Where is Father Merrin When You Really Need Him?

OK, so I maybe has some feels about the last break-up.

Arguments could totally be made that I'm experiencing emotions of a savory, angry flavor. I can't legitimately maintain a 100% lack of any tears. When last I was wrestling on a bra my chest might have sounded like a knapsack of martini glasses. I may have used up the year's allotment of the words "Crap Weasel" and "douchenozzle" as well as the phrase "AND LET ME TELL YOU ANOTHER THING...!" (and by "this year" I mean 2018. Happy February!)

You wouldn't be able to confirm these emotions with any of my friends or family though. I've been playing these cards very close to the chest. Because how else do you win at "Got Dumped!"??? Due to the lack of talking about it I've been able to fool myself into thinking it's all been processed occasionally. Then I'll go for a bike ride or take a shower, something that has me in a solitary situation where my mind (and my mouth!) are free to wander and all of the sudden I'm that crazy homeless lady on the corner by the McDonalds screeching about the government plot to make everybody left-footed via the fluoride in the water! I just start talking.

Well sort of talking...

Sort of talk-yelling. With not so much talking. (and a looooooot of yelling.)

Yell/sobbing.

Yobbing.

...

...

What were we talking about?

Right! Emotions! Yeah, so I was really hoping that if I took a full year and had no contact or chit-chat, etc. about The Cowboy then all these emotions would just quiet down. Slowly but surely fade away. Go nighty-night. I mean after all, that IS how emotions work, right??? But no. This little shits are tenacious. It's almost like they refuse to go away until I somehow actually exercise them! Which SUUUUCKS!!! Because I can only take so many showers a day, people. A one-person household should never have a water bill like this!!!

I've tried journalling.

Have you ever had that thing where the loud, screamy emotions shooting out of your mind come so fast that you can't write them down fast enough? You're just writing down the quick chunks of each thought, with sentences coming out like "Why such a selfish can't even just YOU WERE THE ONE WHO thing with the counselor and you never even paid me back!"

These are journal entries that get you committed by loving family members, people.

I did channel the feelings into quite a few playlists. That actually worked pretty well for a while! But then there were the "cease and desist" emails from the good people at Spotify. (Although one guy did tell me that they had new data about how many songs on their service contain the words "dick punch" thanks to me! That's something!)

I even thought maybe I just needed to go and actually see The Cowboy. Tell him all these thoughts and feelings smashing my poor, defenseless brain. This idea was very short lived because I need my voice for work, and also because I can only take 2 days off from work and that's not even enough time to say it all. (I know this scientifically because of how much time I've spent on bikes and in showers since things blew up. Because maths.)

So I've worked out two 100% foolproof tactics that will definitely process all of these emotion-things in the next few months.

1. YOU GUYS. I'm gonna share occasional rants here when something overloads the system. You guys like that kind of stuff, right? Sure you do...  ...  ...  Yep, I'm sure of it. You do.
2. Axe Throwing. 

The Science of Recovery

So, like I said it's been many months, but not quite a year, since The Cowboy bailed his 5th and final time. Each time I've been kicked to the proverbial curb I've found it a little bit harder to deal, to heal, to figure out how to move to the next stage, which I am hoping is friendship. That's something I've always believed in: that (unless your ex is truly a BAD PERSON or did something WHOLY UNFORGIVABLE) people should be able to eventually become friends with their exes. Ironically this was the first big fight between The Cowboy and I in our early days when I insisted on trying to establish a friendship with T.E. Cowboy's reaction to this was pretty simple: "Why would you do that? Nobody should ever do that. Now allow me to do my ceremonial unreasonable-freak-out-dance."

I disagreed. We fought a bit. But eventually Cowboy made his peace with the idea and T.E. and I made a friendship. It was cool.

Cut to the first couple of times Cowboy dumped me - almost immediately after saying "I don't wanna do this" he was saying "but I do wanna be friends." Apparently when he stood to benefit from the idea it suddenly had merit. Value even!

But I told him then: too soon. I needed time to figure out that transition. Because as strongly as I believe in this idea of exes being friends, I also believe that you can't just flip a switch. We're talking emotions here, people; feelings and the like. They have their own schedule and will be rushed by no man. Or woman either.

