The whirlwind begins...
So by my previous description, you may be wondering why on earth I'd be dating such a man... right? I certainly didn't paint a pretty picture, but at that time, I'd truly given up (yet again) on dating. After a summer of ricocheting from one Mr. Wrong to another to another, I realized that I'd lost all sense of direction. The funny thing was that I never really went looking for any of that... they all found me. Why does crazy seem to be drawn to me like a moth to a flame? I don't think this is the forum nor the blog subject to address it, but I do have my theories.
By mid-August, however, I'd had it with the crazies and decided to hang up my dating hat and head back up that mountain of solitude. I do this periodically... I'll over-date and then I'll stop entirely for many, many moons. This is a pattern that I've repeated... 20 months on the mountain, 18 months on the mountain, 14 months on the mountain... self-imposed celibacy. It's my way of clearing my head. Has it worked? Not really.
So there I was, about 7 weeks into my next retreat when I was hit with a triple proposal: a part-time job, free software and skill training, and a relationship. I'll admit that part of me worried that if I didn't accept the relationship, the other two offers may disappear. The urgency of his offer made me feel put on the spot, but I thought that maybe I could still control the progress of things if I agreed to go along for the ride. Little did I know that I would be lucky to be able to hold on with all the 180s this man would pull along the way. Control was something that I would never have in the presence of such a master manic control freak.
After I agreed to date him, our next day together was to be our first day of work. He explained then that there would be "employee hours" and "girlfriend hours" and that the two should never overlap. I thought it funny and asked what I should refer to myself as if I ever meet anyone... "Am I your significant assistant? Your executive other? Your girlfriend-in-training? Your girl Friday and your girlfriend Saturday? What?" This was something that never was resolved.
Because of the oddness of the situation, I decided that the best thing would be to take him before a not so impartial judge: Cully. Although any meeting of an ex-boyfriend would likely cause a new beau's blood to run cold, my new beau was a huge comic book dork, and I knew that the excuse to see the inner workings of a real studio would make him giddy like a little girl. Well, I didn't exactly know that, until I suggested it, then he might as well have had braids and tube socks, because the nervous giggles didn't cease. It was a surprise visit on Cully, and yeah, I put him on the spot by phoning while in the neighborhood and asking to come by, but he graciously allowed it.
Gigglepuss and I arrived at Gaijin Studios and he never stopped chattering... and the longer we were there, the more animated he became. I eventually dropped back to talk quietly with Cully, as we watched him blather on and on about old times and familiar stomping grounds with one of Cully's studio mates. Cully mentioned the animated behavior to me, which I agreed that he was quite a character and definitely bigger than life. Then as we were about to go, Cully did something unusual for him... he leaned a little closer to the new beau and dropped his friendly tone a bit to say, "Be good to her." A warning that did not go unnoticed and was talked about weeks and months later, with each successive retelling getting sterner and scarier than it really had been.
I met his roommate the next day, a young girl with whom Dean admitted to having a crush on when she was his student... but when I met her, it was clear that she was a lesbian. Actually, I couldn't believe that he was so blind, but I guess when someone has their head so far up their own ass, they don't really see these things. I know Dean had been pussyfooting (so to speak) around asking me if I had a problem with him living with a girl, and finally at the end of our third workday together, he asked. I truthfully told him that I didn't, because she was extremely sweet and genuine and I added that maybe he should be more concerned that she'd dig me more than him. He was still truly clueless.
Since we were on the subject, that's when I brought up the person who didn't sit well with me... the girl he'd gone on several dates with and spent his whole drive from Miami talking to on the phone. I was leaving that afternoon and I was not going to see him for 12 days, because our schedules had pre-existing priorities, and he was flying out to New York City to train folks at ABC (yeah, the network) that Saturday through the following weekend. Unfortunately, the Miami chick was coming in the next afternoon and I wouldn't be there. She was staying the night on her way across the country to resettle in Portland, with cat and all of belongings in tow, and with no job or place to land when she got there. I saw this as a potential pitfall... here he was in a big, empty apartment... and here she comes with all her stuff. If she had second thoughts, which as I later found out she actually was having, then it could be so easy for her to stay. And although he didn't tell me at the time, she's already discussed with him the possibility of Portland not working out and Atlanta being her next choice.
