And so of course, I had to kiss him. Again.

On Tuesday evening I got the email: “We are prepared to make you the following offer.”

On Friday I had a job. Not only a job, but one that was a promotion from the one I’d originally applied for. The CEO was impressed, they said. (Please note: I now work for a very, very tiny company, one even smaller than The-Job-That-Wasn’t 2.0. But hey, it’s still a cool thing to impress a CEO enough to get you out of the assistant trap and get you into a job title that won’t make you self-conscious to hand out business cards.)

So Friday night I couldn’t stop smiling, and I made the first level of the pies for my impending dinner party, and when The Roommate got home, we just hung around, occasionally exchanging bits of commentary, and yeah, I know there’s been pseudo-drama with us that’s mostly my jack-asinine behavior that’s at fault, but it is nice that we can just “be” when we’re around each other. And then we made an amusing trip to Target Saturday morning.

Michael came over around noon on Saturday, and I had not seen him in months so it became a very fun session of cooking, reminising, catching up, babbling, and yes, lets talk about how Rachel loses her gaydar completely when a Libertarian is involved. Michael is one of the most gregarious people I know and he will engage anyone in just conversation or whatever. So while we were cooking and talking, The Roommate was putting together chairs (wins more Roommate points for engaging my dinner party that logistically was going to be a mess although a few expected people didn’t show, so it would have worked out) and I think Michael actually forced Roommate into having a good time. Which I did not know was possible. The Roommate does not have fun.

And then – successful party, I think. The food wasn’t as good as it could have been, I forgot to put out cheese with the chili, and the salad just never got made. But we all just hung around the table, and people laughed a lot, so is that a good sign of a successful gathering? I think so. Plus, it was also an impromptu celebration of my new job.

And then, I had a date, of sorts, on Sunday. This is a change from my usual mode of boy drama. This boy has told me straight out that he likes me, told me he thinks I am “beautiful and intelligent”, and held my hand in public. He made me feel adored, which made me realize – the recent boy I like-liked never made me feel like that. He was very good to me in many ways, from the pajama pants to the pancakes, (and one time, in the midst of the worst panic attack I have ever had he made sure I was safe and protected). And to him, I owe the roof over my head. I will always be incredibly grateful to whatever bizarre arrangement the roommate and I have. But I get his point now. It has been so long since I dated and I am so used to emotionally unavailable men, for whom you have to fight for an ounce of their attention. I forgot that sometimes you can just be yourself, and a boy will like you and pay attention to you.

This isn’t going anywhere yet. It hasn’t even started. But he held my hand in public, and he walked me to my doorstep and kissed me tonight, and he asked me if he could see me again soon.

And of course I said yes.

.

I’m trying to think of something funny, or witty, or offhand to write about, because even I get sick of myself and my own angst. One of my favorite entries from a super-angsty time is “Thirteen Stories About One Thing” (title shamelessly stolen from the movie of the same name – which I’ve seen and remember nothing of). So I figured, it was time for an updated version.

ONE

Me: Maybe I’ll buy a 49ers shirt for [the Redskins/49ers game].
Brent: That’s a terrible idea
Me: It’ll be like when Elaine wore the Orioles hat to the Yankees game.
Brent: Yes, and how did it end for her?
Me: I believe there was heckling.
Brent: I believe she lost her job over that
Me: Well I don’t have a job to lose now do I?
Brent: It’s still a terrible idea.
Me: I want to move to a city that with really loyal fans and wear opposing t-shirts. And don’t say Chicago.
Brent: Well if you want to get sucker punched and have beer bottles thrown at you, you could move to Philly.
Me: Philly sounds like a possibility, yes.

TWO

“I want you to come back home. You belong here. You can do anything here, it’s freaking NYC. The advantage is that you have everyone who loves you here; your family and friends.

-Jill-IAN

THREE

Me: I think he was wearing jeans and um…jeans
Ellie: But the important question is: did he iron his jeans
-a long ago reference that I’d long forgotten. This comment made me laugh all day.

FOUR

Regardless of what you end up doing, you did an incredibly awesome thing moving down to DC and leaving the comfort of the job you had before.Hang in there.  You are still awesome and I’m always proud of what you are doing- whether it’s trying to build a life in DC or in NJ.

