Ulterior Motives

I spent a perfectly respectable evening out with friends. Until I ended up at The Virgin Bartender's place of work and played it cool, but who are we kidding here?

He was nice and friendly and all those words, and I acted bored and indifferent, but when I left, he didn't text, didn't try to get me to stay, and what I knew all along has been confirmed.

I guess I just wanted to be wanted. To feel like I could change his mind with my mere presence after no contact for a month. It's all so egotistical, it's all so in my own head, it all doesn't matter. Just another small detail that adds up to filing him away, to not go there, to have no expectations and to stay away from there a little longer, to establish new boundaries, to not feel veiled rejection upon leaving.

I am not that person any longer. I am not broken over an unreliable man's indifference.

Proximity

I keep saying that it's not him I miss.

It turns out, it's the intimacy between us, the subtle details, the way I would kiss his shoulder, how he knew just the right spot to kiss on my neck, how physical closeness stopped  being a calculated thought and in time became a given.

Words With Exes

Just because he challenged me in Words With Friends doesn't mean I should accept, does it?

The Ex and I are now not speaking all that much and instead playing Words With Friends against each other, just like last summer when he got me hooked on it and we would sit in different rooms, playing against each other on our separate devices.

It's those tiny details that I forget, then I remember, then I can't shake.

The girl is back in town

He was driving, and the conversation turned to something, turned to something else, and I said, "It wasn't my plan to leave Chicago, to be back here."

We got back to his house. We were talking about something else, turned something else, and suddenly he said, "I'm glad you're back."

No take backs

I mean.

It's been final.

It's been final for nearly half a year.

I haven't been entertaining ideas of re-kindling our romance, our screaming matches, our ripping each other to shreds. But suddenly it all feels so final.

It's always a slow evolution, how we become the latest version of ourselves, and here we are, slowly evolved into not knowing each other, into knowing each other because of course we know each other, but not knowing. I'm not allowed to know him in that way any more. In turn, he can't know me in that way. I can't give him the details but all I want is to give him the details.

I still feel powerful to withhold things from him. He has no idea. It's all in my head. I drive a car he has never seen, work at a job he has no idea about, spend my time with all my best friends and feel more myself now than I ever did when he knew me.

We had a perfectly civil conversation via g-chat this evening with no thinly veiled references to our former sex life or being in love. We're evolving into vague friends.

And I will evolve, I will accept this.

But for now: it breaks my heart. All over again. We are no longer in love. But for me, I still feel like I am.

Close encounters

Being so near this new man makes me feel more lonely in some ways. I fear I am growing to care for him, to feel real feelings, and all this does is remind me of all those nights pressed against The Ex.

Suddenly, this moving on has me flashing back to our shared bed in our shared apartment in that city, all that time spent together, all that time sharing parts of myself that he got in the split, all the stories and nuances and details, I gave them to him and now they are his.

Something about being close to someone again is dredging it all back up, is making it all feel too fresh, is making me re-hash it all, is making me close to tears over Things In the Past.

I will move on. I will not always be broken.

Killing season

In some twisted way to see him, I Facebook stalked The Ex's sister last night before bed.

I woke up this morning from a dream in which we murdered his family and then got back together and fled this small town.

Late night mystic magic

He works long, late weekend hours at his job, I stayed in to avoid the St. Patrick's mayhem. So we separately watched Mystic Pizza, one of my super secret favorite movies, together late last night.

Small fish in an even smaller sea

I really wish I could make this stuff up.

I've had a wonderful day: spring cleaning and lunch with friends and playing in the park with a friends' dog. Spring comes early here in the south and it should have all been idyllic.

Except.

During lunch, The Virgin Bartender showed up at the same place, but never acknowledged me. Then, at the park, I could have sworn I saw The Original Bartender playing bocce, but couldn't really believe it since I've never really seen him out during daylight hours.

It was him.

They are all him. All these men in this small town and all I can think is that since moving far away in the near future is out, stopping dating altogether is the next obvious step. Obviously.

Busybody

I'm staying busy. So busy that I can't remember what I did last week, what I did yesterday.

I'm filling my time and making to do lists and planning and booking every possible moment.

I like being busy.

I like being busy because it makes me too busy, too mind-racing, too exhausted to think but I miss him.

Forwards or backwards? I never can tell.

Scaredy cat

It's about time I gave him a name, right? It's about time I called it something, paused long enough to think it through.

Maybe not.

He likes me.

Huh.

He is attentive and responds to messages and asks me to spend time with him and looks me in the eye when I say something and when I opened his door to my car first, he reached across the seat to unlock my door for me.

I can't decide if I'm scared or if there just isn't as much of a spark there. I'm scared of losing myself in someone, scared of getting lost within a relationship and no longer thinking for myself, only thinking for us. But there is something to be said for chemistry.

