Attempting to Avoid Self-Pity

I spoke with "Colorado" and he was boring! He spoke kind of slow, and kept saying "I love smart people." The fourth or fifth time he mentioned it, and then brought the conversation back to golf, I realized, we had nothing in common. I take smart people for granted. I pretty much only hang out with them. He just didn't hang out with smart people enough to practice the pace of conversation.

A number of my friends (but not close friends) have recently gotten engaged, and my best friend is practically engaged.

I'm happy for all of them, but also, of course, so left out.

I try to say "What is wrong with me" from an analytical point of view, so I can try to exam and change, but the list seems hard to change.

• I'm not thin. And I honestly have fought with this all my life. At a size 16, I can sort of pass at the heavier end of normal, but it is an issue.
• I have the scares from being really heavy. At one point, I was a size 22. I never learned how to flirt and I carry the emotional sense of not being attractive, even though, objectively speaking, I'm probably on the more attractive half of women my age.
• I'm too intense. Maybe it is the Scorpio in me. Or the grad school. But either way, I can't let incorrect facts go by and I'm too committed to the things I believe in.
• I'm outside the mainstream on many things. I mean, just not having a TV. John is the only man I've been romantically interested who didn't have one either.

The feminist in me points out one other huge thing. My best friend--she only had one semester of college. Every single one of my female friends who either has a doctorate of some sort (I'm counting the J.D. as a doctorate) or has published a book is single. The only exception has her book coming out in November.

I don't want to blame societal factors and live a miserable, unhappy, bitter life. I want to change myself to get what I want. But I don't know how.

It is a beautiful day today. If John and I were hanging out, we'd undoubtedly be meandering through the waterfront. Or take the ferry across the sound and hike in the woods. We'd have our cameras, stop to take photos, have a lovely, leisurely lunch, hike some more and have dinner with tons of alcohol where we'd spill our guts to each other. Instead, I'm going to start itemizing my deductions. Hardly seems like a good trade-off.

Trying to Date

A man who a) lives in the same city as me and b) is cute and c) seemed pretty darn compatible just turned me down, after we made plans to meet, because I wouldn't give him my phone number. I told him why I don't give out my number (one of the more hellacious on-line-seeping-horribly-into-real-life-experiences, but I don't write about it because the cops said this was the only case they'd heard like it and I don't want to publicize a technique for men being horrid to women).

Anyway, it really bothered me. I seem to be at this place where I want men to protect me and I believe men should protect women. Before I always felt like women could take care of themselves, but I don't feel that anymore. I'm glad I realized so quickly he wouldn't respect what I need. But it bothered me more than it should.

In an attempt to move on with my life, I'm forcing myself to flirt and trying to be open. It is harder than it has ever been. I have little tolerance for twits (one guy would only chat if I got yahoo. I refused with no regrets, but that is totally not like me!).

I have been flirting with 2 men. We'll call one of them "Colorado" and the other one "Suburbs." (Gee, I wonder how I came up with those names?) Both are openly into D/s and read the innuendo in my profile, but there the similarities end.

On paper, Suburbs would seem like the better bet, and not just because he lives 15 miles from me, but continuing to flirt with him feels like an obligation. Nothing fun about it at all. He is relatively handsome, but not intellectually curious. Worse, he jumped straight into the capital letters/lower case letters thing (which is a convention some people in the D/s community use to show who is Dominant and who is submissive) and I abhor that. There have been a very few moments where it was fun (and only when men asked permission to do it and had a sweetness to it), but mostly I find it boorish and annoying.

As soon as men do it , it immediately gets my hackles up. I really want a man who will meet me as equals, dance as equals, and only lead when it is appropriate. Men who demand the lead too soon, it is all wrong. I used to tolerate it, and now it just sends my danger signals up.

"Suburbs" also seems to have the problems I associate with the suburbs. (I hate the suburbs. I get affluenza very easily, and for me it does really send me into a depression until I get out. That mixture of restlessness and aimlessness assuaged only by consumption is really toxic to my system.) We have nothing in common that I can see, aside from the kink. He is into conspicuous consumption, and I suppose I am too, but of a very different sort. I'm totally happy to buy classes, trips, experiences. And I know those all cost money, but it just isn't the same to me as a car, or the latest apple gadget. Things you can buy bore me (although experiences you can buy don't.)

I seemed to have scared "Suburbs" off anyway--he said "ask me anything" so I did:

What do you get the most excited about? What makes your eyes light up? Do you like people who talk quickly or slowly? What do you most like about your current life and what would you most like to change? What are you looking for and what have you found?