Or maybe think of it like chemistry. When you're freshly dumped you're one very specific chemical compound, with your atoms and your... nuclei? Is that a chemistry thing? You've got a very specific atomic number, and that doesn't just CHANGE. It can change, but it takes some stuff to happen first. In chemistry it's...

Ok, I'll be honest, I'm not totally sure what changes things in chemistry, but I am sure there's stuff. Relationships are the same way. Something has to be added to the situation in order to change the periodic element of ex-girlfriend (let's call that EX) into that of friend (we'll call that.. is BFF already a periodic thing?) With relationships what's needed is time, folks. Good, old fashioned time.

I asked for time each time I got dumped. "Just give me time, please, to process stuff. Make my peace. Find the paths to forgiveness, to healing." It never seemed like an unreasonable request - I'd been dumped for doing nothing wrong, and though lots of folks might tell a person to fuck-off and die I was just saying I needed time. But he just couldn't do it. He couldn't make my needs his priority.

Of course it always backfired on him because neither of us were ready to move on to friendship, so when we were mashed back together it would always rekindle fires that hadn't been allowed to die out  (I'm pretty sure I'm mixing a lot of incompatible science metaphors here with mashing and rekindling. Things that mash normally don't kindle.) and we'd be back together within weeks. Now, as the dumpee that was what I thought I wanted. I hadn't asked to end things and I was still plenty smitten, so when those doors inched back open I was definitely not gonna be the one to close them.

If my stupid Magic Eight Ball had been worth a damn I would have known to slam those suckers sooooo stinkin' fast.

Still, I was consistent in my request, and he in his ignoring of it. So, we were consistent. That's something, right? Yeah, that's definitely a thing...

This last time I knew that we were done done. That there was no going back this time for a variety of reasons (which I just might share with you guys some other time if I find myself all pissy and/or drunk) and so I had to have that time. I decided through 100% unscientific methods to set a goal of one year. I wouldn't respond or make contact with T.C. for one year, in hopes that I'd be able to make peace with it all in that time. And when I say "make peace with it all" I mean all. I'm really good at finding ways to forgive when I'm in the relationship, because you have to in order to keep things going. But I've learned about myself that once I finally stop forgiving of the stuff then it ALL counts. I go back through the archives and I find all the truly shitty things that I forgave, and I throw each and every flammable one of them onto the fire. AND I DANCE NAKED AROUND THAT BONFIRE, BABY, UNTIL IT ALL LOSES IT'S POWER!!!

So here we are at around 8 months - 4 more to go. (because maths!) Cowboy seems to have finally given up his consistency, sending his last reach-out about a month ago. (for those of you still counting on me to do the necessary maths, that's 7 months of contact before he backed off.) So I'm just now FINALLY starting to do that processing and stuff. Oh, and here's a delightful surprise: it's not fun! Not at all! Nope, not a drop of fun to be had... But I'mma stick with it. Due to science.

I'm not dead, but I'm probably pretty dim...

Hey guys. Long time no write - how’ve you been? Did you lose/gain weight? Is that a new hairstyle/earring/third arm? Well, you look great.

Oh me? I’m awesome! Seriously excellent! Cooooouldn’t be better!

Well there was that pesky heartbreak. That sort of sucks. In that “I am going to crack open that ribcage and scoop you out of there like rotten cantaloupe, you fucker!” sort of way.

Yeah…

…

But otherwise? Suuuuuper-excellent. How’s the kids?

---

This is the time of this blog where I do three things:

1. Apologize for being that lame friend who is all about you right up until she finds a boyfriend, and then just totally vanishes. My bad, you guys. I definitely do suck. 
2. Consider seriously changing the name of the blog, at least temporarily, to “Unlikely in hate, the bitter edition” because guys suck and also emotions. 
3. Hit the bottom. Bounce. 

I’d be amazed if there’s anybody still out there that even remembers this quaint little blog, but if you do all I can say is thanks, you guys. I don’t deserve you.

