An online agony aunt figured out Cincinnati

Even though I keep hitting Unsubscribe on my daily email tsunami, I kept my email subscription to The Cut, which is comprised of excerpts from New York Magazine.

I was nosing through the "Ask Polly" agony aunt section today, and spotted a letter with the headline "My boyfriend broke up with me for a crazy reason". Since I had found large sections of last November's interactions with Cincinnati* kind of crazy (and still do), I had to read it. 

While the boyfriend in question hadn't been quite as strange as Cincinnati - his personality had changed from someone who couldn't manage his finances to someone who was so obsessed with his girlfriend's vacation spending that it broke up the relationship - the agony aunt Polly's explanation rang painfully true.

"So, who has shot down your chances? Your ex has. He doesn’t ask for what he wants. He watches things go badly, shakes his head from the sidelines, and blames you for it. He’s not an adult yet.

This guy needs a therapist. If Iceland is a metaphor, it’s a metaphor for something much deeper than just you and him. This isn’t about planning a trip; this is about the way he was treated as a kid. Maybe he was coddled but disrespected. Maybe people pretended to listen to his needs but did whatever they wanted instead. Whatever it is, he still feels angry and powerless and he’s projecting that onto you."

The last few lines - those that suggest that this person's parents were lacking in some things - made me wonder about Cincinnati's upbringing a bit.

I have always thought that Cincinnati was treated reasonably well in his youth.

He comes from a very Catholic family, complete with stay-at-home mom. He appeared to have regular conversations with both parents - probably with his mom more than dad, but I don't know this for sure. Recently he admitted asking his mother for advice, and thinking her advice made sense.

He has a twin brother (fraternal) and they both attended a small private college that their parents still support, although they took very different paths post-graduation. He and his twin were the oldest of four children - the younger brother is the angry one while the youngest sister seems happy to stay at home and have a lot of children. Cincinnati was the only one who moved away from the parental home and state, though.

Reading all of this back, I wish I could put Cincinnati on the back burner even further than I already have. I refuse to let myself look at his Instagram or Facebook pages. It's too much like pulling off a scab that isn't nearly ready to come off one's knee after falling off your bicycle.

To digress slightly, but to stay on the Cincinnati subject: There's something I am rather surprised about, and can't figure out. Last November I left an expensive pair of Donald J. Pliner shoes under Cincinnati's bed, but he has not returned them, nor has he contacted me about them. Considering his extreme tidiness, I can't help but think he found the shoes at least a month ago.  And from what I know of him, I would think he would return them as he would consider it the right thing to do. 

Not that I am losing sleep over the shoes.  I am keeping on for my mother's sake, although each week her health worsens. She wants to die and, considering her condition, I cannot blame her. I recently signed a Do Not Resuscitate order for her as she asked me to do so.

* see Key to Characters at right.