Soul searching…and spinning…

I couldn’t keep my discretion to myself.  I told Twin what happened with my old friend.  Twin was clearly hurt and quietly upset, but handled it well.  I almost thought maybe I hadn’t needed to even tell him, such was his quiet demeanor.  He asked a few basic questions, Was that Thursday when I couldn’t reach you?  Was that pack of cigarettes I asked you about his?

All of which I answered honestly:  Yes, yes, yes….  I’m so sorry.  I really feel horrible.  I’m sick to my stomach.  You deserve much better. So on and so on.

And Twin kept saying, we don’t have to talk about this right now.  I would respond, I’ll lose my nerve if we don’t.  I just feel so dirty and ashamed.

I felt even more like trash when I texted my friend and told him how guilty I felt for what had happened and that I’d felt my boyfriend deserved to know.  And my friend responded, WHAT?!!!   I wasn’t aware you were still dating him.  You didn’t mention it so I assumed you weren’t seeing him anymore or I never would have gone so far. I was hoping to keep seeing you, I just wanted to take it slow because there are kids involved. I really like being with you, sexually and otherwise.  I always have.

I just responded it wasn’t his fault, I was sorry and that I really had some soul searching to do.

OMG….I just suck.  Now, I’ve hurt two people!  And I never intended to hurt anyone!!

The next day Twin asked if we could talk again.  He came over and was so kind and understanding.  So much so, I  just felt worse and worse.  He asked if it was a test; was I testing him?  Did I have feelings for this guy?

I don’t know, Twin.  I’ve been friends with him so long, of course I have feelings for him, but I have no clue exactly what they are.  I mean, I have feelings for you too.  I really care so much about you and I don’t understand how this happened.

Twin talked about how he was scared of his feelings for me after all that his ex-wife had done.  He talked of being in love with me and how difficult it was for him to have such strong feelings. He asked if maybe this was his fault because he wasn’t excessively demonstrative of his feelings for me.

NO!  That’s not it, Twin.  You’re wonderful to me!  And I didn’t want to hear any of this. I just didn’t know the appropriate response.

Then Twin wants to make out…or more… or whatever!  AHHH GEESH! NO, NO, NO!!  WTF?!  This seriously annoys me and my guilt just quadruples at my annoyance.  Ughhhh….I can’t escape this disastrous mess!

Twin and I fall asleep on my sofa.  I’m restless though and have weird dreams and I awake around 4 AM to him trying to kiss me again….OMFG….NOOOOOOOO!

I make excuses and grab my phone.  There’s a text message from late the evening before after I had fallen asleep.  It’s my friend and he has simply texted, I think you and I should be together!  Or at least give it a try.

Whoaaaaaaaaa….my head starts spinning…reeling even!  And Twin is right next to me, so I close the text and toss the phone aside, trying to mask my serious shock and mass confusion.

I really need Twin to leave.  My thoughts, my emotions were swirling around so fast I felt like the world was turning so fast.

I knew there has always been a huge chemistry between my friend and I, from the moment we were introduced, there was electricity.  We had gone on a few dates years ago even after we first met, but I was still carrying on with my ex-boyfriend (THE ex….the absolute one and only love of my life), so I was emotionally unavailable to the extreme.  Thus, it never went anywhere, except to create some friction between friend and I for a while.

And since then, I’ve just never thought of dating friend.  Yeah, the attraction is undeniable and perhaps I should have realized that once my vastly resilient bond to THE ex-boyfriend loosened, that this might happen.  I just wasn’t thinking…..obviously.  I mean clearly NOT thinking AT ALL.

GAWDDDD, what a mess I’ve made!

Challenging the very idea of perfection

Finally….an avenue from which to blog again! Yayyyy!  Sanity will hopefully be mine again soon:)

If I just skip through the past year of non-documented adventures (or mis-adventures) to present moment.  I’m proud to say, I’ve just recently started the online chronicles again – just a few  weeks ago actually.  Prior to then, I hadn’t even visited my dating sites and hadn’t bothered with reading any emails or browsing any guys professing interest in mine.

I’m only chatting with a few intriguing prospects at this time, but have had several offers to meet.  One, I did have lunch with just last Friday.  It was interesting…as these things often are.  I wasn’t wholly in to this “meeting”, but I thought, “Geesh…I gotta start back somewhere!”

He surprised me with his selection of the restaurant: definitely a guy who eats after my own eccentric flair for food.  It was a highly acclaimed local place called  Mia & Grace  …truly a lovely choice!!

He looked just like his photo, so I could pick him out of the lunch crowd immediately.  This is a bonus!  After some introductory conversation, he starts talking about the last woman he dated, that his divorce wasn’t final just yet, and how his soon-to-be-ex still felt it perfectly acceptable to enter his home any time she had the inclination, but that he knew it was really to snoop through his things.  Toward the end of the lunch, I realized the majority of the conversation had been about the ex.  Yeah, I already wasn’t so hip from the get-go about the not being divorced yet part, but this screamed of a guy who was clearly in no position to be trying to date – and certainly not so much, so hard.  I mean, of the 4 different men I had started communicating with, this guy had jumped to exchanging numbers and to meeting in person long before anyone else had even mentioned it yet!

Relax, pal.  What’s your rush?  Shouldn’t you finish your divorce first or at least be a little more emotionally divorced before such date haste?  I felt a little sorry for him though, instead of my usual sarcastic, cynical criticism.  I really wanted to grab his hand and say, “Heyyyy, you’re a handsome man.  You’ll most definitely meet someone.  Just go through the roller coaster divorce and let yourself heal for a bit before jumping the dating/relationship gun…. Ok?”  I didn’t say this though.  After all, who am I to judge his hasty desperation?  Either what it means or what it’s about?

Good luck, buddy!  Thanks for an amazing lunch!  Really wish you the best!!

All in all, not a really bad experience.  I just couldn’t help thinking though, was this really why I had a couldn’t-care-less feeling about the whole thing from the first conversation? OR, was it more because one of the four whom I’ve been talking/writing with just really stands out above the rest?  And that possibility really makes me ponder.  Before I’ve met any of these men, how can one just stand out so FAR above the rest in piquing my interest?  Sure, said profile page was just precisely after my own heart.  Said guy seems that extraordinary balance between manly sexiness, intellectual nerdiness , and artsy sensitivity…all wrapped up in a sexy dark haired, green-eyed, taller than me wordsmith with an amazing knowledge of grammar, spelling, physics and literature, not to mention the beautiful ability to make me laugh out loud from reading his emails!

Okay, okay…so he’s perfect on paper so far…. BUTTTTTT…WHY do I just feel a sense of near loyalty to one specific dating profile before I’ve even met him – or met any others I’m talking with?  Has the seeming charming perfection just swept me off my feet virtually already? How?  Why?  Isn’t this a major conflict and contradiction to online dating?  To the whole concept of “dating” in general?

Dating:  a method of physically spending time with as many promising prospects as possible in order to determine (over time) one candidate who actually fits with the other in the most categories:  in order to defy the odds of the schmucks running amok in the dating world, literally and virtually?

And yet, I confess, I just didn’t care about this date.  Sure, he was attractive and held a great deal of the qualities I would like to find in a romantic partner.  And I’ve not even MET  this other  “Mr. Perfect” yet.  Hell, “Mr. Perfect” might be nothing like his profile and worse yet, there could just be no chemical attraction!  Why would I almost literally shut myself off to even a slight possibility with another decent candidate who has already asked me on a real-live date?

Well, Mr. Talks About His Ex Incessantly sure made this an easy cross off my list experience, practically within the first ten minutes. But I really wasn’t open to giving him a chance anyway, long before he made it so easy not to give him a chance.  And that truly perplexes me.

Regardless, easy it was! So,  I realize over and over, that I really just suck at the very concept of “dating”.  It almost goes against my grain and nature.  If I like someone (obviously even just in virtuality), then I just like him.  At that point, I have to force myself to even communicate with anyone else and a physical date is an almost painful push into the let’s be logical here arena.

I mean, GOSH, there’s even another very handsome local guy who keeps writing and texting and asking me to meet.     In fact, this other guy might be technically more traditionally handsome even than my current Mr. Perfect prospect.  Yet, I keep blowing off his invites with some pretty pathetic excuses and half the time I don’t even respond for several days to his communication initiates.  Just can’t muster up an interest or see any purpose when held up in the light against Mr. Perfect’s ideal qualities and bonus points.

What IS that?  Shouldn’t I be excited to meet as many qualifying candidates as possible in this sport of dating?  Shouldn’t I at least attend the previews of a few interesting movies before deciding one I haven’t seen is my absolute favorite?

I don’t know.  This whole “Mr. Perfect” guy…ummm…GEESH OH PETE….  I keep waiting for him to say something, ANY thing that doesn’t just delight or intrigue me beyond sensibility.  No, really, every time I open a new email or read a text from him, I think…..Okay, here it comes.  It has to.  Because he can’t possibly be actually perfect.  Not a possibility. I’m not perfect…no one else can be either!  So with each and every communique at this point, I know he has to demonstrate something less than my ideal. He must!   Even if it’s not a deal breaker per se, but SOMETHING.  I almost WANT him to do this – mar the image of perfection he presents so far – for several reasons.  One, I’m nervous as hell for a guy this “perfect” to meet me and be total witness to my inevitable and perhaps  overwhelming imperfections and  I’d have some ammunition going in if he’s already short at least a quality or aspect or two.  Secondly, everytime he fails to show me an imperfection of some kind, I am forced to face my literal terror of actually meeting a great-for-me guy.  What would I do?  There is then such a blatant possibility of my following my traditional time-proven M.O. of  sabotaging these things.  And I’m slapped in the face with how deep my issues and fears really go.  Something, I really prefer to (deceitfully?) convince myself I’ve worked out and conquered. And I can live in that pink bubble as long as there’s something wrong with THEM.   This guy terrifies me…and we’v e not even met!  Yeah, terrified is an accurate description.  He makes me feel giggly and excited, intellectually challenged, admiring and self-confident,  hopeful and enthusiastic…and utterly TERRIFIED.