Since last I was around here (which, according to the date up above, was a truly tragic 4+ years ago!) I’ve been back and forth in the relationship with The Cowboy. All that drama came to it’s final conclusion last year, and now I’m in the aftermath of it. I’d actually planned to wait until I was over everything before I came back here because NOBODY wants to read the caustic ruminations of a chick who’s all bitter and angry. But I seem to be stuck there. I mean I’m that Top Gear moment where the bonehead has been revving the engine for 5 solid minutes in a muddy bog and the wheels are half buried. Stuuuuuck.

And then I thought maybe what I need is somebody to give me like a push.

So, working on the assumption that nobody is still reading this blog anymore anyway I figured “fuck it - maybe a bit of caustic ruminationing is the solution!” So please enjoy some hours/days/weeks/oh-god-please-don’t-let-it-be-months of Unlikely in Hate, where Femtastic shows her dark side. (If I had the graphic abilities I’d try to give my interobang tab icon a goatee, the universal indicator that our hero has become our villain!)

Now, a little recap:

Last you heard from me the relationship with The Cowboy had ended. But then it started back up.

And then a little later it ended again.

Oh, but then back up it came again!

Then I moved from my cute little Hippyville to “The Big City” or TBC as it will now be known within these walls. TBC was also where The Cowboy lived, but that wasn’t the main reason I moved. More than anything I decided I wanted a life filled with as much adventure as I could get while I still had the money, the health and the bravery to get it. This move has been really great, and I’m totally glad that I did it!

But the move also killed things with The Cowboy again. For those of you keeping score at home that’s 3 breakups in about 18 months. And yes, I should have recognized some stuff at this point. But brains can’t be heard over hearts. Hearts are loud assholes.

About 3-4 months later The Cowboy and I somehow were back together, but in this really shitty “I’m pretending that it’s not serious and trying to have no expectations” sort of way. I’m sure this will come as a surprise to you - nay*, a shock even! - but that didn’t work out either. 5 months later I was dumped a fourth time. A FOURTH TIME. Oh it’s ok, you can go ahead and shake your head. I deserve it.

Three months later - you guessed it. We got back together AGAIN. Now, somewhat in my defense I’ll say here that I was hard to convince that time. To say “I’d been hurt before” was a major understatement, and MOST of that hurt had been at the hands of this same dude. I’m not super-smart, obviously, but I was at least smart enough to know that the odds were not in my favor here. I was the romantic equivalent of all those characters in The Hunger Games that were doomed to die some horrible death. My heart was just one more cannon shot away from tragedy. And so you’d be justified in asking “The WHYYYY? Why would you get back into this again? What is wrong with you, lady???”

I like being in love. Actually no - I love it. And dammit, I’m really good at it! I mean I know it sounds like I’m not based on “on again, off again, holy shit, is this a season of Beverly Hills 90210???” but that wasn’t because of my skills at being a partner. The Cowboy has damage - a lot of it. Some makes sense, some is bullshit, but his damage was the unspoken third member of our relationship and that bitch caused a LOT of drama. But see, I have grown up in the middle of a pack that truly believes in partnership. The people in my universe do the things that the Tom Hanks characters in movies do, and they do them genuinely. We are a species that believes in all the shit that nobody believes in these days. So for me I will always try again if there is any spark left in the love. It feels just wrong to me to do anything else.

So when this man that I had come to love like a part of me said he adored me and was sorry and wanted, even needed, me back I went. I took coaxing, but once totally coaxed I jumped in with both feet. And I made him a promise: as long as he was still fighting for us then I would be too.

Because where I come from that’s what you do. You fight for it.

I want to say that I’m proud of the fact that we lasted 2 more years. And ok, part of me is proud of that. Because after 2 years of lasting only some months and then imploding I guess that’s an improvement. And also because it proves that I was true to my word: I kept fighting because I thought he was too. But to say that those 2 years were really good would be donning rose-colored glasses that I’ve since had to retire. Once we finally ended I had to take a solid, honest look at the four years that had come before and see things for what they were. And a lot of it was not so good.

