Okay. I have a lot to write about, actually. I'm trying to sort out my thoughts.
Those of you who read my blog on a regular basis will realize that there are a few posts missing from this week, posts which were written, put on here, and have since been deleted. There's a reason for that, obviously, which I will get into more as this post goes on.
Truthfully, I find tricky situations hard to write about. Situations in which I'm not sure what to think. I tend not to write about those things, those situations, until everything has been hashed out and can come to a, ahem, natural conclusion. I have had a really strange week (and an even stranger past 36 hours or so), and I don't exactly know how to put a lot of my feelings into words, especially those of the past 36 hours. So. I will start, I suppose, and see what I can work my way through. Perhaps I'll surprise myself.
Those of you who have read this blog over the past week will know that I've been in contact with a girl I met on OkCupid, a girl who, in this blog's since-deleted posts, I gave the codename of Daisy. She and I became close rather quickly. That I will admit, and it is probably my fault. I tend to get close to people quickly. I like getting to know the ins and outs of a person. I like exploring another's mind, and letting them explore mine. All of this deep, mental exploration took place between the two of us over the course of eight days.
Daisy is a very, very sweet girl. I can't say that enough. She intrigues me, she fascinates me on multiple levels. Getting to know her, as I've told her this past week, is like putting together a metaphorical puzzle in my head. Everything I learn about her locks another piece of that puzzle into place. Getting to know someone on an intellectual level is soothing. It's sweet. It's interesting. It's something I like to do. It's something that is important to me, as in the past I've been, ahem, burned by not finding out as much as I can about a person that I may enter into a relationship with. While I have always been on OkCupid for social interaction and friend-making, yes, I am also on there to see if I can find that one person who will accept me as I am, with all my faults and foibles, with all of my extraneous problems (shitty car, very little money, hoping for the best after grad school, etc), the person who will tell me those things aren't important right now, or ever, because they want me.
On some level, because I have those hopes (as small as they may be, and getting smaller and smaller the more jaded and depressed I become with the caliber of people on that site most of the time) I open myself up a little too much too soon, I think. As most of you know, I am an open book about damn near anything. You ask me a question and I'll answer it truthfully. Honesty is important, and I have absolutely nothing to hide. Never have. What you see is what you get with me.
However.
As much as I don't like to admit it, I have changed a lot in the past year or so. From the end of my almost-seven-year relationship with my former girlfriend and subsequently adapting my lifestyle to living alone for the first time in my life (and learning how sad/lonely it is to come home every night to an empty house) to the brief, passionate, but ultimately disastrous relationship I had with Lady earlier this year -- all of it has made me a bit more guarded when it comes to matters of the heart. As open as I am, as friendly and honest as I am, and as close as I'll get to anyone who allows me to, there's always a part of me now who will metaphorically hold someone at arm's length. It's not because I don't trust said person -- most of the time I implicitly trust everyone until proven that I shouldn't -- but it's because I've been hurt and burned in the past if I don't. Call it a defense mechanism, call it what you will, but most of the time I no longer wear my heart on my sleeve. Instead, it is under chains, lock and key, in my chest.
With Daisy, for some reason, it was a bit different. I wasn't as cautious or guarded. I didn't feel that I needed to be. She's fun, she's sweet, endlessly inquisitive and intriguing, and multifaceted to a level where I'm not sure I could figure her out entirely given the rest of my life to do so. These are all positives, mind you. She said our interactions are almost like she's my research project, the one that I endlessly try to understand fully. To a certain extent, she's right. She's still right. And over the course of the past...nine days now, the more we talked, the more we interacted (including a six-and-a-half-hour video call on Skype on Friday night, and a three-hour one last night) the more I could see myself with her. The more I became comfortable with the idea. The more I began to imagine us together, as a couple, as two people together. As much as that thought should have scared me, especially after everything I've been through in the past, it didn't. It soothed me. It was a good thought, a calming thought. There was a mutual attraction, a mutual infatuation, and for a brief time over these past nine days, we sort of solidified our attachment to one another. It wasn't given a definition, it wasn't labeled, it wasn't anything more than "yes, we want each other," and we both made note of it on our OkCupid profiles that our romantic interests were otherwise engaged, but we were both happy to make new friends. That's as far as it went.
I gave her the link to this blog earlier this week. She reads it a lot. She's told me that she wants to read it all, which on some level is very, very sweet and on another somewhat frightening to me as the writer of it, as I don't remember what I've written here since its revamp a year ago, and my mind can go to some pretty depressing, dark places at times. But, I thought, oh well. If she wants to get to know me, the REAL me, this blog is probably the best way for her to do so, for her to get inside my head and learn intimately what I've been through. Her mother and at least one sister wanted to read my blog as well, and she asked my permission if they could.
"Of course," I said. "Show it to anyone you want, dear; I'm not ashamed of it, or anything like that. If anything, if they're suspicious of my character or intentions, the blog should show them that I'm just a normal guy with nothing to hide. My own parents read the blog, regularly."
She told me last night that they'd read it, the latest posts anyway (which, ahem, have since been deleted) and that at least one or two friends had read it. She told me that her mother and sister had poked fun at her codename of "Daisy," which I found incredibly cute. She also said it seemed to allay any big apprehensions they had about me, in a way, since I was more than willing to let them read the blog. Well, yeah, of course. I don't mind it at all. It's like word therapy for me to write here; it lets me sort out all of my thoughts. Anyone who reads this blog for long enough will know exactly who I am as a person, inside and out. So yes, go nuts. I'm actually flattered that anyone's interested in what I write, really. I can at times be a pretty boring person.