Although, he did FINALLY tell me one less than perfect (for me, at least) quality just yesterday:  He’s NOT a huge football fan like I.  Wait….WHAT?!!  What the hell is going on here?!  How can that be, Mr. “Perfect”?  And as an avid college football enthusiast, just how far can I go with THAT little tidbit of imperfection.  I can see the desperate measures already:  No, Mr. Perfect, I cannot go to the museum with you Saturday!  Are you kiddin’ me?  OMG….there’s a game on!!!  Don’t be ridiculous.  I’ll be watching the game like every other self-respecting human being in America, watching it with fellow football LOVERS….uhh…GEESH!!!  And surely this massive imperfection might lead to other, oh-so-practical and legit excuses for other possible “issues” this little conflict will inevitably create.  Right?  Of course!  After all, I love football; I know how to take that ball and run with it!  Psh!

That said, I’m delighted to say that I’m meeting “Mr. Perfect” today!!!  Yup,  fully armed with my you-can’t-possibly-be-my-idea-of-absolute-perfection ammunition.  Phew…just in time!  And the question becomes, upon meeting him in person, will Mr. Perfect give me more ammunition with which to battle  or will he charmingly stomp all over the meek supply I’ve managed to dig up?

Never mind that his random suggestion of meeting spots just happened to be my FAVORITE place in a 100 mile radius of my town.  And no, I hadn’t told him how much I loved that place or ANY place!!  GOSH, this guy’s tough to smother in my issues so far OR clobber with my baggage….yet.

I’m sooooo excited…and so very nervous!

Uhh Cupid, we have a problem!

So, I have issues.. yeah, issues… Luggage, baggage, psychological and emotional idiosyncracies… Ummm…whatever you wanna call ‘em. In fact, I’m pretty sure I have my fair share, your fair share, and a bit more for extra measure!
And I could go into detail about these, psychoanalyze why, who, what, and how they came about but really, does any of that matter? Well, other than making for a truly unbelievable (yeah unbelievable as in lierally, “I do not believe that’s true!”) story/post/biography, no, it just doesn’t matter. It is what it is. And at least, I’m aware I have major issues, so I hope I’m at least a tad ahead of the typical idiot idiosyncratic schmuck who is riddled with them and genuinely isn’t in touch with their own reality that something just isn’t quite “right”… That’s a bonus for me, right?
I’ve wanted to write for a while now of this great “thing” I have going with “J”… because it really is just great! Truly… However, while dealing with K’s suicide, I just haven’t been able to sit down and write. It’s as though I couldn’t bring myself to discuss trivial life matters with this blaring tragedy sitting on my heart…
But, I realize I can’t post for the next ten years on that… well, I could, yet no matter how fitting that seems to be in some ways…it’s just not and I must move on with writing of my original mission of this blog.
Dating.
I’ve been dating “J” and it’s terrific! In so many ways, he’s exactly what I wanted to find: a cool, fun, attractive, and interesting guy to hang out with/date, minus any pressure, stress or major drama… BINGO! I’ve found it! It just might be that I have, in fact, nailed some jello to the wall!
We’ve been having a fabulous time. He’s a valuable and amazing gem of a guy and he adores me… Awwwwwwwww…. No really, it’s quite precious and I consider myself a pretty luck chick to have snatched (and kept) his attention and adoration thus far.
We have long random discussions about world issues, life matters, and trivial ridiculous-like stuff. We have sex, we snuggle, and we play. We go to movies, rent movies, play games with friends. We are active and sometimes lazy. We have fun and then we are serious at times… It’s just a  super cool thing we have going on here and I really enjoy it, him, the relationship, etc, etc, etc… Yeah, it’s pretty much exactly what I had hoped to find when I began this journey/mission! Even the whole he-was-engaged-to-my-friend thing just hasn’t been a huge negative issue. We’ve told her and she seems okay with it. So, aside from some all too expected gossip from other obviously bored locals, there just hasn’t been any problems…at all. It’s been utterly terrific!

J is adorably nerdy like the character in "Juno"...what's not to love??

So….why in the hell would I want to complicate it? Ruin it? Drama-fy it? WHY??
Okay, the answer is I don’t. I don’t want to…I really, truly don’t…. but…..but…. omg… I swear I could complicate a game of freakin’ tic-tac-toe to the point of annoyance! WTF is my deal?? I can write a million posts picking on the guys in the dating pool out there, but the truth…the ugly down-n-dirty truth… is I’m not THAT much different than they when my idiosyncratic issues and frustrating-as-fuck-flaws come into the mix! Truth is, I’m a great chick with a lot of really kick ass stuff to offer a relationship, but I’m fucked… Yeah, at the nitty gritty of it all, I’m probably a bigger pain in the ass freak of nature than any of the weirdo’s I’ve written about here.
I’m so contradictory and I just can’t ever decipher if it’s the situation itself or if it’s really just me…
You know, I’m casually strutting toward the goal… I’m almost there..I can see it.. Hell, it’s so freakin’ close I can feel it; success, satisfaction, happiness….it’s there… just three more steps and it’s mine…. I can just skip along these last few feet….and skipping is so fun…
Do I throw the obstacles down on purpose? Or do I just forget the baggage that sits all around me in my excitement and then when I trip over them, I look around like “Did you just see that row of extra-large suitcases come at me outta nowhere?!” BAM! WTF?!
Because all I know is that I’m skipping along…grateful, happy, satisfied…and suddenly I trip…I trip from outta the blue, for seemingly no reason at all! I just hit this weird place, this ridiculous wall, this treacherous bump, this whacked out spot where the crazy-good amazingly beautiful planetary alignment from heaven that feels like beautiful fate falling into place just suddenly – without sense or warning… twists, turns, and flips…my thoughts, emotions, sanity get all jumbled up and I forget. I forget what I wanted, why I wanted it, and start to question if I ever even really wanted it at all…
Yeah….issues….yup…I got an abundance of ‘em…. Ohhhhh FUCK!!!
The problem here is that in the process of getting to know “J” better, I’ve also had the opportunity to get to know his friend “Jack” better… I won’t try to deny that I found Jack enormously attractive from the moment I met him. It just didn’t really matter that much because I already knew “J” and really liked what I knew. I wasn’t going to be deterred or lured away from my path to “J”. I wasn’t even interested in being deterred or lured. And then, it seems that most of my non-alone time with “J” also happens to typically include Jack. This is fabulous! Jack is F-U-N… So, I get to hang with the terrific J AND I get to hang with the fun, funny, HOT Jack…. Yeah, I’ve been lovin’ it!
And somewhere in the past few months of this, a week or so ago, I suddenly realized that I look forward to this shared time with Jack more than I care to admit. To the extent that when we are all in a group, J almost gets on my nerves….
It’s not quite that simple though because I still like J a lot, even in the midst of this mild near-annoyance thing. J is just so blasted likeable!!!! Yeah, he’s cute and sweetly adorable, kind and helpful, caring and smart. He’s definitely a total nerd…and I LOVE that!
Love it, love it, LOVE it…right up until the moment he’s held up in the light directly against Jack. Jack isn’t cute or handsome… Jack is freakin’ SEXY. Jack is the sensual “dark soul” with the sensitive side he thinks he hides so well, but actually it just gives me the urge to tempt him into bringing it out. He’s that bad ass, sarcastic, funny, tough as nails guy…mysteriously quiet, but an expert conversationalist when he chooses. And I don’t know exactly why, but we talk so easily to one another and I. Love. It!

...and Jack exhibits more of this kind of appeal....umm...OMFG!!