-Joe (who always knows the perfect thing to say)

FIVE

Brent: i had a dream that i had written a paper for school but i had forgotten to write a works cited page.  i hate everything.
Me: that’s terrible. ms roeser would have kicked your ass. i had a dream that i found a room in a new apartment, except the furniture was staying there, and it was puzzle/trick furniture, that you had to figure out how to open, and i couldn’t figure out how to open the drawers
Brent: The worst. I need to go to dream rehab. You should come with me.
Me: We would alienate everyone there.
Brent: How would this be any different from normal life?
Me: Touche

SIX

On the very first version of Message-Board-of-Note, many years ago, someone wrote: “Love doesn’t stink. It’s fleeting and imperfect and infuriating and very human. It’s an emotional investment, with all the dividends, interest, and risk the analogy implies, and it should be treated as nothing less.”

I saved it in a word file and its survived several computer crashes. The writer is a friend now, so I emailed him because like-like is just as infuriating and very human.

SEVEN

Bitch, get in the kitchen and make me a sandwich.
-Keith (my ex-roommate)

EIGHT

We love you very, very, very much and we want nothing but happiness and kindness for you

-From Ellie & David

NINE

Pacey, to Joey: You fall in love and it doesn’t work out, and you think it’ll never happen again. But believe me, it does. In the strangest of places it does.

Jill-IAN, in response: Oh my god, shoot me in the head

TEN

It. Hurts.

And I remarked “I haven’t had to cry over a boy in years.”

And it has been years. I haven’t “like-liked” a boy in years. And the bliss has been great. Those first few steps of falling where you like-like someone, and you’re not sure where it’s going, but when you’re in his presence the only thing you want to do is kiss him. And when he kisses you back it’s addictive and you never want to stop.

And since you haven’t done this is years, you’re relationship challenged. And he has his own things to deal with too. But when you accidentally get into the We Have to Talk conversation, you seem in agreement to take it one day at a time. When you tell him the Cliffnotes of your relationship history – all those boys who wouldn’t hold your hand in public, he tells you that he would hold your hand in public.

That kind of makes you swoon. As if the pajama pants he brought you in the hospital, Mets hat that showed up on your pillow, and Libertarianism wasn’t enough. You think, for all your bad relationship history, if a guy like this, who knows you’re crazy, could like-like you, well, you must be doing SOMETHING right.

And four days later he comes in and makes the executive decision to take away all the hope and happiness he’d given you.

You’re a head case and already self conscious that that will keep a guy from ever wanting you. He knows you are intensely flawed, because he’s the one that showed up at your hospital bedside and knows you know your way through the ERs around DC.

And for all the other nonsense in your life that totally sucks he gave you a place for a bright spot. He made you smile. More importantly, he made you smile in that way that you smile over a boy that you like, and you haven’t smiled that way in years.

And then one night it all stops. You start to tell him about how Texas is about to win the World Series and he says “This isn’t working for me!” and you’re so blindsided/frozen that at first you don’t get what he’s saying. About 36 hours ago, he’d kissed you awake to tell you “have a good day” and now his words are all about how he will never want you.

So now, you try to play a good game (though you look like hell. No. Seriously. Look in the mirror. You look like hell.) You still smile at him sweetly. You are still polite and civil, like a good tenant. You don’t slam drawers or cabinets.

You alternate between anger and tears. Because on the one hand, how dare he, and on the other, it doesn’t matter, he Doesn’t Wan’t You, and you’ve certainly been down this road before.

He’s the first person in years and years who can make you weak in the knees just by smiling at you. Your effect on him is apparently more minimal.

You realize then that he almost never kissed you first. And then you feel like an idiot, and you cry.

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/11/02/its-too-soon-to-tell-this-story-2/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/10/31/to-the-last-man-i-slept-with-and-all-the-jerks-just-like-him/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2011/10/31/to-the-last-man-i-slept-with-and-all-the-jerks-just-like-him/#comments Mon, 31 Oct 2011 20:47:12 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=7937 .

.

Note to my mother who sometimes reads this blog: Please do not read this entry.

The roommate and I originally know each other via the Message Board of Note and thus ‘know’ a lot of the same people. To be fair, I know them a lot better than he does, given that I have close friends through the board. Given that my amazing friend just sent me a plane ticket.

The roommate didn’t know about me and OLB (I thought EVERYONE freaking knew about that since OLB quite publicly acted like a jerk and behind the scenes I whispered “Psst. Not only is he being obnoxious, but he also did this.” And then it occurs to me, that I guess I never told this story. (For the record, the women he obnoixously posted about were never me.)

