I am just beyond pathetic.
one stupid little night with one stupid little boy and I'm reduced to staring out the window. listening to angst-ridden chick music with meaningful lyrics and hauntingly perfect chord progressions. wondering what went wrong.
right.
see, I've got this funny way of doing things. a lot of people, most regular folks, will... burn themselves on a stove, perhaps. and have it hurt. and then the next time they went near a stove, they would remember what happened last time, and like, get a potholder. or something. the point being that they wouldn't just put their hand right onto the burner again. because it hurt. because they would have learned from it.
now, I've got this other thing going on, where in this same analogy (or whatever the fuck it is) I have to suffer multiple third degree burns and get rushed to the hospital at least once to learn that I can't touch the fucking stove. and even still, after all of that, I walk by the stove and go, well, it can't be that hot, can it?
so I got burned. again. and I've got to write (type) it up here, and get it the fuck out of my head, because I have gotten so completely uncomfortable as a result of my actions that I want to stab myself. so put on your earmuffs, go back to your email, whatever it is you want or need to do if you don't want to read about my personal life in great depth. I mean, it's my blog and all, but I thought I'd at least give you some notice.
so we'll set up the scene (and start another paragraph with so): picture Yours Truly, the absolute photograph of mental health. who hasn't fooled around or otherwise gotten involved with a boy since The Boy. who has taken close to a year-long hiatus from relationships because people she respected immensely told her that it might be a good idea. healed, healthy, ready to rock. so healthy that she's stopped looking, that the boys are starting to look for her - twenty-five pounds lighter and counting. into her own art and digging the scene with some good friends and really, really taking care of herself in a way she never has before.
enter Cute Boy, stage right. Cute Boy comes on the new haven scene packing the legitimate amount of time to be a viable candidate, has a minor setback, but pulls through. Cute Boy is also ridiculously nice, knows how to dance, holds open doors, and is friends with friends of Yours Truly. Cute Boy and Yours Truly have a little soft spot for each other from the start, and in the spirit of Doing The Right Thing make sure that they are not engaging in any type of Inappropriate Contact.
this goes on for a few months, until Cute Boy lets it leak that he has a little bit of a crush on Yours Truly. enter Raging Hormones. now Doing The Right Thing takes a back seat to Accidental Touching and all the things that go with it - Cute Boy and Yours Truly are sitting together at movies and diners and are even risking the occasional phone call, knowing it's probably not Right but doing it anyways. so the Raging Hormones proceed to pull out a few more stops and before anybody can say "constitutionally incapable" Cute Boy and Yours Truly find themselves on a camping trip with Sensitive Friend #1 and Sensitive Friend #2 (who are already in a Super Secret Double Probation Behind The Scenes Relationship).
apparently The Tent is big enough for Cute Boy and Yours Truly to sleep in seperately, until the Raging Hormones and the subzero temperatures come along to bring things to yet another level. to keep it brief (and non-pornographic): Cute Boy says All The Right Things to Yours Truly and winds up Charming My Pants Off. there is much giggling and not much sleeping, until 5:30 in the morning when Yours Truly wakes up to Extreme Emotional Discomfort and goes to watch the sunrise - instead of driving home while everyone else is asleep, which is what the Easier Thing To Do would have been.
as it turns out, Cute Boy goes looking for Yours Truly and has The Talk about all of the Extreme Emotional Discomfort and Yours Truly becomes much less uncomfortable with the way things have gone. Cute Boy makes cup of coffee for Yours Truly, says more of The Right Things, and even curls up for a mid morning nap in the end of summer sun. Yours Truly is Fairly Confident that Everything Is Going To Be Alright. Yours Truly and Sensitive Friend #1 drive home, swap stories, take naps, and hit that night's regular meeting.
in her morning rituals the next day, Yours Truly comes up with the idea that she is being Quite Selfish. that Cute Boy has a lot more on the line than she does, and that whether or not they enter as contestants on The Dating Game is up to him. Yours Truly calls Cute Boy and tells him Exactly How She Feels, and as it turns out Cute Boy has decided that he needs to Take Care Of Himself, most evident by the fact that he is Not Ready For A Relationship Right Now. something that should have been determined earlier in The Game, but nonetheless Yours Truly respects Cute Boy and goes back to Insanely Boring Work Function, made slightly more interesting by Disturbed Sleep Schedule.
the next day, Yours Truly starts to get the distinct feeling of You Got Played, but denies it as much as possible. it's tough to complain, seeing as Yours Truly is In The Wrong for acting out on her Raging Hormones, which is not exactly in the category of Doing The Right Thing. phone calls to Sensitive Friend #1 and #2 follow suit, and the consensus (as always) is to just Show Up and Have Faith. Yours Truly heads faithfully to the Regular Tuesday Night Meeting, which Cute Boy does not regularly attend.
except for this week, of course.
(jordan catalano: that's ironic.)
Yours Truly, now in Extreme Emotional Discomfort like never before, pretends to be fine with being four feet away from Cute Boy and is careful to Avoid Contact throughout the night. this is coupled with I Don't Know What Other People Are Saying, I Want To Believe That It's Him But It's Probably Me, and I Wish He Would Have Just Said Things Differently - followed by Awkward Hurried Exit.
(end setup)
so that's the gist of things. on one side of the coin, I am human, I've got hormones, and when you put two people in a tent that have been specifically avoiding sex for quite some time to encourage mental health - well, what do you expect to happen? on the other side of it, I'm the one that's supposed to know better, and here I sit riddled with expectations for the new guy to behave like the guy with lots of time who knows how to properly express himself. in the meantime, I'm going to have to hide out at some other meetings for at least a little bit, because I am not really looking forward to a repeat performance of last night.
I've already learned a bunch of shit from it though - that the rules don't always apply, and not just because this stuff is happening to me. that sometimes we just drop the ball, and sometimes stuff fits into the hard and fast lines that have been drawn, and sometimes it just doesn't. and that my way of doing things still doesn't work, and that I've got to experience that for myself to really believe it.
and that casual sex still does not work for me. but you almost can't blame me for that one. it's been a fucking year, for pete's sake. yet these things hold the test of time, for me at least - liking boy + sleeping with him too soon = not knowing whether or not he will call the next day, which is a place I swore I'd never put myself in again.
maybe I needed some fresh angst to write about.
and every letter started broken hearted...
~vvb
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