Social Self is entirely constructed

Waiting at a friends house yesterday I was wondering why they are my friend and not other people. I discovered the day before that someone I don't even know is not my friend now because I think I stood them up - but can't even remember we were supposed to meet: so fickle is friendship.

I realised instantly where the problem in those thoughts lay. It presumes that "I" am a single thing which if a friend of one person then presumably "I" who is the same "I" is a friend of everyone.

My relationship with people depends on both me AND them - the experience of being "with" someone is then not the result of "I" + "Them" in which "I" and "them" are distinct elements with known properties but rather than "I" is actually a product of being "with" them. I am a friend to one person and not a friend to another because I am different in each relationship. To one person I am good, to that person I stood up I am bad. Which am I?

We are involved in relationships to the bottom and below of our very self. There is no part of our social self (ego) which escapes the influence of relationships.

These thoughts showed me as best as I have been shown what Buddha meant by anatta. It was a destabalising thought because I came to wonder what am I? Am I good or bad? Am I really this person's friend? But this is me grasping for the "ego" that I have believed in.

We usually think of ourselves as good. It is interesting for me to consider all the many people who think I am bad tho. My dad thought i was bad. My mum thinks I am bad - tho she had some difficulty marrying that with the "good" work I did at the w/e. My ex-boss thinks I am bad. In fact i think to generalise: everyone who has ever been in a position of authority over me thinks I am bad - I actually relish this. I remember my ex land-lord a few years ago saying to his wife 'see I told you he was no good' after some dispute. In my mind they bring this upon themselves tho because of their expectations of people who they believe they have control over. A landlord because of the paper which proves ownership expects certain privilages that I don't automatically accept etc so there is always going to be conflict. But it is interesting for me to reflect on the fact that in each of these cases I am actually "bad" because the relationship has soured.

Shall consider more.

Should add that on holiday i tried a new approach. I was not so disciplined and spent a lot of time talking to people and being "sociable". This has had an effect on my mind which I am exporing for better or worse.

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Karma has a funny quality of being coincidental, or maybe fruiting all at once. Heard yesterday that the mother of someone I knew years ago real quite hates me. I suspected I knew why immediately, gave it some thought and can't think of anything else. Problem was I fell in love with her daughter, call her X. She was the best friend of someone else who I was in love with, call her Y, but who couldn't make a decision over her then boyfriend. I didn't want to be the one to break it up - that is against the Buddha's direct rules. So I left it. 10 years later that relationship has ended anyway. It is the same as "my muse" and I realised this morning thinking about it that in actual fact it is the man's responsibility to break up the relationship! In olden times we had a fight and the victor won the girl. This makes it easy for the girl. That girl said to me a few years later "why didn't I try harder to get her", well it hurts the boy she's with and its immoral. Of course it can also be a technique to use someone to make your partner jealous. Strategies are complex and shady. Now I realise that to live the "worldly" life we have to break Buddha's rules and be immoral. This reinforces my decision to abstain and avoid all such entanglements! You can't be Truthful and play the Game of the World. This seems to be what is emerging in these recent posts.

Returning to the most recent situation. After failing with that girl I did my usual and displaced with another - a disaster and she got seriously hurt (happily married now). On the eve of getting things together with her however (tomorrow 8years ago as it happens) I was seated by chance next to the girl in question now, X. She was only 16 but being best friends with Y we already had a rapport and got on very well. It was looking at the pictures from that wedding that I suddenly realised that I had an inexplicable sexual attraction to her. Ouch. Then to cap it she sends an xmas card signed "love x". I'm in trouble. Clearly its all a mistake I'm 15 years older than her and do everything to escape the attraction. I happened to write a short melody (unbeknown to her inspired by her) which I gave to her and stupidly warned her off me on MSN saying that being single I was easily influenced, deliberately double edged cos i wanted to disclose my feelings but couldn't. I realised last night that my decision to leave the temple and also hook up with another girl (disasterously) actually came from this struggle to escape. Anyway 5 years after running she is still single according to Facebook and this has worried me for a while. She was saying a few years ago that she really likes the simple life of non-possessions and monasticism and more recently hardly goes to the temple anymore. I have reconsidered my decision to leave now that she is older, but still think the whole thing a mistake, more particularly because I am trying to escape in general now. Stupidly I pretend texted "i love you" to her to see how it felt - it actually sent and I was faced with the reality. It filled me with horror, the prison door closing, my whole life mapped out in concrete in a single move. I made out it was a text for someone else accidently sent to her... weak excuse and painful... she texted back who's the lucky girl. So I did the right thing avoiding starting a relationship I felt I could not complete. But i wonder whether that influence that I had on her has upset her mother. She is still not in a relationship but the clock is beginning to tick fast for her now - is this my fault? However had I done the honourable thing and married her then I think it would have been equally frowned upon because of the age difference. This is a no-win situation. Another shady side of the worldly world that is best avoided.
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Considering further: "My muse" did get engaged but her sister had a sudden angry outburst one day where she said "oh that relationship! it wasn't going anywhere". "My muse" was a commitment phobe. X and Y are weak. It all works out great for me because I can still taste freedom while exploring into commitment. How often do people in this stream speak of non-attachment and yet secretly seek relationships?

Well unfortunately it seems I can't do non-freedom, it feels like death to me. Like a fish on the beach, or oil sinking in water this just isn't what makes me live. Whatever was with "my muse" or with X or Y has become rather old and stale now. I considered many times getting back in contact but it never works a second time around (even with male friends I have escaped from) - there is always that distrust. The song sheet from which all this was sung from has become too worn and crumpled, it really is not a song I can take interest in anymore. I truly am getting too old for all this. Yet the timing is odd because returning from my holiday last week with my less disciplined "social" self I actually found myself looking at couples playing with their kids and for the first time felt that I could do that. I would be a great dad. But enough to have felt that; that was last week; this week I am returning to the other path - I realised at the same time strict self-discipline and having carefree fun with the family truly cannot mix.

Returning to the blog title: I think that while the self is constructed socially we must transcend even the social to gain liberation. A brief foray into the social shows it up to be pleasant, envigorating and stimulating - but sadly fruitless. For the wedding I had to examine humour and found that actually it is quite easy. I already can talk for England - a gene from my mother's side ;-) - and armed with these being social is easy. I imagine if I entered the dating game again that too would be easy to the point of boredom. The thing is all this doesn't go anywhere - there is no great wisdom to be found at the end of the tunnel of love just the same old questions as the children flee the nest and my partner grows old and dies of why I was born and what it was all about.
I realised as I started Vipassana meditation for the first time yesterday that sensuality was a serious casualty of the relationship with "my muse". Because we never worked out physically I switched that all off. Yet that is essential to experiencing ones own body, regardless of someone elses. My great tantric experiment may have worked with her, but now it is plain old Vipassana and thank God the pains and blockages of that failed path have all but cleared now. The door here is wide open and I close the others.
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Shall blog the next bit as 4 prayers for 4 directions