and that not hearing it kills you.

And after awhile, being unwilling to say how much you've been starved and are still starving, you just...give up. You decide, if he doesn't think I'm really that great, I can at least take up a hobby, something where I might be around men who will have some reason to touch me, and so you take up dancing, and you enjoy yourself and it's a lot better than going to bed early to lie silently next to someone who ignores you, and so it begins to take up more of your life until your boyfriend starts to get mad that you're spending so much time not with him, and so maybe he becomes even more critical and then the whole relationship spirals downward in a matter of months.

So. That's what happened.