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  "description": "This post is a collection of old, unsent phone notes from the same relationship, written between 2022 and 2023. They follow a months-long cycle of thoughts I could have shared with my partner. These notes show how I tried to figure out closeness by guessing and reading into things, instead of just asking directly. I’m not with this person anymore, and that’s a good thing. I still love them, but being in love made me spiral. What made it so intense was how often I treated uncertainty like it was ...",
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  "path": "/borderline-successful-guessing-instead-of-asking-unsent-notes-2022-2023-bwwtcy2",
  "publishedAt": "2026-06-27T05:56:43.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:pyzdcludzgzkktlx657emvwf/site.standard.publication/3mitookfvel7b",
  "tags": [
    "Borderline Successful"
  ],
  "textContent": "Context\nThis post is a collection of old, unsent phone notes from the same relationship, written between 2022 and 2023. They follow a months-long cycle of thoughts I could have shared with my partner. These notes show how I tried to figure out closeness by guessing and reading into things, instead of just asking directly.\nI’m not with this person anymore, and that’s a good thing. I still love them, but being in love made me spiral. What made it so intense was how often I treated uncertainty like it was an emergency.\nThese notes are not a call-out, a diagnosis of anyone else, or a complete account of what happened. They are evidence of a pattern in me: I didn’t ask. I guessed. I panicked. I wrote myself into a corner.\nUnsent Notes\nNote (July 2022)\nCreated: July 2022\nI hope I’m able to express this without sounding like a brat or worse, but I worry a lot about whether I’m annoying you. I wonder if I’m asking for too much attention or if I’m bothering you when I’m around. I’ll go days without asking to come over because I figure if you wanted me there, you would say that. Then, when I ask, it feels like my timing is terrible and I’m frustrating you.\nI’m not trying to make you talk to me, and I see how childish that sounds. I’m scared that if I ask for too much, you’ll resent me and say I’m overwhelming you. Or if I ask for too little, you’ll feel like I don’t need you and resent me for being cold and distant, as so many have decided about me when I’m displaying hyper-independence.\nI don’t know why I feel like I’ve asked for so much when you say no to me. I don’t get mad at the no itself; it’s like an instant evaluation of whether my request should have been said aloud in the first place. Wondering how I could be so stupid as to ask a question like that. I know I’m projecting. I know I can’t read your mind, and I shouldn’t put words in your mouth. I know it isn’t you.\nI’m generally scared of being too much for people. My relationships burn out after about a year, ar and then it’s like I’m the extra fat that needs trimming. My last breakup was hard because I felt crazy for needing support. Asking for any kind of support seemed to backfire, so I asked for less and less, but needed more and more. I got really sick cause I was scared that if I was too much and too greedy and too crazy, people would leave.\nI know that asking to talk on the phone or to sleep over isn’t unreasonable because I’m your girlfriend,d and the assumption there is that you enjoy my company. I don’t know what would happen if I did start to irritate you. I don’t know if you would tell me right away. No one has the guts to say they want out early; they just let you slowly put together that they are no longer interested.\nI’m scared of becoming uninteresting. I’m scared of just being a sick burden to people. I’m scared of people saying yes when they mean no. I’m scared that I sound like I’m begging.\nWhat’s a simple request, and what’s unreasonable? And when I’m being unreasonable, can I trust you to tell me? I overthink my texts to you when I want your attention. I want to sound eager but not demanding. I want to sound relaxed but not blasé. I want to say I miss you and not sound like a clingy psycho.\nI don’t know if I’ll ever show you this. It’s probably not your problem that I’m worried about this. It’s not your fault. I’m scared of ruining this. It’s not your fault,t I’m always waiting to be cut from the roster.\nAsking “Am I annoying?” every other day is in itself annoying. Randomly asking “Do you like me?” is dramatic and just a way to fish for compliments. Maybe asking for reassurance is a good idea, but what sort of reassurance do I need?