• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • Skip to secondary sidebar
  • Email
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

  • About
  • DavidMcElroy.TV

We’re neither friends nor enemies, just strangers who share the past

By David McElroy · November 3, 2019

The man walked into something like a cave and saw stalactites hanging from the roof. But these weren’t normal mineral formations. Each one contained the face and memories of someone important from his past.

I heard the man’s story this week in a book about experimental drug-assisted psychotherapy. During the experience, his unconscious was creating symbols for things it was pushing into his consciousness. And the man could have conversations with these people from the past, in a way that felt completely real to him.

I found this story oddly frightening. I imagined what it would feel like to encounter such people from my past. It gave me shivers, but it’s hard to explain why. All I can say is that when I close the door on someone from the past, I prefer not to re-open the door to something dead. I’d rather allow the memories to stand on their own.

And I’ve lived something of a waking nightmare for the past couple of days — as I’ve vividly experienced conversations with women who have been dead to me.

I don’t remain friends with someone who I had once loved. For me, that’s just not the way love works. If I could have an intimate relationship with a woman and then back off to “just friends,” it would only mean that I hadn’t really loved her.

If I am in love with you, I will pursue you in every reasonable way I know how. If we don’t end up together, though, I will eventually close the door — quite firmly. I’m not going to be your friend.

Because of this, every past love is like a mental box that’s been closed and stored away. If I get to the point that I can do that, it means I’ve gotten over the feelings of love and I’ve come to terms with whatever happened between us, for good or bad.

By that point, we’re not friends. We’re not enemies. We’re just strangers who have some shared memories.

I’ve successfully done that with every past love so far, except one. (That’s one which obviously needs to be put away for good, too, but I haven’t been able to seal the lid on it. Not yet.)

For the last few days, those boxes have come off the shelf — one at a time — and I’ve had emotionally difficult inner conversations. Strangely, they’ve left me wishing that I could really do such a thing — have a series of last conversations to say things that should have been said, some things which I understood then and others that I’ve come to understand since.

The least emotional conversation was with Gail. She was my first love. She meant the world to me for about a year and a half. But things started going off the rails. I understand now that I was growing in ways that led me away from her, but I was scared to break up with her. The truth — which I didn’t understand at the time — is that I feared nobody else would ever love me.

In our imagined conversation, I apologized to Gail for not having had the courage to end the relationship when it was clear that I needed to. I let things drag on for more than a year after it should have ended, forcing her to end something which I should have done for myself.

I don’t even know now who she is. I barely remember who she was. And nothing about me today even vaguely resembles the person I was at 21.

The shortest of these conversations was with Shelly. I told her that I was angry about how she had handled a lot of things. I told her that I understood she was hurt and confused by her previous abusive relationship, but that her fears didn’t excuse the way she pulled me close and then closed the door without explanation or apology.

I told Gina that I sometimes miss her. I don’t regret that we went our separate ways. She and I both handled some things about the end poorly, but I genuinely liked her. She was enjoyable to spend time with. I don’t regret that we went different ways — or that she eventually married someone else — but that doesn’t stop me from missing the enjoyable times that we had together.

The longest conversation was with Lydia and that would have been true — I suspect — if these had been real-life conversations. She’s brilliant and complicated and mercurial. My fears about her led me to pull away from her in a way that hurt her. Her eventual reaction to that was dishonest and led her to hurt me. We were two flawed people trying to navigate difficult emotional waters and we didn’t handle it well.

But Lydia and I could talk until we were both too exhausted to stay awake and never come close to exhausting the things we were curious about and cared deeply about. Her brilliance, curiosity and insight made her a perfect discussion partner for me. We could talk about anything — intellectual, emotional, psychological, theological, whatever — and we would both come out of the conversation smarter for what we had experienced together.

We won’t have those conversations again. I don’t think they would be wise for either of us. I miss the exhilaration of loving her, but I don’t miss the damage that it did to me inside. I apologized to her for my part in the pain between us — and I wished her well.