I flat out told him that if she moved in, I would tell him to have a nice time and he'd not see me again, because I had nothing invested and could easily walk away. It was all up to him.
From his later description of the evening, he must've acted like a bigger nutjob than usual, because he was terrified he'd mess up. As soon as she walked through the door, he blurted out, "I HAVE A GIRLFRIEND!" Now, I don't know if that is true, but he sure sold that version of the story. I know that he was too neurotic for anything to have happened, so I believed his story. He claimed that the next day he helped her gather her stuff and basically pushed her out the door. Because he basically had pushed me out the door the last time we were together, thanks to a kiss that went on longer than 30 seconds and he must've been getting thoughts, I could imagine him doing something similar with her.
Back up, you say? Yes, he literally pushed me out the door because of a kiss.
The next week and a half was pretty uneventful. Dean called regularly to check in with me and tell me about the folks at ABC and about the tours he was getting of various show sets. He also told me that although he had a long haul getting from his parents' apartment in the Bronx to Manhattan every morning and evening, he did love that he could walk three blocks, get a knish, eat it for the next 3 blocks, then find another place selling knishes and get another... he'd usually get at least 3 before he hit the subway... each way. I thought he was exaggerating, but time would later bear this out to be quite possible with this man.
Oh, wait. Did I say it was uneventful? No, of course it wasn't... because as soon as he got to his parents house, he decided to show them and his brother some pictures of his "new girlfriend"... but without telling me, he decided to show them my Flickr site as a slideshow.
How could that be funny? Here's how.
When he returned from NYC, we had just 2 days together - which were work days, of course - before he was headed out of state yet again... this time he was driving to a wedding in Orlando. He'd previously asked if I wanted to be his date; but because he asked before I'd ever met him and he was still living in South Florida, I said "no thanks, that'd be weird." After we met, however, I asked if he still wanted a date to that wedding... within minutes he was calling and booking a flight for me to come in for that day. Meanwhile, he was driving down several days early, to be part of the pre-wedding festivities, as a member of the wedding party.
Because he was who he was, he couldn't just get up in the morning and go. Instead, he puttered around and worked on motion graphics stuff, packed, went to the store to buy gifts and things for his friends in Florida, then didn't get on the road until about 6pm... just in time to be stuck in Atlanta's rush hour traffic. The delays made him decide to stay at a hotel in Lake City, Florida, rather than continue driving into the wee hours of the night. If you read the blog that I posted about it, then you'd were probably beginning to believe I was dating George Costanza. (And you wouldn't have been too far off.)
Did I mention yet what role he was playing in the wedding party? He was a bridesmaid, actually. I found this endlessly hilarious, but he seemed only increasingly bothered by his bridesmaid status, especially when I retold the story of how one of the groomsmen was seating me and asked if I was friend with the groom or the bride, and I replied, "Neither. I'm here as a date of one of the bridesmaids." As his eyebrows rose, I had to tell him the rest of the story. He had a good laugh, but Dean thought that I enjoyed telling that story just a little too much.
The wedding was... well, it was a typical wedding. Interestingly, his friend (the bride) pulled me aside at one point to ask me to "be gentle with him," because he had "been through so much already." I told her that she had nothing to worry about with me... too bad she didn't pull him aside and tell him to "not be such a douche." Maybe it would have helped.
She was a long-pined for crush of his youth and was the second of such girls in his life that I was to meet... another two in Atlanta he managed to keep me from ever meeting, despite me asking repeatedly... and the BIG ONE that he never stopped talking about round the clock would be introduced to me later in another Florida visit. It seemed that there weren't any women in Dean's life whom he didn't have some huge crush on at some point or another. Now, we all have our crushes and unrequited flames, but usually we've put them in their proper perspective once we hit our 30s. Not Dean... he gushed over them like I've never seen before or since.
When the wedding ended, we had a moment of truth ahead of us: a shared hotel room. Now backing up a bit, when he booked the plane ticket for me, we also booked the hotel room together. First, he wanted separate rooms, which I thought was too pricey and just plain ridiculous. So then he insisted that we would have double beds, instead of one king. It turned out that all of those suites were taken, so the only ones left were the suites with singular kings. He reluctantly agreed to book the room, but swore "NOTHING WILL HAPPEN!"