\nSucking the life out of this relationship feels too likely just based on my past and how needy I’ve become. And I do feel needy, like I’m always about to cry and need a hug. I’ve been asking for a hug my entire life. Maybe I ask for too many. Maybe I’m too clingy. Maybe I’m so scared of coming off like a needy mess that everyone sees me as the opposite.\nReflection (on the 2022 note)\nThe part that hurts to read now isn’t that I wanted reassurance. It’s that I treated reassurance like something I had to earn by shrinking myself first.\nI can see how quickly I made this about my character. One “no” became a global story about me being unlovable, childish, dramatic, needy—basically disqualified.\nIf I could talk to 2022 me, I’d say: \" Your needs are allowed. The question isn’t Am I annoying?” It’s “can this relationship hold a direct request without punishment, silence, or mind games?”\nNote (February 2023)\nCreated: February 2023\nShe doesn’t surprise me with gifts. No notes, toys, or flowers. Maybe those are things I should ask for directly? But asking makes me feel spoiled. Not in the cute bunny girl chubby cheek pouty mouth way, but in the ungrateful, lazy,xy lazy mooch way. dream about getting flowers. about coming home to a big surprise. Having a great big box to open or a sea of rose petals to push through. Can I ask for something like that? Is that an unreasonable and expensive delusion?\nNo one’s ever done something big for me for Valentine’s Day. I'm usually the one wanting someone else to feel special. Notes, toys, flowers. Delivered to your door. That's always been me. I've never found flowers at my door. Can I ask for something like that?\nI want to be kissed down my arms and tummy and each tip of my fingers, and I want her to call me sweet. I miss when she pushed her nose into my neck and took a deep breath of me. I miss hearing her sigh my name. I miss being the object of her desire.\nI know she still wants me because she's mentioned it casually,y like remarking on the weather. Which is nice to know, though, but it feels like a consolation prize for being a super chill girlfriend.\nShe hasn’t played with me in months, and I know there's a reason.s I’m just insecure about the reasons in my control. Am I sexy enough? Probably not with all the bleeding that was happening. Even now, I think that's a turnoff for her. I know I can get a little outfit and buy special lube, but if she just doesn’t want it like that, there's not much I can do.\nShe mentioned something about watching me have sex. It was a joke within a joke about watching me with someone else. We both sorta blushed and laughed and snarked, but if she meant it, then we would probably have fun.\nShe got a harness and was excited. But the harness will only get used if she's in the mood to use it, and I’m not sure I get her going enough for that anymore.\nI'm scared to get excited about love. I already know I'm not getting anything for Valentine's Day. I was planning on pretending not to notice. Like “wow, I'm so cool and low maintenance,e isn’t it so hot that I didn’t expect a personalized display of affection from my lover?” I know it's not really her thing, but it's never the people I'm dating thing. I date people who think Valentine's Day is a scam, and I'm not saying it isn’t a scam; I just like flowers, and it's not like I get them any other day of the year either.\nI'm scared to get excited and get her stuff cause ive done too much in the past and just embarrassed myself. Those people are gone,ne and the flowers I sent them are long dead. Should I send her flowers? Is that doing too much? Should I be less sentimental about things like this? No one I’ve sent flowers to loves me anymore. They all changed their minds. I don’t want to scare her off by doing too much. But I could see her being disappointed by me doing too little.\nShould I ask about Valentine's Day? Should I ask about gifts? Should I ask if she wants anything? Do I say I want something? Do I want something? Flowers really would be nice.\nReflection (on the Feb 2023 note)\nThis is me treating a normal desire (“I want to feel wanted”) like a moral failing (“I’m spoiled for wanting proof”). I wanted romance, I wanted tenderness, and I kept trying to talk myself out of asking for it.\nThe real question wasn’t flowers. It was: Do I feel safe making a direct request without having to pre-apologize for it?\nNote (April 2023)\nCreated: April 2023\nSometimes [redacted] makes jokes about me sleeping with other people or dating other people for some personal gain, and sometimes the jokes are funny,y but other times I’m not sure it’s a b, i,t and sort of note it as maybe something she wants to talk about, but is being indirect\nI spend a lot of time reminding myself that I don’t need to read minds and that if she wanted to say something, then she would, but it’s hard to turn off the part of me that wants to reverse-engineer jokes about our sex life.