So, ummm…yeah, I secretly really look forward to these little spontaneous communiqués and I admit, it kinda nagged at me a bit how much I truly have begun enjoying this. That guilty feeling hits me every time “J” asks, do you mind if Jack joins us? Uhhh…nooooo…I don’t mind at all. In fact, please? Could he? Pretty please??
Okay, so I’ve been dealing with this (I think) effectively. I’ve started trying to pay ALL my attention to J in these situations and limit my attention to Jack. I’ve been focusing my thoughts during those times at all the incredibly wonderful and endearing traits of J and how much I adore him. This has worked…sorta…mostly…. Well, I was at least convincing myself it was.
…Until this past Monday. Monday, in a strange and unusual turn of events, Jack was called to my place of work for a civic duty…not something at all avoidable or by choice…totally and simply and absolutely just by chance. In fact, J had told me this was coming up and I casually blew it off. But I didn’t really…I took serious note of this information and deliberately took an off-the-typical-mark lunch hour, conscientiously and deliberately attempting to avoid any possibility of running into Jack sans J. Okay, I have this so under control here.
So, on Monday I take a very late lunch and while attempting to leave my office area, a very chatty co-worker engages me in idle chat. And she’s chatting…and chatting..and chatting… seems her husband had been called in for this civic duty as well and she’s just going on an on…and on…and on… Bless her heart! Finally, my stomach growls so loudly, I snatch the opportunity to say, Gosh, I really gotta go…I’m starving! And she lets me walk away..finally!
I’m coming down the hall, feeling so proud of how I’ve avoided getting myself into any wonderfully uncomfortable situations and as I round the bend by the elevators, my peripheral vision catches a familiar face stepping out of the elevator to my left.  A familiar sexy face with that adorable mischievous grin and that mysterious “dark” look all about him…
Yeah, it’s Jack. And what are the odds???? Seriously..wtf?!
So, I can’t politely (or with any explainable reason!) avoid this now. What am I supposed to say? Sorry Jack, I know we hang out together at least four nights a week and I date your friend, and we have become the best of friends in the process, buttttttt, I’m secretly so attracted to you that I would feel guilty having lunch with you or being in your presence without J…. Seriously, how could I say that? And how could I explain avoiding him? I so suck at coming up with on-the-spot excuses/fibs too…umm..what the hell do I DO now??
And so… yeah, Jack and Kay go have lunch together. A lovely lunch during which I desperately attempted to disguise my nervous secret with babbling silly chatter and laughed so hard at one point that I spewed lettuce toward his face. I can only say I’m really, REALLY fortunate Jack doesn’t know me much better or I’m pretty sure he’d have totally been on to the fact that something was up with me. I can only pray he didn’t though.
Anyway, it was a blast having lunch with Jack! I was flustered and attracted, and trying terribly hard to force myself out of any sense of attraction to this guy…and finally it was over. I thank him for a fun lunch and we say good bye. Me, hoping and praying that my attraction to him wasn’t blaring between the lines of my desperation to not feel or acknowledge, even inadvertently, this fucked up attraction.
I breathed a bit easier as I walked away from him. Phew…spending an hour “alone” with him and not blurting out my big secret was amazingly more difficult than I even had anticipated. Breathe….but it was over. I did it!! Yayy!! Breathe… Commence to my office and on with ignoring this unwanted, unplanned, unexpected, and unfortunate attraction to Jack..Get it back in freakin’ perspective…breathe…breathe…
No. It did not help! I could not get this man off my mind for the next six hours!!! As if it hadn’t already been a chronic challenge to keep my thoughts of him in appropriate perspective before our innocent little lunch, I was so light headed and distracted with thoughts of him now that I made more stupid mistakes in the next few hours at work than I have in all the weeks I have been there total……… because I had Jack on the brain… and sadly, I have ever since…just can’t seem to shake it…UGHH!
Eeeeeeeeeeek…OMG…what now?

A post totally unrelated to dating, debauchery or humor…a tragic lesson in listening.

I’m a mom…a single mom to be exact. I’ve been a single mom for the most part of 13 years. I’ve met more children over the years than I could ever accurately recall. I’ve driven them around, cooked them dinners and breakfasts, I’ve chatted with them, listened to their problems with parents or other friends. I’ve connected with many children through this time. Of course, some I enjoyed more than others. Some had flat personalities or lacked manners. Some, I felt kinda sorry for and tried maybe a little harder to be extra kind. Some, I worried might not be good influences on my children. In my years as a mom, clearly my experiences with children have run the gamut.

However, a few months ago, I met a (then) 13 year old child who stood out from the others; a young boy who somehow compelled my attention. He literally compelled my affection, in that instantaneous sorta way that is rare in the world of a parent. I can say with absoluteness that from the very moment I was introduced to this boy, I just wanted to be/stay in his presence. It wasn’t just that the boy had the extremely good looks which screamed “future magazine model”, with his caramel skin and dark, wildly curly locks of amazing hair that would make even a grown woman envious. Truly a visual delight, this child seemed to need no more to be adored by all, but to simply wake up in the morning. After all, I know first-hand how superficial the popularity standards of teenagers are. This boy could have easily captured the heart of every teen girl he came in contact with. And the boy’s captivating persona wasn’t just from his oh-my-God-in-Heaven delightfully warm smile. Although this smile…..this smile…ahhhh…it almost defies description in that all the usual words one might use to describe a beautiful smile just seem to fall short of accuracy for this smile. Bright, encompassing, infectious…this boy’s smile was the innocent frolic of toddlers on a playground. A smile which radiated the warmth and joy of a long, refreshing day on the beach. When it was directed at you, it emitted the warmth of the brightest sunny day and quite possibly could have thoroughly warmed your skin on the coldest, dreariest day. And even if it might not have had that kind of literal physically warming ability, it absolutely exuded enough energy to warm even the most hatefully cold heart. This boy’s entire being simply defies all narrative. I have wanted to write of him for days, but the struggle to catch a truly accurate depiction of his beauty, his persona, his energy, or his personality, has kept me from so doing… The challenge to depict him accurately with words makes me beg for better writing skills, a bigger vernacular and vocabulary, and cries of my sudden and total lack of skill in this area. No exaggeration! Knowing this child, makes me want to be a better writer merely so I might truly capture his essence with my words and help others who don’t know him think they’ve seen, felt and known him. And in that sense, as well as so many others, that is why this post and my abilities will fall short and this will become a post of loss on every level. So let me accept my limitations here and jump forward to my experience of this boy.

The last time I held a conversation with him, he and his best friend were in my home, visiting my daughter. We had only been living in this house a short time and things were not yet in place. There was a beautiful heavy black bench in the basement which I had wanted in my living room for weeks. I grabbed this opportunity to have these two healthy strong boys carry this heavy as hell bench up the long basement stairway, through my kitchen and dining room, into my living room. When I asked the boys if they would help me with this, one boy just shrugged his shoulders in submission and the other smiled big, eagerly nodding, actually wanting to help with this tedious and trying task. How amazing is that? The boys stayed till well after midnight. The kids had all been watching scary movies and scattering popcorn all over my living room…leaving tons of blankets and pillows in their wake as well as countless junk food wrappers. So, as if my impressed opinion of this boy was not already at an unusually high level, as the one boy got his coat and shoes on, preparing to leave, the other simply started cleaning up the mess that all five kids had made! He didn’t ask or wait to be asked, he just started doing the utterly unbelievable for a young teenage boy.

I’ll never be certain as to exactly what it was about this particular child that not only made me want to gush all over him with praise, but also made me want to reach out to him. This urge defied the huge smile he wore on his beautiful face and even the happy spirit he exuded naturally…it was just a strange, strange thing… So not wanting to overstep my boundaries or his…or heaven forbid, make him uncomfortable, I chose to ignore this compelling urge to reach out and hug him. Instead, I simply gave him my most genuinely heart-felt smile, and said with conviction as I looked him directly in his eyes, “K…you are welcome in our home ANY time at all.” Yeah…I sorta blew off my intuition as the possible paranoid parenting of a former child abuse worker and feebly attempted to address it passively in a half-joking but sincere manner. And that was that.…

Only I didn’t stop thinking about this boy. I couldn’t stop thinking about this boy. My maternal instincts, my intuition,my  I don’t know, but over the following weeks, this boy was on my mind at least a few times a day. I actually asked my daughter about him a few times – as in, why don’t you invite that boy,  K,  over again? When my daughter and I discussed him, she always talked of what an amazing friend this boy was and how he sat next to her in several classes. She was particularly fond of the way he could make her smile and laugh on even the roughest or grumpiest day. He’s just that kind of guy, Momma..always kind to everyone at the school…always smiling that gargantuous, gorgeous smile and making people laugh. Every body loves K!  I was realizing this kid was clearly adored by many…and had more friends than could be counted and was “popular” in every clique at their middle school and beyond; a rare feat for middle school if you had a typical middle school experience like I did… And my strange concern diminished as the weeks passed. Yet, I can’t say I stopped thinking of him, more that I just randomly would think about him and instantly reassure myself of how silly my over protective nature can be.

On Friday February 4th, I was home alone a bit bored, browsing Facebook to pass the time and through my daughter’s posts, I happened upon this boy’s Facebook. Of course I go to his page to check it out. I smiled just looking at his page. I pondered being the “weird mom” and sending him a hello email, just telling him what a great friend he’d been to my daughter and how grateful I was, as well as reiterating his welcome in our home and chiding him for not having visited in a few weeks. Decided against sending the email and then clicked the “add as a friend” button. I sat for a few moments looking at the confirmation “Do you really want to add K as a friend” or whatever it says…. Indecision took over and I clicked cancel…thinking I’d just tell my daughter to tell him hello and to get his butt over to visit soon, and firmly deciding that was probably more appropriate. Thinking to myself, I’ll just tell him to add me as a friend the next time he’s over and do a re-check of that odd intuitive feeling I got from him.

My daughter came home from a friend’s Saturday afternoon and she and her friend hung out here for a while…mostly ignoring me as usual! Around 7 PM, they came out of her room and she walked her friend to the front door. When she turned around she came running over to me, threw herself in my lap and sobbed, K killed himself tonight Momma! What? Umm…you’re crying so hard honey, I can’t understand you. What did you say? She repeats herself, K killed himself Momma. My stomach literally flipped as my heart took a nose dive straight down into my gut… I can’t possibly have heard her right. I had to remind myself to breathe as pictures of K’s huge smile flashed in my head….and I couldn’t help but to look over to my right at the heavy black bench he had carried up and sat on, putting his shoes on, right before he last left our house. I was sure I was going to vomit. This was impossible. This was a horrible rumor. This was beyond tragic. Beyond sickening. Beyond devastating… No! It was a mistake. It had to be. K’s beautifully handsome face, K’s gorgeous smile, his amazing hair, his warm kind energy, the entire essence of this phenomenal child was just too fresh….too physically still available even just  in our house. This was the cruelest rumor/joke/mistake ever. It had to be. I know…not K…Momma, not K!!!!! No. My daughter had not believed it either and thus, had already verified it beyond a doubt. K had committed suicide about 6 PM that Saturday night, by shooting himself in the back of his head.

