Thank you, Trippen. The way you describe him staring at me like I'm speaking in an alien tongue is exactly what he does, if I can even get him to look in my direction, instead of at the TV screen.

Once, years ago, I even took a hammer and swung it at the TV screen, breaking a fairly new TV (that did belong to me.) That's how frustrated I was at him tuning me out. (And that's a clue about how crazy I can get.) Now when I want him to look at me, when I'm talking, I literally stand in front of the TV. His defense is: "I don't have to look at you to be able to hear you." That's when I feel like swinging the hammer at his head.

This business of "I don't have to look at you to hear you." is so flagrantly a head game. It's so obviously passive-aggressive. Come to think of it, when we lived together, I was often certifiably nuts, just from dealing with the passive-aggressive stuff. Anyone would think I was the crazy one . . . and they would be right. He'ld be all cool and calm, while I'ld be coming unglued. Then he'ld say. "You know . . . you're nuts. They better increase your medication up to about a million miligrams." That was in our younger days. I can laugh about that now, and I actually am laughing at the moment. But it didn't feel funny then.

I try to even imagine what it would be like to be with someone who was actually sensitive and supportive. I can't even imagine it. I can't even imagine that there are such relationships like that. I've never had one! I never c/o depression to my parents (God rest their souls.) They would have called it "glorified sulking." I've even internalized that belief about myself. I have a sister who I've learned to never talk to about feeling despondent. Her stock retort has been, "Oh, you just dwell on things too much." When a favorite cousin of ours committed suicide, this sister told me it was a disgrace that no one gave this cousin more emotional support. Yeah, like who? Who in our family wouldn't have been up for that? Her? I lived too far away, myself. Again, there's an almost funny aspect to this - in a black sort of way.

Well, I do really wonder what it would have felt like to have had some support from somebody. Maybe it would have made me more of a baby. IDK. I did often get the support that you can pay for. But that's not the same. You can't hire someone to love you.

Well, maybe I'll be more productive tomorrow.