What do I want?

Of course, dear Diary, I won't be able to spell it all out here.  But I've been thinking about this lately and reflecting on the past.  I've also been trying to learn from the dating relationships I've had in recent days, and I've found a pitfall I need to avoid:

Don't accept dates just because you don't want to spend yet another night alone.

I've been guilty of that of late, and it's created a situation.  I've been out with this guy maybe three or four times.  He rubbed me the wrong way with this conversation recently (caution: TMI imminent):

Him: "Do you shave?"
BJ: "No.  I trim."
Him: "You shave now."
BJ: "No, I don't.  I don't like it."
Him: "I want you to, so you'll do it for me."
BJ: "No."
Him: "Yes."
BJ: "This is not negotiable."

He tried it another time, telling me that if we were together, that 1) my dog would no longer sleep on the bed, and 2) he'd make me get up at 4 AM to go power walking, and 3) I was going to be a Seahawks fan.

Not only no, but HELL no.  Remember dommy Blogget?  She doesn't do orders well.  Or at all.

I'm sorry…but what about me gave you the impression you can tell me what to do, pal?  I might add the detail here that these conversations are happening without sex being a part of this relationship.  I haven't gone there.  Gee, I wonder why I don't feel attracted that way….

Jacob tells me that I have other prospects that are better, so give this guy the heave-ho.  I should mention here that Jacob and I are indeed best friends, as of late.  More on that later.

Back to the situation: I sat at home alone for 4 or 5 days and ended up agreeing to a date with the bossy guy again. I have no defense; I was weakened by silence.

At the restaurant, I went to the restroom and came back to find he'd told the waiter I was his girlfriend.

No.  No, no, no.

He wants to be my Valentine's date.  I'm thinking that's a bad idea.  As much as I hate the idea of a lonely Valentine's Day, I also hate the idea of misleading him or making myself even more frustrated.

In other news, I've had a few dates, but no front runners yet.  I've had a couple of creepers, so they had to go.  Here's an example:

Text from a guy I haven't even been on a date with: "I think I'm near your neighborhood.  I'm going to find your house."
An hour later: "I can't find it.  Give me a hint."
BJ: "Oh because you're not acting like a stalker at all, right?"
That was that.

I do have one person I'd be interested in getting serious with, but he lives back in Texas.  We are friends.  We haven't even dated.  But he's a wonderful person, and I value his friendship already.

Jacob and I were enjoying absinthe and porn one night, and he said to me, "When can we talk about my relationship?"

My initial response was to tell him again that his relationship hurts me.  It does me damage because I've seen her as someone who wanted to do me damage.  From where I sit, she manipulated her way into my life, then stole it from me.  He let her, and it hurts.  Anyone else, and we could talk about it, I said.

He insists that it's not that way, though.  That it wasn't that way.  Whether it's spin or not, it's how he perceives it.  And I'm trying to be his friend, his best friend.  I want him to be able to be open with me.  I thought about that.  A lot.  So, I'm trying - really trying - to see things as he does and find a way to be okay with her.

We had an emotional conversation about it.  I told him I might relapse, but that I am really trying to not see her as someone who wants to hurt me.  And I'm trying to not feel that I'm being replaced in every aspect of the life we had together.  It's taking some mental gymnastics, to be true, but I'm trying.  It's a daily battle, still.

As part of that conversation, I told him that I wanted to make it clear that my viewpoint has nothing to do with jealousy or wanting to go back to what we had.  After all, I had my doubts and frustrations, too, some of which I vented about to you, dear Diary.

So, I said to him in all honesty, I would not go back to how we were.

In the last few months, I think we've learned a lot about what we did wrong.  In any future relationship (not meaning just with him), I'd change the way we communicate, in particular.  We needed to be much more open and expressive and less hesitant.  We did too much second-guessing of ourselves and neglected to say things and talk about topics we should have.  We needed to build a safer environment for that, without repercussions for saying the wrong thing.  And we needed more dimensions to our intimacy, of the emotional and physical type.

What do I want, then?

A love who will…
love
value
respect
desire
want
need
hold
keep
soothe
comfort
follow
lead
work beside
defend
laugh with
listen to
adore
uplift
encourage
support
…me.

And I will do the same for him.

I pray on this each morning and each night.  But I keep getting knocked back down to the floor.  I wonder lately if God hates me…or maybe has already abandoned me.  I pray for my trust and faith to be meaningful, but I'm constantly wondering why it isn't…

…but that's another post.

I'm an idiot….

I've been wondering why I had zero page views.

It helps to make your blog accessible to others.  I had it set to private.  Oops….