For one, I cannot believe that was three years ago. And actually, most of it, FOUR years ago, since it was 2007 when that drive to Connecticut occurred, and it was Thanksigiving weekend of 2007 that I got dressed for a gathering somewhere, subconsciously knowing something was going to happen, even though I had no reason to think so.

I met OLB on a random drive to Connecticut, for a random gathering of libertarians, who had somehow all wound up on a random spin-off message board. We’d briefly met at a previous gathering, but I thought nothing of him. I guess those hours together in the car were important, because at Thanksgiving weekend that year there was another gathering in the city, and it was one of those nights where you know you look pretty(I had this lacy red tank top on, peaking out from my black sweater. Clearly, some part of me knew something was up even though I really, seriously Had No Idea) and you wonder if the boy next to you is actually sitting closer to you than he needs to be, or whether you’re just imagining it.

(I wasn’t imagining it)

He was smart and emotionally unavailable, so clearly I was hooked. Plus, I thought because he was older he’d be less inclined to play games. Ha. Ha. Ha.

OLB pulled me into his bed, but not his life. I was like his dirty little secret – the crazy girl he was secretly sleeping with. He took me out to dinner, but never out with his friends. The mornings after, he took me for breakfast, and for walks, and then he pushed me on the subway and basically said ‘Get out of my life’

One night a guy from Message Board of Note, from out of town, was visiting. The local contingency got together and drinking was involved. We were a few blocks from OLB’s apartment and a long subway ride away from mine, so I asked him if I could stay over and he said sure.

At the end of the night, it was me, OLB, and this other acquaintance of ours who totally knew what was up. He had known what was up at Thanksgiving – he’s not an idiot. We were all standing on a street corner on the Lower East Side, saying goodnight.

OLB pushed me away and pretended to be walking in a different direction. I was so blindsided/confused that I froze. The acquaintance saw what was up and offered to see me home safely. I was drunk (and now upset) and wound up going home with OLB anyway, where I yelled at him, called him out on what happened that night, and then later, ultimately cowered.

I’m stupid, but I’m not naive. I knew what was up. I had learned a lot of lessons from HWSNBN years earlier. (#1: Do not be with someone who won’t hold your hand in public. Literally and metaphorically) I already knew what it was like to be with someone who’s emotionally unavailable. Who will sleep with you but never tell you you’re pretty. Who will take note of the fact that you’re a headcase, point out your flaws, and later remind you that if you just hadn’t been so god damned melancholy, maybe things could have worked out. Who will constantly cancel on you at the last minute, because sticking to your plans would mean admitting to his friends that he’s seeing you.

I had a crush on HWSNBN long before he kissed me. We were sitting in my living room, and he said “You’re beautiful.” And then he kissed me and in those moments, my world was perfect. Later he told me “I don’t know what guy couldn’t fall into eyes like yours”

A total line, but he said it, I fell, and he still pushed me away. I wasn’t pretty enough or sane enough or together enough or smart enough or whatever enough.

And for all the tears over this, I let it happen and let myself continue to accept increasingly mixed signals, because hell, it was better than nothing. With HWSNBN it was because I’d crushed on him for so long and then he actually kissed me and we’d tease each other politically with “you feed my radicalism.”/”no YOU feed my radicalism”, and at 4 am we’d smoke Camel Lights on my front steps and it felt like Something. With OLB, well…I don’t have any idea. He kissed me, he brought me home, and he made me coffee. And a year later, at the same sort of meet-up, even though we hadn’t talked in months, he walked in and said “You look really nice.” And I proceeded to get black out drunk and go home with him, and engage in what David has since described as “Date-raping yourself”

Somewhere between all of that we made the trip to Chicago for the Message-Board-of-Note meetup. He made the 12 hour drive with me, shared a hotel room with me, and never acknowledged my presence in front of the others. So I coped by getting epically drunk (but behaving quite well. Ellie was driving and was thus stone cold sober and tells me I was fine. As do other people. OLB insisted I was a mess and instead of caring that I was a mess (at this point, I had admitted to him I had a total booze problem) he was just like ‘you’re an idiot and you embarrassed me). We were barely out of Chicago the next day when he blurted out “I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

I cried. He listed my flaws. I cried a fair amount of the 12 hours home.

The Thanksgiving relapse happened a few months later and ended with him screaming at me and shoving me on a street corner. And then spending the next few months on Message Board of Note, talking about his relationship drama. In public, he got away with it. In private, fellow MBON people flocked to my side, and as time went on and more stuff developed, more people were like “WTF?!?”