It is the strangest phenomena I’ve ever experienced in my life. The unbelievable impact this beautiful child had had on me in only a brief amount of shared time. And he was gone just that fast. As we attended his visitation and funeral a few days later, I kept wondering why I hadn’t just done and said what I wanted to this child. Why I hadn’t been able to stop thinking about him….WHY I hadn’t sent him that thank you email. Why I hadn’t listened to that funny feeling I’d gotten in the pit of my stomach, telling me to look past this kid’s incredibly infectious smile and see beneath his light hearted exterior… A million why’s fill my head as I comfort my children and attempt to reach a state of acceptance for this totally unacceptable horror. I know there will never be answers or sense of such a truly senseless tragedy for any of the hundreds of friends and family members this nightmare has affected. And although it will never seem enough: not good enough or soon enough…just never ever, EVER enough, I vow to never again ignore, deny, or shoo away that God given gift of intuition, even if it does mean I’m the “weird Mom”, the nosy Mom, the interrogative Mom, whatever… I try to tell myself this child had a huge family and hundreds of adoring friends. So I couldn’t have made a difference. I wouldn’t have…right? Just like the perpetually unanswered “why’s”, I’ll never know for certain because I didn’t bother to even try.

Does The Code even exist anymore? Okay, did it ever?

I’ve committed to the “code” since junior high. You know the one.  If your friend likes or dates a guy, he’s forever stricken from the okay to date category.  I’ve wondered over the years though, if perhaps I took this “code” too much to heart?  It started in the seventh grade when coincidentally every boy I developed a crush on, my “BFF” suddenly liked him too.  It was so weird!!  I’d start chatting with some boy in a class, start to think he was cute or funny or whatever, tell my best friend (because that’s what you do) and lo and behold… within 24 hours, my BFF would have this “dilemma”.  Gosh Kay, I’ve been meaning to tell you for a few days now that I like so-and-so.

Ahhhhh well crap….  He’s off the list.  Can’t crush on him…must avoid all flirtation.  This crazy coincidence started to get a little suspicious about our junior year of high school.  It was just too BIZARRE…every single guy I even thought about liking, my BFF always confessed she’d been crushing on him since the day or two before me!!!  Uncanny for all those years, huh?! There were two crushes in four years whom “M” (my BFF) hadn’t crushed on just before me.  One went to a different school than we and “M” had never met him and the other always called “M” a fat cow or something equally as mean or harsh.  In fact those two actually had a physical altercation once; they hated each other so much!  I had to play referee so many times between these two and always felt guilty that he was so mean to my BFF, but shamefully happy that finally I liked someone my BFF didn’t like first. 

This chronic coincidence just flabbergasted me for years!  I had suspicions, but always denied them.  Until I moved out of state my senior year and less than a month later, my BFF was dating the guy I had dated…the one whom she had fought with all the time.

Okay, yeah….so it takes me awhile sometimes to see the writing on the wall.  In hindsight I realize this was a fun game for my BFF.  It simply raised the stakes and created a bigger challenge for her in the crush department to coincidentally like the same guy as I.

This has been a repetitive occurrence in my life in one way or another and over the many, many years of betrayals and coincidences, I realize that I just might be the only female I know living by the unofficial credo of friendship…but, it’s never been a huge choice for me.  Friends always come first; guys were a dime a dozen.  Ohhhh…you kinda like that one?  Ohh and that other one flirted with you last month?  Ahh geesh…okay, I’m out then.  I see no need to compete with friends for guys.  Okay honey, you have him….and I’m on to something or someone else.  No big.  There is no competition because I refuse to engage.  In fact, I usually start looking around for a lovely silver platter to hand whatever guy over to them.

Ahhh the stories I could tell!  However, there’s really only one of these experiences which is pertinent at the moment.

I’ve been friends with “Jane” for about seven years or so now.  We go back and forth between inseparable for a bit to just lunch once a week depending on our life happenings at any given time.  Jane is totally different from me and I’m okay with that.  Jane is a major partier and has looser standards sexually than I tend toward, but I’ve kinda thought these differences made our friendship work even better.  We sound things off to each other and get entirely different perspectives.  I like to think that she pulls me a little more to the spontaneous and crazy side and maybe I pull her somewhat to the more responsible side….a nice balance for the most part.

The only real challenge here is that since I’ve become friends with Jane, it’s become increasingly difficult to meet any male (or female) with whom Jane has not had sexual relations. Two major episodes:

I meet cute military guy four years ago.  I was undecided about anything big with him, but I liked him and was at least interested in seeing where I might want it to go.  I wasn’t blabbing about him to my friends because I wasn’t sure if I wanted as much of a commitment as MG expressed he wanted. We had been seeing each other for only a month or so when he returned to his base in Kansas City. …Commence the chronic texting and phone calls.  I was enjoying this and starting to like him more and more.  After he left for base, Military guy would get frustrated when I was out with friends and my phone would die.  So one night in the midst of a huge texting session with MG while I was out with Jane, I say, Hey, put this number in your phone so that when my phone dies, MG won’t get mad at me that I just suddenly disappeared and stopped texting.  She says, Oh, I have that number already.  And knowing Jane as I do, I immediately knew exactly what she meant.  I was a little bummed, but waited till the next day to ask MG about this… Yeah, she and MG had had a sexual fling a few years back which had lasted a week or two.  Well, given that my interest in MG was only slightly above mild at this point, I decided to end it.  MG was pissed and hates me to this day for this but whatever…  It just feels too awkward for me to date a guy my friend has been intimate with and holds the number in her phone as a booty call.  Not interested.  No thanks.

Three years ago, I ran into a guy whom I’d met years ago on the beach.  We had been beach buddies years earlier but never super close otherwise.  So I run into him randomly after it had been a while.  He asks me out to dinner and I agree to go and over the next few months, we started actually dating. One night I couldn’t go to a concert with him because I had plans with Jane. He says, Ahh, I know Jane!  Yeah, of course you do. Ohhh shit…  I ask him about the nature of their association.  He’s very blunt in that they had gone to dinner once seven years earlier, had a nice time, but neither was romantically interested in the other (they just hadn’t “clicked) so they had decided not to go out again, but to be friends…and not with sexual benefits…just friends. Well more like acquaintances since they didn’t really hang out together, but just would chat if they ran into each other.

Soon after this conversation,  I tell Jane that I’ve been seeing him and that I might actually like him.  This is critical to say to her at this point because since Love of My Life Guy and I had split, I really hadn’t even entertainedmuch thought of developing anything truly serious with anyone.  I rarely even could agree to go on a date with anyone for quite some time after the split.  Jane knew all about this and how I had struggled to meet anyone I liked enough to seriously date and consider committing to since that horrific experience.  Thus, it was important that I actually tell Jane where I stood about this guy. And she’s all, That’s great!  He’s such a nice guy Kay!  I’m so glad to see you giving someone a chance finally…etc, etc, etc…

So it got a little weird when she started calling me from the deck of his beach house and inviting me over to “join them” for cookouts and whatnot.  I was totally thrown!  What is going on?  I’m actually dating him and this feels awkward.  She’s inviting ME over to MY boyfriend’s house?  And, why is she over there without me anyway?  No one mentioned a cookout to me!?  They’ve known each other over seven years and never hung out at his house!  Why would they now that I’m dating him?  After the third of these “invites”, I couldn’t shake the weirdness.  Jane’s a pretty woman and I just guessed that somehow maybe being mutual friends with me had reconnected them and he had decided he actually was interested in her… and obviously more than me…

This one bummed me out a little more than Military Guy, but hey, this is my friend…whatever…  If he likes her and vice-versa, then I’m out.  I just stopped taking Beach Guy’s calls because it all seemed too creepy.  I temporarily distanced myself from Jane too because I was a little hurt over this, but we remained friends and I just never said anything about any of it to her…or him.  C’est la vie.  Bygones.

A year ago, I randomly run into Beach Guy who interrogates me as to why I blew him off.  I’m honest and say, Jane was hanging out at your house a lot inviting me over and it felt weird so I accepted that you changed your mind and decided you wanted to date her.  I wasn’t going to make a big fuss.  She’s my friend, you’re a great guy…I want both of you to find happiness.  It’s all good. And he looks bewildered….  He says, WHAT?!  Kay, I really liked you…I thought we had something pretty cool going and you just blew me off completely.  After the first time you brought Jane over with you, she just started showing up at my house with groceries wanting to cook out.  I would assume you must be meeting her here or something..it was just so weird..and when I’d ask her where’s Kay, she’d always say, Let’s call her and invite her over.

I might sound stupid and that could be accurate, but after much discussion, Beach Guy and I figured out that this wasn’t a very nice thing Jane did to me…and ultimately to him either.  I believe that BG had no clue what the hell kind of game Jane was playing.  He was trying to be gracious to her because she was my friend.  By the time he figured out what was probably going on, I had stopped taking his calls and he thought I just wasn’t interested in him anymore. 

This kinda sucked and I began questioning Jane’s friendship and perhaps even the ability of a totally promiscuous kinda chick like her even being capable of real friendship with another girl. Around this time, Jane had kinda disappeared from my life anyway, so nothing needed to be addressed; I just let it go.

When Jane shows back in my life, she’s all excited that she’s been dating some really young guy and it’s getting serious!  That’s why she’d stayed away for so long…totally preoccupied with this new young guy…and she talked at length about how young he was, as if that in itself was some medal of honor or achievement.  I was so excited for her! He sounds like a terrific guy and maybe just what she needed to settle it down a little.  I met him soon after and realized he really WAS a terrific guy.  I was very happy for them both when they got engaged and moved in together.

She didn’t stop her sexual roll though.  That continued and she’d brag to me about how he would always forgive her.  She just had to tell him how drunk she was when the indiscretions occurred and he’d let it go.  I was sad for him, but happy for her that he was such a passive forgiving guy…perfect for her…just the kind she needed!

