Hear no, speak no, see no evil

I feel like shit momentarily. A friend/acquaintance has admitted tonight that he had feelings for me, was in love with me… I saw this coming, but I don’t feel the same for him. I like him and think he’s a nice guy, but (at the moment) my feelings for him don’t go further than that. He seemed ok with that… He said he thought that would be the case… but then he did something which made me ask why he did what he did and well, I didn’t really think it was because of me, but I do tend to take things to heart so I asked if he did it because of me.
First his answer was negative, but then he said that perhaps, yes, it had something to do with me. I said to him, that if he wanted me to leave him alone (for a while), he should say so. But then he said ‘that I shouldn’t take it personally’, but that he just felt shitty, he was off his stroke at the moment and that after a good nights sleep, he would feel much better.
How can I not take that personally? Someone is hurting because of me. A man is hurting because of me. And I can’t help but feel shitty about that. For I have never been able to cope with men who are/were hurting.

Today’s men, is the general opinion, should be able to show their feelings. They should be in contact with their feminine side, so they should be able to cry. That doesn’t work for me. I remember this one time, I was about 11 I think, and a big fight concerning my little brother (who is 3 years younger than I am). In those days he just wasn’t a happy camper and created huge fights and would thereafter lock himself up in his room. Normally the one person he didn’t exclude was my older brother (2.5 years older than I am). But this time he did. I remember going up the stairs to the second floor where both my brothers’ bedrooms were, and hearing my brother cry, seeing him being comforted by my mom. I never heard or saw anything so terrible. My big brother crying, the one person my little brother never excluded and also always seemed to listen to. What had he said to my brother that he was crying? What had he done? My big brother crying, one of the few persons I really relied on and of whom I thought could never be broken. My big brother… broken.

Since then, I think, I can’t cope with men who are hurting. And it is even worse if I am the instigator, for as I said, I tend to take things to heart. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked anything, perhaps I shouldn’t have cared. Perhaps I am too much of a woman in heart. But I want my family, friends, and people I like, to be happy. I would like to protect them against any evil coming their way. But how can I protect them if that evil is me and I didn’t mean for them to be hurting because of me? How can I not feel shitty if it is because of me, even if the person hurting says I am not to blame?

I must say that just sharing this helps, but not enough, and I think this will wander my thoughts for I fall asleep later this night. Ah well, such is my mind and conscience...