O-L-B is annoying me from the periphery again. This is why you should never date anyone you meet on a political message board. I haven’t spoken to him in about 10 months (although he will still sometimes respond directly to one of my posts, which, WTF???) and I am definitely over him in the relationship/romantic whatever sense.

I guess I’m just annoyed by his general existence at this point. The things he posts are really patently ridiculous and I don’t agree with much of it but I also recognize that the reason it annoys me so much is because I am shallowly letting my personal feelings/opinion of him creep in. (Or maybe his posts really ARE that stupid)

This guy also posts about the drama of his love life on the message board ALL THE FREAKING TIME. On a message board that he knows a girl he used to date (me) will read.

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Today is one of those days where it feels as if this fight isn’t worth it.

I’m thinking about OLB; we’re sharing a room in Chicago (stupid. I don’t want any comments on this. I know) and a 13 hour drive there.

I don’t think he’s a bad person, but part of me is angry at him, even though I don’t have the real right to be. He showed up in my life at a time when all the bad (drinking, depression, etc) was accelerating. I showed up in his life 3 months after he broke up with girlfriend of 10 years. Bad timing all around. It isn’t his fault I was isolating myself from everyone else in my life the same time I was actively seeing him. But I also hate that I have to feel all icky and guilty, even if it’s only in my own head, about wanting the emotional component with him, even if it was for the same reason. See, I know it’s lame for me to talk about how totally right and comfortable and awesome it felt to be wrapped up in his arms, because it did, and I certainly can’t say that for anyone I’ve been with since the Ex-Ex-Ex. But it was just so incongruent that that comfort came without the emotional component even though I logically recognized all the reasons why romance was certainly not going to be part of our arrangement.

And I’m (mostly) okay with the fact that things didn’t (and weren’t going to) work out between us, but I just want to find some way of saying something before we spend a day together trapped in a car, because we have never talked about any of it, not really. And while him, being him, probably doesn’t feel the need, I being me, do, and I’m thinking if he has a problem with me saying “this is something we need to briefly discuss. Deal with it” then he can go deal with it on his own.

I am sleeping with an incredibly well-read, intelligent, politically-compatible, man, who can also make me laugh, makes me coffee in the morning, and sometimes even holds my hand in public (which, considering some former suitors, impresses me.) He likes me too, and I know that.

But.

It’s all the wrong timing and all the wrong circumstances, and we both know it. When he looks at me, he is seeing something else. I understand why it is this way. Not only is he just barely out of a long term relationship, he also dated this girl in high school, so she is his whole life. I will never be her, and I will never know him the way she does. And I’m just the rebound, and a security blanket. No one is this affectionate with someone they’re just fucking.

And as for me, I cannot let myself be the last on someone’s to do list. I have always been of the opinion that if you really like someone, etc, you MAKE time, you don’t ‘have’ time. He does not make time for me. I don’t think it’s malicious of his part, but being someone’s rebound really sucks. In other circumstance, we may have had potential, but we don’t here, and I’m trying to figure out how to be strong enough to make the “this isn’t going to work” speech, because I am NEVER the one to give this speech. I just wait for it, wait for the other shoe to drop.

He is essentially a good guy. He listens when I talk, but I don’t know if he hears, and him, he doesn’t really talk. I wish he did.

It’s frustrating, because it’s the first time in a VERY long time that I actually met someone that I like-liked. But I should probably end this, because I don’t want us to dislike each other, because neither of us are at fault here. It’s just not right, because of right now.

I’m terribly bored at work, so I’m going through my alternate email accounts, the one that are supposed to be for junk mail and such. I found all these emails that I forwarded from my Skidmore account before it was deleted; they’re all from HWSNBN.

When I look back on my drama with HWSNBN, I’m usually quick to blame myself for being so idiotic. But when I saw these emails, I was reminded of just why it was always so ambiguous. “Please don’t go away,” he begs in one email. Another he signs with “Yours, somehow.” One simply has the subject “Thinking of you” and the body is “That’s all.” And “I could never be with a woman who is even remotely religious, which is part of why I’m so happy with you.” And oh God, the conversations on AIM from Spring Break.