I thought it would be a good test of will power. We'd been dating for only about 3 weeks and I did feel it was still too early, especially since he'd been out of town for 2 of those 3 weeks. I decided to make it easy on him and not do anything to upset the delicate balance... I went to bed dressed in nothing seductive and I kept to my side of the bed. Unfortunately, I hadn't planned anything beyond that, and despite all his previous protests and exclamations that nothing would happen, he went ahead and made something happen anyway. Caught a bit off guard, I didn't decline his advances, mostly because my libido is always up for some fun... although there was a part of me that had hoped things might be less stereotypical this time.
We hung around Orlando for one more day, visiting my old friends and then spending time in the village around Universal. The second night together, he started acting a bit strangely. One of the things that he said was, "I really don't want to disappoint you." That made my heart sink, and I told him, "Then just don't." I explained that it was my experience if a guy says those words, not only will he disappoint soon enough, but he also knows almost exactly how he's going to do it.
He snapped out of the low period a little, but the next day as we drove back to Atlanta, he grew quieter and quieter. The closer we got to Atlanta, the more withdrawn he seemed to get. He was driving straight to the Atlanta airport to drop me where I'd left my car and take my parking spot, so that he could hop on a plane to fly back to NYC yet again, this time to train folks at the National Association of Broadcasters for most of the next week. I thought at first that he was just starting to wish he wasn't leaving so soon... that he might miss me... so I tried to get him to talk about it, but I soon learned that I was mistaken. Dean finally broke his silence to announce that he regretted having sex in Orlando, because it ruined his whole plan... a plan that involved waiting until my birthday before crossing that bridge.
Let me clarify: We started dating at the very end of September, and my birthday is December 12th; so he wanted to wait approximately 12 weeks. But the waiting period wasn't the part I found amusing... it was his reason for wanting to wait was the best part.
"Because you said in one of your old blogs that you wanted sex for your birthday."
I couldn't help but laugh and replied, "(A) That was two years ago! (B) I'm sorry to tell you, but no sex is amazing enough to stand alone as a birthday present. And (C) I also asked for a pony or a trip to Prague in that same birthday blog, but I don't see you offering either of those!"
Despite the humor that I found in his lament, he didn't seem to cheer up and was visibly distressed. He was so distracted by this that he wasn't even interested in saying goodbye when we swapped car places and parted ways. This issue of "it ruined my plans" thing about sex would be a point of contention for him for the rest of the relationship.
The other bad omen that hit in October came when he finally returned from NYC. Our next day together was a workday again and he wanted to know where I was with the training (a series of cds that he'd created to let people train themselves, which he was making me go through from start to finish to edit them and work through them instead of him training me). I admitted my frustration in working with the software and it's lack of common sense. Final Cut Pro is pretty intuitive, but After Effects is not... not to mention that I was going nuts working on one little 5 second moment of imagery, rather than putting a story together. I told him that I thought I was most definitely an editor who wanted to use motion graphics on the side, but that I didn't think I could do what he did full-time for a living.
That was the first time I saw "the twitch." His upper lip began to twitch and although he was still smiling, his eyes looked enraged. He then said we needed to stop everything, because he had no use in his business or personal life for "just an editor." He proceeded to talk about how editors were monkeys who push buttons and that he wanted someone creative. The whole day came to a halt while he tried to reorganize his business plan and what he was going to do with me.
It was a strange moment. He instantly became cold and distant and started to treat me like I was a nuisance to him. I continued to talk to him through the day, telling him that I wanted to continue learning from him and maybe I'd change my mind, but I felt that it just wasn't sticking with me at all and that perhaps he could develop a new training program - one that other editors would need to learn from him. In this way, I could be his testing ground for what other post-production folks need out there. He finally agreed to such a plan, but not before acting as if I'd ruined everything for several hours.
Things between us seemed to calm down and resettle before the end of the month, but there were definitely some telling moments in those first 31 days that in hindsight really sum up the rest of the relationship and predicted the end.
It can and did happen! Tell-all blog about dating ... well, tell-most ... tell-some ... regardless, it's TMI.
Friday, July 20, 2007
Tuesday, July 17, 2007
Fish Tale - pt. 1
In the beginning, there was the word.
