Dating – Page 3 – Brilliant Distraction

Relationships are hard

I sit here. I am trying to put together the last 7 days and just don’t know what to say. The last two weeks were so dramatically different. My relationship is experiencing growing pains. For equality’s sake, should I really be saying “our relationship”? Probably. I feel that the “hiccup” (his word) in our relationship last weekend shows me that we both need to learn about thinking about the feelings of the other person. I learned to be aware of personal and emotional space. Give certain people room with out barraging them with questions or in-your-face-closeness. Maybe this will work with the young, the shy, the introverted… I learned to stand up for myself and know that I am okay with him or by myself.All by myself. I can want him, but I don’t need him to feel complete. These seem to be the lessons I keep needing to learn. I hate that. So frustrating. Fuck. I would be lying though if I felt that I could just recover in an hour as I confidently posted last week. I felt like I did when I posted last week; I was being as truthful as I could have been back then. 7 long days ago. When he texted me an apology on Sunday, I realized how much I liked him. Is there some language that has a word between like and love? I have been learning French this year and when the cool app tells me to translate “j’aime”, I say “I love” and it tells me that it means “I like”, but then later I am asked to translate “I love” and I clearly am stumped now; the answer is “j’aime”. What?? How can the French so casually intermix the two. Way too confusing. When I go to Paris, I am certainly going to investigate this. But I digress.

Then Tuesday, I saw him and shared about this on a post on November 2. I know that I felt the same as he did when he shared his sentiments. I was a wimp and couldn’t say it back. For one, I was scared of the same thing happening and getting blindsided again, in any near future. Secondly, I did not think it would mean as much if it was just parroted back. Depending on what happens in a few days (our next date is Tuesday), I want to share with him today. This is a huge risk. I am so scared. I haven’t felt this way since my ex-husband. Yeah, and we know how that turned out. I am sure I have said that before, perhaps. It bears saying again, because its been a long assed six years. It was this time six years ago, I came back from Florida with nothing. I rebuilt my life. Slowly. And now this. This reminds me that things worth having are hard. Relationships are hard. I don’t want to sabotage this. I can only pray he doesn’t want to either.

This weekend is the seven day reminder of hime ending things for a 24 hour period (what he calls the hiccup). Tuesday, he assured me that we should not be starting over as we have gotten this far. At that point, we were together a month and two days. Assuring me that he does, in fact, want me to be a part of his life (with his kids). I want this too. I am terrified of getting my heart broken. It was almost there last week. I am not sure I can take it again. I think for sure I wouldn’t have another break up in me (with him). I doubt he knows this. In the spirit of positive thinking, I will not be mentioning this. But with all my experiences, I am trying to be positive and hopeful, and end up feeling all pragmatic and cynical . That sucks. I am so close to having a truly wonderful thing. I MUST NOT SABOTAGE. I know anything could happen today. I realize that he could cancel our date today. He had a horrible crappy day Friday and Saturday, when I saw him, he was sick and who knows what he will feel like today. So, I am fine with things not being perfect, I was a bit bummed to not hear fun nice things all day. But authentic relationships are like lie. We have bad days, we get sick, we feel sad (as I have this weekend with my memories that I posted yesterday). When he got off the phone with me so abruptly when someone was knocking at his door Friday night, I felt this doom. I can not allow the negative feelings he had yesterday to be about me. Saturday was okay and nice to know that hopefully we can get through the imperfect awkward days (of one of of being sick or not feeling tip-top). But this is really hard to do when he ended things just 7 days ago. This is the insecurity that absolutely SUCKS. I am working towards holding the lessons learned to heart….So hard to do.

Slowly. I will learn to trust again. Trust him to be strong and understand me and trust myself to keep a calm and still heart.

Wait for it….wait for it….

