games

ello. my name is lizzy and i am the newest member of the amateur youth writing faction. i'm a full time student, a poet/writer, an artist, a christian, and a great lover of music and books and shows and running and swedish berries.

but i've been thinking about games lately. not hide and seek games, no. nothing as fun as that. the games we play with people we care about, especially in romantic relationships. i recently started dating one of my good friends, and although things are going pretty well, i noticed last night that there is a frightening desire for manipulation and control on my part, that is absolutely incompatible with the way i care about this boy. it stems out of insecurity and arrogance and fear and i don't know what else.

i think that everyone deals with this desire in some way, and it seems strange and almost creepy to me, since it is almost impossible to recognize or fight back, and it always results in the misery of both parties involved. it manifests itself in ridiculous petty little things, like posting a breakup song on your myspace to make the other person jealous or guilty or afraid; or refusing to return a call because you are harboring a grudge against a call of yours that your boyfriend/girlfriend was late in returning two weeks ago; or even refusing to pull yourself together and maintain your own life, and instead hanging on your significant other like a whining toddler. why? do you wonder if they'd stay with you if they saw your bad side? are you feeling neglected? are you so disconnected from your own thoughts and ideas that you cannot function alone? do you simply want power over the other person's emotions?

this kind of abuse has nothing to do with love. in fact, it usually has little to do with our real needs. what i'm wondering about is why no one realizes this? 2 years ago i became bulimic, for no other reason than to get revenge on my mother and my [then] boyfriend for not seeing my hurts and fixing them for me. i didn't talk honestly about what i wanted from them, i just resorted to playing a very sick game.
the most incredible thing is that i thought i was justified in doing so. it's crazy to think about, and crazy to think that i'm falling prey to the same urges almost a year after it ended. have any of you had similar experiences with someone close to you?