Perhaps it will get some views now :o)

Onward into the abyss

The abyss of the unsure future, that is.  I'm at an age where I feel my mortality, the counting down of the days I have on this earth.  It makes me concerned how many of those days will be wasted on loneliness, on having no one to share my life with - or no one who really appreciates and respects me.  I pray daily for someone to come into my life who I can respect, desire, appreciate, cherish, trust, be proud of, care for in all the best ways…and who feels the same about me.  To have and to hold.  Who can promise he won't make me feel the knife in my back ever again, and can back it up with a lasting commitment to making sure we are safe and secure in each other.

Jacob and I had a particularly good day, about a week ago.  We went shopping together, and it was great fun.  He's been feeling his femininity lately, and I do enjoy being able to support that for him.  I'd missed shopping together like that.

Then there's the dating world.  A day or so after The Split, I got one of my regular calls from Bear.  This time, when the inevitable question came, I had a different answer.

"Are you available?" he asked.

"Yes," I said.

Pause.  "Are you putting me on?"

"No, I'm available," I said.

He started to cry.  He'd been praying for five years for that answer, and he'd finally gotten it.  He is working 9,000 miles away in Saudi Arabia, but he promised to begin "courting" me in earnest.  And thus, he did.

We arranged times to talk via Skype, generally twice a day.  We'd be at opposite ends of our day, but would catch up on our respective days or nights then.  On weekends, we could talk more.  Sometimes for hours.

He'd say sweet things, but I'd have to rein him in sometimes.  For instance, asking what I thought our wedding would be like was pushing me a little too hard, too fast.  He'd been thinking about this for five years, and I'd been on the wagon for about five minutes.

He made plans to come see me over his Christmas vacation in the states.  He's spend Christmas with his family, then come out to see me for New Year's.  I had a New Year's date :o)

Then, little red flags started coming up.

For example, one night, I explained why I don't go to church.  I won't go into that here, just yet.  I couple of days later, he said he saw that as something he could "fix."  I stopped him there: I don't need to be fixed.  I've made the decisions I have for a reason, and I don't need someone else to push me into what they think I should be doing.

Another time, I mentioned wearing my pink jeans.  "I'm not being seen with you in public in pink jeans," he said.

"Then you can stay the fuck home," I said.

He started emailing me offensive, sexist jokes.  He's actually say in the email that he knew I'd be upset by it.  I asked him why he'd send me something he knew would upset me, and his response was to get mad at me for being "sharp tongued."

Anyone who knows me, also knows that I love Doctor Who.  One day, he asked me, "What kind of doctor is he?  A people doctor?  An animal doctor?"

I chuckled a little and decided it would be fun to introduce him to the Doctor.  I said, "No, he's a time-traveling alien.  It's a long-running show, since 1962.  Each time they get a new actor for the Doctor, he 'regenerates' into someone new."

I knew this would invite a multitude of questions, but I wasn't quite prepared for the one he threw at me.  "Have they ever made him gay?" he asked.  "Because they like to push things like that, you know."

I was a little speechless.  WTF?

As I said, Jacob and I have remained friends.  The didn't sit well with Bear.  He told me one day that when I spend time with Jacob, it made him want to "put a fist through the wall."  He said I wasn't to spend time with him anymore.  When I said he didn't get to tell me that, he said it would be okay, if I was never alone with him.

No, you don't get to tell me what to do.  Controlling me is not an option.

All the while, he tells me that he loves me more than anything, every day.  I've heard that before, so I wait to see how it's backed up….

One day, he sends me money.  Wired it to me via Western Union.  It was money I needed to get my daughter home for Christmas, so it really was quite touching.  "It's a gift from me," he said.  "We need never speak of it again because I don't want anything in return.  No matter what happens, that was a gift to you."  He wouldn't let me refuse it.  Either I picked it up or it went to waste.  I can't stand letting anything go to waste, particularly money.  It was a mistake to take it, I'm sure, but I really needed to get my daughter home, too.  My need to see her won out.

My mistake was immediately evident.  His demeanor with me changed.  His conversations took on a crude tone.  He started talking about what "The Girls" would like from him - referring to my breasts as though they were a separate entity from me.

I'm sorry, but if you want to be intimate with me, I'm a whole package. My worth is not in my chest.

Then other phrases cropped up, like "I want to eat at the Y."  I thought he was being sweet once when he talked about how he'd make breakfast for me, until he said, "Yeah, I have a special breakfast sausage for you."

What a sweet talker, right?  Like the boys' locker room in a middle school.

One day, I was worrying over a situation with my son.  I was really pretty upset.  I told him all about it and his response was to tell me he wanted to hear me masturbate on the phone for him.  Instead, I stopped the conversation.

He later apologized for his adolescent behavior, but I was done.  DONE.

The next time he started in about "The Girls," I asked if he could please not talk about sex every time we talked.  It wasn't appropriate, and there was much more to me than that.  I'd been thinking about what to say, and I said it kindly.  I was hoping to get through to him and make a change.

He got quiet.  He said he wasn't feeling so great anymore, so he'd call me later.  Apparently, standing up for myself wasn't a response he expected.