I felt more and more badly for him though as I witnessed personally how often she got drunk and messed around on him….with his friends, with strangers, with ex-lovers…started to seem like anyone would do to cheat on this innocent, nice guy. But, hell, if he was okay with that, who was I to think it was sad or wrong?  Anyway,  I wasn’t totally surprised when a few weeks after I moved to Vegas, she called to tell me she was breaking up with him because she wasn’t going to stop the cheating… Ohhhh AND she’d met an even younger guy and they were having some serious fun.  She and her ex-fiancé Jay would remain friends though. Awwww…how absolutely delightful for him!  Poor guy…

Then, a week after I returned to Michigan, I invited Jane over one evening late.  I had a guy friend here with me.  I’d known this guy for years, but we’d never dated or had anything together…  I did have a little crush on him.  I’d never told him or anyone about that though.  Jane drags ex-fiance  Jay over with her and we’re all hanging out.  Jane’s flirting outrageously with my guy friend and he is with her too.  It’s late and Jay just goes to bed in the guest room.  I pull Jane aside and say, Hey, I don’t think it’s very cool to do that to Jay and besides, I might sorta like this other guy.  Could you please not be with him?

Yeah, I verbatim said, “Could you please not be with him?”  Oh of course she won’t!  He’s “way too old for her anyway”, she says.  …FYI, he happens to be exactly our age…

To sum up this long as hell story, guess what?  Yeah….I’m sure you see where this situation went!  Jane can’t help herself….and after leaving them alone briefly, I return and yeah, it’s “on” for them.

Ohmyeffingawd… I had just freakin’ had it with this crap!  I told jerk-ball to leave and I was just mad, mad, mad at Jane!  Jay hears the commotion and comes out.  He’s not an idiot.  He gets it of course.  He knows exactly what happened.  He may be way younger than I, but he clearly “’gets” this kinda thing far more quickly than I.  It’s pretty much just a sad and unfortunate scene for all three of us…for different reasons…

So…Saturday night I get together with a group of friends for cards.  Jay is one of them.  I’m so glad he and I might become friends.  He’s just fun and a really terrific person!  We have a great time and he ends up crashing over here on the sofa with me.  Nothing happened!!

The next day after he leaves,  we are texting funny stuff back and forth..both tired and silly after too much fun the night before.  Then, I get this text from him that says, okay, I’m going to get a little weird on you here, but last night when we were curled up on the sofa, I really wanted to kiss you. I didn’t though because we had both been drinking.

OMG…I truly did NOT know what to say!!!  My mind is racing and I’m just speechless.  While I’m thinking through this, Jay sends a few more apology texts:  “Sorry, told you I was going to get weird”, “Sorry, I’m probably still just drunk”, “Sorry I’m a retard who can’t text properly right now”, “Sorry, I really just had to get that off my chest”…

And I’m thinking, OMGOMGOMG….I’d never thought about anything like this before.  I mean, sure he’s sexy and smart…and funny…and all around the kind of guy I’d normally really like…but…but…OMG?!!?!!

So, I text him back with my conscience debating and my heart racing,  Please don’t say you’re sorry.  I kinda wish you had kissed me.  And he responds, Oh good!!!…that long pause scared me!!  But my phone is dying and I’m having drinks with friends so we’ll talk about this later.

Jay and I haven’t discussed this yet.  I really don’t know how I feel about this.  From married guys to my friends’ ex??  It’s just a  mess.  What the hell is the matter with me?!!  I honestly don’t know if I think this would be wrong or not and that in itself scares the hell out of me!!  Is life throwing me these constant curve balls for some freakin’ reason?  Is this all random?  Are these life tests? Character tests??  WTF?!???   Umm…I think I’d better get back to the “safety” of that whole online thing and I’ll be damned if that’s not a contradiction in terms!

I don’t know what’s going to happen here with this recent sitch.  Is it ever okay to break the code?  Am I running through previous history with Jane just to convince myself this might not be totally wrong to do…just in case…?  Anyway, maybe Jay was just drunk and didn’t even know what the hell he was talking about?  Maybe it was just a random spontaneous meaningless notion that will disappear as quickly as it came to him?  No clue.  I am reminded reg ularly though that life has a twisted sense of humor.  AND, I’m beginning to realize too that if this is all just a life test, I just might be running out of the right answers!

Make out or Macrame’…hmmmm…

Vegas!

Whoa… Vegas is crazy!  It sucked the writer out of me there for a minute…but I’ve collected my thoughts as much as is possible given the randomized, sporadic pattern of said thoughts and I’m getting back on track!  By the way, “collecting my thoughts” is one of my favorite phrases…like snatch and serendipity, I just like to say/think/write those words as much as I can possibly squeeze them into my vernacular!

After last Thursday’s date with Mr. Nurse, as well as some interesting thoughts from a few other blogger/daters, I’ve re-worded both my “looking for” and “write me if”.  I’ve opted to remove all of the potential “romantic” element and merely post that I’m looking to meet “friends” and friends in the literal, not trendy (FWB), sense.  I did this after my date with Mr. Nurse because although Nurse-guy was a handsome, intelligent and fairly fun guy, it became pretty clear to me around midnight of our date that his intentions posted on the dating site are possibly not entirely truthful.

After a great afternoon hanging out on the strip for coffee and chit-chat, he invited me out later that night to an open-mic night at a little dive bar in his neck of the woods.  Nurse-guy likes to sing and play the guitar.  We were having a delightful time at this shin-dig!  I met a few really nice people and heard some great music.  Around midnight, Nurse says to me, “Are you ready to go?”  I’m definitely ready to leave, eat, or go somewhere else at this point and I assume this is what he means; “ready?” as in “ready to leave?”

Yes, I am.  So he walks me to my car, where he kisses me and then basically invites himself over to my house.  I’m not against this entirely, but I’m a little suspicious at the way he maneuvers this…something just felt “off”…  I want to assume the best though; he seems super nice.  I tell him that it’s no problem to come over to my house to watch movies (my idea) or maybe go into the hot tub (his idea), whatever… He responds to this with, I’m not looking for a relationship, you know?

Hmm…..the timing of this really just struck me as strange.  I mean, what does that have to do with anything, unless maybe you’re making some assumptions about what I really mean by saying you’re welcome to come over?  I really don’t see the correlation between let’s hang out at your house….yeah, okay…straight to “but you should know I don’t want a relationship right now.”

I’m not sure I’m following this train of thought…?

Anyway, he’s following me to my house, when I start getting a little worried about how this all connects…and I start doubting my choice to have him over at this time of night, after a few drinks…

Once we get to my house, he’s cool.  He starts kissing me and clearly wants to make out.  Umm…call me a tramp, call me Suzy Floozy, yeah whatever, I’m perfectly okay with the making out business.  Hell, I like making out…  I kinda wish there was a making out version of speed dating. 

Speed Making-Out? Who's in?!??

I’ve never been speed dating, but I’ve heard about it and I like to make out so much that I think there should be a speed-make-out thing.  You would get 5 minutes with each “match” to make out and if you both enjoyed it, you could exchange information and decide if you want to get to know each other more and/or maybe just make out a second time…  The safety of this is it’s in a public place with a definitive time limit. 

…because making out with a relative stranger, in my house, for an extended period of time started to freak me out a little.  Not that this is Nurse-guy’s fault.  He wasn’t way out of line or anything…I just started to get a little nervous…  Maybe I didn’t trust him? Maybe I didn’t trust me? And maybe the just-prior-to-coming-over “no relationship” proclamation just made me feel too weird and suspicious?  I don’t know for sure, but I really felt the making out needed to stop and that he should go home. 

…and he did without a problem. So, all was well.  I just had a nagging discomfort that I couldn’t quite define or get past.  So, I re-worded my profile to specify friends only, which isn’t entirely true, as ideally I’d like to meet someone date-able and I’m still undecided as to the relationship thing.  I’m certainly not totally against it, but I’m not necessarily looking for a heavy-duty one either.  Hmm…it really makes me question if I’m even ready to be dating?  I felt uncomfortable with someone I had great dates with who pushed the relationship aspect and I felt equally uncomfortable with someone who was so willing to take it physically as far as I might allow who plainly stated he wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship.   What does that even mean?  What am I even looking for here again?  My thoughts were scrambled as I hopped in bed after Nurse left.

 I’m probably not ready because I’m not sure of the intimacy threshold or physical boundaries within the smack-dab-middle of the options here.  How can I not be sure of even my own boundaries?  And what does that even mean?  Check-list time:

Option one:  Friends who date.  If we hang out as friends who date and there’s an attraction which understandably gets physical, where is that boundary?  There’s no established prior friendship to dictate that.  So if it doesn’t get physical, would we really continue “dating”?  And if it does get physical, then is it beyond friends?

Option two: Just friends.  I’m questioning whether this is a valid option on a dating site at all.  With the popularity of the trendy FWB thing, I somehow am having a difficult time buying into the possibility that many of the guys who write me are truly interested in hanging out with me indefinitely as friends.  If there’s an attraction, then it’s probably going to be acted upon and push the limits of “friendship”.  If there’s no attraction, how often will said guy really want to hang out?

Option three:  Friends who casually date and engage in sexual relations.  Okay, this is pretty much FWB, right?  And I might be okay with that (maybe) with someone whom I’ve known for years and have an established  meaningful friendship.  However, in a new city where I don’t know anyone, that’s not an option….  And aside from that, then it’s basically just two people hanging out and having a casual sex thing, right?  And while I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that under certain circumstances, I’m not sure I’m okay with that right now either.  It might make me feel rather cheap and/or used. 

