Dread Pirate Masq'dm'n

I find it curiously fascinating how the older I get the narratives I construct to make sense of my life more and more tend to mirror the processes I use to construct a story. Or, in this case, a blog. I've been sitting on pieces of this puzzle for weeks now, trying to make sense of the shadow ambiguities of my topic, and then last night at 3AM a voicemail is left that puts the whole puzzle together. It is finished. It starts:

This is the worst part. No one ever tells me why.
They just stop answering my calls. Or
they stop answering my calls. Or
they stop y'know returning my messages
Or, or whatever and they don't say
"Listen, um, this isn't going to work out
because of ____ this," or
"Listen, you're just too
revolting---
---ly ugly,"
or something! I mean
just fucking tell me SOMETHING, you know?
God Dammit! Pisses me off. [sigh]
I mean, I would like to know what I did wrong.
That way I can not do it later
or I can say, "Listen
I'm sorry. Can I have another-
can I get a do-over?"

And if you buy into the notion I've been feeding you (and myself) for years that I am a victim, then you'll think that soundbyte was meant to encapsulate my own predicament, but right now it's not.

I used to believe that everyone leaves. I would brace myself for it early. In the midst of a kiss, mid-coitus, driving to her house on a cold day in February and I would prepare to be left. Everyone leaves so why spend time working on strategies to stay, t'would be wasteful spending. Why not instead bulwark the heart, I started to believe, which has damned up the walls of empathy in me, flooding all subsequent relationships with an ironic backfill; most people stay. I am the one who leaves.

There weren't so many ways for those girls to contact me as I have at my disposal now. They used to ignore my calls and texts. Now I find myself the bastard who ignores calls, texts, letters, emails, wallposts...

How is it that I have gradually become the villain? The villain who is so ultra-deluded that he thinks himself still a victim on the defensive, when in fact he has repeatedly, in the intervening years, offended and hurt lonely open hearts, much like his own before it was callous and starved insensate...

I couldn't find a way to say any of this. Then, suddenly, I found a way to say it. On Valentine's Day. Perhaps that was the ultimate trigger. The Greeting-Card Holiday prompts self-analysis revealing the reviled depths to which I alone have stooped, ruining any chances I've had at love and blaming everyone but the real culprit. Hey Cupid, draw back your bow, and thanks for putting all these thoughts so poignantly together for me today. I'll probably forget it all again in another week. Unfortunately, Valentine's Day is only once a year. (Never thought I'd ever say that!)