my 1 year anniversary of being single
i've always been boy crazy. since i was like six years old. my first date was my male playmate coming over midday to "eat" at the "restaurant" in my sister's room (we dined on fake donuts) and then made out on a blanket in my bedroom. if you think i'm joking, i encourage you to somehow find out my mother or sister's email and ask them for confirmation. i was a skank from a young age. that said, i usually always have a story about a boy to dramatize, analyze and relive over and over. i've had a good handful of legitimate boyfriends, but my first SUPER long-term one was three years and ended this exact time last summer. he was my college beau and we, like many other young couples, suffered through the great 20something break up and now here i am. a year later. and, BOY, can a lot happen in a year.
in a lame attempt to keep my rambling more contained, i am going to break this blog down for my readers in three simple and easy to understand sections: the old flame, re-lit, the older guy, and the best friend. let's just jump right in.
part 1: the old flame, re-lit:
there was a boy. a very strange, enchanted boy. i met him when i was 18, three weeks before i was leaving for my first year of undergrad. what him and i experienced was what one might call "a whirlwind" or "the most intense teenage love obsession ever." we met, fell immediately, he broke up with his GIRLFRIEND OF FOUR YEARS to be with me for THREE WEEKS, and the rest was history. if ever there was a love story that took place solely on a rollercoaster, this is it. he'd be in my life, then he wouldn't. he would claim he was gonna transfer to my college, then we wouldn't speak for months. six and a half years later, i decided the score between him and i needed to be settled once and for all. you see, there was always that "what if" with him - he was the one i would immediately turn to in light of a breakup or dry spell. i needed to KNOW. so, after my breakup last year, we almost instantly started chatting again. we made plans to meet up since his band was coming in town to play a gig (a drummer, my weakness). and thus, there we were, after five years of not seeing each other face-to-face, laying on my couch and kissing like our teenage selves. JUST LIKE THE GOOD OLD DAYS. but then!
"my dick isn't hard," he claimed while suddenly pushing off of me. no, we were not attempting sex. he was just letting me know that, clearly, our making out was HARDly affecting him (get it?).
"uh. um. okay. what?" i mean, sorry. in my 10+ years of making out, i have never not felt the awkward yet satisfying poke of a boner mid-makeout.
"i don't know. this has never happened to me before. it's just sitting there," he said as he graphically grabbed his junk to shake it awake.
because this is the sort of thing ANY girl fresh out of a breakup wants to hear. i don't turn you on? no, that's fine!
"i think i'm depressed," he claimed while sinking down into the couch. you see, BOTH of us were going through breakups. the only difference was, i called mine off and he got dumped. ALAS, once this gal has her heart set on something, she refuses failure. so i decided to trudge forward the remainder of the weekend until BY JOV! A BONER! AND 10 SECONDS OF SEX BEFORE I FREAKED THE FUCK OUT AND SAID "NO. I CAN'T DO THIS. I'M SORRY."
fast forward to a well-reknowned music festival in austin just a few weeks later where i decided to stay with this gent at his apartment for the duration of my trip. when he made absolutely no move to touch me as i paraded around his apartment in broad daylight in only boy shorts and a sheer white t-shirt with no bra, i finally realized "wow. he wasn't kidding. he really has to be depressed. i know i've put on some breakup weight but i'm not THAT unattractive." and that's when i confronted him and watched this gorgeous, broken boy cry about depression, alcoholism, drugs, and having absolutely no sex drive. my work here was done, my feeble attempts at being sexy shat on and i packed up my crap and got the hell back to dallas.
it was never gonna be the same with us. what we had was young infatuation, not the real deal. it was short-lived and that's how it was always supposed to be. our flame had been blown out YEARS ago and i just needed to understand that once and for all. ah, closure. you're so rare but feel so good.
part 2: the older guy and co-worker
the ultimate double-whammy, amiright? allow me to explain. two things happened here. first, my declaration that maybe i needed to "date older" and, most importantly, the "i need to know you" feeling (which you can understand more in-depth by reading an old post i wrote ). this one hit me right between the eyes. i'm talking, you see that person and your entire body is like "WHO. HOW. WHAT. HI, I'M EMMA." yes, we worked together. yes, he was seven years my senior, but nothing was gonna stop him or i so we got to gettin'.
when you're newly single, you have these horrible, dark moments of believing you will never again meet someone or have that intoxicating sensation called infatuation. but this guy came along and it was like a dream, like being 16 all over again. texting every minute of every day, slyly smirking at each other in the halls at work, playing nauseatingly cute games like "okay. list your 3 favorite things about me." crazy butterflies. him showing up at my place midday to makeout and stare at each other. he even wrote me a song. it was gross and so, so amazing. i wanted to display his texts for the world to see:
"i'm 31 and i've never felt this way about any girl in my life."
"you've somehow managed to mean so much to me in just a few weeks."
"i think you're my new hobby."
"do you think other people are as lucky as us to go through this amazing of a stage in a relationship?"
"i miss you. what the fuck. am i 14??? who misses someone after a day?"
"i just got this image of us at my parent's for christmas."
okay, that last one was a little extreme, but don't worry - i didn't really buy it. the rest of it i did, but i TRIED to be smart. i really did. and then..... we had sex.
the texts stopped. the flirting stopped. it went from hearing from him all day, everyday to not KNOWING whether or not we would talk at all. it was like his penis popped our lust bubble in one, swift, thrusting movement. now, since i'm the kind of girl who doesn't do bullshit, a lot of confrontation happened. he swore nothing had changed for him, he still liked me so much. he just wasn't really good at communicating with anyone in general. he was never gonna be THAT guy who wanted to hang out all the time. yada yada yada BULLSHIT BULLSHIT BULLSHIT.
finally, i had it.
