After your amazingly loving comments, a ton of sleep with disjointed muted-anger dreams, a wonderful night out with most of my local tribe (Saleena, Ash, justben, Davey, Brigit, Josh, and Paul), and a long thoughtful conversation with Viv, I'm feeling better. I'm still quite hurt but I'm not so angry at myself or B anymore, and I'm not feeling like I want to curl up and die.

I guess I'm going to have to accept the fact that most people aren't going to be able to give me the pure unvarnished truth, because they cannot reach it themselves. I think I looked at the fact that I learned it and that Hannah learned it, and I assumed that it was something everyone could learn and once learned, anyone would be as passionate about it as Hannah and me. I really, really wish that were true, but it's not. I think the biggest part of the problem with B was that ze was doing it for me, not because ze actually wanted it for zirself (and the same thing happened with Aurilion, although ze showed a lot more enthusiasm than B did). So ze only went as far as I pushed, and then when I stopped, lapsed right back into passivity and detachment, with the occasional shift when I got upset about it. And I didn't want to see that so I went along with the occasional shift and pretended that that was a sincere devotion to honesty/openness.

If I were ever to have a partner again, I'd have to be with someone who had their own devotion to honesty/openness, completely separate from me; most likely it'd have to be something that was already a habit for them before meeting me. But for friends and lovers, I think I can take whatever is offered. The conflict I still face is -- do I accept everything at face value and deal with the pain that results when it is not true, or do I study everything carefully and try to figure out the truth so that I won't be shocked and hurt later? I really hate doing the latter, but right now it feels like I can't do the former. I've been noticing the most ridiculous thoughts, like wondering if people secretly hate me or mock me or are disgusted by me. I want to go back to believing the best of everyone, not expecting the worst.

The worst part about having my faith in people broken is that it takes other people to mend it. It's not something I can really do on my own (though I can help the process along by looking for the good, I think).

In other news, Viv's moving to Seattle in about two weeks, for probably at least a year. :-( It's a good thing for zir (secure place to live and job opportunities) but it's hard for me to be happy for zir because I'm just going to miss zir so damn much.