Once I grabbed an electric fence.

    I grabbed an electric fence once, on accident. My curiosity got the best of me and the horses on the other side of the fence called to me. I wondered why it had hurt me because I had not recognized it was an electric fence. With my newfound clarity that it was in fact an electric fence I found myself wanting to grab it again knowing it would hurt me but wondering if it would hurt less if I was prepared for the tingling sensation of electric shock. Supposedly being in the same situation twice you are supposed to use your experience from the first time to not make the same mistake twice. I made the same mistake twice. Maybe not exactly the same, no one blocked me on Apple Music this time. I did lose a follower, swallower, idk, idgaf. Yes I do, I lost the idgaf war and will be paying more in war reparations than Germany after WW2. I am a repeat long distance situationship survivor, why I find myself attaching myself to men who are far away is a another discussion regarding my emotional unavailability and my inability to confront it. Maybe I should have practiced the same restraint with the electric fence and not agreed to something I knew would end poorly. I find myself getting into trouble when I disregard my needs for the sake of pleasing others. Recently I found myself in a situation where the guy I was talking to just wanted to be friends and did not want to pursue a romantic connection with me anymore due to the distance. He asked if we could be friends and stay in touch. I however did not want to be just friends due to the feelings I had developed for this man and the attachment I had formed to the routine of talking to him every day for an extended period of time. I knew it would be hard for me to release this romantic attachment while agreeing to be friends with him, I knew it could hurt me. Through some conversation I found myself agreeing to be friends with him despite my concerns of how it may weigh on me. He wasn't greeting me with good morning, saying goodnight or offering to doordash me treats when I was having a bad day anymore. It felt relatively the same though and I found myself getting increasingly frustrated because it felt like now he's still getting the same validation from me through conversation but can talk to other people without guilt. I was not allowing myself to get over what I felt for him while engaging in constant conversation still. This lead to me question my self worth and acting in ways that would blow up in my face e.g. not respecting the boundary he requested of just being friends, being emotionally distressed when we did speak, and ruining the chance of friendship too. I have found myself thinking if I had been more firm in setting a boundary and giving myself time to get over him that maybe we could have had a fulfilling friendship. I would have described us as alike individuals who were compatible in many ways, a good foundation for friendship. I was rewatching Sex and The City in the midst of all of this and Carrie said something that stuck out to me because it pertained to this particular situation I was trying to work through. She says "If you love someone and you break up, where does the love go?" this is in reference to a conversation about being friends with your ex. She's arguing that this love should go into friendship and that it is good to be friends with an ex. I chose to interpret it differently, that love is not theirs to hold anymore. I think that love should go back to yourself, maybe I am being impetuous. I would consider me and my ex to be friends, however, I allowed myself to get over the relationship first. The relationship with this particular guy was not of enough significance to consider him an ex, so how do I apply this to the situation at hand? I found myself questioning where these feelings would go if we were no longer interested in each other romantically. I wondered if we were never really something how was this relationship supposed to fall back from being one that did not have a label to suddenly being a relationship that did have a label, a label of friends. It felt like labeling it as friends was almost more of a commitment. What was the expectation of us being friends, were there any? A lot of times the label friends is just given to keep things cordial and to have things end on a good note. He reassured me that was not his intention while being friends and that he still wanted to talk and continue to share things. Here I am though knowing from past experiences that trying to be friends with someone I have a crush on will not end well for me but wondering if it will hurt the same as in previous situations if this time I prepare myself. Now I am left with not only grieving a romantic interest but a loss of what could have been a good friendship if I had given myself space to heal. Do you think if I had grabbed the electric fence again I would have found myself wanting to grab it a third time? or will the next time I am presented with the opportunity to make a clear and healthy decision for myself I will have the willpower to do it. If I think more about the situation though I will explode because I appreciate the time we had but still hurt. Below I attached a picture I took while visiting the aquarium this weekend with my ex because we are friends lol.