Why do fools fall in love

I want to stop having dreams about The Ex and wake up feeling some new sense of betrayal.

Fight or flight

He said he wants to fight for me. Mr. R, that is. I thought we were all done with this?

All the wrong men

The moment I say I am willingly not dating anyone right now and happy with it of course, of course, I spend my day brooding and acting like the world owes me a favor. Why can't I sit with myself for one damn minute, just sit and not stew, not wonder, not check my phone to make sure it's still working because why hasn't anyone called?

I need to learn to sit with myself.

I can't do what I used to do, chase Men Who Are Wrong just for the fun of it, get involved with Men Who Are Wrong for the thrill of it, get crushed by Men Who Are Wrong. I can't keep going in these circles, keep acting like the world has wronged me when I am the one who keeps making poor choices. But two days of sitting with myself and I might lose my mind. I compulsively check my phone to make sure the damn thing is working, let my mind wander and come back and realize my life is the same, I'm not getting swept up but I'm also making positive changes every second that I'm not chasing Men Who Are Wrong.

Time for a comeback

I officially have no Back Up Plan. I ended things with Mr. R, he finally got it, I refuse to see The Ex even though I feel like he could beat me into submission with just a little more effort, so please, no one tell him, I will not initiate contact with The Raging Alcoholic any longer because of the obvious reasons and also because he's kind of flaky, Sexy HR Guy never followed up, and that might just be it.

It's a little weird, but it feels like progress to willingly sit here with myself, to willingly extricate myself from it all, not that I'm not open to it, I just need to stop being open to The Wrong Men. I need to pay attention to red flags. I still want to get swept up in it all, but I can't keep choosing The Wrong Men. It takes too long to come back.

The unbearable Windy City

The Ex sent me a message that said I miss you.

And before that I know it may seem odd but wanna go for a walk? Maybe lunch? No tacos. 

And before that I'm going back to Chicago soon and I was really hoping that we could see each other sometime, would you think about it?

I really haven't responded. I feel like I'm being emotionally bullied by him. Last time I saw him I went off the deep end for weeks. I can't derail myself in that way again, I can't provide him with closure before he returns to the city I could no longer bear once he left me.

Mad at the world

I don't know why I let it get to me like this. Why I'm so mad at myself, mad at the world, worried that I will never, ever trust a man, not really. I spent the last couple of nights with the same group of friends, including this one guy who I sort of know, have sort of known for years, and last night I could feel his interest in me, his pointed questions, his buying me a drink and brushing his hand against my arm.

But I left. This is a small town, I vaguely know some of his exes, I didn't want to go there.

But then of course I thought about him, only because I told myself not to.

And then tonight the same group of friends got together, and a new woman was introduced to me, a new woman who happens to be his girlfriend. Maybe I take it all too seriously. Maybe this is what people do. I'm not mistaken, I didn't read too much into it, he was interested in me last night and no, he didn't outwardly do anything to cross a line, to cheat on his now-existent girlfriend, but was too interested in my stories to mention her and it's just another man stacked on the deck of All the Reasons I Cannot Trust Enough to Fall in Love.

Bros before hoes

I was tentatively planning to see The Raging Alcoholic Bartender as per my decision to pursue only the best ideas, but I had a thing, and when I was done with my thing, he said he was with The Ex.

And maybe I told him But I want to see you. And he said I want to see you.

And suddenly I can't stop thinking that I got cockblocked by The Ex, to put it in the crudest manner. So I told The Raging Alcoholic Bartender Let me know when you're free. Maybe I'm giving him too much, letting him know that I'm interested, when I know I shouldn't be. I really shouldn't be. And this could go nowhere, now that the ball is in his court, ever since that whole thing where I dated him and The Ex and apparently they're still hanging out and again, to put it crudely, all I can think is Bros before hoes. So it could go nowhere. Aside from the obvious - he is an alcoholic and I shouldn't pursue this because I'm setting myself up to fail and I dated him and The Ex and they are friends and this is a very small town - besides those very small things, I can't shake him. Everything is suddenly him again, and I know I need to stop, to busy myself, that this, too, shall pass if I just give it some time, but right now all I can think is him.

And I saw The Virgin Bartender last night and it was fine, I was fine, definitely aware, but fine. We exchanged pleasantries and then did our separate things while at a jazz performance, me talking to friends and him hitting on every single woman. That's his M.O., and I'm glad he told it to me straight all those months ago. 

The heart wants what the heart wants

The Raging Alcoholic Bartender messaged me yesterday and I know better, I do, but I can't shake him, that feeling of falling in love with him all those years ago, the sitting on my floor arguing about an artist's merits, the breathing him in and smiling like a fool. We hesitantly discussed seeing each other, but it never seems to happen, so I'm not holding my breath. I shouldn't see him. I shouldn't. I know better than this.