And there it is! So in my last post, I described the absolutely lightning speed recovery from a month-long relationship. I was somewhat blindsided by some of the guy’s break up speech, but was kind of aware of the insecurity (because of course, I felt it). I had a great Sunday morning and got to the Bronco’s game. By the end of my brat and diet coke lunch, came the second shock of my weekend. HE TEXTED.AN APOLOGY. Yes, people would certainly say, calling is better. However, being at the game, I was totally fine with the text amidst the loud noises in our amazing seats! He admitted “you were right” and said he was sorry. He did NOT end the apology with a ‘but’ trailed by anything else negating the apology’s authenticity. He didn’t defend his awful behavior Saturday. He just apologized. Well, I was floored. But there is still work to be done. Words are cheap. They were words I have not heard often, if ever, from a guy I was dating. The words of “you were right”. We texted a bit more and he said he’d like to start over and admitted we went too fast , but he’d like to make that right as well.

So the next day, I sent one text of three words (I remember the text issue and plan to stick with small amounts of texting conversation, even with his apology). He texted back and we made a plan to play it by ear for Monday. I never saw him, but as it was Halloween, he had kid obligations. I went down south to spend time with my friend and her family, and he texted me later that evening.

Tuesday morning he texted me first and we sent a few texts. I was very surprised he wanted to come for dinner when I invited him over. Last night was quite amazing.He apologized in person again. To my face. He and I talked and talked. And talked. He told me that he felt like an asshole and said that either Saturday night or Sunday before he texted me, he realized “he was falling for this woman and just pushed her away”. He told me then he definitely wanted me to be a party of his life (and his kids). We talked about spending more time together and strengthening our relationship. We discussed honesty. We discussed spending time with the kids once our relationship feels stronger. It was already getting stronger, just getting back to where we were, and then some.

I never imagined this would happen. I thought I was totally fine with out him. I think I realized that while I don’t need someone to feel whole, I did actually miss him a ton. Even just 24 hours taught me to keep true to me. To continue to work on me. No matter what. I do think that will be part of my success in all this.

So yes, I waited for something I didn’t even know was coming and that was pretty incredible. A first for me (a true apology with admission of wrong doing). I hope there are a lot of other awesome firsts. I think I could be falling for him also.

Scary. I will wait for the next time. As patiently as I can.

Two steps back

This week perfectly sucked. It certainly hasn’t been the suckiest week ever. Is that even a word? Probably not. Does not matter. It describes my week just that way.

I have taken a few steps backward in my mental and physical health. I ate crap and did not exercise. The lack of a proper diet and lack of exercise set me up for poor sleep hygiene. I owe it to myself to be kinder to my body; nothing and no one is worth ruining what I worked so hard to build for myself. I am pretty disappointed. I am hoping I can get a good power walk in after a nice birthday brunch with my good friend.

I am feeling torn between the virtue of patience and knowing this relationship is worth a bit of struggle with scheduling and the idea that I am worth it. That he is also frustrated and wants me to be a priority, but yet, the situation is just hard of him as well. I think I need to figure out whether I am entitled to know this? Is it normal that we just don’t know this? That this is the risk, the not knowing if it’s all worth it, that we just don’t know what we are getting into? If we are not “all in”, is it even worth it? I am an “all in” person. I am also a person that likes a plan, likes the intention. I am working on the healthy balance. I can be intense and I know it. I need to shed the insecurity.

Have a good weekend & let me know your thoughts!

Great Expectations

Armed with my incredible friends, experts in different areas of life and death, I am learning to ask for help in the arena of managing expectations.

I have always felt that the low hanging fruit were now behind me. I have started to feel that by setting the bar high is good, I was exuding higher self-esteem, standards, expectations (job, hair, clothes, income, car, housing, really ridiculous….). I began elevating the standards so high, that it almost became impossible for me not to be disappointed. And putting a list on paper really became my downfall. I started judging everyone from the get go.

Until this guy I am dating now. I was immediately attracted to him and we got along great. My stupid mental checklist didn’t exclude the big things: honesty, integrity, character, but it also required the absurd and superficial components. They disappeared when I met this guy. Period. End of story.