I asked Anjhela why we never allowed ourselves to turn an intensely emotional connection into a real relationship. In this conversation, she said it was because each one of us was scared of the other. Neither of us had experienced something this emotionally intense and each one of us had enough baggage — fears about not being loved — that we were afraid to trust in something which felt that powerful. Even though my own unconscious guided those words, I suspect it’s exactly what she would say if we were to talk. And I think she’s right.

There were a few others, but there’s no reason to detail them all. I feel emotionally exhausted by all those imagined conversations, but I also feel that they were worthwhile. In some cases, I have more of a sense of closure than I had — something which I’ll never really have in real life.

In the metaphor that my unconscious created, these women and the memories about them weren’t stalactites. There was a locked compartment in the side of a vast wall that reminded me of a vault. I’m the only one with a key to that vault. Inside the vault were shelves with boxes — one for each of these women.

As this process happened, I would pull a box out and place it on a long metal table. Then I’d close the vault door and open the box. Opening the lid was like opening Pandora’s box — each one containing all the memories about that particular woman.

There was one other box in the room. Even as I dealt with each of the loves from the past, that one emotionally loomed over everything else. I didn’t open that box. I didn’t even touch it. I wanted to open it, but I wasn’t ready to let it go. Not yet.

I locked all the other boxes in the vault. I left the remaining one sitting on another table. As I got to the door of the room, I looked back at that one box.

“I still love you,” I said. “I shouldn’t love you, but I still do.”

And then I turned the light off and closed the door.

Share on Social Networks

Related Posts

  • ‘This path leads to somewhere I think I can finally say, I’m home’
  • When love finally dies, it’s like a fever breaks and the pain is gone
  • Society needs storytellers to help make sense of a changing world

Filed Under: Uncategorized Tagged With: love, psychology

Primary Sidebar

My Instagram

There’s been a lot of controversy over Bad Bunny There’s been a lot of controversy over Bad Bunny performing at the Super Bowl, so I suggest a response. I’ll put together a novelty act called Funny Bunny and the G-Men. Here’s what the costumes look like. (And the animated version doesn’t even need costumes.) Funny Bunny does satirical political songs while the G-Men chase him around. With the right humorous songs, this could be comedy gold. Who wants to write songs? 😃
This was the view on my left this evening as I dro This was the view on my left this evening as I drove home from work. This was on I-459 near the Cahaba River bridge. (I didn’t have my “real” camera in the car, so this is an iPhone photo.) #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I have always accepted as obvious the fact that yo I have always accepted as obvious the fact that you couldn’t take a halfway decent photo of the moon with a smartphone. (I don’t count the cheat that Samsung uses in some models to artificially create bits that don’t exist in the optical image.) But a friend shot a picture of the moon with her new iPhone 17 night or two ago, I so snapped one frame as I got out of the car just now. The resolution and detail aren’t great, but this is better than I expected. #nature #naturephotography #sky #moon #birmingham #alabama #iphone17pro
I hope this rainbow over I-459 on my way home is a I hope this rainbow over I-459 on my way home is a good omen for the weekend. 😃
I’m very happy to report that my promotion to st I’m very happy to report that my promotion to starship captain has finally come through, so I’ll be leaving Earth and heading to the stars very soon — just as soon as Starfleet has some uniforms in stock that fit chubby guys like me. Anybody else want to sign up and leave the planet with me. 🖖🏻#startrek
Here’s the sunset that caught my attention on my Here’s the sunset that caught my attention on my drive home just a few minutes ago. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I go back and forth between being fascinated and b I go back and forth between being fascinated and being horrified by what AI software can do now. When image generators were awful, it was easy to laugh at them, but what I’m seeing lately blurs the line between reality and total fabrication. I just asked ChatGPT to show me a family portrait for me — with a wife and two children — based on what it predicts as looking right for me. If I just saw this photo that it created, I would think these were real people. I might even think I have amnesia and don’t remember them. But three of them don’t even exist. It’s harder and harder to know what’s real online. At least I’m telling you directly that this is fake. I’m not pretending this is my hidden family that I just haven’t told you about. #AI
This is the sky view that greeted me as I stepped This is the sky view that greeted me as I stepped out of Walmart a few minutes ago. I didn’t have my “real” camera with me, but my old iPhone 14 did a pretty decent job. #nature #naturephotography #sky #colorful #clouds #sunset #birmingham #alabama
It no longer seems to function, but this payphone It no longer seems to function, but this payphone is still sitting on the side of the road just a couple of miles from my house. I would love to know the last time somebody was able to put a coin into this thing and make a phone call.
Follow on Instagram