Actually, it was a bunch of words strung together in the form of a Myspace message. I don't even remember what was said anymore... some networking question about what else I did besides editing from someone who wanted to connect with Atlanta industry people before moving here. I do remember thinking that his message seemed a little full of himself, but I tend to overlook such things. I glanced at his profile and saw that he was a motion graphics artist and spotted a bunch of somewhat cool stills. I didn't go check out his website, because I was trapped in dial-up hell at that time... having lost my DSL modem to a recent lightning storm.
I wrote back something about having taken motion graphics as a class before, but that I was mainly an editor and didn't work with anything nearly as sexy as what he did.
Granted, I was talking about motion graphics and it being flashy. Of course, he instantly took that to mean that I was saying he was sexy... which I wasn't. He was a bit cartoony... not unattractive, just definitely not what anyone would label as "sexy" by a long shot.
I also added some question asking about why it said he was in "LA/Miami/ATL" and if he accomplished that by having clones. Then I admitted to being jealous of his ability to clone himself and asked if he had a lab somewhere for that. I suppose he took that as flirting as well... "Hmm, she thinks I'm sexy and wants more of me!" I dunno... he tried to explain it a few months later, but I was laughing too hard to really hear what he said.
With that, our email exchanges were off and running... bombarding each other with messages and jokes and silly Photoshopped image comments for all to see. I didn't mind, because it was a safe distraction... he was long-distance, afterall. On the second day of messages, he was telling me he was totally smitten, he was canceling a date he had with some chick in Miami (where he still lived), and had moved me to his "top friend" spot. I was flattered, but also a bit concerned about his judgment... I mean, I hadn't even met the guy yet. I told him that I couldn't move him to the top spot, because that was reserved for Cully... but truth be told, I had decided not to date anyone for a long time, after a serial train wreck of a summer.
By the fourth day of this, he was asking if he could call... and by the end of that phone call, he was offering me a job at his company along with free training. After a few more calls, however, he was already having mood swings and showing signs of Jekyll and Hyde behavior... he claimed that it was because his first wedding anniversary post-divorce was impending and tried to blame the rabid squirrel behavior on the timing. I accepted it, but was wary.
By the eighth day, after I'd created and posted a Photoshop montage-comic to his comments, he called me to say that he really only needed an assistant in his life and not a girlfriend, so he wanted to cool off our phone calls.
I was confused, since I never agreed to be his "girlfriend" as yet, and especially since I hadn't even met the man. I suspected that he had changed his mind about me simply because he decided that he wanted to go on that date he'd originally planned, and he was trying to clear his conscience.
When I jokingly called him on it a few days later, he got pissed at me, slung some bizarre accusation or other at me, leaving me perplexed and attempting to over-explain my humor. That only gave him cause to sling yet another accusation at me about me being some sort of "Eeyore" or something... stating that although it was his favorite Pooh character, if he knew one in real life, he'd want to slap him and tell him to get over himself.
I was simultaneously pissed and amused at his accusations, especially because that's how I'd felt about him and wondered if someone in his life had gotten tired of his moodiness recently and used that exact line on him. I stopped talking to him for a bit to give him some space, while I decided if I wanted to continue being friends with the man. Mostly, however, I was dealing with some important events in my life: my father coming to visit and dropping some major emotional bombs, then my boys' birthday party... you know, typical week in my atypical life. Frankly, with all that going on, I really didn't have time for any other emotional roller coaster rides.
I did notice in my absence, however, that the girl he'd gone on that date with had been peppering his profile with new comments, and he did the same to hers. As a matter of fact, he'd actually been on a second and a third date in that short amount of time, and then suddenly he deleted his profile entirely from Myspace.
Noticing that he'd disappeared from my top friends list, I called him to find out what happened. It turns out that on his third date with this girl - whom he was still claiming wasn't a date but had previously admitted he found drop-dead gorgeous - he went to sit down on her couch while she "changed into something more comfortable" and he split the ass of his pants. Embarrassed by the realization that he was too fat and too dorky to ever consider being with such a stunningly hip girl, he freaked and dashed out of her apartment, returned home as quickly as he could and immediately deleted his profile, hoping the rest of the world would forget he existed.
Yeah, I know... that's what I said. "Uh, wait... what? You freaked out that you split your pants, so you deleted your Myspace page?"