Ew.  Which is kind of the feeling I was getting from Nurse-guy…and I didn’t like it.  I really  shouldn’t think that, as I can’t say for sure what his deal is/was.  He was respectful and seemed honest.   I only know that something felt odd for me and that suspicion could very well be it. Something was just off for me in the whole timing of his inviting himself over and immediately saying, I’m not ready for any kind of relationship. That’s okay with me and yet… hmmm?   

This is my brain on online dating" pink, fuzzy and I can't know what might roll!

It makes me realize how fuzzy the whole concept is even to me!  Like, wow..ummm okay, me either, but I wasn’t going to rule it out immediately.  Thinking I’m in more of a let’s just see how it goes place.  Once he firmly established that wasn’t what he wanted, I can respect that, but then to come over and immediately jump into mad-make-out?  I guess if I already knew I didn’t want any kind of relationship, my thoughts about “hanging out” at midnight at someone’s house probably are in the literal sense of cool, let’s hang out as in yay…let’s watch stupid movies, let’s discuss global poverty, let’s color in my Alice and Wonderland coloring book, let’s do yoga, make Rice Krispie treats, knit matching scarves, sing karaoke to cheesy 70’s ballads…you know, hang out.  If we’ve established the entire relationship-stance on date one at midnight, then: 1. The mystery is already gone. And 2. I feel a little cheapened to make out with you, at least the heavy-duty can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you making out.  We can keep it light pal or we can go passionately macramé a few exotic plant hangers…your choice!

Macrame' might be fun!

Am I totally contradicted?  Yes, perhaps… and you would not be the first to accuse me of this in my life.  I’m sure that’s surprising, but it’s true.  I’m nothing if not a total and chronic contradiction.  Yeah, and just so you know, when I’m not having crazy passionate one-night stands (after all, that’s as long as they’ll usually “stay”) with that aspect of my personality, it frustrates me too.  It is what it is though. (Insert Popeye here) So, I do feel for how this must play out to others, but it’s also the one aspect of my personality on which we can always depend.

So, I wrote nurse man the next day that I enjoyed our day, but that I felt confident we weren’t a match as friends or otherwise.  This threw Nurse off a little, as I received a “WTF?” response, but except for trying to pin-point where I stand in relation to all of this,   I’m so over the Nurse thing already.  He sucked all the mystery out and then tried to suck my face…and (ahem)other personal areas as well.  No.  It’s been decided. Moving on…

I’m emailing with several people now.  A few are in the pushy let’s-get-together-yesterday category (I’m intentionally taking those excruciatingly slow) a few are in the entirely questionable (I’m mostly being polite) category, one is in the borderline stalker-already (he’s just about to get the “block” ewww!), and two are…ummmm…wait for it……wait for it…

Intriguing and delightful! 

Seriously.  One fave, I’m way excited to meet and the other, I’m not sure I’ll meet anytime soon if ever…?  Only time will tell!  However, either way, meet them or not, I do know I truly adore them both already!

Heavy footprints of love and hate

Always one or the other!

It’s love or hate for me…nothing in the middle it seems…

 Having way too much “alone time” this weekend shoves my brain into overdrive.  Wow…  life really has bad timing sometimes, doesn’t it?  There’s just nothing like feeling confused, hurt and kinda sad on a long holiday weekend in a new town, with no friends or family around!

…Reflecting on various things about me, my relationships, and the uncanny and random directions of life paths.

I really believe this!

Apparently I can’t leave well enough alone because I wrote to M apologizing for offending him (although I still really have no idea how I was offensive?!).  It was important to me to write this because I like to think I live a calm, peaceful existence and I have low tolerance for hurting others in any way.  I felt this email was kind and considerate and it would also alleviate my guilt at him feeling “really offended”.

So imagine my surprise when I jump on FB to copy, paste, and mail this email…….and discover M has DELETED me from his FB friends!!

WOW-ZA!  That’s harsh!  With consideration of the fact that he rarely facebooks (yeah, I’m using “Facebook” as a verb…hehe;-) )  I’m shocked that he not only took the time to do this, but also that he would do it at all.  Why?  Was there some fear I was going to get all crazy up on his FB page in public?  Stalk him via Facebook?  No seriously, why?  Why would someone do this? What purpose does this serve under the circumstances? 

Other than sending him one email on there last week, I don’t even utilize FB to communicate with him.  We never have actually, so any concerns that I might make a public fuss or do something stupid or irrational at all, much less on FB,  are surely unwarranted.  So WHY?

It’s silly and shouldn’t matter at all, but I have to confess, it really hurts my feelings.  It just seems mean and petty for the sole purpose of just being mean and petty.  WTF did *I* do that was bad enough or “crazy” enough to eliminate a social networking connection even”?

Apparently when M decides he wants to “just be friends”, then if you feel confused about that, you don’t get to even be a Facebook acquaintance/friend?

Why would he bother to go on a site he never uses anyway to delete me?  Why would this be necessary?  Why?  Why? Why??

Carrying an abundant load of the "Hate" ones here.....and it's heavy!

I wonder what it is about me that makes people love or hate me?  I’m a fairly easy-going person in general… In fact, I think I’m so mild-mannered and passive in general that I’m pretty boring on the surface!  Yet, I swear people either feel strongly about me in one direction or another or they just don’t feel anything at all.  There’s rarely anything in the middle for the people in my life, past or present.  I suppose I should like the fact that obviously I at least invoke feelings of passion in one way or another, right?  I don’t though.  I’m perfectly okay with middle-of-the-road thoughts and feelings and especially for FB friends!  Good GAWD, what kind of friendship “commitment” is FB anyway?  It isn’t. Well except maybe for “those” certain people who bug the living bejeezus out of you on there, but geesh, that’s not me!  I don’t harass people or stalk people or publicly post anything inappropriate.  GEESH…this really hurts my feelings.

I’m flabbergasted by this action and I’m reflecting so much on all the people in my life over the years that were madly in love with me (friends or otherwise) and then ended up just hating me when something happened like the friendship had issues, or we broke up, or whatever…  I can only feel that strongly about people who have hurt me terribly or people who harass me so I feel the need to protect myself from those things ever happening again. Then, I might need to delete a FB friend or hold onto strong feelings about that person out of fear or something. I see how this happens when you have a sordid history with a person and/or fears about that person.  I get that completely…

With all the extra time alone on my hands today, I’m deeply wondering exactly what is it about me that makes me so easy to love and even easier to hate it seems?

Wondering how I seem to inspire so much of this?

For such a peaceful, fun-loving, accepting, “do-gooder” person as I am (and seriously people, I am!!), I think it’s entirely possible at the end of my life that I’m going to have the longest list of haters ever… the kind of list that might be appropriate for political reasons or say, Adolf Hitler sized karma or something of that magnitude. 

GEESH, I don’t have a long list of “oops…probably shouldn’t have done that or said this or treated so-and-so like that”.  I would venture so far as to say the number of people I’ve even inadvertently hurt can be counted on one hand even.  I’m not perfect by far, but I’m extremely sensitive to hurting people or damaging anyone or anything.  I want to leave the lightest footprint in this world as possible, and not just environmentally, but emotionally too.  I love and accept most anyone and everything until that becomes a potential hazard or danger to my peace.  And even then I don’t go on a hate rampage or anything big and terrible; I just quietly keep away and stay away.  It’s of the utmost importance to me that the emotional footprint I leave on people and the world in general be heavy only in positive energies like kindness and love.  I have lived by that creed for as long as I can remember.

So how is this perpetual love/hate me (and mostly hate it seems right now) element even possible?  I don’t know and I don’t like it.  I shouldn’t care so much, I know, I know…  Screw ’em all anyway!  Ughhh…  But I do care.  It’s bothersome and hurtful to know I’m so hated by so many…for no reason. 

WTF?!

 Anyway, I apologize for this whiney, self-righteous, and probably trivial post.  I’m really struggling with this today!  All the negative energy this creates in my head and my life is not leaving just a gentle footprint on  ME!  Ugh…

About me: Why I’m blissfully ignorant(Part I)

Awesome...on the football field...

Proactive defense is an excellent strategy in sports.  It’s vital to a successful team even!  I get that.  I enjoy it; hell, I even cheer it on! 

However, in relationships, I’ve deep suspicions that this is one tactic that might make the average,  typical person go freakin berserk…  Ummm…yuk!  I value my sanity or what I have left of it anyway…;-)

I ♥ inner peace

So listen, if I’m going to accuse you of something, well then allow me to accuse you before you hit full strength defensive strategy, okay?  Because, when someone hasn’t accused you of anything at all and you’re throwing defenses left and right at them, suddenly all those thoughts and suspicions that weren’t even there are suddenly there.

If it wasn't so irritating, I'd just do this... Oh hell, I think I will anyway...

If this common practice wasn’t so maddening, I’d actually find it comical…but the truth is, it’s incredibly maddening.  Allow me to share a personal story here to offer some insight into me as a person and put this in a clear perspective, from my perspective.

I am not and have never been in my life, suspicious.  It’s just not my nature at all.  I don’t look through my boyfriend’s phone.  I don’t go through my husband’s pockets.  I just don’t.  I really don’t see the point. 

I value my privacy, as well as my good character quite highly and I don’t appreciate anyone invading that or questioning those valuable parts of me.  Therefore, I simply don’t do that to others.  For me, if I’m even considering such a thing, it means I need to move on.  Yeah, it also means I have millions of “unanswered questions” in my life situations and yeah, that kinda sucks.  But I would rather have unanswered questions than be that detective chick running around investigating her boyfriend or husband.  That would make me feel disrespectful and a little “dirty” by proxy.  And anyway, the critical elements are really just over before it ever gets to that disturbing, distrustful point.  So why would I?