If there were any justice in the world one’s heart would let go of shit when the brain identified it as shit. Like when the brain did the tv detective thing and exclaimed “He was never able to commit! Not in 4 years!” the heart should go “Whaaaaaa???” followed by a healthy tableflip and then just storm off in a huff. F those feelings. One night of drinking, followed by a day of puking, and then brush off your heart-hands and move on. But if 2017 has taught us nothing else, it’s made it brutally clear that there is literally NO justice in the world. And this is why I sit here, almost 8 months later, sliding through pictures of The Cowboy and crying into my Cheerios…

Don’t worry, I haven’t been that chick for the last 8 months. In fact this one was a surprise to me even! A backslide, if you will. A classic relapse of emotion and bad thoughts. These things happen, for sure. But when they do, it’s hard to know what to do with it. Drinking and puking is really not my thing. I could get stoned and eat a pallet of Cool Ranch Doritos, but that would make the last few years of constant exercise and calorie counting seem pretty stupid, and I feel stupid enough, so… I decided to write.

I’ve been wanting to get back to you guys for most of the last 8 months, but I did something I know you won’t even believe: I overthought it. I came up with all these ambitious post ideas and overworked them and then hated everything forever and then Cool Ranch Doritos were texting me “U up?” and it was all bad. But this morning as my pillow developed two pathetic little wet spots about a head’s width apart I thought to myself “you’ve been stupid enough for a lifetime. How about you try being a little less stupid in this moment???”

And here we are.

So yeah, my hope/plan/dream is to get back into this now. I’ve ripped off the bandaid (and holy hell, that hurts you guys! How come nobody ever talks about that? And why is there hair literally EVERYWHERE??) so now I should be able to just do this. I don’t think anybody out there is still reading, but maybe you’ll find your way back to me. But in the meantime I got stuff to say and I’mma say it.

*that’s right, I said “nay.” I’m fancy like that now. Deal with it.

Going it Solo Again

The Cowboy needs time and space, and I’m giving it to him.  So I’m single once again.  I’d gotten pretty comfortable being part of a partnership – the closest I’ve been to such an idea yet – so it’s taking me a little work to remember how to do this stuff on my own. 

In thinking about how this works, how one really defines “on your own” or “solo” I have gone round and round on the word “alone.”  Don’t worry – I promise not to tell you how our good friend Mr. Webster defines it, or his pal Merriam, or any of their egghead buddies.  (admit it – you just totally looked it up yourself!)  But I think that the true definition of “alone” is “without a partner.”

I’m surrounded by many people who love me:  friends who’ve known me decades, family members who would give me the shirt off their backs, etc.  Even The Cowboy and I even still connect during the day because we’re staying friends.  I’ve got two cats who love me so much that they fight over who gets to sleep on what parts of my head most every night.  (and they’re so kind – they try to work it out peacefully each night to start, until their love for me finally overwhelms their ability to negotiate.  Usually at around 3 fucking am…)  So I’m not someone who would say that I spend all of my hours in solitude.  But that doesn’t change the fact that since losing my partner I’ve felt tremendously alone. 

So in thinking about that I tried to figure out what the big differences were.  There’s a few that are significant, but this is the thing I think most defines being without a partner; being alone:  not having someone to share the stupid little stories of the day with.

Think about it.  Why do people on FaceBook tell us what they’re eating or about the squirrel that just did that super-cute thing or how crazy it makes them when folks do or say or wear such and such?  Because those folks don’t have someone in their world who loves them so much that they want to hear those stories.  You don’t call up someone and tell them these stories because you know, before you’re done, there’s gonna be that tone on the other end of the line.  That “…where is this going?...” tone.  The tone that says that they’re taking time out of their day to listen to this tiny little vignette from your life because they’re sure, in the end, that it will be worth it, but now that you’re two thirds of the way into the story they’re starting to realize it’s just this story.  In the end they’ll just have this new, tiny, fairly “who cares?” story added to their arsenal, and that’s all that they’ll have. 

But not a partner.

When you have a true partner – someone who sees it as “you and me, baby, against it all;” who looks forward to seeing you at the end of the day just because seeing you is that great; who finds THE stupidest little quirks about you just adorable or fascinating or cool or at LEAST hilarious – that person listens to these stories.  Knows them for what they are right off the bat and still listens.  With a smile.   Laughs when you laugh, scoffs when you scoff, grumbles when you grumble.  Your partner tells your silly little stories to other people!  And the stupidest of your “part of my day” stories are still worthwhile to a true partner because, if nothing else, it shows them just one more tiny little facet of who you are. 