But there is something to be said for stability.

So I can't quite decide what we're doing, the two of us.

Any version of the truth

It's a natural thing to ask now that I've plunged back into the world of dating: What brings you back to town?

I still don't have a good answer, something to say besides, I got broken. Not broken up with, just broken.

I kept saying it was for a fresh start, I wasn't doing what I set out to do, I wanted to be a big fish in a small pond instead of a small fish in a big pond.

I kind of want to lie. Make up a new story for myself. Pretend.

It's a natural question to ask and I can't fully lie but I sure as hell can't tell the truth: that The Love of My Life left me and I couldn't survive there anymore. I can't lie if I'm actually going to date the person asking the question. But any version of the truth just feels like too much right now.

Sounds like you shouldn't be dating anyone just yet, Heartless.

What do you know, fictitious reader?

Survival of the fittest

Today it dawned on me that it's been nearly six months.

It's been almost six months since every part of my life changed.

Six months survived without the person I love[d] most in the world.

It should feel like triumph, this survival, but all it really feels is heartbreaking. All it really feels like is I still wish it hadn't all turned out this way.

Carpe diem, baby

I've been worrying of late that I am living my life in a state of 'what if.' I am worried I'm saying yes to dates with men I'm unsure of, working at a job when maybe it's not worth it, kissing people when I really shouldn't because it doesn't mean a thing.

But why not?

I likened my latest date to not leaving a stone left unturned, and I couldn't figure out why I would do that. Why would I go on another date with a man I turned down three years ago?

It's because of the 'what if' factor. I need to get it out of my system. I need to have no doubts. I need to know. I need to take chances and maybe waste some time eating sushi with a man who turns out isn't right. Most of them aren't.

The Dane drove me nuts and now it's turning into a friendship but if I hadn't tried, I would have wondered. But now I know and I don't have to wonder what might have happened if I'd just taken a chance.

What is that, seizing the day?

Sexy HR Guy

I have a sexy HR guy. I just refer to him as Sexy HR Guy. It's true.

He stops into my work a few times a month, trying to woo my company with his HR skills. Every time he comes in all I can think is what I would really like him to woo: me.

Every time he comes in I spend the rest of my afternoon texting my best friend that he came in and getting absolutely nothing done. Except daydream about Sexy HR Guy.

He came in on Wednesday after finally securing an appointment with my boss, and we made small talk before he met with her. It's his job to be friendly and personable, so I really never took anything he said seriously.

Until I checked my e-mail at work late this afternoon to find a message from him. My boss didn't take him up on his services, and since he didn't have a reason to stop in anytime soon, perhaps I would like to have a drink with him sometime?

SEXY HR GUY ASKED ME OUT?

Not nearly as cool as a cucumber

I got good news today.

All I can think is: I want to tell The Ex. I want to share my good news. I want him to be part of the good news.

And as elusive as I want to be, as calm and collected and cool as a cucumber, all I want to do is tell The Ex all about it and fall asleep proud of myself and happy with my life, all Cool As A Cucumber wrapped up in him.

Optimistic morning afters

Our second first date, three years after our first first date, ended the next morning.

It's about damn time, Heartless!

Suffice it to say that the second first date went better than the first.

I texted him later that day, Thanks for an unexpected morning.

I'm not sure what I expected on that date I wasn't sure I should go on. Even during it, I was sitting across from him over sushi, talking about the small things, the details that make us up, and I mostly just felt like I hated the ritual, giving more of my stories to someone who really shouldn't care. He doesn't even know me, the only reason you listen half the time is because of the vague hope it all ends in sex.

Which it did.

I certainly didn't plan for it, didn't think it would happen, but we walked to my car and he kissed me and I kissed him back and all the ambivalence I had been feeling turned to sex.

I woke the next morning wrapped up in him, bare skin on bare skin, studying his tattoos, kissing him and maybe a little scared of him seeing me like that. The vulnerable Morning After.

I'm seeing him again in a few days, once our schedules align. It'll probably all fizzle out within weeks, he'll become another man to add to the ever growing list of Men Where I Wish I Hadn't, or Maybe He Won't. I'm still an optimist it seems.

On the mend

I kept telling myself it wasn't a thing: me falling asleep at night, me waking up in the morning, me wearing his favorite sweatshirt I took from the spoils for my own.

Suddenly I can't sleep without it. Suddenly I'm precious about it, suddenly I couldn't not sleep in it.

I want to stop reminding myself how to be a normal human being, stop pinching myself to wake up to the reality of it all: he broke my heart.

My heart will heal.

Who am I kidding round II

I'm going to have drinks or dinner or something with this man who three years ago I decided one date was enough.

I can't decide if it was all circumstantial, if things had been a little different, if I had been a little different, it all would have been different. Now I am a little different and wonder if it could be different. Maybe I am kidding myself.