And The Ex is officially pestering me about seeing him, about catching up or something, and I just can't make him understand that It's not gonna happen. But because of his insistence on hanging out like old times, now I'm reassessing why I can't just let it go and see him and have things be fine. It's too soon for me, I can't do it, I can't handle it yet, is there something wrong with me? He's fine? I always felt like his ex-wife was a ghost in our relationship, was always there, and so I told him, I hope you're happy you fucked someone else up as much as you always said your ex-wife did to you. I still can't let him know me, all the things I am doing right now, my life right now, I feel some sort of power with him not knowing, I can't sort it all out, I just know that right now it's what I need. I want to sort it out, to have a singular descriptor for how I feel, but I don't.

And Mr. R has got to go. I am over it. I thought he was getting the slow fade until he mentioned me going with him to his sister's wedding...in November. Crushing someone can be so ugly.

Coffee date

He made the decision and I am fine and happy but still feel like a schmuck and unable to trust human beings and I just need many, many, many years before he can engage me in small talk.

I need him to stop engaging me in small talk, stop pushing for a friendly coffee catch up, stop sending me pictures of things that remind him of me.

He left me. He broke me. Why am I the only one who remembers? I never let things go when we were together, I suppose I never will now that we're not. Apparently I should be more moved on by now, according to his coffee standards (and can I remind you that he doesn't even like coffee? That's all me.). It makes it worse somehow, his capacity to move us from in love to having coffee.

Slow fade

I think he's finally taking my hint.

I've been making him do all the work for over a week now, now that I've kind of gotten over it all, now that I've maybe thrown Sexy HR Guy into the mix (did I mention that?), now that I have stopped initiating contact on a daily basis and left it up to him. Now that I have stopped making plans like we normally would.

I haven't talked to him today. I'm fine with this, I can't tell him directly that I can't do this, that it's all too much for me right this second, because he would say he is content with what we are and then I would have to essentially crush him because it's too much. I'm not ready.

Small problem: I already promised to be his date to a wedding tomorrow.

Re-thinking my options

The Doctor sent me a message yesterday, not entirely out of the blue, but it made me stop long enough to think. To re-think. How many times can I change my mind? How can I pin my future on one of two possibilities? How can I still think a man can change my life?

Well, a man did change my life. The Ex changed everything so profoundly that it's been this long and I'm still reeling.

But The Doctor. I have plans. I want to travel, and experience, and do things, and I fear getting caught up in the What If of The Doctor. We had such a fleeting amount of time before, all those years ago before he left for the west coast and I left for the midwest and now here we are, about to both be back where we began. I'm not all that sure it could really work, but I know that I felt differently about him, I know that we had something there but knew that we couldn't do a damn thing due to circumstances.

And who's to say he even wants something serious? He'll be just back in town, starting over, and I'm a total basket case. Who's to say I want something serious? Well. With him, I think I would. All those years ago I wasn't satisfied with casually dating him, and I doubt I would be now.

I don't want to fall in love again. There are too many ways to lose myself.

Shaken

I can't shake the feeling of wanting to be in love.

And I can't shake the feeling of how it felt to fall in love with The Raging Alcoholic Bartender.

Walking the line

I dipped my toe in.

I sent The Raging Alcoholic a message and he responded but not in a way that said Come and get it. It's the best possible thing, not seeing him, not getting hung up on a three years ago situation, but I am. I'm suddenly remembering that feeling of falling in love and that was all we had together, but the truth is, aside from the obvious alcoholism, he is friends with The Ex, there was always drama there, how I went from one to the other, and now I'm trying to again?

I'm getting stir crazy. I wonder if the next logical step is to initiate contact with Sexy HR Guy. It feels like the next logical step.

All the broken men

It goes something like this inside my head:

I am too scared to actually be in a relationship, to take that next step with Mr. R, but being with him reminds me of the wonderful giddiness of being chosen by someone, of falling into love, but obviously I can't love him, so then I think about The Last Man I Loved, The Ex, but my feelings for him right now are too complicated, I really can't make heads or tails of it, of him, and then that leads me to thinking about The Man I Loved Before Chicago: The Raging Alcoholic Bartender. And for a while now, I've been having a hard time not sending him a message, something along the lines of Hi but in reality, I just want to remember what it felt like to fall into love and feel like things would be okay.

I haven't talked to him since he sent me a message in the wee hours of morning saying he mistakenly texted me earlier. And sorry. And love you. Another thing I can't make heads or tails of.

Things really do not need to be so tortured, I need to stop holding torches for tortured, broken men, I need to get my act together, in all respects I, in fact, do have my life together. Except for the magnetic pull I have to all the broken men.