As I felt my partner starting to abdicate his position I stopped telling my stories.  To him, and then to everybody.  Those stories suddenly looked just as stupid and pointless as they are, even to me.  I even stopped posting on FB because I couldn’t avoid seeing those windows into my life as ridiculous, and certainly not worth anybody else reading.  And that’s the thing I’m having the hardest time with in adjusting to solo life again.  I feel like my brain is getting cluttered with these stories and there’s no release valve.  They’re piling up in the corners of my brain like packing peanuts let loose before a 20” box fan.  They’re small and gooey, so they gum up the works of other parts of my brain.  So I guess they’re like packing peanuts dipped in Mrs. Butterworth’s. 

Yeah.  That’s nasty.

I’m gonna get back into the swing of this – hell, I’ve spent more of my life alone than anything else!  But if, in the meantime, a pointless “part of my day” story escapes and gets on you I’m apologizing right now – sorry about that.  I hope it doesn’t leave you sticky.

Where Am I Going Now?

Month one after T.E. pushed me away was all about “just go ahead and wallow and be sad and depressed and eat Pop Tarts for every meal (although that’s a joke because when I’m depressed I eat… well, nothing.  I eat nothing.  But if I’d wanted Pop Tarts I’d have had them breakfast, lunch and dinner…) and sleep whenever you want to or even can and… just whatever you want.  That’s what you should do.”  A good plan, but just.  So.  Exhausting.

So month two I gave myself permission to stop crying.  Stop being sad.  Stop thinking about T.E. all the time.  Before that I think I worried that if I didn’t feel all the sorrow and despair and other dramatic, English lit-sounding emotions all of the time then it would mean that my love for T.E. wasn’t so real after all.  But you can only pass yourself through the emotional meat grinder so many times before there’s nothing left to grind and I was emotionally liquid by the start of month two.  So I just decided to stop, and for that to be ok.  I specifically kept my mind away from any thoughts of him, and finished purging him from my world.  I’d mailed his stuff to him in the UK, as well as saying good-byes or thank-yous to those folks to whom my only connection had been him.  But in month two I finished taking all of MY things that I would never get rid of, but which dragged him to my head and heart whenever I saw them, and boxed them up and put them safely in the garage.  In month two the world was almost safe enough for me to just stop being the grieving widow for a while.  I dallied a little with some new men, mostly just to reassure myself that there was the option of “new men” somewhere in my future but mostly I just took the month off from being sad.  It felt good.

As month two was drawing to a close something very unexpected happened:  T.E. sent me an email. 

Now remember that the end of things with he and I… (wait, I said remember, but now I don’t recall if I really told you guys this before.  I probably didn’t.  OK, remember this if it sounds familiar, and if it doesn’t then Voila!  New Information!  Enjoy!) T.E. did some things I really didn’t expect.  He avoided me, going to actual lengths in order to not have to talk to me.  He rejected me quite coldly and it felt like an amazing betrayal, especially since he had been only months before someone I felt like I would always, always, always be able to trust with my heart.  And it is those feelings of betrayal and rejection and overwhelming pain that I’ve been trying to find a home for in my head and heart.  But I’m not there yet – not by a long shot.

So when I checked my email one day and found his name staring back at me I panicked.  I’d honestly convinced myself that he and I might never connect again because I knew I wouldn’t reach out to him and I couldn’t imagine he would reach out to me after his rejection.  I was surprised and also scared – what the hell could he want?  What did he want from me?  How could he already be ready to talk – was it that easy for him to “get over” things?  Or maybe he was writing to tell me that he didn’t want to be friends after all.  Unfortunately the only way to know was to open the damned message.

That took me, I hate to say it, about a day to do.

The email turned out to be short and sweet:  he missed me and was ready to have contact again when I was.

So there I was with the ball totally in my very own court, and I didn’t want the damned thing.  I felt better knowing that it was in his court and he had thrown it away.  In that scenario all I had to do was perfect the art of living without him.  But now I had a decision to make:  was I ready to reconnect with him?

Well that answer was easy:  no.  If it took me a day to even open the first email (oh, and two days to reply, by the way) I was clearly still working through stuff.  So I finally replied with my own short, sweet reply just explaining that I wasn’t ready, and that I’d reach out when I was.

