Man, oh, man, time flies! I just noticed that it's been a loooooong time since I've updated my diary here. Apologies to anyone who was actually reading before! I'll do my best to catch you up and keep things current. Promise!
One thing at a time. Personal stuff, then work stuff later.
Personal stuff: Men. Mr. "I'm freaking out!" did eventually send me a message. Get this -- he asked why we ever fell out of touch. Can you believe that?! WTF is wrong with this guy? My response was short and not-so-sweet. I pretty much said it was because he couldn't handle it and I didn't push it, and I moved on. No more messages. Funny thing -- a curious Internet search revealed the possibility that he might have been married at the time, with kids. Great. What a jerk.
There was another brief jerk. All the things a girl loves to hear: "You're wonderful!" "You're beautiful!" "I can't wait to see you again!" Then...weeks of silence. Nothing. Finally, a message with a story I can't quite believe, but decide to leave alone. We make a date. It goes great. We make another. He stands me up. I get the story the next day -- another hard to swallow story. So, I do what I do best -- hit the Net. From that, I find out for sure that he's full of crap. This is the Information Age, people. Lies are easy to find. What a jerk.
Then there was the guy I met once, then he started text messaging me all the time. This guy barely knows me and he thinks it's a good idea to send me something that says just, "Booty Call!" all the time. He was shocked that I was insulted by that. Go figure. What a jerk.
Oh, then there's the guy I met for a lunch date once. He seemed into me, but he didn't impress me as my type at all. After lunch, he sends me an email that says, "I know you really wanted to kiss me. How about next time?" No, thanks. A couple of days later, I get an email from a woman I don't know. I'm one of about 20 recipients. She says she's engaged to this guy and found all of our names in his email address book. She wants us all to just be honest with her -- have any of us slept with him? Did any of us know about her? I wrote her back and said that I didn't know about her, but that I just had the one lunch with him and nothing more. No sex. She responded that it was good to hear that, but that at least 15 others had responded so far that they WERE sleeping with him and none of them knew about the others. I felt bad for her, and them. Wow, what a major jerk!
I have to backtrack here. Before all of these fine examples of manhood, I had been seeing the same guy for years. Then, he kinda fell apart and stopped managing his life. It fell to me, but that's not a grown-up relationship. So, we moved apart, but we still managed to see each other. I had dates with other guys and realized that these guys just couldn't love me like this other guy has, when things were good. He started working on getting his life back together. I finally give in totally one night. To make a long, really painful story short, 48 hours later, he gets drunk and sleeps with his neighbor.
NOTE: If you ever consider cheating on someone, be aware that the pain you'll inflict on them is profound and devastating. You just can't imagine the hurt and the torturous thoughts that they'll go through, possibly forever.
It's particularly bad when the one being cheated on has had others pull similar stunts in past relationships. The underlying feeling of being inadequate, or just "not enough," can be crippling emotionally. Cheating on them only reinforces and intensifies that feeling.
I found out about this because his behavior became strange with me. He later said it was guilt, not wanting to face me. I went to his place and this woman comes from another apartment, saying I don't have any reason to come by any more. She starts advancing on me, threatening. He about decks her, to stop her from coming near me, but lets her know that she'd have gotten her ass kicked by me if she'd followed that threat. I was in no mood for anyone's crap.
So, I heard the whole story. We went through a hard, hard week after that. He was saying he didn't realize that me being physically available to him meant that I was now emotionally available, too. He said he was drunk, and he wouldn't have done such a thing sober. He said he told her, right after it happened, that even if I left him forever, he wouldn't be with her. I was the woman he loved and nothing would change that.
Tell me, is it wrong for me to take pleasure in knowing he picked me over her, no matter what? See, she'd known him awhile. She knew he was in love with me. She'd been told by other neighbors to leave him be, that trying to take him from me would backfire on her. She persisted, anyhow. She wanted me to be mad enough to leave, so he'd go to her. It didn't happen that way. So, is it wrong for me to take pleasure in the idea that she sees him with me, and she knows she failed? It probably is, I know, but she isn't going to manipulate anyone while I'm around.
So, he and I decided to work on it. A few months later, I find that during our "off/on" time, he posted an Internet personals listing, saying some pretty mean things about me in it. That was hurtful, and I almost left. Maybe I'm too understanding, but figured that it was created during a time when things were rotten for us. He deleted it.
So, I live with the paranoia of having another incident, finding out about someone else. That's a daily struggle and I hate it. The problem is that I'll be just as paranoid about anyone else, forever. A couple of weeks ago, I found that he'd placed an ad at an "adult" site, for "erotic email" with someone out there. I confronted him. He said he was just horny that night and I wasn't available, and he didn't consider email as personal contact. It's faceless, after all, like reading porn.
I was understandably upset.
We've talked about it a lot since then. That day, I hated him for the first time ever. I was furious and hurt. I wanted to hurt him back. I told him that my relationships seem to prove again and again that I'm just not enough for the men in my life. I never have been. Even though I feel condemned to not being enough, I still hold to that ideal of having a relationship in which I am enough for that man, and he loves being with just me.
He said I *am* enough, that he was just being selfish and stupid. I'm not sure that's enough for me.
So, we are still together, but it's shaky. He knows that I am not sure it'll work out. He knows I don't trust him. He knows that, despite his reassurances, I feel inadequate. He knows that I need to feel that I'm better than adequate and that I'm loved enough to not hurt. He know that if I find someone who might be a chance at that type of love, I'll most likely take it.
He wants to be that person to me, but I just don't know if he has it in him. I wish he would. I've wished that for a long time because we're a great match otherwise. He keeps up with me intellectually, listens to me, supports me, and cares when it seems no one else does. But he also lets me down more than anyone else.
I went to a conference recently, and seemed to catch the eye of a colleague -- who lives half a continent away. I bumped into an old classmate last night, and seemed to catch a spark from him, too. So, what will happen? I just don't know. All I know is that I seem to find an ache in my chest no matter what solution I consider.
More on my work life later. I actually need to do some of it.... ;o)
Thanks for reading!
Blogget Jones
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