So, advance 2-3 weeks: We were perhaps moving too fast (planning a getaway); I started out so well, minimizing and managing expectations that were really unreasonable to begin with (the mental list). Then my ego snuck back in. The ego started developing a different version of a mental list. This list described what I wanted to hear or thought I needed to hear at certain times.This is NEVER GOOD. NEVER. EVER. GOOD. Yes, we can expect a modicum of respect and honor, but if the honesty and integrity are there, I have to ask myself, what else do I absolutely need to hear, on my time, no less? This insight comes directly courtesy of one of those great friends with experiences I have not yet gained. When saying I am patient, I need to mean it.Then when the things I want to hear are said, I am hearing them from a truly honest place, not a place based enabling my insecurities.

Have I sabotaged myself? When he told me this morning I was being insecure (though the circumstance was a bit unusual and the source of my insecurity very specific), I had not had time to process the origin of my insecurity, but I owned it because it was the truth. I felt insecure, but it was not until later did I realize how situation specific it was. My insecurity started earlier in the week. I told him that I didn’t deny the insecure feelings lately and thought we needed some more time alone together (which he agreed) to get back to the really good real conversations we had in the first 1-2 weeks. He agreed. emotional intimacy is what I want and I think he agrees, even though we did not quite title it that way exactly. When it was time to go home this morning, I told him it would be great to see him in a few days and I couldn’t wait (sentiment he usually returned). He said nothing other than “see you then” with a kiss and I left for home. I texted him a brief bit later to mention something trivial and “have a great day!”. No word. So no more texting, no more insecurity. I know my self-worth. I know I am intelligent, caring, intense, big-hearted, intuitive, sensitive and trusting. Right this minute, I am trying to recover from this transient insecurity.

How do you manage expectations? Do you remain hopeful, but some how have some incredible skill for removing the expectation from the hope of an outcome? Or is hope or wishful thinking just a euphemism for “setting up expectations”? How is that you achieve that balance?

Leave a comment and thank you in advance for your input!

Have a great week everyone!

No drama, no problem

As I got ready for bed, I was playing around Facebook. I posted an old picture of me as a blonde. Check out my About Me Page: I am clearly not blonde. I was feeling nostalgic for circa 2009. I guess as I got ready to actually sleep, I found that I couldn’t. More nostalgic than ever, I guess. And now just realizing that I may just be plagued with a writer’s mind. Why is it that my most intense thoughts come late at night? Why do I not trust my self to remember them in the morning at a more post-appropriate hour? I am SO NOT a night person. However, I am compelled to write now. I keep hearing “don’t write it later, censored by a good night’s sleep and a will to kindly protect those who crushed me”…So I trudge on.

Instead of counting sheep tonight, I found myself counting all the past relationships (female friends, male friends, boyfriends, husband, girl I mentored) that were so toxic for me that I had to leave them in the past. Leaving those relationships behind , as venomous to my spirit as they were, were some of my most difficult and turbulent moments in the last 5-6 years. The most interesting thing is that the memories are coming back into my thoughts at a time where I am developing a very nice healthy relationship. It’s as if I am setting out to sabotage myself with still-too-vivid memories of disappointment, betrayal, distrust, sadness, perpetual anxiety, and loss. Basically a Pandora’s box of misery. Why, oh why? Why are they coming to the surface now? I have a really awesome thing going here.

What.Am.I.Doing.To.Myself? I would almost think if I was some psychologist, that I just suffer from low self-esteem, that perhaps I don’t know how to deal with a great thing when it comes, perpetually destined to think: “do I deserve this?”. Maybe the damage is done. The horrid years of being bullied/harrassed/perpetually teased and no way back. How would I know smooth sailing if the sailboat’s boom hit me in the face? I wouldn’t. Or at least I haven’t. That needs to change. Now. What I can tell you, after quite a few years of self discovery, is that I know that I, do in fact, deserve good and amazing things. I know my diet and exercise achievements, my acquisition of French as a foreign language, and blogging are a great start. A healthy relationship is here. It is my job not to royally fuck it up.