As soon as it was sent I felt somehow relieved and tried, TRIED to find that safe, peaceful, almost-happy place I called Month Two.  Because really why couldn’t denial and distraction and “vacation from sad” be two month long?  Hell, I could make it as long as I wanted to, right?  So yeah, that was my goal:  not thinking about him, not feeling sad and keeping up my rather impressive level of distraction.  

Unfortunately T.E. wasn’t ready for me to go back to distraction.  He sent an additional email which, I think, was mostly to make sure I understood what it was he was asking for.  It felt like he was surprised that my answer was no, and that if he asked it a different way I’d come back with a yes.  He sprinkled a couple of temptations into the longer email such as “There are things I want to say” – how do you not get curious about such a statement?  Oh yes, I really want to know what it is he might have to say, but I honestly worry about those things as much as crave to hear them.  I wonder if he might also have reached the conclusion that we shouldn’t be friends, or that he’s also reviewed our relationship with some detachment and has his own regrets about what we were. 

But what I knew so clearly was that no matter what it was he wanted, I wasn’t ready to hear it.  Good news or bad, it was all scary to me.  I understood that some, but the sheer panic I really didn’t get.  What was it that I was so incredibly afraid of?

Finally I put it together:  right now I’m trying to rebuild a life that was, until a few month ago, incredibly focused on him and us.  I have these hours I’m trying to fill, and these urges to create or to care for or to give that I need to refocus.  And at my age it’s not easy to change so many things in your life.  I’m trying to add to my social circles, get back into my hobbies, build back up my flattened self esteem and it’s taking its time to get there.  And I realized that in my heart of hearts I knew that if I let T.E. back into my world while I’m still so brittle and unsatisfied with things it would be far too easy to let things fall back to where they were, but even worse:  focus my time and care and generosity on him when I couldn’t have anything I wanted in return.  I need to feel like I’m back on my own two feet and can go on without him anywhere in my life before I can let him back in.

I was finally able to send him the second “no,”  and I’m proud that I did it without anger or cynicism or lashing out at him – there were some drafts of the reply that weren’t nearly so clean.  He’s agreed to leave me alone until I reach out to him.  I worry that the things he wanted to say me will be gone by the time I am ready to hear them, or that he’ll be over missing me entirely by then.  But I know that is actually better for me than letting myself crawl back into the hole that was our relationship at that very bitter end.

…now if only I could find that distraction I was enjoying so much…

Month Three - I Have Concerns.

We’re headed into the third month now.  I’d kind of been hoping that, much like Jesus on toast or Mother Teresa on a baby’s diaper or some old guy with huge, stone billboards that, let’s face it, he just never could have actually carried down that mountain but that’s a rant for another time, I’d get some kind of sign for how this month would go.  (to recap for anybody who has just started reading this blog and, for some inconceivable reason, is reading it from the top down, month one was pretty much spent crying, sleeping during the day and wandering the streets naked and alone with a bottle of vodka and a My Little Pony during the night, where as month two has featured me mostly pretending I never had a relationship, never got left (let alone repeatedly!) or heartbroken and lunging at the “off” button on the radio whenever any of the many completely off-limits songs came on.  Super-healthy stuff, yeah?)  Anyway, month three. 

I’ve checked online and there’s no answers there.  Which is surprising!  There are always, ALWAYS answers to every single question online!  Even questions that you had no idea anybody was asking, like “average penis size for Asians?” or “how to tell if an orange has gone bad?”  And yet this question I’m not getting any help on. 

So I started thinking about where it is that I want to be when my proposed “getting over things” period is done.  One of my big frustrations is now that I’m not spending hours and hours on Skype with someone every day I’ve got time on my hands.  Also I’m no longer saving every single spare penny to pay for thousands of dollars of international plane tickets for other people, so I’ve got a little extra scratch.  So I’ve got some $$$, and I’ve got some time – you’d think this would be good!  Give me the chance to go out and have some fun, do some things, build a real life.  Right?  Wouldn’t you think that?  I was totally thinking that.

Except what I don’t have more of than before is people with which to do stuff.

