Spoiler Alert!
Hey! You might want to skip this one in case it pisses you off. I welcome you to read, and I'll warn you before I get to the hairy parts, but I don't want you to want to smack me... I really need my outlet for the truth and consequences right now. In using the outlet, I have to say some stuff that I know you won't necessarily like about some people I know you don't like. YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE!
Yesterday was a hard, overwhelming, confusing, difficult, weird, long long day.
I woke up around eight and went to aerobics at nine as I'm wont to do on Saturdays... and the lot of us went to breakfast to celebrate a birthday together afterwards. TCMT had called me en route to breakfast -- I called him afterwards. He wanted to hook up, so we arranged to have coffee around 2:00 at a coffee house near both our homes.
I was nervous... sick... afraid that the conversation would turn me defensive and upset both of us... creating drama that I don't want to have to think about. I had already told him last week that I had realized that I didn't want to be in a relationship (I'd been pulling back as I've written here, and I decided I needed to take this chance to be altogether on my own while I have it, and considering that my brain seems to be searching for things not to like about him, somehow, it wasn't working for me). I knew he was upset about it, and I didn't know what we'd find in conversation at this coffee house... but we hadn't discussed anything face to face, and I felt that to be the person I want to be, I owed him that much consideration.
He sat down, and he was visibly emotional... we talked for two and a half hours. I learned more about him, learned that the money issue really isn't a problem, that he does have resources but strives to live on what he earns and to save (just like me, he doesn't consider his bank account a dynamic element of his life, though if what he says is true, his bank account is easily four times what mine is)... unloaded my frustration of him not getting tested as I'd asked or taking care of business that way and some others.
It was hard, sitting there on the sunny sidewalk watching people pass by on that beautiful afternoon... listening to him bare himself about feeling so good to have me around, how he thought things were going well... not understanding what changed in me, and why it has to change between us.... Without getting defensive, I tried to explain that essentially, I need what I need, which is not to feel on any level that I have accountability to anyone. I didn't mince words for the first time in my life, though such difficult conversations usually stymie me (in the immortal words of Jan Denise, my relationship guru, "When you don't know what to say, you have to ask yourself what you're afraid to say," and I made myself say something, something true, rather than hold back anything and want to kick myself later). The truth is my friend. The truth is the answer to any question we pose. He was equally candid. He didn't expect that he likes me this much. He wants me. He wants to date me... he wants a relationship. He put all the cards on the table, without whining, pleading, or diminishing his case. I respected that. I respected a lot about him that afternoon.
And he smelled good.
But what's right for me right now is space. I like him, but not enough, because there's unfinished business in my head that makes me unable to like anyone enough. I stuck to my guns. It'd have been easy to succomb to beautiful words... "You can have everything you want with me." Here I have a handsome man, a good man, at my feet. But if he's the right handsome man, my inner voice said, he's going to respect your needs. It's okay for him to fight for what he wants... and so it must be okay for me to do that.
After that, P and I went to dinner, and I rehashed the whole thing. And after that begins the part she isn't going to like.
The HL had been coaching me through most of the week's drama. Having made inroads to this friendship he proportedly wants to have, I felt ready to make tentative plans to get together with him as friends, not having seen him for three months... three months of a fair number of changes. I thought it was actually time. I had grown to understand his dilemma with me by virtue of my situation with TCMT, and I knew what he meant about being friends. We were going to meet for dinner, but instead, he stopped by my house later that night.
We split a bottle of wine and shot the breeze about everything... TCMT, my family, his family, our previous relationship, his current one, my master's degree, his job layoff. And... it felt different. It felt good, but it was different. He looked different. I felt different. I am not at his feet anymore (see the parallel?), and just like with TCMT, spoke with honesty and candor, without (finally!) censoring myself one iota. We achieved genuine intimacy for the first time... we met as equals, me without my neediness, and him without his perception that he had to caretake for my needs.
Okay, STOP READING HERE IF YOU THINK YOU'LL GET PISSED, AND YOU CAN START READING WHERE I WAVE YOU DOWN BELOW! After we'd been talking for about two or three hours, I was in a confidential revelation that I'm sometimes just so freaking tired of having to be strong all the time, and he said, "I am going to give you a hug," which he did. It was familiar, he smelled perfect, and it's like there's some kind of charismatic connection between us. It felt good. So we kept talking, sitting together on the couch. Nothing inappropriate happened. If the metaphorical vibe did start vibrating a little, well, I made myself clear: "I don't want you to be in a position where I think you're less of a man (by tresspassing in any way on his girlfriend)." Would he have, though, if I'd left the chance? I don't know. Maybe a little bit. But I didn't want to know he was capable of something like that, especially if I was knowing because I was the one who helped him tresspass.