Don’t get me wrong, when this was all going on I was an actively alcoholic head case and no guy would/should have wanted me anyway. But OLB was such a jackass that people were still on my side. I like to think I took the high road – I never made it public, I never called him out on it. But David (x3), Timothy, Ben, Ellie, Ross, Alex, Ali, and hell, even Dru swooped in and said “Yeah. He’s being a jerk. You’re not crazy for thinking he’s being a jerk.”

And years later I am well over HWSNBN and OLB, thank god. I never thought I would be over HWSNBN because he devastated me more than anyone ever had. (“I am a cynic, you are a romantic, but you’re smart enough to be a cynic,” he told me. “And you are really romanticising this.” His dismissal of my alleged romanticism, and thus me was incredibly painful. Ages later, I wrote this. I was able to hold me head high, say ‘screw it’ to the boy I’d moved to New York for, and manage for those first 6 months when I lived in Jersey City and could basically see his building from the balcony.

I smoked the occasional Camel Light, but other than that, I was okay.

And I realize this babblefest has not even addressed The Ex, which is either worthy of a different entry altogether, or not worthy of one at all. Our relationship “changed me” because we were together 4+ years and they were formative years. Mostly though, we were too young. It’s our random friendship that was more damaging. That happened and in some ways I fell for him all over again. As far as I know, he’s in the middle of med school at Georgetown. Which means for a year, I lived no more than a mile from him. On my last day in Glover Park I was packing up some final things and was in a bad mood, and was all sweaty and gross, and thought, ‘watch me run into The Ex right now.’

I didn’t run into him. I haven’t seen him since a week after I broke up with him in 2004. But in the summer of 2006 we had a standing date to speak on the phone on Sunday nights, and texted all the time…and it was fucking ridiculous. And then he got a girlfriend. He tumbled into a relationship with this girl after a long conversation with me where he freaked out about his feelings and I advised. I was in Chicago, a newly minted UChicago student, and hundreds of miles away from everything that had made me happy. One night in October he called me and said tentatively “Oh…so…I have a girlfriend now.” I swallowed my tears (several times) and I smiled through them and told him how happy I was for him.

I loved him. I did love him. I did love him enough to want him to be happy. I do hope he’s happy.

In some way, he must have known it hurt me, because of the tentative tone of his voice on the phone, after several months of us being so close. I called a friend and burst into tears. She’d witnessed all my stupid texting and swooning and she knew I was being stupid. “He has to know that this hurts you,” she said.

It did, but it didn’t matter.

(“There’s one thing I have to say, so I’ll be brave. I know what I wanted. I gave what I gave. I’m not sorry I met you. I’m not sorry it’s over I’m not sorry there’s nothing to say.”)

The Ex is an Ex for a reason. For a lot of reasons. And it was fucked up when we were ‘friends.’ There is a little piece of my heart that will always, always love him (even though the feeling isn’t mutual. He totally hates me) and I’m completely okay with that now.

I have loved once (The Ex), THOUGHT I loved once again (HWSNBN), and once knew there was no way in hell I loved, but I was doing it anyway (OLB).

In between, I’ve had my share of perfectly nice dates with perfectly nice guys, none of whom pinged my interest.

The way to win my heart is to be emotionally unavailable. I’ll take the bait every time, and no, I never learn.

What he meant, for those who have not been following my blogging for the EIGHT years it’s been around (I missed my blogging anniversary because I was drunk) was that I was weak because I couldn’t just ‘snap out of it’ when I was depressed and therefore was not together enough for him. And since my self-esteem wasn’t in very good shape, I spent a lot of time in the next few years trying to show how ‘together’ I was. Which is especially screwy considering HWSNBN wasn’t/isn’t even in my life.

I guess I thought of this because of something I heard at a SMART recovery meeting last week. SMART is very different from AA. In AA, you are defined by your alcoholism. In SMART your addiction is a problem but the philosophy is that we get better. That’s what someone said on Tuesday; we get better. (Coincidence to one of my favorite West Wing episodes?)

It gives me hope, because it reminds me I got better. More importantly, it reminds me I am NOT my alcoholism. The comment from HWSNBN was probably one of the most damaging things anyone has ever said to me, because he made me believe that I was my Depression. That that’s what defined me, and that no one could ever want to be with such a mess. I spent the next few years squashing down Depression, hiding it, believing that it made me deserving of shame. And then I spent a few years after that overcompensating for it; I wore my Crazy as a mask of sorts. I put it on full display and challenged the viewer to make something of it. I know I did that with OLB.

