date SMARTER

stop wishing death (ok, maybe not necessarily death but definitely unpleasantness) upon every hand-holding couple i see, and i should probably also stop assuming that getting what they have was easy for them, and i should probably stop thinking i’m the only person who’s ever been lonely and has difficulty with this sort of thing.

probably.

but, much like Olympic gymnasts and sushi chefs, those people just make it all look so damn easy. and i, being the neurotic, awkward, nervous smalltalk loathing INTJ that i am….

find it unbelievably, insurmountably difficult.

I’ve been corresponding with my friend in China by phone and by email, and it has been nice so far. He surprised me by offering to fly me to Puerto Rico in February (where he’s planning to spend that whole month). I wanted to wait until January to see how things stood with us (since he’s traveling in China for three months, and that’s a lot of time for two people who barely know one another to be separated). He made a good point about the low rates, and that it’s possible that fares could go up by then. He said that he wanted to buy me a ticket, to know that I could be coming to see him, and that we should hope for the best. He described several scenarios that could occur, including either one of us meeting someone in the meantime, and he said regardless of any of these scenarios, I should still go. In a way, his pragmatism about everything alleviated all of my fears around accepting such a generous gift from someone I barely know but want to kiss again. So, I have a ticket to San Juan in one of the coldest months of the Chicago year either way….I will either travel to meet him at that time, or I will travel alone to a warm climate. I hope it works out, though, to be a romance. Currently, I adore the thought of it.

i teach conversational english. you know, implying some kind of social grace, savoir faire, what have you.

HA!!!!!

last night i found myself at a bar, sitting between 2 guys who seemed at the very least mildly interested in the Foreign Novelty Fuck (hey, you gotta start somewhere around here), especially after the bartender told them that i’m the vocalist in his band. so there i was, Miss Cool Weekend Rock Star Chick (who teaches conversation skills as her day job), choking out stuff like “so… uh… do you have any pets? i have a cat. 2 of them and can’t you just tell i’m trying desperately not to have my dead corpse eaten by them when i die a lonely old spinster with a shrivelled… nose??” and “um… what kind of music do you like? oh, which punk bands do i like? you’re cute and i can’t think of any damn thing right now... i need another drink.”

christ i hate small talk.

Let’s see my recent history….

Dated a really sweet guy for five months who was still hung up on his previous girlfriend who had passed away. I tried keeping an open mind with it, but eventually realized my heart wasn’t into it. I felt like I was a third wheel no matter how much he tried to convince me I wasn’t (even though a lot of our plans revolved around her memory and he accidentally called me her name once in a conversation), and I eventually lost interest in him and relationship.

Out of the blue, a friend drops back into my life, and offers me a free massage. We hang out, laugh a lot, and eventually kiss. Then I tell him that I have a temporary health condition that would prevent us from…, then he treats me like a pariah (which includes refusing to kiss me), then becomes really passive aggressive, and ultimately accuses me of some really bizarre things, so I ask him to leave me alone.

And most recently, I wrote back to someone who wrote to me back in April (but I didn’t write back at that time). He had seen and read my Couchsurfing profile, and at the time, I was dating D. and thought it would be odd to write to someone I found so attractive, kind of like cheating. So I finally write him, five months later, when he sends a message to one of the CS groups announcing that he’s leaving the country and selling some of his stuff. I write him back then, and in response he asks me if I want to meet for coffee. So we do, and it’s wonderful. And then we meet for a movie the next day, and it’s wonderful. And now he’s leaving tomorrow. I don’t know what will come of it, but it was cozy, comfortable, sweet, warm, funny… I would’ve loved to have some more time with him.

Don’t know what will come of it…. And tomorrow is another day.

Last night, as he dropped me off, Mr. Yes asked about my weekend plans. Saturday’s date sounds familiar, as if there’s something I’m supposed to do, so I told him that. He said, “You know you’re always welcome when I have my boy, right?” I said that I hadn’t assumed that. I’ve never dated someone who has a small child and I don’t know how it usually works, so I err on the side of caution and not interfering with his kid time. He looked at me for a silent moment, kissed me, and said, “You are always welcome. Always. Always.”

Earlier in the night, we had gotten on the subject of cheating, as there’s a married woman who has been hitting on him for awhile now, not very subtly. We’re both of the ‘never have, never will, no excuses’ mindset. He said, “I wear my heart on my sleeve and that would hurt me so much. I would never want to hurt someone like that.”

