I have a very strong, very deep relationship with an ex-girlfriend of mine. Sometimes we get a little weird. Sometimes it greats unnecessary friction. But, then there are the points where it just keeps us close and there for each other. Like tonight.

We began the evening by catching the tail-end of the Black Friday madness and most of the stores had been long-plundered and cleared. We found it funny how, turning a corner and seeing a garment, we could predict that the other would gravitate toward it. I guess we’re just funny like that.

Afterwards, we wound up sitting around in her car and talking. She had bought a little piece of hooked metal that you put over your finger and run over peoples’ skin with. At first I thought it was silly, but feeling it on my own skin was amazing. I’ve been craving that sort of stuff lately and maybe it was a wrong move to let her show me, because it set me on edge a bit in terms of arousal. I guess it was partially the craving for something like that which made me so prone to vent about the current lifestyle-themed dramas I was experiencing.

As she showed it to me, we talked about being in the lifestyle, understanding ourselves, living this way. I told her how concerned I was about discovery and about my whole giving tree issue. Most of it was things she knew and had experienced first hand with me, but she listened nonetheless.

And then I got onto my growing insecurity about feeling like I was secondary to everyone. I almost started crying, I had not realized it bothered me so much. “It’s just, I feel like everyone has someone who would be there to get hit by a bus for them. And the thing is that I don’t feel like I have someone who would do that without thinking that taking the hit for me was less important than sticking around for someone else,” I told her. I shook my head, “I just sometimes can’t even picture myself being with someone.”

It wasn’t because of the issue of me not wanting to be with anyone. I almost feel like I’m not worthy of that sort of singular attention. It’s hard to explain the sort of inferiority complex I take on, and while it’s sometimes a deterrent from some potentially negative relationships, it can rear its head and be my worst enemy.

“I just don’t know anyone right now I’d honestly want to shack up with.” I knew I must have sounded silly. “And certainly none of them want to shack up with me. And I worry about being some lonely, slutty cat lady or just some sad case once my looks go.”

Even when I knew I was being foolish, she still listened. She was reassuring, comforting, understanding. For all the bravado, tumblr, sometimes I doubt and I worry. I fear I’ll stay too long at the fair and, when the lights go down and the rides stop and the music is cut, I’ll be left to walk home alone.