\nShe isn’t incredibly forthcoming about her wants, sexual, romantic, or personal.\nSometimes I’m not sure if she actually wants to be with a man or maybe just a very but, ch lesbian which I have no control over it’s. just curious\nI don’t know if I’m enough of. a top for her\nShe’s made comments about my transition that confuse me too, because I don’t talk about my gender like that anymore, and I’ve never said I wanted to change anything like that,t so it scares me that she’s actually requesting something I can’t achieve\nI think [redacted] wants more sexual experience, es and I don’t want to get in the way of that if that means it’s with other people, please, even if it means without me, I guess\nI don’t know if that means opening the relationship,nship, but if it does, it’s only a matter of time before I’m the one wishing her well on her new relationship (bitter)\nIt’s too much like an interim girlfriend whose time is about to be up.\nWe’re going on 2.5 years together, so I don’t worry about her just waking up one day and telling me not to come back, but I do worry about her potential boredom.\nWhat if I’m not sexually interested, or if I’m missing so many cues that she’s becoming uninterested\nWhat if she loves me but just needs something else\nWhat if she meets some trans guy with rough hands who ends up being what she needed all along\nWhat if\nI don’t want to be in an open relationship, at least not with someone I spend so much time wondering about in this way.\nI don’t know if we’d be able to talk about things openly enough to handle an open relationship.\nI’m not sure if I’m too little or too much,uch but I’ve never been enough, and probably won’t be till the people around me either figure out what they want or find a way to communicate those wants.\nMaybe I should find a guy for [redacted,] maybe she’s too shy to go looking for one\nI hope that if she actually does want a boyfriend, nd I find out in a way that isn’t devastating .ing\nAre my she/her pronouns not sexy enough lol\nWould I be more interesting and queer if I were more fluid and trans?\nI don’t know if I’m trans, and I don’t think that exploration was doing anything for me beyond creating yet another box for me to barely fit into\nIf I had fit into that they/them box would [redacted] feel differently about me\nI’m not sure what to do to make myself what people want,t and when I stop trying, ng so do they\nI don’t know if [redacted] would leave in search of something new, but I don’t know if I’d blame her, considering I’m just a whiny pillow princess, and she wants a “daddy”\nReflection (on the 2023 note)\nThis one reads like my brain trying to solve an unsolvable problem: how to become whatever would guarantee I won’t be left. I kept turning identity, sexuality, and “being enough” into a math equation.\nWhat stands out now is how much I was trying to reverse-engineer jokes, hints, and vibes instead of asking for clarity. I wasn’t building safety; I was building surveillance.\nIf I wrote this now, I’d focus on two questions: What do I actually want? And can we talk about our wants directly, without me auditioning for the right version of myself?\nNote (March 2023)\nCreated: March 2023\nSo i asked what [redacted] thought about us living together eventually and she was like “well i guess eventually, i dont really think about it” lol and there was a long pause so i asked a if it made her uncomfortable when i ask her relationship stuff and she said that sometimes it does and that it catches her off guard (but i dont know of a moment when its appropriate to ask if someone is committed to you.) well I managed to say that even though it’s embarrassing to be the “what are we?” girl, its still nice to know where i stSo I so i asked how committed she was to what we have, and she asked if she could think about it before answering lol\nI think [redacted] loves me enough to travel with me and go to a big event later that year,r but idk if she puts me in her future beyond those sorta isolated moments\nShe doesn’t post me anywhere, it's not like our break up with be terribly public. I haven’t met any of her family. I think shed be able to shake me off with little effort. It's not like I’m that intertwined with her financially or legally. She could really just ghost me, and that would be that. Well, I mean,s he’d need the logistics handled.