Don’t get me wrong:  I have some wonderful friends and my most excellent family, all of whom I cherish and am so lucky to have.  But my friends are either married with kids and bed times and the requirement to find someone else to take care of things like kids and bed times for them to be able to go do stuff or that awkward “rock/scissors/paper” decision for which of my two best friends (who happen to be married to each other) gets to go and do the stuff and have the fun OR they’re super-busy with school and work and the social life that they were building when I wasn’t available most of the time because I was spending time on skype.  Oh irony, I hope you’re a dude because someday I so want to kick you straight in the nuts.

My family is mostly made up of the older generation, and I love them.  But they’d be the first to tell you that they’re not up for rock climbing or going dancing or seeing the latest rock’em-sock’em-all ‘splosions, all the time summer blockbuster movie.  And also, and I hope I don’t come off as a douche by saying this ‘out loud,’ but though I love my family and know how amazing lucky it is to be part of a group of people who actually, genuinely enjoy spending time together, I don’t want my entire social life to be my family.  I want friends.  I’m a friendly person.  I think I can be entertaining.  I can quote the entire script for Ghostbusters, Caddyshack and Star Wars.  I make balloon animals, for the love of god!  I should be able to make friends.

Except that making friends is just hard.

 First you need to meet people with whom you’d like to be friends, and who want to be friends with you.  You already know how very successful my online attempts have been, in that they have not.  I’ve also been checking out groups of people who get together regularly and do things that I might like to do.

A few months ago, while I was still hoping that T.E and I might have one more summer together, I found a local LARP group.  (tangent:  for those normal people who have lives and understand that a LARP is the social pariah equivalent of dropping your pants and shitting in the kiddie pool I won’t bother to explain.  For those who are blissfully unaware here’s the $.05 explanation:  it’s like playing Dungeons and Dragons, but you dress up as your character, go to a place with other people dressed up like their characters and you act out the game.  If it’s a medieval one then you say “forsooth” and “what ho” in the English accent and you woogy-woogy your fingers at people to show you’re working your magic on them or you have a (I kid you not) big, soft sword that you use to act out your fighting.

The LARP I checked out was a local version of one that T.E. had been playing in the UK.  I admit it sounded like it could be cool – in this LARP everybody is pretending to be a kind of vampire.  You have personalities and attitudes and powers and other things, and the acting out appealed to me because I my favorite game forever and ever when I was a kid was Make Believe, and that’s just what this is.  It’s Make Believe for kids.  At first I liked it well enough, but I found the ENTIRE BOOK of rules to be overwhelming.  Then again I had that reaction with D&D too, so I figured I’d get there eventually.  The pretending was fun, and I thought things would get interesting as I understood the players and the dynamics better.

I just recently decided to stop going, and the reasons were two:  First, the rules never got easier to grok.  So many rules!  Just the rules for combat where ridiculously dense:  First you check your multi-page character-sheet-thingie to see how many of this and that you have.  Then you check three other levels of things.  Then there’s abilities of others, and there’s the order in which you go, and on and on and on.  I could never make it all work, so any combat I was in I was just along for the ride.  And how is that Make Believe?  In Make Believe all you need to know is who’s the bad guy and who’s the good guy, and the bad guy always loses in the end.  Thus endeth all Make Believe rules. 

The other reason was I was hoping to make friends with these folks, and it became clear that wasn’t going to happen.  This group seemed to be made up of two types of people:  those so completely geeky that even I was embarrassed to talk to them (the guy with a beard finely sculpted into a long point, the girl who has no idea how far her voice carries in a fairly busy all-night diner as she’s screaming about her next character who will be a whore, whore, W-H-O-R-E…  I knew that these might be the folks I met.  But I wasn’t expecting the other group:  the ones who were completely disconcerting because they play the game for the love of screwing people over, and when the game is done they bemoan how they can’t do more of that in real life.  I’m sorry, what?  You’re bummed because real life requires that you don’t shiv somebody at the buffet?  Yeah, you I don’t need to make any friends with…

Tonight I checked out a local Comedy Improv group that started meeting about a month ago.  I was hoping to meet likeminded individuals who were funny and liked other funny people.  Instead I found ChicagoDan – a guy who has never performed Improv in front of other people, but figures he’s the guy to start the coolest Improv group this town has ever seen.  Now he’s setting the bar low to be sure, but his hubris has to be balanced against the fact that I’m the only person who showed up for the group tonight.  Me and ChicagoDan, comparing the lengths of our Improv dicks to see who’s the improviest of them all. 