"how do you describe me to people? what do you say i am to you?"
"well, i've said 'girlfriend' a few times only to simplify it, but we haven't ever talked about it, emma."a 31-year-old male claiming we hadn't had the DTR talk, so technically we were nothing. good sign.
"then what ARE we?"
"we're dating! i wouldn't mind calling you my girlfriend, but if it was gonna bother you so much, we probably should've talked about it before we had sex."
"WHY WOULD WE HAVE TALKED ABOUT IT? EVERYTHING WAS GREAT BEFORE SEX. THE NIGHT BEFORE WE HAD SEX, YOU LITERALLY SAID 'I WANT TO ASK YOU SOON TO BE MY MAIN GIRL. BUT I WANT TO DO IT IN PERSON. MAKE IT SPECIAL, YA KNOW.' SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD I EVER HAVE NEEDED TO BRING IT UP??? I TRUSTED YOU, YOU FUCKING RAGING ASSHOLE." i didn't say any of this, but i wish i had. i really, truly wish i had.
i tried twice to break it off with him in person, but he wasn't having it. "you're not crazy. everything you're upset about is valid. please just bear with me. i want to be with you."but then nothing would change. i couldn't handle the complete 180 our situation had taken. so, it was over. and then i had to work on the same floor as him everyday. and see him. and be constantly reminded of everything. within the first month of breaking it off, you were subject to find me sobbing quietly at my desk at any given time during the day. when i fall, i fall hard. i was more or less devastated.
but here i am now, months later, and i'm okay. things got a lot easier. i've made eye contact with him and we've talked in person a few times. these are big steps. i don't like to hold grudges - i certainly am not friends with any of my exes, but i also don't like there to be bad blood for too long. so, i try to be the bigger person in these situations if i can because disliking someone to that degree takes too much effort that, frankly, they don't deserve. indifference is usually the key, but also the hardest thing to fake.
part 3: the best guy friend
i've never really had guy friends and i'm not sure if i ever believed in them. the older i get, the more i understand that it really is all about the vagina in one way or another unless you're gay or asexual or a robot. i think there are some really good guys out there who just love having girl as friends, but the thought of sex with those girl as friends is just under the surface. what?! we're only humans!
in these past several months, though, i've managed to gain some super serious platonic friends. just solid, meaningful, friendships with members of the opposite sex. yes, most of them have made jokes about boning or given me otherwise inappropriate compliments, but at the end of the day, i've grown so close to these guys, i would never hesitate to cry in front of them (which i have. several times. so.).
HOWEVER, forming these friendships also made me realize that the line blurring platonic from romantic is VERY thin and can get incredibly confusing for someone like me with a lot of emotions. for about a month there, i was convinced i was in love with my VERY best guy friend out of the lot. we started hanging out all the time. he'd come over for dinner. we'd watch TV. we'd watch movies. i'd go to his place where we'd listen to music and stay up late talking about life and drinking wine. the more and more i got to know him on this level, the more and more i began thinking "gosh. he's so great. like SO great. man, he's great." then i started to panic.
I CAN'T DO THIS, i thought. it'll screw everything up. i've already been down this road in more than one way, do i really want to shoot myself in both feet again? yet, i wonder... does he feel any of this? maybe we're in love and we just don't know fully recognize it yet?
and then, as it's the one thing that always ruins everything, he had sex with someone.
it was like getting thrown into a cold shower. i woke up. i smacked myself in the face. he wasn't my boyfriend. i didn't own him. i was single and so was he and we're FRIENDS. this wasn't gonna happen and it couldn't happen and, really, it SHOULDN'T happen. "if i lost this friendship, i would be devastated. i'd rather never know than know and not be able to hangout anymore,"i thought to myself. and that was that. i know what you're asking yourself right now: yes, he reads my blog every week. yes, he knows i thought and felt all these things. and yes, we're still besties. hey, you!
part 4: it ain't written yet, bitches
my friend said something to me the other week that resonated deep within me: "instead of thinking, 'can i make this work?' you should be thinking, 'this works.'" if you're having to work that hard, if there are that many issues, if your lives and personalities are THAT different that you're trying to think of ways it'll all flow naturally....... it's not right. i've been making excuses for guys since i learned the art of rationalization and i'm tired of it. yes, dating sucks. yes, being single can be such a letdown most of the time. but one thing i love about it is how much you learn. as cliche as it may be, you have to try and focus on what you've LEARNED rather than what you LOST. the more and more penis i wade through, the more i know exactly what i want in a partner and what i won't compromise for and, honestly, it's kind of empowering (males without the ability to grow beards need not apply).
we just gotta keep trudging along. accept dates, decline dates. makeout with someone, don't makeout with them again if it sucked. know when something is a waste of your precious time and when shit's getting a bit too complicated too early on. don't force yourself to hit the town just to say you're "putting yourself out there." stay in alone on a friday night if all you really wanna do is eat popcorn, drink wine and fart. one day soon, your mr. wonderful will be sitting on that couch next to you, sharing the popcorn and still wanting to makeout even after you've farted.
oh and your gut is God. listen to it. always.
- emma
