I tried to psychoanalyze myself last nite, which just led to more tears as I realized the only friend I have who majored in Psychology is Grace. Not that she did much with that, as she ended up in Finance, working for Merrill Lynch in New York, doing something related to stocks. Why had I never asked her what her job was? All I knew was that when the stock market reposed for the evening, she could, too.

I get that it’s unreasonable the extent to which linkages from Mr. W to his past relationships bother me. A hypothetical he raised yesterday, in his argument about how ridiculous I was, was “If I drink mojitos now because a past girlfriend had introduced me to it, and then I get you into mojitos, but you find out later that the interest came from an ex-girlfriend, are you gonna get mad and not drink mojitos anymore?” The honest gut response is, yeah, I wouldn’t drink mojitos anymore. If I liked them, I’d drink it with my friends, but I would not order one with Mr. W anymore. And every time I saw him drink one, I’d feel bitter. YES, I KNOW THAT’S STUPID. But even as I imagine myself in this scenario he made up, I feel the disgust in my chest for mojitos. (Thank goodness I had my first mojito with college roommie Diana from my bday last year. I would hate that mojitos be ruined for me.) Mr. W feels that he’s gypped of the connection to me because he has to hold back personal information on his background, and that he’s not free to be himself. I can understand that, I can sympathize with that, and I would love it if his past didn’t bother me, the way my past doesn’t bother him. But how do I get there???

Mr. W doesn’t feel any sympathy for what I go through on this TMI thing, because, he says, he doesn’t understand it. He doesn’t understand why I feel a gut resentment for anything positive he tells me about his experiences with exes. Why, if he told me that a particular restaurant had great carne asada and he used to go all the time with his ex, that I’d never want to set foot in that place with him. He doesn’t understand why any experience from his past, or the sharing of any such information, makes me uncomfortable at best, bitter more of the time. And because he questioned it, I did, too. For the first time.

A particular ex used to tell me all sorts of unnecessary crap. Now those were really TMI, overly detailed sex acts including the who, the where, the when, the how it felt. And I’d taken it as information, nothing personal. It didn’t get truly bothersome until, come to find out, all these exes he reminisced about, were still in his life. And then the resentment set in. It didn’t help that he liked to brag about how all his exes want him back and call him relentlessly to that end. (It also didn’t help that he cheated on me.) I guess the resentment with anything related to his exes is understandable in that situation, but that’s not my situation now, and I’m still resentful. Mr. W doesn’t give me any reason to doubt his trust, and I’ve seen how he handles other females’ advances — he nips them in the bud and tells them happily, politely, about something we did or are doing together — so it’s not a problem of feeling threatened by women from his past.

He says anything I did before him has an unrelated distance in his head. I suppose it probably feels like he’s hearing about somebody else, because his Cindy is the girl in front of him, who’s with him and only him. The Cindy who may have shlupped other men is somebody he doesn’t know, a whole separate entity. And that’s really cool, because honestly, I can tell him about what an amazing time I had doing a particular sex act with a particular person in a particular unusual location, and he’d be interested in the information as I was telling it for almost personal research reasons, and then he’d simply move on. For me, I want to burn out the part of my brain that holds that overly-detailed image of him with someone else. I did feel bad last nite that I couldn’t give him that freedom to disclose, which he gives me, because it truly is a wonderful thing. It feels great. But I can’t handle it (anymore?) and the only way I know how to not have these sickening mental images hanging over me is to not have knowledge of the images to begin with.

Added weird stuff? 1.) Let’s say that I’ve “banned,” to use Jordan’s word, certain events, locations, foods from the relationship. I’d still be okay to partake in the banned stuff with friends, or with a future relationship. 2.) In talking to other men I’ve dated after I got screwed in the relationship I’d described in the 4th paragraph of this post, I really was okay hearing TMI stuff. I even listened with interest, which surprised me at the time that I was totally emotionally unaffected by the information. Come to find out, it’s only okay before I fall in love.

I know this isn’t new or groundbreaking stuff. Lots of people (I think women, especially) can relate to my feelings surrounding TMI. I know it makes no intellectual logical sense to feel this in my situation. I agree with Mr. W on that. But emotions are not ruled by intellect. So how do I get there? Does it come with the mellowing out of aging?

The perspective: “You did this with someone I don’t like/your ex? Then I designate it as ‘you guys’s’ thing and I want no part of it.”
Forgivable application of the perspective: Details of how they used to love each other, have sex with each other, any ‘best time of my life’ information if it was with someone else.
Unreasonable application of the perspective: Not wanting any part of a city/ state/ country on vacation because he’d already taken the ex there; not wanting to experience any restaurant/event that was a favorite of a past relationship.
So far, I have the unreasonable applications, I admit that. I also admit it sucks, for Mr. W. But I can’t figure out the why. Why does it bother me so much to know these things, that I’d just rather not know?