A Business Partner

When I fell in love with techno my eyes were bigger than bambi’s and I behaved just as clumsily. I love the music immediately! The people are so nice, so friendly! Everyone is hugging all of the time, how has this magical world existed without me knowing? Over the next year I sponged up all the music and parties and dancing that I could. I got involved with an organization, I made equally as enthusiastic friends, and I truly believed in this music and this world I had stumbled in to.

Then things got weird. The organization I worked in had disapproving things to say about my behavior. I was too happy. Not the right kind. I made a mistake, I apologized. Then my mere thoughts became ridiculed, mocked, and butchered, and worse…my own partner, John*, began sleeping with me against my continued plea’s not to. He would get absolutely obliterated and then mock me, he would say the types of things that only someone truly close to you could say. The things someone you share your trust with. The sex was something he did “for me”, didn’t I understand? Why couldn’t I appreciate it? My first night DJing he got blood-shot and told me that no one would ever care about me like he would. Everyone else would just use me. Ironically he was practically warning me against himself, but it continued every week for months.

I made tons of friends over that year but didn’t get close to any. I was trapped in a gross relationship with an abusive alcoholic and I stayed in it because I loved the music and what I did. I told no one, I felt like I could handle it, I lied to friends and to family. In reality I never cried more, my anxiety came back in rushes, and I took long trips just to get away from him.

Some nights I would try to sleep next to him after an exhausting party, every night he couldn’t keep his hands off of me. One particular drunk conversation, he told me it was my fault, I should know he can’t control himself around me. I was willing to sacrifice my self-worth, even bits of myself, because somehow it would all be worth it in the end. Eventually, like a fool with stockholm syndrome, I gave in to avoid further conflict. It would be easier to relent then to fight anymore, he was going to get what he wanted either way.

After a mutual friend killed herself, I foolishly thought things would be put in to perspective for both of us. There were more issues. What had begun as quiet resentment, had turned it to childlike games and antics from another group member. A chauvinistic, piggish friend of John’s began with silly insults – which I mostly brushed off and ignored – but over time they had grown into bold lies and slanderous insinuations. My motives were constantly questioned, and I was accused of things no male counterpart would ever fathom having to deal with. John had gone from loving me to resenting me, to resenting me for not loving him, to resenting me for not dealing with his alcoholism properly, to resenting me for not dealing with not dealing with it in the “right” way. My situation was constantly hopeless, and I had absolutely no one to turn to. Any of the people I shared with were only willing to help as much as they still protected themselves. It was a messy situation. These sensitive things always are. If things went wrong, what would it mean for their stake in the organization? That’s when I learned that your pain, anyone else’s pain, is easily expendable for opportunity.

And what do you do now? I lost my friend, my partner, and nearly all my self respect…and he is still around to do it to somebody else.

— Kiersten

*Name changed