04.23.07

They say I’m hopeless - like a penny with a hole in it.

Posted in Dating Diaries at 1:41 pm by Nicole

I used to say that I didn’t know how he felt about me, where this is going.  I used to say that I would ask him, straight up, the next time I see him.  Yeah, I’ll get right on that.  What I didn’t say was that I never asked, because I knew what the answer would be:  Nowhere.  He’s not the one for me.

He forced my hand this weekend, I stopped playing the game.  He said exactly the opposite of what I wanted to hear at every opportunity.  By Sunday night I was worn down.  Enough.  I give up trying to make you love me.  I accept that you don’t.  Or, at least, not how I need to be.

I should be used to this by now.  It isn’t the first time he’s left.  Or even the first time he’s left me.  This time, however, is the first time that they are occurring at the same time, and the last timeI will let this happen to me.  Maybe we can be friends, but I can’t live in this tar pit anymore.  I look towards next month as the start of the next period in my life.  It may be an infinitely more boring period, but at least I won’t feel like crying all the time.

I keep thinking to the last time we broke up.  I had a date the very next weekend, with an Architect.  He was everything Sebastian was not - educated, worldly, thoughtful, measured.  It wasn’t a bad date, per se, but after it was over, I felt even worse about everything, and missed Sebastian even more.  When I got home that night, I wrote this letter to him, which, of course, I never did send:

Every night before I go to bed I talk myself down off the ledge of calling you. I don’t know what it is, maybe because it is so new, still, I haven’t fully healed. I could not stop comparing my date to you. You told better stories on our first date. You weigh 30 pounds less but are four inches taller. Your hair is softer. You drink better wine, and would take me to a fancier restaurant. You tip better too. Your car is better than his Mazda 3 and you would never ask me an inane metaphysical question like, “If you could know the definitive answer to any life question, what would it be?”

On the other hand, you don’t have half the ambition that this guy does. Or the intelligence. (He said “It’s all relative,” properly, and several times over the evening.) This guy doesn’t have the need to pretend like he is so over everything, and can still talk about LA as a land of possibilities where he is making things happen, instead of waiting for things to happen to him. This guy reeks of upper class east coast upbringing. Dad’s a doctor, mom’s an artist, went to private school. I guess you both have that sort of sense of entitlement thing going on, but he’s not an asshole about it and is willing to work hard and pay his own dues to make it on his own. (Not that you aren’t willing to work hard, I know you do on those shifts.)

We kissed for a little while, my date and I, in his apartment. He wanted to go farther, but I wouldn’t let him. Finally we agreed to just lie together and watch a U2 concert on tv and rest. (You would never want to watch a lame U2 concert!) We fell asleep for a bit, his arms wrapped around me, and I dreamt of you. I woke up startled that you weren’t next to me, and instead it was some foreign alien guy that I didn’t really know who felt different and smelled funny.

Driving home from his apartment at three in the morning, I checked my voicemail, knowing that you weren’t one of the people who called me. But, a voicemail I saved from this summer replayed (because Cingular was going to delete it) and suddenly you were there: “Hey, I’m just calling to say that I miss you…I miss you and I love you. I hope you are having fun whatever you are doing, and give me a call when you get this, I’ll be up for a long time.”  It took all of me not to call you, crying, right then and there.

In my head I know we can’t get back together. I know that there will be other guys out there that are better for me. I know I deserve nothing less than to be treated like a princess and for whatever reason, you can’t do that for me. But in those wee small hours of the early morning, when my mind shuts down and my heart takes over, all I want is to hear your voice, feel your arms, and go back to a time when we were in love. (But when was that, really?)

So instead I drive on, past the landmarks of our relationship, past the empty parking spaces on my street that I would save for you if we were still together, up into the apartment that we shared for a month, and without calling you, I put myself to bed.

I just couldn’t fall asleep until 6:00 a.m. I guess that means I’m still not over you yet. 

I hated how I felt after that date. Like I either had to choose between a life of bittersweet torture and drama with him, or a life of boring first dates that I am only half-present for, and am constantly comparing to him.

I am looking down that same barrel again. The last time, I stuck my toe in the pool of the rest of my life, and hopped right back out and back into a “relationship” with him, but this time even more ambiguous and difficult. This time, I know, I cannot do it again. I know I will have to jump in, feet first, even though I am scared, even though I am sad that I have to, and even though I hate him a little for making me. And I know that eventually - sigh, eventually -  my head and my heart will follow.

And all that will be left of this time will be this: That I deeply and completely loved a man - the wrong man for me - and my life fell spectacularly to pieces. Then I picked it all up and moved on.

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