(It was me)

I’ll check out the Improv group one more time just in case tonight, and ChicagoDan, were flukes.  But so far my goal for Month three of building the life I’d like to have is… well… it’s a turd floating in the kiddie pool.

Why Do Guys Suck So Much, pt. 2

So when last we were feeling sorry for the lameness of our hero she was FINALLY saying “screw you, I’m gone” to some guy who fell off the face of the planet once they’d met.  I’m sure you’re thinking just what she was thinking:  so much for the hero having potential. 

Except she – by which I mean I – wasn’t actually thinking that!  Why?  Mr. Potential. 

You see, while I was allowing myself to be stupidly strung along by Mr. Distraction I was at least smart enough to know where things were probably heading and I started to ask myself “how ELSE could I maybe find a new person who could think I have potential?”  I peeked at Match.com but they wanted me to give them money and I don’t believe in prostitution.  But then over and over the universe kept throwing the words “Craigs List” in my path.  So I checked out the wonderfully free and tremendously bizarre Craigs List personals. 

I was going to do a little paragraph here about Craigs List personals.  But frankly there are way too many words for just one paragraph about that topic.  Oh the words… No, there is an entire blog post coming just about CL personals.  You’re just going to have to wait for that one.

This particular personal caught my attention because it was in the “Dude searching for dudette for some kind of actual relationship” section, but it was wonderfully honest – frank even – about this guy’s sexual proclivities.  For many folks I’m sure that would be super-creepy.  But I got where this guy was coming from, and I’ll even paraphrase an email he sent me on the subject:  if you meet someone out in the world and do all the gradual “getting to know you” things and surface conversations and take weeks to get to the point where you’re comfortable enough to bring up the idea of sex, only then to find out that this person is waiting until they’re married or can only do missionary position and only on every other Thursday or is INCREDIBLY turned on by sex with phallic fruits and vegetables (carrots, zucchini, bananas…)

That’s a lot of time wasted on someone who is very much not going to turn your crank, my friend.

I know what I’m looking for in a sexual partner and here was someone who seemed like a very possible match there.  Someone also looking for somebody in the world.  Someone with potential.  Needless to say I replied.

This is how, as things were reaching their eventual lame ending with Mr. Distraction, I wasn’t too sad, because I was starting to get to know Mr. Potential.  We emailed about once a day each direction.  The emails were pretty dang long, and we agreed on a sort of format:  each email we’d send to the other person would have a couple of questions in them for the other person.  This was good because we really covered a lot of areas – hobbies, traveling, work, pets, tv, movies, etc…  We also covered some sexy-times areas.  After all, if your initial introduction to someone including sexy-times stuff you’re certainly going to cover it more as things evolve, right?

So there was this one week where there were many, many emails.  Some were actually pretty hot, I’ll say.  I had to pull out the old thesaurus to find some new naughty adjectives here and there.  And all this was fun!

For about a week.

I’m not even going to write the “turns out you’re a jerk” email to this one.  After all, I need to set some sort of boundaries on how these things will work.  If we never get beyond emailing before you vanish without even the dramatic flair of a puff of smoke then I just check the box by your name that says “douchebag.  Sigh.” And move on with my life.  If we go from emailing to chatting or even the ever-exciting video-chat and THEN you evaporate like gasoline on the top of a running lawnmower on a hot, summer day I’ll check the checkbox and draw a line through the name.  With a sharpie marker, btw.  If we actually meet and then you become invisible like a guy who was a mad scientist who took your own mad scientist chemical concoction that was supposed to make you something awesome but instead just makes you invisible then you get the checkbox, the sharpie line and the complimentary email who’s sole purpose, really, is to inform you that I’m aware that you suck.  Because let’s face it:  the guys never know that they suck.  And so they certainly can’t explain to me why they do so much…

Apologies to any women in the audience who thought that I’d have the answer at the end of all of this.  At this rate I’m pretty sure I’ll be the very last one of us on the planet to get that memo.  But I’ll keep doing the research!