Also, it was getting late. He expressed an openness to sack out on the couch, having an early scuba diving thing the next morning.... or we could continue talking. On one hand, I would have loved that... but I thought about it, and I said, "If you intend to continue dating 'her,' I think you better go." What? he asked. "If you have a girlfriend, spend the night in an ex-girlfriend's house, and tell her that nothing happened -- even if it's true -- she'd be an idiot to believe that." I confess that a part of me wanted him to stay... no, really, wanted him not to "intend to continue dating her." I don't know that I want to date him myself, but I wish... still, oh, P's going to kill me, but the truth is the answer... and the truth is that in that moment, I wanted him to want me, even after all this time... not to want someone else. To say, "I like her, but somehow, this feels too good to give it up, and I don't want to give it up." But while he sat close to me for a while, he still went back to her, so to speak. He left.
And I was glad he left, once he'd left. I hate drama. I know he likes his girlfriend, and he's dating her because he want to explore if he can find whatever it is he's looking for with her. After all, we alreday determined that we don't have it between the two of us. But the relationship is still there in a way... transformed, perhaps, but still there. But I made sure I changed my shirt before I went to bed, so the cologne smell wouldn't give a charge to the demons of my passionate nature, and I fell asleep feeling fairly virtuous and noble... but I woke up feeling very confused and a bit irritated. He has a girlfriend... what was that last night?
Okay, RESUME READING HERE! I also found myself thinking about TCMT when I woke up, when I didn't think about him at all last night. "You can have everything you want with me."
Jan Denise says that perfect love comes from three components... intimacy (a psychological connection with one another), passion (erotic attraction), and commitment (a decision to maintain the connection). The HL and I used to have what she calls "shallow love," which is passion and commitment, without intimacy. TCMT and I have, at least from my perspective, companionate, which is intimacy and (potential) commitment... which is a lot like my marriage. But Jan also says that "lopsided love," while unsatisfying when one or the other person wonders if he or she can find what's missing from someone else, has the potential for the missing parts to grow... to use the loves you have to nurture the love you want.
But... today is supposed to be my day to stop.
I'm supposed to be road tripping. I slept only five hours last night. Maybe I'll go to Galveston instead and nap on the beach... take myself to dinner... and come home in time to go to the theater for the meeting to volunteer.
I am growing up... I really am... and it's hard... everything has always to be so hard.
Yesterday was a hard, overwhelming, confusing, difficult, weird, long long day.
I woke up around eight and went to aerobics at nine as I'm wont to do on Saturdays... and the lot of us went to breakfast to celebrate a birthday together afterwards. TCMT had called me en route to breakfast -- I called him afterwards. He wanted to hook up, so we arranged to have coffee around 2:00 at a coffee house near both our homes.
I was nervous... sick... afraid that the conversation would turn me defensive and upset both of us... creating drama that I don't want to have to think about. I had already told him last week that I had realized that I didn't want to be in a relationship (I'd been pulling back as I've written here, and I decided I needed to take this chance to be altogether on my own while I have it, and considering that my brain seems to be searching for things not to like about him, somehow, it wasn't working for me). I knew he was upset about it, and I didn't know what we'd find in conversation at this coffee house... but we hadn't discussed anything face to face, and I felt that to be the person I want to be, I owed him that much consideration.
He sat down, and he was visibly emotional... we talked for two and a half hours. I learned more about him, learned that the money issue really isn't a problem, that he does have resources but strives to live on what he earns and to save (just like me, he doesn't consider his bank account a dynamic element of his life, though if what he says is true, his bank account is easily four times what mine is)... unloaded my frustration of him not getting tested as I'd asked or taking care of business that way and some others.
It was hard, sitting there on the sunny sidewalk watching people pass by on that beautiful afternoon... listening to him bare himself about feeling so good to have me around, how he thought things were going well... not understanding what changed in me, and why it has to change between us.... Without getting defensive, I tried to explain that essentially, I need what I need, which is not to feel on any level that I have accountability to anyone. I didn't mince words for the first time in my life, though such difficult conversations usually stymie me (in the immortal words of Jan Denise, my relationship guru, "When you don't know what to say, you have to ask yourself what you're afraid to say," and I made myself say something, something true, rather than hold back anything and want to kick myself later). The truth is my friend. The truth is the answer to any question we pose. He was equally candid. He didn't expect that he likes me this much. He wants me. He wants to date me... he wants a relationship. He put all the cards on the table, without whining, pleading, or diminishing his case. I respected that. I respected a lot about him that afternoon.
And he smelled good.
But what's right for me right now is space. I like him, but not enough, because there's unfinished business in my head that makes me unable to like anyone enough. I stuck to my guns. It'd have been easy to succomb to beautiful words... "You can have everything you want with me." Here I have a handsome man, a good man, at my feet. But if he's the right handsome man, my inner voice said, he's going to respect your needs. It's okay for him to fight for what he wants... and so it must be okay for me to do that.