Don’t misunderstand, the deeply inquisitive nature I have certainly makes me almost wish I had done some investigating in past situations, but only so I could have that knowledge or confirmation or whatever answer I never got or perhaps some validation of certain lies I suspect I’ve been told.  I don’t look down on anyone for being smart and resourceful enough to not let anyone make then feel crazy and just get the definitive and irrefutable answers for themselves.  In fact, I’m a bit envious of that….like I said, I’ve many unanswered questions still hanging around from years ago that I really wish I had the answers to.  But I don’t.  And I’m not even exaggerating when I say it’s just not IN me.  I don’t think like that and I don’t even know how to begin such things.  I don’t know how to be sneaky or investigative about someone I’m in a relationship with, although I think those are useful qualities to have in certain circumstances.  I quite literally just don’t have them.

..it's essential to peace in relationships

Prime example of the extreme lack of this in my character:  My (ex) husband was a womanizer of epic proportion when I met him.  Everyone knew this at our place of work.  His reputation was infamous, well known, and well documented by the majority…and still he didn’t struggle to find willing women throwing themselves at him.  I could go on and on about the irony of that relationship given our different personalities, blah blah, blah..  Sum it up to tell you that after we were only married a few months, his “buddy” (a stripper with a striking resemblance to a live, walking, talking dancing version of beautiful-but-trampy Barbie) was having boyfriend problems.  She was calling my husband in the middle of the night, asking him to save her from her abusive boyfriend.  Now, I’m not stupid…I had no doubts whatsoever that he had had sexual relations with that girl.  I never asked; I didn’t need to.  It was an obvious thing and I really didn’t care who he’d slept with before me.  When he started getting these nightly damsel-in-distress calls from her, I suggested he not only go get her from these situations, but that for her safety, she just stay with us until she worked out another place to live.  Yeah, this was my idea.  It’s not that I didn’t care if he cheated on me; it’s more that I’m of the mind-set that if he was going to do that, then he was going to and that’s that.  And if he did, then I don’t need to interrogate him or track his activities, I just have to decide what I think is best for me to do with the relationship from there.  It’s that simple to me.

I’m sure I sound like a real ignoramus to most of the people out there and that’s okay.  I know that this isn’t a lack of intelligence thing for me.  It’s just literally and totally not in my nature to be “suspicious”.  At any given time, it is what it is.  What will be, will be. And if something happens that I don’t understand or doesn’t make logical sense to me, I’m not going to beat it up, scream or yell, don a disguise and follow my husband.  Although again, I kinda admire the women who do this and get ALL the facts for themselves, but really, then what do they have after they’ve done all that stuff?  The same thing they had before it; whatever that was.  So, I’m just gong to decide if I need to stay or need to leave. 

Trust and freedom are essential to my happiness

I can’t change his behavior.  I can’t change what he’s doing or is going to do; wants to do, or might do…  And quite honestly, I just don’t have any interest to invest that much negative energy into my life. I spend my precious emotional energy loving and trusting the people I choose to have in my life.   At the end of the day (or relationship,  whatever), it still is exactly what it is…or was…or was always going to be anyway. 

I know that this overly trusting and naïve nature of mine leads people to think I’m easy to fool or manipulate.  That’s okay.  I’m not going to change a precious part of me that I value just to get all the facts to prove what I most likely already know.  I enjoy being trusted and not having to answer constant invading questions about my behavior, my choices, or my activities at any moment.  Thus, I’m going to give that to any other person. (Yeah, I practice the Golden Rule to the extreme)  If a person takes advantage of that, then I already know as much as I need to in order to make my choices in response. And up until I do know these things or need to make my choices in relation to them, then I get to live blissfully. Yeah, maybe in ignorance…but I place an extremely high value on bliss…so I’m not going to go out of my way to disrupt that in my life until it’s time to make a choice of action.

The bottom line for me is that I don’t believe my naïveté or trusting nature allows people in my relationships to cheat on me or take advantage or pushes them to do such things.  I don’t believe this innate part of me causes anyone to be unfaithful or maybe lie or whatever.  If this happens, said person was going to do that anyway, whether I gave them my trust and freedom to do so or not.  They have free will to do what they’re going to do.  I’ve merely saved myself a ton of heartache and sleepless nights, fret, frustration and worry..  And those are all things I do not want to have anyway.  The outcome is still the same as it would be, so why wouldn’t I save myself all the garbage and negative energy?  I choose to be happy, comfortable, and secure as often as is humanly possible.  No situation, no man, no relationship of any kind is going to take that precious element of peace and happiness away from me, if there’s any way at all I can prevent it!  Once they have, I typically know it’s just time for me to walk away.  We don’t have to “talk” or “argue” or hash out the details in a big wave of negative and hurtful energy.  No.  I don’t need that either; so I’m simply not going to be a part of it.  The big, important stuff is already what it is.  It’s probably just time to go.

My peace and my inner state of bliss will not be compromised…  And no healthy relationship worth a damn will compromise such beautiful aspects of my nature.  If it does, it isn’t worth holding on to or fighting for anyway….and if it doesn’t, then it won’t  compromise my nature in the first place.

Yeah, I know what some think of people "like me"

So to many, what seems like my ignorance or stupidity is merely my choice to remain true to my inner values and also stay as close to a state of bliss as I possibly can.

The *real* problem with SATC

Last night I had to deal with some pretty tough Mom-stuff.  I have the greatest daughters ever, so this isn’t a common theme in my life…thankfully!

My oldest daughter is breathtakingly beautiful, sweet, kind, and intelligent…and she’s also shy and struggling to make friends.  I know at her tender age, having friends means everything.  One would rather have friends at this point in her life than eat or sleep.  It’s absolutely vital to life itself. I get that.  Dealing with this brought me to reflect deeply on the issue of friends and friendship.

In short, the issue is I don’t have any. And if I want to get real down and dirty honest with myself the ugly truth is I never have.

Sure, at any given point in my life (prior to this point, of course), I’ve been surrounded by friends and acquaintances.  My phone book is chock full of names and numbers ranging anywhere from the “chick I met in the bathroom at a bar” and got into a meaningful conversation with all the way to a few (a very few) people I’ve known for fifteen years or more.  I’ve had BFF’s whom I spent every waking moment with.  I’ve even had a few “fatal attraction friendships” where things got ugly when it was time to walk away from that person.  I’ve had co-workers who I went to Happy Hour’s with and discussed everything from what’s for dinner to their extra-marital affair.  I’ve had “activity buddies” who loved the beach or yoga or some other mutually adored pastime.  Other than a few times in my life (now being one of them), I’ve never had a shortage of people to call to hang out with or, more frequently, people who called me daily with their troubles (I’ve always,  ALWAYS been the “counselor” type).  I never minded that, I embraced it actually and felt I was maybe special because so many people trusted me with their important, heart-felt issues and turned to me in their time of need.   Awwwwww…  I even think it encouraged me to believe I  had some close ties with certain people in my life.  After all, they would share their dirtiest, most horrible inner secrets with me…that certainly must  mean we were friends, right?

No.  It meant I’m a friend.  It meant they recognized me as a caring, trustworthy person and felt comfortable turning to me in times of need.  It did not mean- and has never meant- that we were friends.

I get back to this realization anytime I happen upon that fantastical program Sex and the City.  As much as I heart that well-written and entertaining show, I avoid it!  Can you believe it?  And I mean avoid…like I avoid the-adopt-an-Ethiopian-child commercials…you know, the one’s that hurt to watch? I can hardly tolerate watching it (and have certain moments where I literally can NOT tolerate watching it) because it’s an absolute fantasy from my perspective; a fantasy along the lines of Sleeping Beauty or Cinderella.  And here’s the thing, I’m not jealous of their cute clothes, their fun dating adventures, their gorgeous shoes, or their great careers…  I know those things are realistic and totally plausible in this world.  I enjoy that aspect immensely…to ponder the likes of living in a world where I might spend my mortgage payment on the. Most. Fabulous. Pair. Of. Shoes. EVER.    That’s not a pipe-dream; I know that actually happens.

It’s the friendship.  It’s the friendship these women share…  It’s truly akin to believing in Santa Claus for me.  I don’t typically avoid fairy tale type things.  I find them fun actually.  I love watching The Little Mermaid and letting myself get caught up for an hour or so in the far-fetched possibility of that being a reality.  The difference is that fairy tales are out of this world fantastical…they aren’t based on anything that could ever be authentically possible in this world.  And those are beautifully imaginative and refreshing thoughts to entertain for a period of time.  But the friendship:  the lasting, loyal, fun, loving, and practical friendship these women share is something that is theoretically possible.  Hell, it should exist and I imagine it does exist for some, but I have never seen it in real life, much less ever known it myself.  This is what makes this show too painful for me to watch.

As if the writer of that show (as well as the God of Universal timing) knew this excruciating fact,  I then was once cursed to see (of the very few episodes I actually watched through) the episode where Carrie contemplates relationships and soul mates.  Like a train wreck or a fantasy, I could not bring myself to look away or turn it off.  There it was in all its glory, …dumping pounds of salt in my open wounds:

And this made sense to me….but then it has always made sense to me.  Actually, if I had ever written it down as such, I could probably have claimed it was even my idea originally. I just never had that jealousy issue like other girls did.  Boys were boys, the would come and go or stay…whatever…  And I look how I look..take it or leave it…like it or hate it…  After the age of about 12, I never imagined the fairy tale prince sweeping me off my feet and rescuing me from the wicked step-mother or from some other evil force of nature.  Yeah sure, that sounded fun and romantic and all those great things, BUT…. I only dreamed of having close and authentic friends.  Real friends whom I could share life and troubles, happiness and tragedy, good fortune as well as bad…both mine and theirs.  That was what (and who) I hoped to have in my life someday when I got old and decrepit and reflected back on my life:  that would be my lifelong soul mate, not some Prince Charming or any other “prince” of whatever!  Although it was difficult to watch this show about a group of fun, fabulous and lasting friends even before I saw this specific episode, seeing this one just made it that much worse.  I love the show..I hated that show now!