I need to stop reading now, because now it’s just getting scary and kind of depressing. Because I wasn’t so idiotic for seeing potential and chasing it, not when he made me believe it was there so bluntly. And that was all four years ago, another terrifying little tidbit.

I wasn’t in love with him, but I sure as hell thought I was. It’s weird to have such a black and white reminder of what played out, and weirder still that it was so long ago, and even weirder that it did not quite go as I force myself to remember it went.

And for some reason, this all manages to depress the hell out of me. I have no idea why.

Here’s the thing with new (non)-relationships: There are no promises, and you cannot, cannot let yourself plan around them. For three months I have let myself become prisoner to rules.

Being around him is almost comfortable. Our arms wrap around each other as if they have been doing so for years. We exist in almost comfortable silence while he makes us breakfast (and he makes damn good coffee) and when we catch each other’s eyes we exchange these quiet little smiles, that almost mean something, — but probably nothing. There is joy when I get him to laugh – he’ll want to keep me around, because I make him laugh, and he makes me laugh.

I am afraid of the unknown, yet I almost don’t really want to know, I’m almost not ready to know; because see, I already know. Because how can you have emotional intimacy when you aren’t really sure you like yourself? This is what I meant about the words on the tip of my tongue and the back of my throat, that I keep biting down and swallowing back. He has seen me erratic, just once, and it scared him. I almost want to open to him, but I don’t know if I can, and then, how can I blame him if he can’t open up to me, for his own reasons? And then, based on what I’ve divined, it’s almost besides the point.

It is that somehow, unexpectedly, I met one I almost actually liked, who I already kind of knew, and I’m more worried about how he sees me, and more clueless than ever. I almost want to know everything about him, and it’s too soon. I’m going to get attached, knowing barely anything more than that it has felt almost completely right in his arms since the first night he kissed me. When I say I have never felt this way about anyone, I mean it. I just don’t know what exactly it is I feel.

And in my mind, I keep replaying all the ways this is going to end, the way he is going to tell me that he’s sorry, he’s tried, but he just can’t be involved with anyone, or he’ll give me that line about how yeah, I’m great, but he just doesn’t feel that way about me, and I’ll be crushed, because there seemed to be potential, and then there will be one more potential gone.

I hate what I’m doing, where I check my email too much and I spend way too long composing a response. This game, of saying all the right things, keeping him interested, making him want more, and trying to be patient and be good with what is right now. Taking it slow, because he’s on the rebound. Wondering if I’m naïve to see any potential in this, to have any hope in this becoming more than what it is right now.

Opening up has always been almost too easy. For whatever walls I have built up in the past, reigning in the instinct to let someone in, with the knowledge that I have to hold back takes so much energy. And then I’m afraid that all this emotional energy will just blow up in my face and he’ll back away.

“I am a cynic. You are a romantic. And you are really romanticizing this.” HWSNBN said this, a sneer nearly four years ago that my heart still contracts on. I’m not sure why he had to say it, since he was the one making all the rules. But he said it, and it hurt, because I thought I was in love with him, and he made it so easy. His disgust for my romanticism – and hence for me – triggered a construction project of concrete around my heart.

Today, I compare relationships to bank balance sheets, and don’t think its that far off. I am afraid to believe in feeling almost anything anymore, both for fear I’ll feel something that isn’t returned and for terror that I just won’t feel anything at all.

It was not until I saw him standing on Second Avenue, smoking a cigarette Sunday morning, that I was reminded how much I miss him as a daily presence in my life. For over a year, I saw him every single weekday, and most of them he made me laugh, and he is also the first friend I made when I moved to the city the first time.

I saw CK Sunday morning. I emphasize “morning” because he decided we should get to the Libertarian meet-up we were planning on attending at 10:30, instead of 1 PM. I thought this was idiotic, but went along. And you know, I now further understand why people are so turned off to Libertarian Party. I mean, people who want to be left alone are the type generally attracted to Libertarianism. But these people were definitely suffering from the geek social afflictions that Ellie posted about last week  We were swarmed. CK was freaked out, and dragged me out of there.