So I am learning. Learning from a very good guy that there can be life with out drama, anxiety, sabotage, frequently broken hearts or abundant tears. Why in Hell did it take me so damn long? I seriously hope you are not planning on telling me that perhaps I wasn’t ready for it. Yet, I would probably end up agreeing with you in the end. My life could potentially and finally be so much better than it was 5-7 years ago. I am starting to feel great and if I don’t watch out, I am going to turn into my worst enemy and really mess up a fantastic thing.

Be your own advocate. Be your own support system and accept the wisdom of your friends around you. Sometimes, if you are really lucky, they know you pretty damn well. I guess I have been blessed this whole time, after all!

And, yes, you ARE worth it. You ALWAYS were. Don’t fuck it up!

You can’t change the process

Okay, so I think the healthiest thing I can attempt to do is to NOT change the process. I realize that’s probably where my problems all started in the past. I always rushed it along, plowed through the slow beginnings and BAM! Sabotage. And oops, I did it again! So, that’s not going to happen this time. I have learned time and time again that change and new paths can be uncomfortable. I know they are. I hate that! But if the process dictates that I need to take one step at a time, respecting my own space and the guy’s, then that IS exactly what I will do.

So you say the new part of any relationship is the exciting part? The butterflies in my stomach part? The never knowing what you’ll learn part? Well, exciting is not my strong suit in matters of the heart. I am not an adrenaline junkie and with a tad of anxiety (be quiet those friends who know me!), this has been by far the most difficult part. I want to get to the part where we are comfortable and routine. Where we know what the other wants, needs. What? What did you say? I need to be patient? Funny, I keep hearing that in my head, too!

So if you have to be patient and slow to create something more lasting and less fleeting, then that’s exactly what I will do.

Be patient people! It seems to be the way to go with these adult, grown up relationship deals!

Relationship Quandary

I have been single for quite some time; amidst all the dating and meeting people who are, well, not for me. I write, I power walk, I learn French. I keep busy. It’s all good. I generally am comfortable in my own skin and don’t mind being alone. I am extremely independent and have been single a lot of my adult life.

Then I meet this guy. I don’t want to jinx anything, so I don’t want to say too much right now! I am very happy and I like him very much. I have not said that about ANYBODY in a long time. A.Very.Long.Time. Honestly, I don’t even know when, since my divorce. I have a guy I really like and who has said he really likes me. So I should be feeling awesome and full of butterflies. Which I do feel. 100%. So why do I also feel more lonely at home alone now than when I was single and did not have any body that feels this way about me? I feel like I need to stop the level of neediess I feel to hear from him and be with him.This is SO NOT the post-Hell, post-War, post-Divorce me. It’s just not.

I have come too far to feel this lonely.
If anyone has insight on how an independent, confident, intelligent woman could survive Hell, then get lonely the minute she meets someone she could really be happy with? I can’t sabotage this.

Please comment and help me out if you have any insight or can relate to what this whole mess of a real healthy relationship is, because its my first chance at this kind of happiness in a long time and I don’t want to mess it up.

Douchebag #2: The Shake-Up

Ironically, these douchebags could not have come at a better time; back to back they came and snuck up on me, and perhaps, due to my most recent experience, I had way less tolerance for douchebaggery in my future. I met this person actually before my last text to Mr. Cairo. I had never met Mr. Cairo, so honestly, I felt it was perfectly acceptable to move forward.
This is another quasi-long post: enjoy the ride!!

