INADEQUATE

You know, lately there are times when I'm just struck by the inadequacy of everything--mostly of myself, but it's more than just what is usually meant by feeling inadequate.

It's true that I feel like I've been screwing up more lately than I ever have in my life. Of course, maybe what's really happening is that I'm just being less self-righteous than ever before, and so I'm actually aware of all of my screw-ups. But I have to say that the one good thing about dating complete jerks is that nothing is ever your fault. I never really thought of this as a perq before.

Anyway, it's like this: say you really really want something. You might pray about it, you might work for it, you might to any number of things, and there are still things in this life that you can do nothing about. None of your words or actions are necessarily efficacious, and there's not a darned thing you can do about it sometimes.

Or what if someone does something really nice and makes you really happy? This has happened to me in the recent past, and I just sit there and think that saying "thank you" seems so insufficient. If this were my sister, I'd make her a sandwich and a cup of tea, and she knows me well enough to know that everything I have is in that sandwich and cup of tea, but normal people would probably just look at me like I was insane if I went around offering them sandwiches.

The worst thing, though, is when you screw up. This is why I suddenly appreciate the jerks I've dated in the past. I never screwed up--there wasn't time. I was too busy worrying about all of the screwing up they were doing.

But I've screwed up. And now what? Saying "I'm sorry" seems so insufficient. I hurt someone's feelings. I had the nicest three days ever, because Matthew was the nicest person ever, and then I said something to hurt his feelings.

I am a cow.

Now what? I mean, I've looked around, and there aren't any dragons left in England to slay. I've checked. But I screwed up, and it was all me, and there wasn't any part of this that I could even blame on something or someone else, and it's not the first time, which is something I didn't even know.

I'm such an idiot sometimes. It's amazing that I can handle the task of tying my own shoes.

This last thing was so dumb, and I just said all of the wrong things. I can't tell you exactly what happened, but I'll give an example of something similar.

Analogy: It was like we had just had a fantastic party, and during the party Matthew had paid attention to me the whole time, and then after everyone left he suddenly turned away and started ignoring me. And I felt terribly bereft, and ended up telling him that he was lousy and I'd had a horrible evening, when actually in a bizarre way what was really wrong was that I'd had a wonderful evening.

So then, here I am saying almost the opposite of what I really mean, and saying it in the worst of all possible ways, and making him feel like this party which was a smashing success and which I had loads of fun at was this horrible thing, and basically *I* have just ruined absolutely everything.

And now I feel like I can't explain any more without just making things worse.

I apologized and I asked Matthew what it is that I should do when I screw up, because I've come to the devastating conclusion--really devastating--that I'm going to screw up again sometime in the future. I want to fix something. I want to go back and undo something.

Matthew said that the best thing to do when you screw up is to just apologize and drop it, because if you keep apologizing (which I do to the point of--strike that--which I do *beyond* the point of annoyance), then it's like poking at a wound and saying, "does that still hurt? how about now? now?" which is an extremely valid point and I think he's right. He was very nice about answering that particular question, by the way.

I've never felt like such an inept person in my life. It's like I can program a computer, I can balance a chemical equation, I can exceed at higher math, and I have no clue how to be a human being.

It just feels like if you go on after you've screwed something up and you just act like it never happened, that's so callous. And insufficient. Like here I am, and I'm going to have a nice day even though I just ruined yours.

I don't know how to do this.

So anyway, I've mentioned things that Matthew's done that hurt my feelings or that I didn't understand or whatever, so now I guess it's time for me to mention some of the things that he's had to put up with.

Firstly, it never occurred to me that he really even *had* feelings in a bizarre way. There was some point after he visited me where he acted like he felt like I wasn't worth dating. I won't tell you what happened or what he said, because it isn't important. But somewhere in there, I started saying, with my actions, "What do you mean, I'm not worth dating? Look at this horrible thing you've just done," and basically started pointing out everything he did that was less-than-stellar. I didn't even realize I was doing it. But it was mean, I think. Not deliberately mean, but...well, it didn't occur to me that it might hurt his feelings ever.

When someone tells you that they don't care about you, you just assume that they're not going to have hurt feelings.

It's stuff like that. I've inadvertently screwed up, repeatedly, and I didn't even know I was doing it, and now I'm stuck here in this place where, over just the last three days, something happened, and I realized that he's actually a human being under all of the defensive posturing that's at least half my fault. I'm such an idiot.

And somewhere in there, when I realized that he had feelings, I realized that...again, words are inadequate. Anything I say just sounds silly. I would give anything in the world to never hurt his feelings again. That sounds dumb. I want to say that I'll stick around and protect them and make sure he's never hurt again, but then I know that *I* just hurt him, even if it was only in a small way, and what kind of a horrible person am I? Maybe he really is better off without me.

When did I become this person who hurts people's feelings?

How do people do this stuff? I don't get it.

Anyway, I guess there's nothing for it but to try harder, and to take his advice and just drop it now that I've apologized.

And make him a sandwich.

Or maybe cookies.