Chapter 7: What Kind Of Game Is This?

So, the deal was that “Tramp” and I were going to try again to meet the next night, right? WRONG! We ended up on the phone AGAIN, discussing this twit AGAIN. During this conversation he tells me that he realizes that now is not a good time for him to be starting anything with anybody. Gee, ya think? He tells me that he likes me too much to do that to me. (Nice move, that.) He tells me that he respects me too much to get me involved in his drama. (Again, nice move.) So we agreed to "just be friends." When I hung up with him that night, I figured that was that.

Well, okay, I did stop to consider that if he put some distance between himself and this girl, and was able to regain a little perspective on himself, he would start remembering all the great talks we had, and I thought I might hear from him in about 2-3 weeks. Didn't take 2-3 weeks. Took 2 days.

He started sending me flirty little emails and we did the virtual flirting thing for about a week or so. And then we graduated to the phone again. No freaky-freaky this time. This time, it looked as if we were actually becoming friends. Don't get me wrong, I still wanted to do this guy six ways to Sunday. But I was okay with just being friends, too. The more I got to know him, the more I knew that he was someone I wanted in my life, regardless of the capacity.

So I'm at my neighbor's house one night, drinking an awful lot of wine and having a pretty good time, when my phone rings. Do I really need to say who it was?

"Hello?"
"Hey, what are you doing?"
"Over at my neighbor's house, hanging out."
"Oh, I didn't mean to bother you."
"You're not bothering me. What's up?"
"I just had a fight with her."
(Rolling my eyes)
"What happened?"
He goes into the whole scenario.
"Do you want to come over?" (YES, I know! I was drunk and stupid, okay?)
"Thinking about it..."
"Well, why don't you come over here to my neighbor's house? We'll all hang out and have some wine."
"No, I don't want to be around a bunch of people."
"Okay... Do you want me to go home and you come over?"
"I would really appreciate it."
"Alright..."

Even drunk I knew that it was a very stupid thing to invite him over when he was pissed off at his ex-girlfriend that he was still in love with. But as giddy as I was, I ran home and primped, waiting with bated breath for my door bell to ring. And then “Tramp” was there.

Okay, I'll admit that I didn't find him as foxy in person as I had imagined he would be based on his picture. A little scrawnier than I'd imagined, a little geekier than I imagined, and a little goofy to top it all off. But I didn't care. It was HIM. He was in my house. I wanted him, and I knew I wanted him. We talked and laughed for a while, but eventually my wine-buzz got the better of me and I took a chance. I made the first move. Hell, I didn't just make the first move, I flat out attacked him! And he was not unresponsive to me, either. He was an even better kisser than I imagined he'd be. So things got a little hot and heavy... But before they could get REALLY hot and heavy, he stopped me.

"I can't do this to you. I care too much about you to drag you into my emotional mess. If I didn't care, I'd be upstairs banging you right now." (Again, nice move. You can't ever be really sure if a line like that is the truth, a really good line, or just a flat out rejection.)

So we hung out and talked a little more and eventually I walked him out to his car. We hugged and kissed for a little while longer. He said a lot of really wonderful things to me then. He told me I was a really good friend. He thanked me for putting up with him. He was worried I wouldn't want to talk to him anymore and asked if he could call me the next day. I assured him that I still wanted him to be a part of my life and asked him if he wanted to hang out that weekend. (I had a party to go to Saturday night.) He said he was interested, bade me good night with a few more kisses, and left.

As you can imagine, I was floating on air. I had myself convinced that, with a little patience, a little tolerance, a little charm, and a little finesse, “Tramp” WAS MINE.

Lesson Number Five: Spontaneous DOES NOT have to mean Impulsive. Take the blinders off!

Status: Oblivious

Chapter 6: Could It Be?

Told ya I'd come back to the story :-D

I was still on a high three days later from my perfect phone call. But after three days and not hearing from him, I began to question my actions. Remember a time when we girls used to worry about whether or not we would get a bad reputation from letting a guy go to second base? Was it possible that I still needed to play these kind of games even in my 30's? Was there really no difference in being an adult compared to being a teenager? Hadn't “Tramp” initiated the frisky phone call? Hadn't “Tramp” been the one to advocate the idea that you should just be who you are, in the raw, and not try to hide anything, or dance around anything? Was he really turned off by the fact that we'd taken a phone call to that level and seriously wasn't even interested in trying out the real thing?

After four days of torture, checking my email obsessively, and making sure my voicemail wasn't "accidentally" not notifying me that I had a message waiting, I finally heard from him. Out of town, he claimed. Maybe he was, maybe he wasn't. Who cares? He was on the phone now, and it was just as awesome as the first time. We talked, we laughed, we took shots at each other at every opportunity and laughed our asses off at each one. Every moment I spent talking to this man, just proved to me more and more that he was everything I'd ever looked for. I was just waiting to find out that the picture I'd seen wasn't really of him, and he looked like a troll or something... So it was another two-hour marathon phone call with the same finale. Even better. I believe at this point I was so turned on by this guy that he could have turned out to be as pathetic in reality as the last one, and it still would be incredible. We made plans to finally meet the following night and I started counting down the minutes.

The plan was that I would call him when I became available in the afternoon, even though he wouldn't be available yet, and then he would call me back when he was available and we'd meet somewhere. So, as planned, I called him, and then found myself banging my head into the wall because I had unwittingly put myself in a position to have to wait around for him. And wait, I did. I finally heard from him when it was too late to meet. And then I proceeded to listen to the LAST thing I expected to hear.