I even got off the Internet long enough to meet this new guy in person, at a Meet-Up no less. One would think we had common interests. A love of France anyway. The first night I met this guy, we shared an instant interest in France, Paris specifically. After my first meet up there, we went out for a late bite to eat and talked about general life (work, life, Paris) and we talked for two hours. Good start, or so I thought. We even made plans for the next day’s planned Meet-Up. We would go to a movie afterward. So after two glasses of wine, we went to the movies and discovered the wrong time was on the site. We went back to his house in the general Cherry Creek area. On paper, this guy was stable and well situated (nice car, nice career, great real estate). On paper. I will tell you, by the time we were watching The Godfather, there were small annoyances, though no deal breakers. He kept telling me facts about the Godfather and informed me this was an epic film (Really?). He informed me of other facts that every self-respecting film lover knows. When I got tired, I could not drive home that late with a few too many drinks (though I am sure that wine had already been metabolized and the beer at his place was not significant). I spent the night and the next morning, I left feeling in my gut, this was a mistake. I had no clue how big of a mistake that was. He was already critiquing me. Yeah, highly annoying. I am totally fine with constructive criticism, though it’s usually better coming from someone who actually knows me. But whatever. So we decided that we would do something that next weekend on Saturday. Despite that gut feeling, I went ahead and thought, maybe I am being too sensitive. Maybe, I am interrupting him too much when he told me that he is not done talking. Well……

That next Saturday, I was in charge of bringing the wine. I decided to bring a nice red from Coppola’s collection, specifically as an homage to our recent Godfather viewing. I got to his house on time and as he opened the wine, he educated me that Coppola actually directed The Godfather that we had just seen. No shit Sherlock!Jesus! Did he merely think that was a coincidence? I said “yeah, that’s why I brought it”. I guess I could not let that go! So we ended up watching The Godfather in its totality and started Apocalypse Now. We didn’t completely finish that, but with 1.5 long movies under our belts, I was quite sleepy. What followed was fairly disappointing and not too impressive. I was really just wanting to sleep. The next morning, I woke up literally receiving a lecture about cancer with a side of autism at 0800 in the morming. I had NO idea what was in store for me. I woke up with severe chest cold. Ugh, then I was unprepared for the lecture of a lifetime.

I have no clue who would think cancer and autism are appropriate topics for Sunday morning not even out of bed talk. So at 7:30 am, this man starts to talk about autism and cancer; it is all a blur now, so I can’t remember the order. I can tell you this was in no way a conversation. A lecture maybe with a limited Q & A session after. Everyone is entitled to an opinion. I get that. Though, I have to say most people don’t have an “opinion” on what cancer actually is. That’s typically agreed up on prior to a discussion on some type of medical diagnosis, biopsy, and treatment. According to the man, cancer is a lot of residue that just builds up. It builds up and you get cancer. Very simple. This explains why people who conduct lives that are not as healthy get cancer. We are not even talking about lung cancer causality with cigarette smoking and the like. We are talking about all the cancer “residue” that builds up and then you get cancer, usually based on lifestyle. However, “we” are not talking. He is. Only the man is talking. When I started to interject with something related to globally accepted fact about cancer, he reminded me to “not interrupt” while he is talking and I will “get an opportunity when he is done”. Hmmm. At 8 in the morning, no less. This goes on maybe 30-45 minutes. Fascinating. Fascinating how someone is so convinced their opinion of cancer is fact. Though doesn’t seem to be a fact accepted by any medical professional globally. It gets better. He has a “solution” for those battling cancer. Lucky them.

He continues to lecture that the powerful solution is in his mind. He has a cure for cancer (the residue, remember). That solution is a “shake up drink”. It is “explosive”. It will really disrupt all the residue and remove it from the body. Over a course of days, weeks or a month. He does not have the details at this point or even the ingredients of the shake up drink, for that matter. But, the man will tell you that it will work. He informed me in the latter part of this lecture series that ‘those with cancer will need to know that this is explosive”. No pain, no gain, he says. Not sure if they will be able to “handle it”. Seriously? Holy crap. When he was done lecturing on the finer points of residue build up, lifestyle choices leading to cancer (from residue) and the shake up drink, I was allowed to provide feedback. A rebuttal seemed like a more appropriate response. Of course, I had to address the issues of lifestyles causing cancer. Sure smoking can lead to lung cancer, but this “discussion” was not about that particular and commomly documented causality.