I truly believed that while Depression was real, I was only allowed a certain amount of help. I so strongly believed that my will was enough. I even expressed envy for those who were sicker than me, the people who could fall apart completely and get put back together, because I was too scared to fall apart.

So I quietly held it together. I think, to a degree, I’ve done the same with alcohol. Part of me just still hated myself too much for not being able to snap out of it. Because being a drunk is still a stigma. People understand, they do (and as I’ve mentioned many times, the people in my life are amazing. EVERYONE has been so supportive and wonderful and has just wanted to help) but there is that part of me that thinks they’re just humoring me and they think I’m weak and worthless and not worth knowing.

I was sober for 18 months. I worked so hard to get myself to DC. And even before that, I worked to get myself to my job through 8.5 months of no license, I worked at that attempt for the Libertarian Fellowship, I worked at being the best damn glorified secretary ever. How could I do all that and still not manage to keep myself together down here? I’ve been so ANGRY at myself, and I’m just seeing now how being angry just buys into the mistaken idea that I am my drinking. And I am NOT my drinking.

Yeah, I’m an alcoholic. I’m also pretty smart and can probably beat you in Trivial Pursuit. I don’t follow sports but I love cheesy sports movies, like Miracle and Angels in the Outfield. (Both will make me cry) I’m a libertarian and I’d love to tell you why libertarians are the awesomest political party on the planet. I’m a Jewish-Atheist. I can’t walk in heels and since I’m kind of a zaftig I don’t dig the skinny-jeans trend but I can look pretty cute in boot cut jeans. I know the lyrics to every Billy Joel song and I also like country music. I have pretentious degrees that I’ve never used. I still have no idea what I’m going to be when I grow up.

I am NOT my Depression. I am NOT my alcoholism.

A very short period. That, sadly, was clearly the pinnacle of any “Game” I may possess.

Shy-Boy did not respond to my e-mail. So he’s clearly Not Interested. I’m not crushed, but I am definitely disappointed. I’m sure I will be over this sooner, rather than later, but it is one more disappointment.

And not to get all emo and over-dramatic (but clearly I will anyway) but it would be nice if one thing could go right. Just one. Of course, I’m sure if one thing were to go right, I’d want two, and then three, and so forth. But right now I’d settle for one. Right now, I wish that he would just write back and say “Sorry, not interested” because then I could stop wondering about it, but I’m sure that if I were to recieve that email, I’d be upset. Not so much because of WHO is rejecting me, but just because feeling rejected sucks.

I could just really use some good news. I’m sure that the zen like answer to this is that there is good news and good things to be found in everything. Which is a lovely little thought. But not, at the moment, a particularly effective, or useful one.

The Smoker that I went out with over a week ago sent me a barrage of text messages on Saturday night, in which he did not identify himself, but I knew it was him based on what he said, and the fact that the number he was texting from has the same first 6 digits as his phone number. (So probably another phone on a family plan, or something). They were a little bit creepy and definitely, I thought, over dramatic.

And now, I’m hiding out on “invisible” mode on gchat, because Polite Boy has been irritating me, even though I get the impression that he does not like me. As I mentioned, he has never been on a job interview (gotten jobs via nepotism) yet he feels that he is qualified to offer lots of advice, and question my methods. He also told me that he is “not used to girls who have political opinions.”  This partially supports my arrogant suspicion that he was intimidated by me. Whatever.

And, speaking of job interview, (or job hunting) David is currently lamenting his rejection from a Perfect Job, and his description of the pain and uncomfortableness of this particular rejection hits way too close to home. I know it well. Both of us are, on paper, completely fucking useless. It’s a hard thing to be reminded of, time and time again, because even when you get over the initial sting of the rejection, it isn’t something you have the ability to change much. It isn’t possible to go back in time, and mold ourselves into something different on paper.

And, so it is Monday. Time to go compose more cover letters for jobs I don’t have a chance from hearing from. I don’t mean to be all gloomy and pessimistic, but it’s fairly easy to be this morning.

He is very, very cute. And the emails we exchanged definitely expressed an interest. (Yes, yes, I know, the internet, emails are not indicative of future success, etc) But he was (seemingly) painfully shy. Like there were some long-ish, mildly awkward silences. Is that normal? Aren’t you supposed to just “click” if it’s going to work out? I have no idea if he liked me or not. And due to lack of comfortable interaction from him, I’m not sure, if I “like-like” him either.