After that, P and I went to dinner, and I rehashed the whole thing. And after that begins the part she isn't going to like.
The HL had been coaching me through most of the week's drama. Having made inroads to this friendship he proportedly wants to have, I felt ready to make tentative plans to get together with him as friends, not having seen him for three months... three months of a fair number of changes. I thought it was actually time. I had grown to understand his dilemma with me by virtue of my situation with TCMT, and I knew what he meant about being friends. We were going to meet for dinner, but instead, he stopped by my house later that night.
We split a bottle of wine and shot the breeze about everything... TCMT, my family, his family, our previous relationship, his current one, my master's degree, his job layoff. And... it felt different. It felt good, but it was different. He looked different. I felt different. I am not at his feet anymore (see the parallel?), and just like with TCMT, spoke with honesty and candor, without (finally!) censoring myself one iota. We achieved genuine intimacy for the first time... we met as equals, me without my neediness, and him without his perception that he had to caretake for my needs.
Okay, STOP READING HERE IF YOU THINK YOU'LL GET PISSED, AND YOU CAN START READING WHERE I WAVE YOU DOWN BELOW! After we'd been talking for about two or three hours, I was in a confidential revelation that I'm sometimes just so freaking tired of having to be strong all the time, and he said, "I am going to give you a hug," which he did. It was familiar, he smelled perfect, and it's like there's some kind of charismatic connection between us. It felt good. So we kept talking, sitting together on the couch. Nothing inappropriate happened. If the metaphorical vibe did start vibrating a little, well, I made myself clear: "I don't want you to be in a position where I think you're less of a man (by tresspassing in any way on his girlfriend)." Would he have, though, if I'd left the chance? I don't know. Maybe a little bit. But I didn't want to know he was capable of something like that, especially if I was knowing because I was the one who helped him tresspass.
Also, it was getting late. He expressed an openness to sack out on the couch, having an early scuba diving thing the next morning.... or we could continue talking. On one hand, I would have loved that... but I thought about it, and I said, "If you intend to continue dating 'her,' I think you better go." What? he asked. "If you have a girlfriend, spend the night in an ex-girlfriend's house, and tell her that nothing happened -- even if it's true -- she'd be an idiot to believe that." I confess that a part of me wanted him to stay... no, really, wanted him not to "intend to continue dating her." I don't know that I want to date him myself, but I wish... still, oh, P's going to kill me, but the truth is the answer... and the truth is that in that moment, I wanted him to want me, even after all this time... not to want someone else. To say, "I like her, but somehow, this feels too good to give it up, and I don't want to give it up." But while he sat close to me for a while, he still went back to her, so to speak. He left.
And I was glad he left, once he'd left. I hate drama. I know he likes his girlfriend, and he's dating her because he want to explore if he can find whatever it is he's looking for with her. After all, we alreday determined that we don't have it between the two of us. But the relationship is still there in a way... transformed, perhaps, but still there. But I made sure I changed my shirt before I went to bed, so the cologne smell wouldn't give a charge to the demons of my passionate nature, and I fell asleep feeling fairly virtuous and noble... but I woke up feeling very confused and a bit irritated. He has a girlfriend... what was that last night?
Okay, RESUME READING HERE! I also found myself thinking about TCMT when I woke up, when I didn't think about him at all last night. "You can have everything you want with me."
Jan Denise says that perfect love comes from three components... intimacy (a psychological connection with one another), passion (erotic attraction), and commitment (a decision to maintain the connection). The HL and I used to have what she calls "shallow love," which is passion and commitment, without intimacy. TCMT and I have, at least from my perspective, companionate, which is intimacy and (potential) commitment... which is a lot like my marriage. But Jan also says that "lopsided love," while unsatisfying when one or the other person wonders if he or she can find what's missing from someone else, has the potential for the missing parts to grow... to use the loves you have to nurture the love you want.
But... today is supposed to be my day to stop.
I'm supposed to be road tripping. I slept only five hours last night. Maybe I'll go to Galveston instead and nap on the beach... take myself to dinner... and come home in time to go to the theater for the meeting to volunteer.
I am growing up... I really am... and it's hard... everything has always to be so hard.
posted by bluedana @ 6:41 AM
1 Comments:
At 2:44 PM,
Anonymous said…
I think you underestimate me, my friend -- and I am cracking up at all the attempts to get me not to read the entire entry. :)
If you really want to know what I think, let me know. Otherwise, just know that I can't ever be MAD at you for making decisions about YOUR life. I may not AGREE with you, but I'd never get MAD. Really.
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