For the next three hours, I listened to “Tramp” tell me how he wasn't over his ex-girlfriend. This was a woman who had NOTHING to offer him, 10 years younger, uneducated, and, from the way he made it sound, a complete gold-digging player. But he was hooked and had spoken to her earlier and gotten into a fight with her. WHY was I listening to this? For THREE hours, no less? However, after this marathon bitch-session, he said he felt a lot better, and thanked me for talking him down. And, after feeling so connected to me, decided to try to get frisky again. I couldn't do it. I just couldn't go from "Tell me about your ex-girlfriend" and downshift to "Let's get sexy" that quick. He actually pitched a little fit over it, but realized that it wasn't the right time, and we bade each other good night and promised to attempt to meet again the next night.

Believe me, I am not a fool, regardless of how much I sound like one at the moment, and, truth be known, I felt like one at that moment. EVERYTHING about this guy told me to RUN! And run AS FAST AS I CAN. I certainly did not need to get tangled up with some guy who was obsessing over his little twit of a girlfriend. But I couldn't deny it, I was mentally, emotionally, intellectually, and physically hooked on this man, and I just had to see it play out.

Lesson Number Four: Pay attention to the red flags. They are red for a reason.

Status: Nowhere NEAR learning that one.

I need to stray from the format for just a minute.

Don't worry, I will continue with the tale in the next post :)

But I've been mentally shredded for the last week now and I just need to talk about it, maybe come to some realization, conclusion, or otherwise try to make sense of this. And, as these are personal blogs, we all have license to take these little breaks in format without too much guilt or worry that the casualness of such a shift will be disapproved of.

I've been rather lucky in my lifetime, in that I've never found myself in a physically abusive relationship. Most of my girlfriends have. I had one incident about 4 years ago, where the man I was dating tossed me around a hotel room in Las Vegas a bit, but there were never any actual "blows" to either one of us. I sported a bruise or two on my arms for a few days, and the relationship came to an abrupt end.

I remember that I scared myself, in that I didn't immediately jump to "You're outta here!" I had seen my friends beaten and battered into submission so many times that I would proudly proclaim that any man who dare raise a hand to me, wouldn't be around long enough to pull it back. And the first time it happened? I found myself clinging to the possibility that it was fixable. I tried to convince him to work it out. I'm actually quite grateful that he was stronger than I was at the time, and refused.

I do not have a boyfriend, and I am not even remotely romantically involved with anyone. I started a self-proclaimed sabbatical from relationships over a year ago, and I am less stressed and happier for it. (Less complications, you know?) So I wonder, would I immediately crumple again if I was romantically involved with a man who became physically violent towards me?

I say all this as a lead in: About a week ago, a man who I met just over six months ago, turned violent on me. He is EXTREMELY gay, and with me on sabbatical, our friendship just made sense. We grew quite close rather quickly, and intensely, closer than I can say I've had in many many years, maybe decades. We are both currently experiencing hardships in our lives, albeit in different areas, and are both looking to sort of "start over." He needs to leave his current living situation, and was moving in with me, as my roommate.

I've never had a roommate before. My MOM lived here for the first 4 years I had this place, and even though our relationship became much more liberated than most mother-daughter relationships, she was still my mom, and not really a roommate. And then there was my husband for about 5 years, obviously not a roommate. So this was going to be a challenge to me, and I knew there would be some growing pains. So did he. (Who, by the way, had almost all his life lived with a roommate or lover, and rarely alone.)

Okay, long story short, we were not able to work through the growing pains. It got bad. I got pushed down the stairs, clothes ripped and even blood running down the side of my face before it was over.

I find myself in a unique position, that I would imagine very few women would ever be in. This man was not my boyfriend. I was not in love with him. We were not physically intimate with each other. We did, however, have an unexpected, deep, and intense friendship, and cared about each other a great deal. I am no fool. I know that there is no fixing it. He crossed a line, and you just can't uncross it. He may have never hit a woman before, and he may never hit a woman again, but he did hit me, hard enough to bleed. His mind has been there, and it can go back. It's not "forbidden" territory anymore.

But I was able to better understand why women are so quick to forgive and attempt to make the union work. The act itself was so enraged, so unplanned, and so impulsive. In mere seconds, our entire relationship was wiped out. Neither one of us really had a say or input into this result, and yet, we are both forced to terminate our friendship without warning, without discussion, and without a goodbye. I'm not used to having to make such large decisions without a sufficient amount of thought, debate, and reason. I have to accept this outcome and I don't get any say in it. It's a helpless place to be and I can't help but feel stunned and traumatized from it all. I don't WANT it, at all! I still love him dearly, still worry about the issues he's having to face on his own now, without me there, as I have been for the last six months, every step of the way. I still worry about the issues I now face alone, when I had thought my best friend would be standing by me so I didn't have to deal with it all alone, either.

I do want to call him. I do want to just forget that it happened, go back to the way things used to be. I want to convince myself that we are two mature adults that can certainly keep that kind of thing in check, it will never happen again. But no. We went to a place that had been "forbidden" and now it's tainted, like butterfly wings. I know that this is the case, I know that I can't change it, I know that I must accept that he can never again be a part of my life.

But I tell you what... It fuckin' sucks.