But he seems really shy, and from what little information I have on him, perhaps his awkward social interaction is understandable.

Or he could just not like me at all. Like, he didn’t so much as try to give me a hug at the end of the night.

And now I have no idea where to proceed. Forget him? Wait and see? Or write an email saying that we managed to do pretty well for two ridiculously shy people and ask if he wants to do it again?

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/27/i-have-no-idea-how-to-date/feed/ 2 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/23/hope-is-dangerous-and-sweet/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/23/hope-is-dangerous-and-sweet/#comments Wed, 23 Jun 2010 15:13:13 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6918 Yesterday, a series of things that Give Me Hope (like FML, but with hope), to put me under the spell of “Maybe this time.”

When I have hope, I love it (albeit cautiously). When I don’t have it, I hate it and want it in equal proportions.

I warn myself not to project, not to plan, and not to get my hopes up. But…they’re already up. And so maybe I should just enjoy it? Because I know by now that it won’t last. A job won’t come through. What is easy conversation via gchat will be stilted and awkward. My email box will sit empty.

But, I drove home from work last night, and swear to god I had not thought of this song in years, but I caught myself humming “You Gotta Have Heart” from Damn Yankees. Specifically I’m thinking of this part:

Totally lame, but in the moment, it sounded pretty good to me, for all the obvious reasons. Maybe being stuck as a glorified secretary whilst marooned at my parents house in Jersey is NOT the career/life/whatever death sentence I’ve been seeing it as. I don’t so much buy into “everything happens for a reason” – I believe it’s human nature to Monday morning quarterback things without even realizing it, to attribute significance to things after the fact – it isn’t so much that everything happens for a reason then it is that we reconstruct the now logical sequence of events once the conclusion has already been reached.

But I guess that right then, and maybe even right now, I have enough hope to think that I’m going to get to a place, or something’s going to happen, and it’s going to give me the ability to see what this was all for.

And so last night, I got myself to the gym, where I listend to Atlas Shrugged on tape. I got up to the part where Francisco has become something that Dagny can’t understand and for the first time in their lives she doesn’t understand his actions, and she’s terribly hurt, but has no choice but to go on, and to live with it, and to survive it. I, much younger, used to think that if Dagny could handle that, than I certainly should be able to handle whatever complication I was currently obsessing about.

Then there was an email; not one I was expecting/wanting, but a good email nonetheless, and a short g-chat conversation.  I went to bed feeling good for once.

And now it’s Wednesday, and there’s coffee tonight with a boy I’m not sure I want to have coffee with (bad signs: hard to pin down for a time for plans and has mentioned an Ex more than once. good signs: very polite. seems to think highly of me from what little he knows of me) but the fact that I’m going to have coffee with a boy is a big step. Actually, his mentions of his Ex are what made me realize I am ready to date: At no time in speaking to any of these guys have I thought to bring up any of my exes. It hasn’t been relevant, whereas in the past, it would have been relevant to everything. I knew I had baggage (and I still do) but I hadn’t realized how much I had to put away until I realized it wasn’t there anymore.

And I suppose, even if nothing comes of any of this, that was a great epiphany. And maybe that should be my proof that everything happens for a reason.

And I feel guilty, because I’m pretty sure he liked me a lot more than I liked him. He asked at the end of the “date” when he could see me again; if I wanted to have dinner one night next week. I felt put on the spot, and evaded a little about my schedule. So I ultimately made no firm plans, but I think I indicated dinner would be possible next week, without meaning to.

And I texted him to say “Thanks for lunch” (because I thought that was just being polite. Should i not have done that?) he replied with “I had a great time, and I”m really excited to see you again.” So now I don’t know what to do. Because I got home, and the niceness of the conversation was not enough to make up for the disappointment of not hearing from the boys for whom the ball is in their court. (I probably butchered that sentence)

So last night, it was all summery and it made me miss the city, and think about how if I were in the city, dating would be so much easier. Which is probably not at all true. But there is still this whole “live with my parents” factor. And while there were very good reasons for me moving in two years ago, the fact that I’m still here two years later IS stigmatizing. But I still can’t GO anywhere, because career things are still in limbo.

Blah. The parallels to five years ago are frightening. And that foray into dating just ended in frustration. Granted, I have learned a lot since then, and there is no boy I am trying to make jealous.  But I don’t know. I don’t know if its just my frustration over the job hunt creeping in — I was telling Keithers last night about how it is so incredibly disheartening to spend time crafting cover letters and putting applications together to hear absolutely NOTHING — and making me feel uncertain about other things.