Evidently--I'm too intense for Suburbs. And for most people. But I kind of knew that already. I'm trying to figure out if I just wasn't into him because he seemed available, but I don't think that's the case.

Meanwhile, there is Colorado. I'm not particularly attracted to him on a physical level, but we keep having lovely conversations. I started talking to him in an attempt to get out of my post-John funk. We've acknowledged the D/s interest, and that we live too far away, but we just keep chatting, and I'm really enjoying our conversations. We seem to go a little deep--not a lot, but we keep touching on the introspective sides. He and I have remarkably similar professions, and it is fun seeing things from his angle. We also seem to have similar values.

Part of me is looking for a fling as I think it is the only way to get John out of my system. And I think 'well, why not? There's no danger of me becoming too attached in the long run" but maybe there is. My ex wasn't my physical type either. But if the other parts of our relationship had worked, that wouldn't have mattered. I don't want a long-distance relationship. But I suppose it would be better than pining over John. I doubt, seriously, that anything would come of it. But it is good for me to start the process of moving on.

Continued Trivialities

Reading postsecret, I realized--John is the only one I've told all my secrets too. No one else in my life knows the big ones.

He wanted to love me. He really did. He gave it time. He tried. "I'd be blind not to see the potential between us," he said. But it was only ever potential.

Its so funny in a sad, ha ha sort of not at all funny way. He's the only man I ever had the courage to tell that my biggest fear, deep down, is that I'm just not lovable. And when I told him that, he responded with kindness and said it wasn't true. And then confirmed it more than any man ever could have. He wanted to love me, but he couldn't figure out how to make it 'soup.' All the ingredients. He thought. I'm just missing something. And so, deep down, more than ever, I believe there is something wrong with me. My fear was right.

I can tell part of me wants to have a big fight with him, just to have resolution. (He is going through his own hell right now--nothing to do with me and nothing I can do but support him as a friend, but it means I can't confront him on any of it, because this really is a horrible time for him.) But, honestly I couldn't actually stand having an unresolved fight with him. It would feel cleaner for a month. But my goal here was no regrets in a year, and I can't manufacture a fight just to have closure and not regret it in the long run. It is far better to try and find a way to let him go with kindness and care. I don't know how, though.

I really did love him. Thankfully, I can still say I've never been in love with anyone. And yet, I have profound regrets about that statement as well. And the rest of the male species isn't really helping me in letting John go.

Someone actually wrote me: "Strategically speaking, what is the most direct way towards intercourse with you." Another man wrote me "I'm wealthy and well-endowed." Does he think I'm a prostitute or a nymphomaniac, or both? And then, I ended up on a date with a 9-11 conspiracy theorist who called me intellectually insular, patriarchal (because of my need for so-called 'facts'), and an apologist for the Bush Administration. Meanwhile, he blamed The Nation for hiring William Kristol (because The New York Times and the Nation are practically the same) and wanted me to take his argument seriously.

If you saw my last un-published blog entry, all about how I don't get angry at people I love, but I viscerally hate Bush, in a way I find unhealthy and a little scary, and maybe if I knew how to get angry at people like John, I might be a little less angry at Bush and all, you might understand how being called an apologist for the Bush administration enraged me. I was never allowed to be angry growing up. It was considered an immature emotion. And even when I get angry at John, like I did last week, I'm only ever able to stay angry for a day or two and then it just moves to hurt and pain and regret and sadness. But I can be angry at Mr. 9-11 Conspiracy theorist. It is so funny, I could feel all my hope in him sinking the second he started saying something about how Bush/Cheney planned 9-11, and I'm like "Don't jump to conclusions--maybe this one's different." But they're all assholes. The 9-11 Conspiracy types and the Ayn-Rand, and the Dittoheads. Different political views, but same assholish behavior. (Can you believe someone who went to C-Pac tried to pick me up last week, and I was just like, sorry--this isn't happening.) If I could just get rid of my standards, there are plenty of men trying to get in my pants.

The only prospects, right now, are a guy who lives 400 miles a way and a guy who lives 1500 miles away, and I'm actually thinking of a fling with the 1500 miles away guy, just to get over John. I have a vacation coming up. He lives someplace warm. I've never done anything like that in my entire life. It is so not me. But it seems the only way I can think of to get John out of my system. Honestly, I probably won't. It is just an idea to play with. But I wonder what life would be like for the woman who would actually go through with something like that.