Two great moments. Sounds SMART. Still, I’m observing a persistent unease in me. Not acting on it, but watching it. It tells me that he’s committed to me and puts me on the spot about whether I’ve committed to him or am going along for the ride. Honestly, I can’t imagine not dating him. But I couldn’t have imagined not dating my ex, either. The reality is that I could hurt this man and it spooks me. Withdrawing my affection because he’s vulnerable and wants me to be a larger part of his life would be STUPID. He could hurt me, too, but I trust that he won’t do it on purpose. Why not trust myself at least that much?

Or could it be that I don’t know how to be in a healthy, normal relationship where I’m not the strong one, the sane one; that I feel vulnerable because I’m not saving the day, patching up his heart, comforting him, using all the skills I’ve developed through living with mentally ill family members, friends, roommates and my husband? He’s made for himself and his son a happy, safe, stable life. I hadn’t realized that I valued myself as a helper more than a joybringer. In his life, I am an added joy and that’s enough to make me precious to him. It’s a very different type of relationship and I’m disoriented. Happy, but sort of lost.

I’m not going to do anything other than love this man and his son and keep an eye on myself so I don’t sabotage a good thing. I wanted to get this out of my head and into print so I’ll have a reference point as my heart and head keep churning out feelings and thoughts.

i’ve had my heart skewered and impaled upon a pair of chopsticks, dripping on the ground for all the world to see 3 times in the past 6 months.

i don’t know how much more of this fucking shit i can take.

Don’t look at your sweetheart’s ex-wife’s profile on MySpace.

Don’t notice how much younger, more in shape and outdoorsy she is.

Don’t, after seeing pics of them in the wilderness, obsess about your sweetheart’s recent joke about getting you to hike and assume that it means he can only be happy with someone who wants to walk 30 miles into the woods and rough it for a week.

Don’t suddenly reframe what was a lovely lovesick sigh into a sigh because he wondered why he had gotten himself into this and was thinking of how to get out

Don’t feel sorry for him because you’re not in perfect health

A nice alternative to these choices would be remembering the way that he looks at you, holds you, talks about a future that includes the word “us,” likes spending time with you and his child, misses you if you go more than three days without seeing each other, texts you regularly and has said that he’s blessed to know you and you’ve made him a very happy man.

A smart choice would be spending the night with your journal, listing all the words and actions that reassure you and all the half-hidden assumptions and old patterns that are digging their sharp nails into your heart and dragging it away from someone who takes such exquisite care of it.

how about doing dumb things in the smartest way possible?

case in point:

Dumb: thinking nonstop about old flame who said he may be moving back here, but “it’s a difficult decision.”
Smart: just letting said former flame GO for fuck’s sake; just because he says he’s coming back doesn’t mean he is….
Dumb: going to Tokyo to see if i can um… influence/speed along his decision-making process.
Dumb in the Smartest Way Possible: going to Tokyo to resolve things once and for all, for good or ill, and finding cool ways to entertain myself (in TOKYO!!) while he’s at work, thereby making the trip damn worth my while no matter what happens.

and having a prospect or 2 in the wings should things turn out to be hopeless. ha!

Mmmmmm. Joy is a man who will mess up your sheets and then, while you’re getting dressed the next morning, will make the bed. I just noticed that Mr. Yes did that while I was getting ready to walk. We forgot to set our alarms early, so it was a somewhat frustrated and frustrating morning, but still sweet. Last night was divine and he’s a cuddler. He’s going to ask for Monday off, since it’s a holiday where I work, and we’re going to bundle up and go to the beach.

We both left when my b-i-l came to get me for our walk. I hugged him, gave him a quick kiss, hoped he had a good day and said something else that slipped out before I could catch it. I was speaking quietly and he was sleepy, so he didn’t notice, I don’t think. Nah, he probably didn’t even hear that. He didn’t notice. I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice. I can’t believe I said that.

I can’t believe I feel that.
I can’t believe I’m okay with feeling that.
I can’t believe I’ve gone almost 40 years and never said it first.

But I’m pretty sure he didn’t notice.

Right?

That’s what we are now, by conversation and consensus. He told me that I’m the only one he’s with and that he wants the same from me and I agreed.

Then, being me, I freaked out for the next 72 hours. I’m fine now. He’s been a godsend during the houseguest from hell saga and we pushed the boundaries on Saturday night and entered all sorts of new territories, with delightful results. We’ve let a certain word creep into our vocabularies, while not yet bracketing it with personal pronouns.

He’s my fella. I’m happy. Over the moon, glowing happy. If I had more time to play online these days and I could kill my houseguest and bury him outside my houseguest would leave, all would be well.