\nSometimes I think about whether 1 year is evidence of commitment. Lots of people have loved me for 1 year. They aren’t here anymore. Is 2 years the sign of commitment? 3? 6? 17?\nI want to ask, “Do you see a future with me?” but I need to find the right time when it's not going to catch her off guard. I need to ask in a way that isn’t threatening; she doesn’t need to think something will happen if she says “no.” Cause she might say “no.” She might say that this is fun for the time being, that she’s enjoying this friendship, but wants something else.\nMaybe us not having sex is more my fault than I realized. Maybe I’m too open about my mental illness, and it scares her about the future. Maybe she’ll start to do better with her meds and realize she was only with me because she was desperate at the time. Maybe I’m an experiment that went on for a while.\nReally hoping [redacted] going on meds and taking care of herself makes her change her mind about me. Like I hope I don't turn out to be a factor in her depression and someone to move on from. Cause i want to help her feel better, not make it worse.\nReflection (on the Mar 12, 2023 note)\nThis is the clearest example of the spiral’s core move: I asked a real question, got a human answer, and immediately treated the pause as a verdict.\nInstead of letting “can you think about it?” be neutral, I filled the silence with worst-case storylines. I wasn’t looking for information; I was looking for certainty.\nI had another version of this same note saved in my phone, with small wording changes and the same fear underneath. That feels important: I was stuck. I wasn’t learning anything new; I was rehearsing the fear until it felt like fact.\nThe hard truth is that I didn’t need a “perfect time” to ask. I needed the courage to ask plainly, and the willingness to hear the answer.\nNote (March 2023)\nCreated: March 2023\nNo reply needed\nI made an appointment that week with my GP to follow up about health stuff. The first time I called, they bounced me around to 5 different offices, all with different directory menus. Still got an appointment. Thank you.\nWhen I get to therapy, I don't even know where to start cause I’m so overwhelmed, ed but also so tuned out that trying to find where to start also overwhelms me, and then I got worked up about the camera, and I was annoyed that I had to think about being alone at the hospital, past and future. I'm just angry, and it feels like I can’t show that without being dismissed, so I just end up in this tense knot.\nI want to talk about food stuff, but I feel like you think I’m doing worse than I am,m or like I’m lying about eating. I am eating normal amounts of food. Even if you think I don't know what that looks like. Please don't tell me I’m not eating when there's no evidence of me restricting.\nI want to talk about body stuff cause its been coming up a lot with people posting their “pre shutdown” selfies, but all of mine are kind of a trigger.\nI want to talk about grief stuff cause it’s coming up with all the health talk, and I feel like I can't talk about that really anywhere. There is literally no circle I have access to where I can just vent. They don't make those kinds of book clubs!!\nI want to talk about how [redacted] and I are basically platonic, but I feel whiny cause shes going through her own stuff, and asking for reassurance doesn’t work cause the kind of reassurance I need isn’t something I know how to explain yet, which is frustrating. And [redacted] doesn’t seem to want a “next step” right now, and nothing's changed about the relationship,ip so maybe it just is what it is. May I just ask big questions at bad times?\nReflection (on the Mar 22, 2023 note)\nThis is the moment the spiral started leaking into everything else: health stuff, food stuff, grief, therapy, and then the relationship as the final bullet. I was overwhelmed, and still trying to be “easy.”\nI can feel myself bargaining: if I ask for less, maybe I won’t be a problem. But I was already a problem to myself.\nClosing (from me, now)\nI don’t think the needs underneath this were unreasonable. The wrecking ball was the process: guessing instead of asking, building a case in my head, and treating uncertainty like danger.\nIf I could rewrite this relationship with the language I have now, I’d be simpler and braver. I miss you. I want to feel wanted. I want to know where I stand. Are you in this with me? And if you aren’t, please tell me plainly so I can stop trying to earn a yes.\nAtila Martin\nBlog: atilacore.pckt.blog\nBluesky: atilacore.bsky.social\nContact: atilacore.pckt.blog@gmail.com",
  "title": "Borderline Successful: Guessing Instead of Asking (Unsent Notes, 2022–2023)",
  "updatedAt": "2026-07-08T03:42:37.000Z"
}