Critter Instagram

Oliver poses for a portrait on my desk a few minut Oliver poses for a portrait on my desk a few minutes before midnight. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
I’m not sure Alex has moved too much from this s I’m not sure Alex has moved too much from this spot on the castle since late last night. He’s been sleeping in this spot for most the day Sunday. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
I just arrived home after midnight and found Alex I just arrived home after midnight and found Alex giving me the look that lets me know he doesn’t approve of me being out so late instead of being home to hang out with him. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama #caturday
Lucy decided earlier that it was too hard to climb Lucy decided earlier that it was too hard to climb onto the bed, but she just now found the energy to make the climb anyway — and she seems pretty proud of herself right now. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
There are some birds that have been hanging around There are some birds that have been hanging around the roof on the front of the house late Saturday afternoon, but Sam is making sure they can’t harm us. If actual combat is required, he has volunteered to go outside and eat them. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #blackcat #blackcats #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Lucy’s not having one of her best days, but she Lucy’s not having one of her best days, but she still wanted to come hang out with me in the bedroom while I watch football Saturday afternoon. She’s lying down in the floor next to me now. #dog #dogs #dogstagram #dogsofinstagram #cute #cutedog #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instadog #ilovedogs #birmingham #alabama
Oliver knows he’s not allowed in the bathroom, s Oliver knows he’s not allowed in the bathroom, so he’ll sit just outside the door and watch — but he certainly wants to come in here and help me with the laundry Friday evening. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
When I left the house Friday afternoon, Alex wasn’t even pretending to get any work done. He says that Fridays are for being lazy. Of course, he feels the same about every other day, too, but that’s beside the point. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #tabby #tabbycat #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
From the CritterCam: Early Friday morning, the cam From the CritterCam: Early Friday morning, the camera caught both Alex and Sam in different windows of the office, clearly getting started with their Neighborhood Watch duties for the day. #cat #cats #catstagram #catsofinstagram #cute #cutecat #pets #petstagram #petsofinstagram #instacat #ilovecats #birmingham #alabama
Follow on Instagram

Contact David

David likes email, but can’t reply to every message. I get a surprisingly large number of requests for relationship advice — seriously — but time doesn’t permit a response to all of them. (Sorry.)

Subscribe

Enter your address to receive notifications by email every time new articles are posted. Then click “Subscribe.”

Search

Donations

If you enjoy this site and want to help, click here. All donations are appreciated, no matter how large or small. (PayPal often doesn’t identify donors, so I might not be able to thank you directly.)




Archives

Secondary Sidebar

Briefly

When I first heard about this, I thought it must be satire. When I discovered it was real, I was appalled, but I still thought it must be a one-time thing from some nutty activist. But it turns out it’s the latest bit of pandering to a bunch of far-left activists who believe that a man can become a woman if he decides to claim he’s a woman. As everybody knows, men have prostate glands. Women do not. Period. End of story. Men can get prostate cancer. Women cannot. But political activists are so eager to pretend that a man claiming to be a “trans woman” is really a woman that they are insisting that “women” be included in public health messages about the issue. This is nothing but political virtue-signaling. If you’re a man, you know which parts you have. You know that you ought to be screened. Nobody is made any safer by dragging far-left gender ideology into simple medical reality.