Because CK has always had me wrapped around his finger (not in any romantic sense) I didn’t really protest. Desperation is really ugly. Just leave us alone and let us be here.

Oh and of course the short time we were there I was the only woman in the room. Earlier, CK had teased me, when we were wondering aloud wtf we were doing out so early on a Sunday, if I was using the event to pick up Libertarian men. “I’m not going to be your Libertarian wingman Rachel. It’s too early for that. I can’t believe you got me out of bed this early.” “I didn’t hold a gun to your head,” I replied, the perfect LIbertarian response. But apparently, I’m really predictable, because I had already been accused of using the event for the same reasons. I’m glad everyone realizes what my priorities are.

And so I let him buy me brunch and then we walked around the East Village. He made me laugh a lot, as usual. We exchanged our typical cynicism and pragmatism (prag-mat-a-a-cist) and had our little silences where we both realize; “Damn. That’s accurate.”

We hugged  good-bye before getting on the subway, and we made vows to get Ukranian food & beer sooner, rather than later. I delayed going home by stopping at the Strand, and having conversations in the history section. At home, I started cooking a giant pot of stew and watched My So Called Life DVDs. I really shouldn’t be so anti-social, but the morning was social enough for me.

MAKE THIS MONTH END.

Basically, I’ve written this month off as a total fucking waste, and that’s okay and stuff. But damn, just END already, October. Please?

Last October, 2 important things happened.
1) I realized a PhD program was not for me. Yeah, it took months for that thought to actualize, but I knew it as early as October..considering classes started on Sept 25, I unfortunately figured that one out too quick.

2) Ryan called me around 7 AM on a Sunday morning and we had a 5 hour conversation abotu relationships. I learned a good deal about myself and confirmed my romantic past and future, and it was incredibly bittersweet. Because I was speaking to my ex-boyfriend, who I actually don’t speak to right now, and we were telling each other these honest honest things about our love lives and how we would be, and etc. and part of me knew that it was the last time we would speak like that, and I was right. And I don’t even think about it that much, honestly, but when I do, like early morning walks down Third Avenue to work the utter sadness it brings me is pathetic.

When I was 16, I took a leap of faith. I took it because it was “right.” This is the first time I have put right in quotations. Most of you don’t know the story, but I got involved with Ryan under very unfavorable circumstances, knowing it would be very difficuult, and knowing it meant having to deal with shit that you don’t usually volunteer to deal with. I still cannot, even in the most filtered of entries, tell the details, which sounds more cryptic and dramatic than it is, but part of me cannot break the silence, nor can I wish silent condemnation on myself for my choice.

The leap of faith I took has had its share of consequences on my life, I had never ‘questioned’ it as a correct step.

For the first time in my life I am dangerously worrying, what my life would be like it I had (probably rightly) chosen to throw away potential with Ryan. If, on that weekend I learned his bit of news I had been able to say ‘Well…nevermind then”

It took me eight years to admit I may have responded in the wrong way.

And so I also want to let go of those eight years, because I wish I knew where I’d be without them, even though that is impossible on several levels.

As in, “i loved you Ryan, I really did. But I should have walked away from you when I was 16 and had the opportunity. And I’ve never said that before. Not even when we first broke up. Not even last fall when you got the new girlfriend. But I loved you and for the first time I wish I never had. And I hate that, but it might be the most honest thing I ever felt.”

Can’t you just feel the angst?

I’ve been listening to the song “Hey There Delilah” incesssently, because my roommate plays it on his guitar all the time, and being a musician, I’m sure its sort of an anthem for himself, but like any love song it makes me a little sad, because I have no one with which to associate the love song.

Which made me want to listen to Bon Jovi’s “This Ain’t A Love Song.” Go figure. That plays, and then “These Days” comes on after that, and it’s freshman year of college and I knew then what I know now, on some level, and this song is so palpitably putting me back on the road in Amherst and Hadley I just don’t know how to put it into words. Arg, my memory and music. The entire album “Maybe You Should Drive” is definitely Amherst/Hampshire for me. What’s creepy is I remember driving North on 91 when i was actually, you know, moving up there, and the song “Jane” playing and I listened to that CD over and over again that year. Which of course I’m now playing, and “Love, Intermittendly” which is another Ryan memory, because what the hell in my music collection isn’t?