Edit: A minute later, an email from one of the other boys appeared. “Sorry for not getting back to you. Want to have coffee next week?”

And so I’ll wait at least 24 hours. And then I’ll say “Sure.”

]]> http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/19/no-idea-what-im-doing/feed/ 1 http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/16/time/ http://rachelnotrebecca.com/2010/06/16/time/#comments Wed, 16 Jun 2010 15:09:06 +0000 Rachel Not Rebecca http://rachelnotrebecca.com/?p=6884 You wouldn’t know it from my entries but I start each day with optimism. I wake up, brew a travel mug of coffee, and I drive to work with a good attitude about my hours in front of me. By now, I recognize that this optimism is unsustainable; despite my better efforts, it’s often gone by 11 AM.

Today was no different, except I’m writing this at 9:20 am, and won’t be able to post until later because OUR INTERNET IS DOWN. I don’t know what the issue is; internal stuff is working fine.

(this happened once at PLI and I wrote this post about how I wanted time to slow down anyway. I know it is terribly unhealthy the way I envy the girl who wrote that, but I do)

I don’t understand how our IT department cannot solve this, as it has been down for 90+ minutes.

[ok. Internet is back. Thank god]

And apparently, my optimism is crushed once I check my email and find no response from jobs or boys.  I don’t understand boys. I really don’t.  I mean, I would never describe myself as “hot.” But I’ve always been confident in the fact that I’m quite passably cute. But with this online dating thing, are they fleeing based on my Facebook photos? Evidence seems to suggest this is possible. Evidence also seems to suggest I am neurotic and over think things. However, given that NOTHING has worked out in the past 7+ months, maybe I have even more flaws than I realized, and I’ve just been walking around in this haze of self-deception.

At this point, anything thing is possible.

Every single morning, I wake up, believing that this could be the day. The job offer might come (which now has dissolved to “maybe I’ll get an interview…” and finally “maybe they’ll be something worth applying to posted.” Or, I might actually hear back from someone in my (admittedly small) network. Or maybe just SOMETHING good, something that is going to move my life forward will happen. Today could be the day.

I think this every single morning. It’s in my head from the minute I wake up. It’s in every song I skip or linger on my iPod shuffle. Every single day, there is a part of me that genuinely believe today is when it will finally happen.

 And every single day, for the past 6+ months, I’ve been wrong.

I’ve tried really hard to be happy (or at least “okay”) with the seemingly neverending string of disappointments. I really do try. I constantly remind myself of the good in my life and how things are not as bad as they could be. But those mind tricks are becomming less and less effective every day. I could give it a rest, sure. I could stop looking for the summer, try to relax and have fun, but what good will that do me? I will still be HERE in September, a place that I started to put together an escape plan from almost ten months ago.

And June is already half over. Time is moving at a ridiculous pace; and it’s such a valuable resource, and despite all my efforts, I’m losing it.

I am going to actually LEAVE THE OFFICE during my lunch break, because I don’t know, fresh air, or some such nonsense. But it never fails: I go out (and while this is, in sum, likely healthier than sitting in front of the computer for that hour) and am so disappointed to return to an empty inbox.

(I really need to get a life) ((I KNOW THAT! THAT IS WHAT I AM TRYING TO DO)) (I am talking to myself via parentheticals. Clearly progress is stalled)

Fact: I will never get a new job or a boyfriend.

And yes, I know that is entirely too fatalistic, and that if I were the type of blogger who had many readers, I would likely get a dozen comments about how that is not true. However, I will never, nor to I aspire to, be the type of blogger with a lot of readers (probaby because I have a bad attitude) and so when I make this statement, I am not fishing for comments but merely admitting to myself that that is what I feel (and fear). Putting it in words means that it is real, so I am loathe to do so, but there is it.

I am not supposed to fear; in fact, fear is supposed to be the enemy, the underlying source of all misery (that is what I have been told, over and over again). But it is there. I haven’t had one in person interview (other than the Libertarian fellowship) and in the past 6 months I’ve generally managed to be waiting on one possibility at almost all times. (It helped that one company took two months of interviewing to reject me). Now I am not waiting on any possibilities, I just have applications out that will not get responses. I am out of places to look. My network is quiet. I am back down to no leads, no prospects, and no hope.