 I’ve had this type of friendship on the one-way street thing, like an unrequited teenage crush…where I naively convinced myself it was real or at least was developing into a real and lasting friendship.  I merely had to “be the friend I wished to have” and surely some like-minded person would see the extraordinary friendship value in me and scoop me up to be friends forever. 

But wait….I am that friend.  Due to my early life-wisdom and perspectives on male-female relationships, I have always been that friend….and still,  I don’t have an Amanda or Samantha…a Carrie or a Miranda…much less, three or four!  Geesh, I can’t even fathom having one. To me, the concept of having even one genuine female friend is in the realm of the truly fantastical and imaginary

Oh I’ve had a few posers…  in fact, I’ve had at least three, and possibly up to as many as six over my lifetime.    Three females whom I actually felt that strong connection and imagined that it went beyond “friends”, but more like family.  Friends I would not have hesitated to donate a kidney, step in front of a speeding train, give up my job, my home, any money I might have, a man who loved me, men who liked me, whatever it took to preserve and nurture that friendship.  After all, at the end of the day and other than my children, that was the thing that would mean the most to me when all else was lost or gone. Right?  I’d have this beautiful friendship with this other person that stood the test of time and life, jobs and men, fashion changes and geographical moves…everything.  This was my “soul mate”… the only lasting thing in life one might ever have which is truly priceless, precious, and irreplaceable.

No.  Every single one of these friendships turned out to be merely a one-sided friendship of convenience; a relationship that would stay solid for as long as I could give..and give..and give…and one even turned out to be something far more sinister, but  I don’t  talk about that one at all..to anyone…ever…   I don’t even like to think about that one, as the pain from it, even though many years have passed, is still very raw and smacks me in the most tender and persistently innocent part of my soul.

..and here I am, in my late thirties, dealing with my daughter’s struggles with both finding friends in a new city and leaving a slew of BFF’s behind.  I worry about her as a mother will, but I mostly keep my jaded mouth shut and simply listen and try to offer hopeful insights that I had regarding friendship when I was her age.  

…when I realize last night that from elementary years through college the issue always was “jealousy”.  Females really are challenged with the sad and destructive jealousy gene.  So, in those early years, they’re jealous –  of your hair, your clothes, maybe your intelligence or how much money your parents have.  In your later 20’s and 30’s, it turns into more of a man-jealousy thing, like friendships have a competitive edge for all the women in the world who grew up waiting for their Price Charming…and this earlier jealousy thing gets an additional razor’s edge…the fear that any other female might intentionally or otherwise, steal her chance with her Prince  …so then that obstacle is added to the rest of the jealousy box from the earlier years.  And authentic female relationships become even more difficult or impossible. 

Suddenly you’re in your late 30’s and  you think, Hey, cool…maybe it kinda sucks getting older, BUT  now we’re all  wiser; past all the competitive man-stuff, the awkward insecurities, the jealousy issues, and the life fears which  have plagued and prevented friendship up until now… 

 

Except, we are not. The divorce rate and the common theme of infidelity in relationships make some of these things still huge issues for many women even at the time in life when it “shouldn’t” be a thought anymore.  These elements keep the jealousy-thing in place even at this “wise” time when we’re otherwise mostly secure (or at least comfortable) with ourselves and our lives.  Then, you realize that friendships take years to nurture and grow into an authentic depth of affection.  So now, we have ALL the issues from elementary years on through, further complicated by the fact that if you haven’t already been fortunate enough to have at least one friendship which survived all those earlier obstacles and stood strong, you’re now hit with the challenge that women (and people in general) tend to be more jaded and cynical about life and people and far less trusting overall.  Thus, at this age, they’re often now far less likely to even extend that arm of friendship out to another female at all.  I mean we’re not really clubbing anymore and looking for girls to dance with us or going to football games on Friday night and wanting someone fun to sit with at the game.  We’re okay to go shopping by ourselves, go to the gym on our own, maybe even go to the movies or out for a drink by ourselves (GASP!…something we never would have done in our 20’s).

I remember my mother once telling me, “Kay, if you find even one real and solid friendship in your lifetime, you should consider yourself lucky”.   So, as I go through this hardship and heartache with my oldest daughter, I find myself faced with all of these thoughts and realizations as I’m desperately seeking words of consolation and hope to give her.  I certainly can’t borrow these words of wisdom from my mother to hand down to her, in spite of the fact that I fully realize how right-on she was; because I’m still facing the hard fact that I wasn’t one of the “lucky ones”.

Me watching SATC!

…and I’m sure you can find the irony in the situation when after I tucked my tearful and heartbroken daughter in bed last night,  after hours of heart-to heart discussion, I came in my room to see those damned SATC ladies on my television!  Those damned wenches…they really do have everything!

Ugh!

On my mind, but not my heart

Having gotten some excellent comments on the M-phenomenon from my fave bloggers here, I’ve come back again and again to something.

Four years ago I split from the absolute and only love of my life.  It was horrible, soul breaking, heart wrenching, mind and life altering, painful, confusing..  Every day that I woke up (well, the nights that I even slept, that is) from that point forward, it all felt so wrong and unnatural, like a split from literal reality had occurred.  Had the chronic unshakeable sense that I was in the midst of a nightmare which couldn’t possibly be actually happening, but that I could not wake from.  Horrifying on a level which I never even could have imagined was possible prior in my life..even after two divorces…it was dreadful to say the least…

B was for Barely there...

Anyway, I met a guy, “B” maybe a year or so after this “split”.  B was handsome, funny, super nice…and he asked me out.  Well as “over” as things were with the ex, we were still very much “carrying on” in many different ways, neither really letting go, but not together per se either….  So I declined this great guy’s date request.   Strangely enough, I suddenly kept seeing this guy everywhere.  Every time I was out with friends..there he was.  The grocery store..OMG he’s here too!  On lunch with co-workers…B, too, was having lunch there!  It became stranger and stranger… and was extraordinarily coincidental.  Finally, I just decided that all signs pointed to the fact that I should at least try to go out with him a few times.

For three months, it went well.  We had a great time.  He was truly fabulous.  I even lessened my time spent with the ex (and ceased sexual activity with the ex mostly) because I felt I owed a real effort to this guy and of course, owed him an attempt at fidelity as well.  I didn’t really embrace this time away from the ex though – in my heart and in all other ways, that was really where I wanted to be.  I was more making an effort to force that lingering non-relationship-relationship to cease rather than actually trying in this new relationship with B. 

So after about three months of doing “this” (whatever “this” was), he and I were at dinner one evening at my most favorite restaurant.  He seemed a little distant, but nothing too blatant, so I just avoided it.  I’m not nosey by nature and I really believe in respecting people’s privacy.  Plus, I really didn’t want to have one of those “what are you thinking/feeling” conversations because the ugly truth was, I had no desire to share with B what my real feelings were…being that they were not even really there..but constantly with the ex…no matter how hard I was trying to force that to stop and make my feelings for him subside.  For these two reasons, I never mentioned his being more quiet than usual and the evening went okay, all in all.

How I felt with B

The following day, he called me at work asking to talk.  I felt really nervous about this because although I wasn’t being outright deceitful to him, I really could not(and had NO desire to) share my sincere feelings with this guy..you know….they were definitely 110% with the ex and it tore my heart in two to have to keep blowing the ex off, just to be “honest” …err…straight with this guy I was seeing.  And more ugly truth here was that my plan wasn’t even working.  The ex wasn’t listening anyway and regularly “rejecting” my ex was merely getting more and more painfully impossible, not easier as I had hoped.  So, needless to say, I was not looking forward to this “talk”.  In fact, the thought alone made me downright nauseated.

So we talk on the phone during my lunch…  And he says, Kay, I really like you and I suppose there’s really no reason to stop seeing you, but I can’t shake the feeling that you’re just going through the motions of this…Sure, you’re with me and that’s nice and all, but it just seems like you’re just not really with me.  And I just want to know from you if I should bother keeping on with this.

I was stunned.  I could not say anything.  I mean literally, I could not even respond.  After a few moments of silence, he even said, Hello?  Are you still there?

I finally choked out,  I really have to go.  Promise I’ll call you later though. And I hung up the phone without letting him agree.

How could I argue this? He was so dead-on, it was scary.  So, I knew I either had to admit this (the very thing I’d been “hiding” from him from the start) or pretty much just lie straight out and deny it.  I respected him; I even really liked him.  I didn’t want to do either.  Really, all I wanted was to just be back with my ex and thus, solve the whole damned issue across the board.

…of course, I called him back later and admitted that he was right, apologized profusely, and told him I understood totally if he felt it best to stop seeing me.  He did.  It ended right then.  I liked him – I really did, but other than some guilt over letting it go on for three months, I really never skipped a beat.  In fact, my “ex” and I went to the movies and had crazy wild OH MY GAWD it’s BEEN TOO EFFIN’ LONG sex that very night…

And all felt right and balanced in the world again (as effed up as THAT truth is!), so even my guilt didn’t last as long as it probably should have…

After much reflection, this past event keeps popping up again and again in my mind.  I wonder if this is not maybe something similar to what’s going on with M now?  …only maybe this time, it’s both of us feeling this “half in” way a little…or maybe even more him this time and only a bit is coming from me?

I know my heart’s not fully in any of  this (M, dating, sex, whatever…), but my mind is in it some…  And maybe M just has a similar struggle…  What even happens when you put two mostly absent people into one relationship together?  A disconnected connection.