Every time someone tries to tighten requirements around the use of absentee ballots, I hear screams from Democrats and others on the political left that such efforts are nothing but “suppression of black voters.” These protests have never made sense to me, especially because it’s never been a secret that absentee ballot fraud goes on all the time in certain areas. (Everybody knew it when I worked in politics.) The people who engage in such fraud are rarely caught — often because the local political establishment approves of the crime — but a Democrat who won a primary election in Clay County, Alabama, last year has pleaded guilty to this sort of cheating. Terry Andrew Heflin was running for a place on the Clay County Commission. He was caught ordering seven absentee ballots in the names of various voters and sending them to his post office box — after which he used the ballots to vote absentee for himself seven time. Did he have other people cast additional fraudulent ballots? We’ll never know. But in a primary in which he was able to win with only 141 votes, it wouldn’t take many fraudulent votes to change the election. The next time you hear “civil rights activists” claim that it’s just “voter suppression” to hurt blacks which is at the root of efforts to stop this fraud, remember Terry Heflin. If you care about fair and honest elections, ballot security and voter identity should matter to you.

A state legislator in Maine has been stripped of the ability to speak in the state Legislature — and her votes are not being counted on legislative issues — all because she made a truthful social media post. Rep. Laurel Libby (R-Auburn, Maine) opposes allowing boys to compete against girls’ teams in school athletics and she’s become known for making an issue of it. On Feb. 17, she posted on Facebook about a recent example that she found outrageous. She posted side-by-side photos of a boy named John who competed last year in a state track event and won fifth place against other boys two years ago — and a photo of the same boy (now called Katie) who won first place in the same event this year against girls. Whether you find this outrageous or not, Libby is clearly being honest and truthful about the objective facts of an issue of public importance. But the state Legislature censured her. Democrats decreed that she could not speak in the House and that her votes would not count on legislation — until she apologized for the outrage of telling the truth. She refused and her constituents have been unrepresented in the state House since then. The people who promote this ideology are out of touch with reality and won’t rest until they force the rest of us to join them in this delusion. But even if you agree with “trans” ideology, you should be appalled at this heavy-handed attack on political speech.

The late Steve Jobs was at the center of our culture’s transition from analog to digital. He co-founded Apple Computer. He led the team that revolutionized personal computing with the first Macintosh. As CEO of Apple, he led the development of the iPhone and later the iPad. You would think the children of such a man would be surrounded by technology. But Jobs and his wife Laureen didn’t let their children use iPads. Their home had few screens of any kind. Even though Jobs spent most of his time developing and selling Macs and iPhones and iPads, he was home with his wife and children for dinner when he was in town. The family ate together at a simple wooden table in their kitchen — and there were no digital devices or focus on popular culture. Instead, he’s said to have guided his family toward deep discussions of art, philosophy and education — with no iPads to be found. If the man who guided the development of such products chose a different path for his own children, does that suggest that his digital experience taught him that children need human connection, not screens? And does it suggest the possibility that we might be better off if we made the same choice for our families?

For four years, Donald Trump’s supporters screamed that everything that went wrong was the fault of Joe Biden. They were sometimes right and they were sometimes delusional. (Anybody who knows me understands that I can’t stand Biden any more than I can stand Trump, just for different reasons.) But for two months, Trump has rampaged through U.S. political life — vandalizing pretty much everything in sight — and the vast majority of his supporters are silent at best. Many watch as he blows up the world economy and they make excuses for him. They’re in absolute denial, even about things that Trump is doing very intentionally. Anybody who understands economics and history knows that tariffs are a terrible idea from a pragmatic point of view. Anybody who values individual freedom knows that tariffs are massive taxes on individuals — and they’re a tool of political control over the ability of people to trade freely. Trump is the antithesis of everything which political conservatives stood for just a few years ago. It’s far past time for people who claim to be conservatives to reclaim the principles and values which they used to claim — and stop this mad man before he can accelerate the day when we experience economic and social collapse. Open your eyes to reality and reject this lying narcissist.

Read More

Crass Capitalism

Before you buy anything from Amazon, please click on this link. I’ll get a tiny commission, but it won’t cost you a nickel extra. The cats and Lucy will thank you. And so will I.

© 2011–2025 · All Rights Reserved
Built by: 1955 DESIGN