Advice

You shouldn't have left your toothbrush in my medicine cabinet

You shouldn't have called me your girlfriend

You shouldn't have introduced me to all your coworkers

You shouldn't have added photos of me - of us - to your social media accounts

You shouldn't have sent me all those cat pictures

You shouldn't have brought me back coffee that time that you went to New York and scratched out the label and renamed it Bedazzled Blend

You shouldn't have been open to meeting my family

We shouldn't have taken those trips

You shouldn't have lit candles, poured champagne, and cooked me pad thai that day I worked too long

This is why I was in love with you.
This is why I thought you could love me too.

For future reference:

It wasn't a joke to me. It wasn't wasting time. It wasn't biding time. It wasn't playing house. It wasn't pretend love. It wasn't a prelude to real life. It wasn't a fun idea. It wasn't a what if.

It was my life. It was our life. I thought it was the beginning. I thought all of those small things added up to a beginning. I thought that was how it went, I thought it was small things like that and they added up to Something Big, something that words might not be able to capture.

But words capture it now: I wish you hadn't. I wish we hadn't met. I wish I hadn't been just some other experience you needed to check off your goddamn list.

Pride be damned

Yes, by telling The Dane - again - that I cannot sleep with him because yes, its true! I like him!, some part of me, the secret part, hopes he says ---

Wait, yes, of course I want you ---

But instead he says feeling that is natural and he understands and then we talk about our respective cars and bills and karma and I don't ask, But it's not natural to you?  because I have to maintain my dignity. My secret self wants it to be simple and for him to love me back, because he knows me, he has seen me, he said it's natural to have feelings for the person you're sleeping with but he sure as hell doesn't mention having feelings towards me. I didn't expect anything else. Well, secret self did.

Secret self, pride --- whatever we're calling it --- be damned, I must free myself up for something better. I cannot keep spending nights curled against a man who doesn't want me as a girlfriend, I can't keep writing angsty blog posts about a situation I am willingly and destructively participating in. The Dane cannot be part of my love life. I have no time for indifferent men.

Betrayal

I slept with someone new, someone who isn't The Dane, and I had to remind myself that it wasn't a betrayal. It sure felt like one.

I met a nice, tall man who wants to take me to dinner and talk to me during the day and entertain my off the wall ideas. I will allow it to progress and see what happens and soon I won't have to remind myself that it's not a betrayal because it isn't. 

Staring contest

I saw someone who looked like him. Enough like him to make me look twice. Three times.

Four times.

Repeatedly.

Again.

Until I was staring.

But it wasn't him, it wasn't The Dane.

Just someone who looked like him.

Just the idea of him.

Just me wishing it was him, wishing we were 'running into' each other like we do. Wishing suddenly he would text me. Suddenly checking my phone in case he did.

He didn't.

See and be seen

I'm not so sure I like seeing him everywhere. How am I supposed to play it cool, protect myself, if I see him around every corner? How can I trust my instincts? I want him. I want him in my life.

Is this how it works?

Why can't I ever just leave a man in Crushland? Why is there never a stone unturned, why must I always check just to be sure? Does anything ever happen except Another Bridge Burned? If he is interested in the polite coffee chitchat, the safe topics, if there is a smidgen of chemistry, it will suddenly be over and then he will be another man I see on the street, who I see at shows, who I see waiting in line for coffee in this small town, another to add to the list of It Wasn't Anyone's Fault It Just Didn't Work Out. But is this dating, this awkward dance? Do I just hope like hell I keep taking these chances, asking strangers to coffee because this is what you do?

Is this what you do?

The answer is love

At 8:30 this morning, his alarm sounded and I lazily lifted my head from the crook of his arm to look out the window at the falling snowflakes. I live in the deep South these days, this ain't normal, its no common thing. Its no common thing to wake pressed against The Dane and yet it feels more and more normal every time it happens. We watched the snow from his window for a moment before burrowing back under his covers, bare skin touching bare skin.

I dreamed he told me he loved me.

I dreamed I said it back.

I felt ashamed talking to him as we slowly woke up on this snow day, fearful he would be able to tell the truth about me, ashamed Dream Me is too obvious in her desires. Play it cool is all I keep telling myself. He has to come to it on his own terms. I know this. I cannot change his mind by sheer will. But spending 24 hours holed up with him, anticipating Magical Snow, felt easy and comfortable. He made me coffee and cinnamon toast last night when we briefly put on some article of clothing, we sat facing each other in his kitchen, looking each other in the eye, feet intertwined, and told stories.

I can't say how many times I've told myself I'm setting myself up to fail, how alike we are, The Dane and me, how me going it alone is probably best for me, is the way for me to accomplish all I want to and maybe propel me back out of this small town sooner rather than later. Me going it alone makes it impossible to settle, not that The Dane would be settling but that being a pair means compromising, and I'm not getting any younger but since when is 27 old? I have time to fall in love, but isn't that the point of it all?

The least sexy post yet

I know I said I'm not holding my breath waiting around for this man, for The Dane, for this man I refused to date last year and who now I can't unthink. But maybe I lied. Maybe I am holding my breath. Maybe I have been playing a small game where I don't allow myself to initiate conversation with him to see if he will.

I woke to a message from him a few days ago telling me something cool that happened to him at work. I smiled and responded while still in bed, registering the new day and feeling an unnatural level of giddiness. I can't interpret these sorts of things as 'signs' even though I am. I like talking to him, hearing his stories and being part of his daily life. Waking up next to him, sharing coffee in bed and playing songs we think the other will like has created intimacy without meaning to, intimacy that I can't unthink.

Workplace diplomacy

The things I cannot say because I work at my desk five feet from you at your desk: I know that it could be my fault as easily as it could have been your careless mistake, but I can't stand to see you. I can't see you walking in the door, I can't see you in the corridor, I can't bear for you to ask me a question in the office because I know I must answer you so as not to arouse suspicion but the only thing I can think to respond is the petty thing, the You told me via text you might have given me an STI, and that's certainly not diplomatic.

Unrequited

The Dane said he isn't boyfriend material and if I've learned anything in my 27 years its that when a man tells you he doesn't want to be in a relationship with you - for whatever reason - listen to him. I am not going to change his mind with wooing or sex or determination. He will come to it on his own. But I'm not holding a candle or my breath hoping he changes his mind.

I ran into him on the street a few weeks ago and things happen as they do and I woke up with him in my bed and then with him having coffee and sharing a day old Wall Street Journal and knew then that I was falling in love with him. This  cannot be an option in my carefully orchestrated life. He doesn't want a relationship. I need to not think myself in love with him.