Tapering...tapering...

Finally, it's coming to a tapering end. Almost at the point where I won't care anymore. What will probably remain is a token interest in his goings-on and a flicker of warmth at the pleasant memories and vague twinges at the few unpleasant ones.

The absence of contact has been instrumental. Who knows, maybe that's the way he wanted it, but I won't speculate - it's not about him anymore. Every action and non-action shows a piece of a person's character somehow, not to mention bolster the out-of-sight-out-of-mind thing of mine.

Decided some years ago that non-responsive friends don't get to stay friends - they become acquaintances. Even as the most casual of friends, replying is the polite thing to do, yes? After I've done my part as a friend, I wait for them to fall behind that invisible line I set. Once they've fallen behind, I know where to place them. Compartmentalise.

I'm a giving person, to friends and to those I love. But I have time limits, and they are very short.

Time limit is The Thing in my relationships with people, I realise. There is an amount of time involved in me figuring out a person. Thereafter, I make a decision as to how I compartmentalise them in my life.

I do this especially quickly with men. (Come to think of it, this is essentially how I got over ex-es - when I figured them out enough to stop wanting them. It gets easier with experience - was very efficient in getting over Kelvin in particular.)

I now know exactly where Kev goes in this scheme of things. Actually I'd always known. But that's the beauty of having time to figure things out on my own - gives my heart time to catch up with my brain. He once said he didn't want to lose me as a friend. I wonder what that meant. Words like that mean different things to different people. But it doesn't really matter. I have everything figured out.

I don't like being the uneven side of an equation, any sort of equation.

If you ramble and no one hears you, yodel...but sometimes, yodelling makes you sound desperate. Besides, I've always been a passive aggressive - I don't yodel. I have too much pride.

Solution: Turn your back on the silence and enjoy the view on the other side.

This is my closure.

[Side note: Some friends are harder to do this to than others, I found out. Like a really old friend-now-acquaintance who keeps thinking that you're one of their closest friends and asks you to sing at their wedding service...and have no idea that you're an atheist who'd rather yodel while dangling nude from the church rafters than be a cantor-for-a-day. That was a ramble.]