So I proceeded to ask him: What about the healthy people who get cancer? What do you think people with cancer deal with when they endure chemotherapy and radiation? No pain, no gain. I told him that’s ridiculous. I think most people battling cancer with chemo and radiation are familiar with hardships in treatment. I asked him if he understood that basic fact. Then what about the children with cancer? If this residue that accumulates to become cancer is a result of lifestyle choices, how are the children barely walking and still nursing and eating baby food getting cancer? From this residue that accumulates?

The man looked at me, formulating a response that made sense in his mind. Well, he stated simply the residue is passed on from the child’s mom before birth. It is the mom’s fault. Of course. Then of course, I asked about the baby’s cancer solution “the shake up formula”? He said “exactly”. Then he started talking about autism. It is unacceptable to have pregnant women travel on airplanes as that causes autism. Obviously.

So I ended this whole diatribe and said “I think I need to go now. I think we will need to agree to disagree on all this discussion.” He said “yes-for now”. Wow. Okay. My chest cold just got worse.
Later that week….
After losing a few days of work and a very greedy narcissistic telephone convo with the man on Thursday that week, I was not sure I wanted to see him again…I determined that while he stated he was the “most considerate man on the planet” with respect to my being sick, I suspected that was not quite the truth. Particularly when said my throat really hurt and he kept me on the phone more than an hour. Granted, I should have just told him I needed to get off the phone and hang up. I get that. Loud and clear. At the end of this most painful conversation to date (until my last one with the man), he tells me he is “capable of killing” with absolutely no context other than us talking about our exes. Then he said it again. “I am capable of killing”. I was quite uncomfortable and told him soon after, within minutes, that I really needed to get stuff done. The next week, he called on Thursday and I had mustered up enough courage to break things off immediately upon answering the phone.

If only it was that easy. It should have been. I should have been able to say “I don’t think we should hang out anymore” with an ok, good luck” response. Instead I was asked to describe the reasons for my decision. One by one. Cancer. autism, being capable of killing. That really got him. He really let me have it. After saying he was “joking” about that “…killing” comment, I said I didn’t get the punchline.I told him I was not all clear on the hilarity of being capable of killing. Then he got very upset and went on a rant about a family tragedy and that if I wasn’t comfortable with that comment, I should have asked him more questions. Honestly, at the time, I felt if someone is tellig me they are capable of killing, no more questions are needed. I am quite done. Quite. He then went to the other side of spectrum and said that killing is no laughing matter and that I should have asked him why he said that. I told him that it was not likely that I felt the need to explore this comment on killing and that, an hour after the start of this conversation, I felt I was very done with this conversation.

“You are making a very big mistake. I only hope that when you realize that, you will be able to apologize to me”. Awesome. I will get right on that.

Quite done.
That was my last conversation.
I really thought I was completely done with the creeps. I thought the douchebags were in my rear view mirror.
I was so wrong.
The next one creeped in shortly after.
I guess douchebags, along with other bad things, happen in threes.
Enjoy the rest of your weekend all!

A Tale of 2 Douchebags: where do I begin?

So how do I begin this tale? I promised myself I must be honest. I tried to consider a better word than douchebag. I even consulted the thesaurus for a more suitable substitute. It turns out there is no substitute deserving of these two men. I like guys, truly, I do. It is usually what gets me in trouble; this is no kind of man-hating rant. I am going to just tell the story of an attempt to meet and date a guy who seemed perfectly awesome, then turned into a potential scam. A perfect mirage. The second experience I had (douchebag #2 for the lack of a better word) was a different animal altogether. I will try to share both with the utmost of honesty and anonymity, all at the same time. Everything is true. Everything is my actual experience.

In truth, these events happened a bit ago (in the last 12 months), but I am wanting to post the most honest experiences and here they are!

I am hoping that women my age all around this planet will have better luck than I did with these two! I am almost positive that these two are so unique, one could not have any other type of luck. Like I said, I will leave out names and overly identifying information, but some information defines my experience and must not be left out. With Mr. Cairo, I felt that as a scam and facade, his “name” was unsearchable, unprovable. I feel that sharing the name he gave me may help others avoid any time spent with him, so I will share that one ONLY!