As for boys, I haven’t been on a date in more than two years, if you can even call O-L-B a date, which is likely even more pathetic.

I’m going to go for a drive now, and try to resurrect the decent mood I was clinging on to this morning. Self pity is not a pretty color on me.

I used to find a lot of things to write about. Life DID feel like magic. I don’t need the entries as evidence, because I remember, but the entries are proof that I used to able to talk about certain-somethings without the slightest bit of irony.

[EDIT] I have posted a bunch of stuff from my paper journals, which has thrown off my post count. I feel the need to note that here [EDIT]

I have written 1,166 posts. This makes 1,167. Some of those are private and I’ve definitely deleted posts altogether, but still, that’s not so many posts for seven years. That’s about 166 posts a year. About a post every three days. When I say it like that, it does sound like a lot, as if my life would be completely and accurately (ha!) documented here. But it’s not. It’s missing the months I spent in Europe in 2003 (although I did write that all down and the journal is Somewhere) and when things are stuck, like now, I’m less inclined to write.  And then there are all the things that I hid from myself that I still can’t bring myself to blog publically about.

So I’m sitting here, on a Thursday morning, blogging about blogging, because NaBloPoMo exists, and gives me an excuse to write things like this. I have to post every day for 30 days, and hey, a post about posting makes one! Great!

But it’s more than that. I thoroughly (and unsuitably) miss my old audience. HWSNBN, for all his flaws, and for all the ways in which the situation with him was bad for my sanity and self-esteem and whatever, got me to write. He is the one who made me feel like writing down all these words was actually important. Which is also ironic, because I don’t think he ever really gave a damn about anything I said. And I cringe when I think of those essays I wrote back in 2004-2005 that I let him read.

Things between us ended so long ago – five years ago, actually. But there is so much of him in so many things I do. He is, after all, how I wound up in NYC in the first place. Five years ago, I remember writing something about how it was so confusing to let the same hands that pushed you away, pull you back up. He was always the master of mixed signals (and I, admittedly, was the queen of selective hearing) and for all the ways in which he made me weak, he made me believe in things again. And for that, I still miss him sometimes.

So Evan, this is for you. Because it’s a Thursday morning, it feels like summer, Skidmore won’t stop sending me emails, I miss the city, I’m trying to cull together words that collectively Mean Something and I’m wearing khakis and that makes me think of you.

I saw Just-In-Case at the dreaded Wednesday meeting. He talked a lot and I was reminded why I have put no effort into “running into him” other than that one time. He is very cute (and seems pretty nice) but I could probably not stand to hang out with him one on one. Why is it that a Facebook comment from a Canadian Libertarian who I will never meet makes me smile way more than politely engaging in small talk IN PERSON with Just-In-Case?

I have absolutely no plans for the weekend other than going to the gym and perhaps working on KSAs.

My habit of reading PF blogs is making me kind of obsessive about my own finances. I’ve been fairly aggressive with saving the past 6 months (even with my clothing expenditures) but no matter how much I save, I worry it is still not enough of a cushion to move to DC on. (Not that I’ll move until I have a job, but my expenses will increase DRAMATICALLY). Right now, I am focusing on a fund that is specifically for moving related expenses.  I am keeping it completely separate from my emergency fund, which is in a local savings account and I cannot take money out of it without physically walking into one of the locations. I figure that keeps it pretty safe, and even more well guarded when/if I move to DC.

And of course, I’m still debating the Roth IRA thing, and if I want to get REALLY neurotic I can say “well the time I am wasting considering an IRA is time that my contributions could be growing.” I did one of those retirement calculators on my 401(k) plan and it is all like IF THE MARKET PERFORMS BADLY YOU WILL NOT HAVE ENOUGH. So maybe I should just part with some of my hoarded savings and open a Roth IRA?

I should just ask my dad for advice. He is the most sensible person about these things.

Also, daylight savings time this weekend, so we lose an hour. First of all, fuck George Bush, because daylight savings time is EARLIER than it used to be (it is entirely possible that it did used to be at this time and then it got moved back for whatever reason, but I don’t feel like looking it up). Secondly, daylight savings is a GIANT scam. Finally, because we turn our clocks ahead now, and UK doesn’t for another two weeks (THANKS A LOT BUSH) it makes things very confusing at work, and really, logistically speaking it makes NO SENSE that the UK be just 4 hours ahead of us.

Insert requisite comments from my physics/philosophy friends about how time doesn’t really exist. And with that, it’s the weekend.