This doesn’t even begin to cover the range of angst I’ve experienced this month, but I”m gonna bite down on the inside of my cheeks and shut the hell up about all of it, because it’s not worth it, or helpful right now to try and be articulate about.

Okay well. This month is almost over. I’m not on the road to a PhD and I don’t have a boyfriend and won’t anytime soon.

I also have a really good apartment and a really good job and I really need to focus on both instead of being a slob, not doing laundry, and treating each day as a day to get through instead of a day to day build on each other.

Tomorrow is a brand new month and while it’s technically a meaningless milestone, tomorrow won’t be October and I will try to start again from Square One in New York because I have to, because I want to, because I need to.

It’s nearly 1 AM and I just cried over the end of “Fourth Comings” even though I predicted it. I still want to pound my fists on the wall because there’s just some stuff that’s too scary-relevant. I am pathetic.

I miss Ryan. Mostly, I miss the way we were last summer. I miss our Sunday night phone calls — how even that Sunday I was down the beach, he called anyway, and how I smiled when his number lit up my caller ID.

“I’m the closest thing you’ve had to a relationship in the past year,” he spat at me in an argument, and that was the last time we talked, over a month ago, save an at work gmail chat about my job.

He was right.

I miss our dynamic from last summer, a lot. And since he was my only real relationship, I guess I miss that too.

But in another way, its time to chin up and be brave.

He moved on and let go — and it was I who gave him that freedom. I should let his own freedom do the same for me.

Dawson: Can I have some advice?
Joey: Sure, what else are dumped ex-girlfriends for?

I related this to the Ex when he called me for advice, although he reminded me that I am the bitch who dumped him.

For one, I am a relatlvely defensive person. 

I also have a mix on iTunes entitled “You ruined this one for me.” Which is basically songs that I can’t listen to, because they remind me of exes. Thank god Billy Joel remains immune, save two songs. But also, my memory kills me. Like I’ll cue up a song and it brings up such intensely palpitable memories that I want to hit something. Strangely there are fewer songs that remind me of the ex-ex-ex than HeWhoShallNotBeNamed. I think Laura teased me once I had like, a soundtrack for that relationship. And um, i kind of did.

I am listening to an NSYNC song right now. I am wholly unashamed of this. Rome and I used to walk around the West Village singing Britney Spears. 

I am dealing with “issues.” Which is my purposelly vague way of saying “Wow. There’s a lot of nonsense from ages ago that I never dealt with. I’m going to go deal with it! Which is probably quite annoying for anyone who has to deal with me on a daily basis. This post sounds fairly emo and so I will conclude on the note that I recognize my ridiculousness.

I drove home that night, not thinking further ahead than my headlights dancing on the nearly deserted Northway, but being fully aware that I was racing away from everything I knew.

I got home and Xina was on the phone. “Hold on,” she told the caller. “My housemate just broke up with her boyfriend…wait, what?” She looked at me, and after assessing that I was okay said “My friend Keith wants to know if you’re hot.”

Proof that life would go on. Not as usual, but it would go on.

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I’m happy to report the revival of my cellphone!

And I’m reposting this, because it needs to be said again, even though I only posted it a month ago.

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Seven years ago, wearing Mudd Jeans, a purple shirt…I don’t remember what shoes, but I sprayed my neck with LEAP! Perfume.

I am sixteen years old. The boy at my side has a girlfriend; we’ve already had that conversation. (He likes me. I like him. But he has a girlfriend, and he loves her, and…and yeah, of course I get it. But that doesn’t stop me from a mutual making plans and hanging out and we’re not flirting I swear ) A few hours, a few drinks (my first. Our first.) later, and we are laughing over some inanity because we are young and not accustomed with the effects of booze, and I know before I know, and then he kisses me.

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