The Attempt To Let Go And Move On

A little over a month ago, John told me “you don’t want to be someone I’m not careful with.”
But something’s happened. And I am now someone he is not careful with. And it’s good. Because, unlike everything else, his casual cruelty to me is finally doing the trick. Slowly, slowly, slowly. He was, I suppose, sort of like an octopus around my heart, and I have removed maybe half the tentacles.

The things he did, I doubt he’d even be aware of how badly they upset me. The first instigated our fight of a few weeks ago; I’d had too much to drink, so I forgot what he said that made me so upset: “I never led you on!”

On what planet? “Patience isn’t rejection” “Patience, patience, patience, patience.” ‘I need to be friends first.’ ‘This is how it works for me.’ And yet he never led me on? Yeah. Every single time me took charge, every time he told me to do something and I obeyed, every time he referred to our ‘dates,’ and said I was the only person he went out on dates with, every single time he asked for patience, every single time he played in the areas of power exchange. But he never led me on?

The second came in the guise of a silly argument about ideas. The kind we used to really relish. This one centered around something I have a little expertise in (I have a BA and an MA in Art History--a thoroughly frivolous detour before the JD. Although I no longer have anything to do with the whole art history world, it is something that I keep up with). So I knew he didn’t like the Abstract Expressionists, but there was this interesting article and I e-mailed it to him, and he just went off on me. How it had no value, how it wasn’t intellectual. He said “I’m not putting you down,” but he was SO putting me down. I said I didn’t appreciate his “smug condescension” and he got mad about that.

If he had said “I just don’t get it. I know you care about it, but I HATE it” that would have been fine. But he put down something that I have cared deeply about with a dismissal that it had no value and if I wanted to claim it could have any value I’d have to prove it the way I’d prove something in a court of law. I know I have weird tastes, but I expect the people that are close to me to be kind.

What is shocking is I that didn’t respond.

Usually, when I fight with people I care about, I don’t want to leave the fight. 98% of the time, I can see how I was responsible for at least 10% of a fight, and I will work to own that 10% and try to make amends. Here, I think he was totally out of line. His behaviour, frankly, shocked me. Stunned. I felt like he was casually cruel. I knew from things he had said that he had been casually cruel to other people, but I didn’t think he would ever turn that on me.

I don’t think anything else could have made me let him go. I kept trying, intellectually knowing this was a dead-end, but emotionally completely attached.

I’ve been depressed for a couple of days, but I think it is constructive and, sooner or later, I’ll try to climb my way out of this mess. . I feel like I’m in such a state of flux that I know my ad is no longer up-to-date, but don’t feel clear enough about who I am or what I want to actually write something.

Hung over

John and I made up this morning. But.

I think we both know that these issues will flair again at some point. We've been spending a full weekend day most weeks with each other. We don't have plans next weekend (and I'm not going to initiate them, although I'd love to spend a day with him), but we have them the following.

But evaluating this whole thing, John has given me standards for the men I date. I honestly had very, very poor standards before. I let men treat me badly, and they did. Now, I'm picky. When a man says (and yes, a man said this a couple of weeks ago--there is no way I could make this up): "I'm having prostate problems, so I really should be having sex on a regular basis" I say "good luck with that" and disappear. Before I'd be like "well, I'm sure he didn't really mean it that way. He was probably just..."

I've also noticed that I feel mauled by men who touch me when I don't like them. Even the guy getting alimony from his ex-wife--I really wanted the evening to be over, but let him kiss me multiple times. I kept my mouth closed, but he kept trying to tongue my lips. It felt easier to be polite and say no later, over e-mail, when he had no way of getting in contact with me. If I went out with him now, I'd be like "I don't think this will work" because I can't stand even sort-of polite social touching. (I went out with a guy I instantly disliked and he put his arm around my shoulder and I instantly got good posture, and then he held my hand and I have to use my other hand to unpry his fingers from me. If this had happened 5 months ago, I'd be like 'sure--it's just hand holding--not a problem.) But none of these are men I'd have wanted to see again if John weren't in the picture.

There was one man I've met since John and I started hanging out again in November, that might interest me. (We sat next to each other on a plane and had a wonderful conversation.) Unfortunately, he lives 7 hours from me, is 15 years older, and while we've been penpals, he's had no indication of any interest beyond e-mails.

Several of the people I trust the most think John is taking the emotional energy I might have for another man, and until I let John go, I can't bring that energy into my life. I'm not so sure. I was attracted to the one guy who lived too far away, so I think that means I'd be open. It just seems like I'm going through a total dry spell and being clear and realistic about the men that are of no interest.

So, we continue, in our fucked-up, neurotic, beautiful, kind world.