Everything was going well. We were getting closer and closer, letting each other know one another's most intimate thoughts, having long, detailed conversations face-to-face (or as face-to-face as two people can do over Skype, anyhow). We told each other our life stories. I even told her about the times I'd seen UFOs (yes, this has happened, and I may write about it here at some point) and I never tell anyone those stories, despite how interesting they are. We were so comfortable and relaxed talking to one another, despite the distance between us -- 200 miles or so.
And then it sort of...fell apart? I don't know how to describe it, really.
I received this message from her last night, after we'd signed out of Skype, as I was getting ready to go to bed. Parts of it, of course, have been redacted to protect privacy. Obviously.
...No, you know what? I'm not going to quote any of it here. There's no reason to. I don't want to, and it wouldn't be right to do so. Those things are between us and are private.
Basically it was a very long message telling me that there was some sort of switch that flipped in her mind last night, a switch that once flipped told her that we weren't right for one another, that we shouldn't be together, that she had a strong flight instinct and that she was sorry, she didn't think she'd find what she did in me and...yeah, stuff like that.
It definitely took me by surprise, that's for sure.
I realized at that moment that I had not held Daisy at arm's length, staying guarded, but perhaps only at half arm's length. If that makes sense. Maybe a quarter arm's length. Slightly guarded but still open enough to let myself be hopeful, to let myself get a little hurt. Not a lot, just a little.
Daisy always told me that she lives in great fear of hurting anyone for any reason. She never wants to do it, she tries never to do it. She also admitted to me in her long message that she knew on some level it would hurt me and apologized profusely about that, saying that if I wanted to now cut her out of my life and not be friends anymore, she'd completely understand, etc.
Of course, I don't.
Truthfully I was more confused than anything else. To a large extent I still am, even though in that message and a few subsequent ones she's explained her thoughts as well as she can, with promises that we'll talk more about them tonight. I don't know if she's second-guessing herself, trying to run away, trying to figure herself out, or if we simply got too close too fast.
I did say this to her, and I will quote myself because it is, indeed, myself:
That said, there will always be a part of me that will think that I've said or done something wrong here that screwed things up, even though I'm not sure whether I really have or not. Like I said, this is a bit of a sudden surprise, of course, when things were going so well (at least from what I could tell).
What happens now is up to you; if you want to remain friends, that's fine, and if not, that's fine too. I certainly don't want to shut you out of my life, or anything like that, unless that's what you want. And, indeed, if you truly do and don't want to say it, believe me, I understand. It's okay.
I wish I knew what else to say. I'm sorry too. Don't worry about it, [Daisy]; it's fine.
Truthfully, my head is a mess of thoughts right now. I don't know what Daisy wants, not entirely. I don't even know if she knows. I don't know what I expect our conversation tonight to entail. There are so, so many variables in play, especially when, in my head, I was beginning to get comfortable, beginning to think our a possible future with her, even if it was mostly (read: almost entirely) fantasy on my part. We'd discussed bits and pieces of it, things that could or may have happened were we to progress and explore things further. We talked about living situations, and where I may be in a year's time; she talked about how she had, on a whim (and if only briefly) looked up places to work in my area. We were at least thinking about these things, even if in a passive fashion. She could see herself with me as much as I could see myself with her. I know this because she told me, several times. I also know it because in her own journal (which I will not link to here, obviously) she wrote it herself.
I'm not sure if that makes things easier or more difficult to deal with, honestly.
Mainly because I don't know what happened.
I do know that Daisy is indecisive and flighty, and I accepted that from the beginning. Hell, she told me that herself, and I accepted it. It's endearing and cute. I also know that above all, she is honest -- sometimes painfully so. And she'd made a commitment to whatever "we" were, briefly, that she found that she couldn't uphold, whether it was something she wanted to uphold and couldn't or whether it was something she realized she out-and-out did not want. Perhaps she had what alcoholics refer to as "a moment of clarity," and realized that we weren't going to work, or perhaps it was her indecision and flightiness kicking in again -- something she told me happens from time to time. Regardless, I don't know. I'm trying my best to, ahem, deal with it in the only ways I can. I'm not going to delete her from my life or anything like that, of course. For all I know, last night could've been a passing, fleeting flighty feeling (wow, say that three times fast). She is a sweet girl, a complex one, one who I realize that I am lucky to have in my life in any capacity, friend or otherwise. Even if she is over 200 miles away. I may try to "delete" former love interests out of my life, but I certainly don't delete friends or people who are important to me.
So really, I'm sort of torn. I'm not sure what to do, not sure what to say. My friend Zedral, who I've been friends with for about ten years, friended Daisy on Facebook this morning, and told me that if she wanted to talk, she'd be Daisy's listening ear. I relayed the message to Daisy as well. Few people know me better than Zedral, except for my parents and Andrea.
That's where things stand now. I guess I'll find out what'll happen, at some point, if anything.
I have an interesting life, don't I folks?
1 comment:
Oh, honey. I'm sorry.
Post a Comment