Or respected.  I didn't hear from him for three days.  Then, I get an email.  He tells me that I must have responded to him like that because I'm not over Jacob.  He said I was sharp-tongued to tell him to back off about The Girls.  And he said a couple of other things that I really couldn't make sense of - literally, an indecipherable string of words.  Very weird.

With that, he walked away.  Good riddance, actually.  If standing up for myself is not permitted, then away with you.  You have to be able to handle me as an individual.  I'm not to be trifled with.

So, that was weeks ago.  I've deleted everything associated with him.  Then New Year's Day….

I receive an email from him.  The only content was a picture - of him in front of a local restaurant.  HERE.  In my home town.

Creepazoid.

I responded, "Why did you send me this?"

He replied, "For the record….I showed up. On the road to Denver now."

Me: "Showed up for what?  This is really creepy."

Bear:  "Sorry I sent it now. Message received. Email eradiated. On the road again."

Eradiated?? Is that even a word?

I can't begin to express how glad I am that he works 9,000 miles away.

And She's Back...

…because Blogget has joined the singleton world again.

That's right, dear Diary.  Blogget and Jacob are no more.  What happened?  in a very painful nutshell, here goes:

It was close to the end of September.  I was still adjusting to my daughter being gone from home for less than two weeks.  I came home that night, like any other night, and he said he thought we were better off as friends.  I asked if there was someone else, and he said he'd met someone but it had nothing to do with this.

Note: Recent posts on his Tumblr have made it more clear that a relationship was cultivated behind my back.  The intimacies began very shortly after we became "just friends."

Other posts on Tumblr have showed a distinct pattern: he says the same words to her that he said to me.  He's following the same sequence of events with her that he did with me.  And I mean, exactly the same.  This makes me wonder if, after three years, maybe I just wasn't so shiny and new anymore.  He wanted the excitement of shiny and new again.  And found a woman who threw the Woman Code to the wind and expressed open interest in what another woman held dear.

Also, you can probably imagine how special that makes me feel - or not so much.  I've always taken a bit of pride in being a unique individual, so all of that is a good blow to my self-image.  I don't feel so special, at the moment, but that also means she's not so special, either.

The thing is, he knew I'd see those posts.  How did he think I'd feel?

I've made it clear that I want nothing to do with her.  He thinks I've "drawn a line in the sand," but I don't think he's considered this:  how could I ever be comfortable with the woman he betrayed me with??  If he wanted to be with someone I would accept, then he should have picked someone - anyone -  else with whom to duplicate our relationship.

He says he really wants us to be friends, and I'm really trying to build that relationship.  He says I'm just about his best friend.  I have to say that he has made me a priority a few times.  However, I'm hoping that will hold, as his interest in connecting with me seems to be diminishing.  Maybe.  I can't tell.  He says he loves me and always will, but doesn't ask how my day has been.  He'll call when he has time to kill and text about some things he sees, but isn't the first one to say, "Let's have dinner."  I should count my blessings, I suppose.

We do have a standing Sushi Saturday every week, and we're supposed to have an Absinthe & Porn night soon, and I'm just hoping all of that remains as meaningful as it has been.

Why?  Because he's the only person who "gets" me, as I tend to be rather complicated.  And the idea of having NO ONE in my life who gets me is even more painful than what's happened.

That said, I do have a confession to make.  A weekend of drinking and horniness about six weeks ago. I don't believe that drink causes anyone to do something that wasn't already in them.  So we drank, and we had a lot of sex.  He posted something on Tumblr that said, "How about a weekend between my legs?" and asked if I liked it. She probably thought it was for her.

We even talked about having a "friends with benefits" relationship, but nothing big has come of it.  The thing is that we still love each other.  It's morphed into something else, but we do.  He said it one day, too, and was afraid he'd made things awkward with me.  Honestly, it's a little reassurance that maybe our relationship still means something to him.

He was surprised, I think, that I immediately decided I couldn't live next door to him anymore.  It took me about six weeks to get into a new place.  It's almost twice the square footage, same rent.  It's cozy and cute, for my dog and me.  The silence is beyond heavy, though.  I told Jacob that one day, and he promised to make my phone "make noise."  He hasn't, though, and the evenings get very quiet.

So, I've cried a lot.  I've railed at God a lot.  I've gotten back to praying, but sometimes I still rail.  I have a lot of questions for God, and he seems short on answers for me.  I'm not sure he likes me very much, but that's another story.

I have more stories to tell already.  I hate dating, but here I am.  When I got divorced 15 years ago, my mother said I was so brave to face the possibility of being alone forever.  That seemed unfathomable.  And now…it could be real.

I can't express how much I hate this.  Writing this much about it has been hard, so I'll stop here and save the other stories for later.

Warning: several WTF moments are coming!  The dating world never fails to deliver - because people are crazy. Or stupid.  Or both.