Tacky

There is no way to dress this up. I'm not going to sound eloquent. One of my guy friends put the moves on me. I knew he liked me. But I dismissed it as a harmless crush.

Due to the long history between The Boyfriend and me, we haven't told very many people about The Relationship. Not that we're hiding it, just that we want it to be our own thing, and don't want it marred with others' opinions. It's not some big secret, but we don't mind keeping it close for a bit longer.

So my guy friend who put the moves on me is actually our guy friend, The Boyfriend's friend well before he was mine. But like I said, the history between The Boyfriend and me is one of friendship, so I can see how it gets confusing. The Guy Friend hasn't been explicitly told otherwise, and tried to kiss me after parting ways with other friends last night.

And now the quandary: how do I manage this with tact?

Payback

The Boyfriend, My Boyfriend, doesn't trust me. This is evident. I conveniently left out the part about him deleting a text from The New Guy last week. The New Guy and I had coffee after he asked me if I was ignoring him.

My Boyfriend, he's not the jealous type. But we're new at this, and he knew me when. He knew me when I dated ...everyone. So I give him some credit, I understand that he still wonders and worries. But ladies and gentleman of the jury, he was no saint. (Those rose colored glasses? No, they don't apply to this relationship.) So, really?

He works late nights. He doesn't come home sometimes. That's fine, he has friends who live near his work, public transit is a bitch after midnight. I just want him to tell me he's crashing elsewhere. Does that make me over-protective and meddlesome? Does it?

He didn't tell me he wasn't coming home. Over the weekend. And again last night. After we had talked about it. (And let's be clear about this, if I didn't come home, he would assume that I was sleeping with The New/Old Guy.) He came in at 10:30 this morning. Sleeping is quite a big deal to me, and me worrying over his absence had disrupted it. He didn't seem to understand my [worry turned to] anger.

And tonight. Tonight I'm getting my girl-music and wine fix, but it's because he's at a post-Christmas party with his best friend...and a date? It's a platonic thing, but the thing is, it's all adding up to a double standard.

I'm not in a relationship to be taught a lesson. To remind me that I'm not trustworthy. To put me in my place. I was a serial dater. He knew me then. I'm with him now. I'm not interested in Other Opportunities.

I don't want to feel as if I'm paying for my former serial dating ways. I shouldn't have to pay like this.

I'm not a player I just crush a lot

Chaos! Disaster!

Nope. Before, it would have been. I'm growing. Isn't that strange?

I have a Work Crush. However, it doesn't make any bit of difference. I can finally see it for what it is: harmless attraction. Before this relationship, I would have wondered. I would have entertained the notion that maybe something would happen between us. A different version of my life. But because of this relationship, I don't worry about it. I am utterly convinced that The Boyfriend gets it. Gets me. And thus no need to entertain anything more than a harmless crush.

Huh.

Fairytales and other ways Disney ruined me

Love.

I’m still waiting for the fairytale, and maybe that’s the problem. With every new guy, I kept thinking, Maybe this time it’ll be different. And the tricky thing is, I chose my best friend.

And the part that gets me? My life is still my life. Clearly this isn’t about love: I moved a thousand miles away from my life just to wake up in a different bed in a different apartment with my best friend to...my life. This is clearly my issue, and nothing to do with the love part.

(The love part is awfully nice, though.)

Coffee break

I had [platonic] coffee with The New Guy.

The Boyfriend was not happy.

Love letter? part IV

Do you think I'm wonderful? She asked him one day as they leaned against the trunk of a petrified maple. No. He said. Why? Because so many girls are wonderful. I imagine hundreds of men have called their loves wonderful today and it's only noon. You couldn't be something that hundreds of others are.

(It's not a love letter. It's denouement. It's giving the benefit of the doubt. That if I had stayed, it would have been okay. But I left. And I'm here. And I'm in love.)

Lesson learned

There's something about getting to know a one night stand after the one night stand that makes it all the less alluring.

I just read Chelsea Handler's My Horizontal Life, and feel emboldened. I will admit it. I've had this blog for a year, I like to kiss and tell, but I also like to be vague...enough. So, out with it: let's discuss The Third Grader. He lives in Chicago as well. I knew this when I met him briefly over the summer (for a refresher on him, check back to June). There's this one song that reminds me of him that just came on my Itunes. It's one that I had just discovered when I met him, and one that I played for him and laughed.

I had picked him up from his friends' house, and he said he was surprised by my car. He told me he expected me to drive a red sedan. I took a bit of offense. Do I look the type? Did my black SUV say something else entirely? I certainly hoped so. And while riding in my car, I played said song. And just now, hearing it, I thought of him. Of that moment. And how my expectations were so very different then.

Now that I live in Chicago, we have a tentative friendship. I somewhat suspect that we may have had a chance at something had I not been distracted by all The Other Men who always distracted me. What's done is done and we didn't stand a chance, and now we both try very hard to not be awkward around each other.

The rose colored glasses are off. He is certainly not the man of my dreams. He sort of annoys me. It's his laugh. Perhaps this is just another elaborate lesson learned. It always is.

Lovedrunk

Falling in love has also made me fall off the face of the earth.

But honestly, it's kind of hard to update a blog about my kissing life when I am now only kissing one man. And I don't want to harass you fictitious readers with our cuddling and bickering and kissing and the things one does in a relationship. I suppose it will evolve, but I think it will take a bit of time for me to figure out how so.

Stay tuned.

Purely platonic

The New Guy, The Old Guy? He texted me late on New Years' Eve. I was working. He was drunk. I didn't want to work, but now that I'm relationshipped, since the Boyfriend was working, it wasn't that big of a deal. So I worked.

(But it still came to mind for a moment that if not for the relationship, I wouldn't be working, I would be with The New/Old Guy. Drunk with him. At midnight, kissing him.)

So it seems that yes, we do need some time before we can be just friends. It is strange territory, you know. Going from a state of undress to a state of pure friendship. "Pure" was a strange word choice, no? Nothing is pure about it thus far. Well. I'm trying. Clearly we are going to need more time.