He also said that he was taking the next 3 days to pack up his things and move to Atlanta, two and a half weeks ahead of his original schedule... all because of this "horrifying" weekend he'd had. Gosh, in hindsight, if that wasn't predictive of what a relationship would be like with him (not to mention all the other flip-floppy behavior), then I don't know what was. He said he'd be calling me from the road... he didn't. He talked to the other chick and to his brother the whole drive instead.
(to the privileged few of you readers out there who saw the "Patience Grasshopper" blog back in March, this is the same chick that he was calling constantly throughout our relationship and who later emailed me that unprovoked bitchy message about how I had no right to let my insecurities interfere with her friendship with him... yet another mind-boggling moment in this Outer Limits relationship)
When he got to Atlanta, he wanted to take the first day to look for houses with his new roommate, then the second day he was going to teach a class he was unprepared to teach, then that night he wanted to meet me for sushi. Why I didn't think that was too much of a whirlwind for me, I'll never know. I think I was too confused to see straight.
When he walked up to me on the night of our first meeting, I thought he was even cartoonier in person... short, very round, totally shaved bald, picket-fence smile that was bigger than life, and a LOUD Bronx accent. He was a bit like a living, three-dimensional, Puerto Rican version of Homer Simpson. Did I mention he was loud? We met at Rusans, which is a very chaotic place on a Friday night, but he somehow managed to talk over all the din in there. And instead of writing his order, he drew pictures of what he wanted, along with a cartoon of himself looking very sated and happy. I had to tell the chefs what he meant, so we'd get our order right.
He then proceeded to whip something out of his wallet. It turned out to be a ragged, folded up piece of legal-size paper that apparently contained his whole business model. The strange schematic made absolutely no sense... just a bunch of bubbles and lines and arrows and boxes with strange captions in them, like "The Lab" and "The Egg" and "The Anvel" and all created in some lame Windows graph program, with hand-written scratchings and other arrows and things written in with more ideas. He almost never took a breath while he described it all in animated detail... hands flailing, eyes ablaze with keen enthusiasm. My head was spinning, but I was also drinking a large sake by myself, so I thought maybe I was just a little tipsy. He finally asked if it all made sense and I jokingly said, "Perfectly." I thought my sarcasm was quite clear, but he thought I was serious and went on to gush about how no one else has ever understood his plan before me. (Gee, really? No one? Shocking.)
At the end of the night, I drove myself home (in case anyone's wondering, I wasn't at all tipsy... we went to see a movie after dinner) and I hadn't gotten more than 5 minutes down the road before my phone rang. When I answered, all I heard was him yelling, "Now that I've met you, I have to date you! I know it'll be complicated by us working together, but I'll figure out a set of rules. It'll all work out, I know it will." He wasn't asking me, mind you... he was telling me. I suggested that we should go out the next day and maybe discuss it further, but he was adamant that he had to date me.
The next day, we did talk about it... for quite some length... and he hadn't changed his tune, nor was there anything I could say to convince him otherwise. I tried telling him that I had a strict policy about not dating married men - separated or not - to which he said he just knew he was divorced by default and the papers had been filed over 6 months earlier, he just hadn't received the papers yet. I told him that it was too soon for him, to which he replied it wasn't soon enough. I told him that maybe he'd like to take his time - month or two, perhaps - and get to know me as friends, before jumping into dating me... to which he replied, "No, I can't wait. I have to date you now. I don't have that kind of time. It has to be now."
I was a bit shocked and thought, "Wow, he must REALLY be horny, because this is the most brazen and direct approach I've ever seen." Little did I know, we were apparently talking about 2 different things. When he was talking about "dating me," I thought he meant a full relationship, including sex. However, I later found out that when he was talking about "dating me," he meant that he just wanted a pal to go to the movies and comic book store with and occasionally kiss or hold hands... that's it. He also later (much later on) told me that he only wanted to get me "off the market" so that no other man could date me, while he monopolized my time... even thought I'd told him that I had given up on dating anyone and was ready for one of my long stints of alone time.
After a couple hours of this overly expressive, highly enthusiastic man selling himself and why it would be a great idea to date him and about how all of his other ex-girlfriend in the past always thought he was the most fun guy ever, I finally caved in and agreed. I still didn't know that he didn't want to have sex, but that's a story for the next segment.
All of the above occurred in just 3 weeks time - September 8 to September 30. Seems like a lot longer, and when I later pointed this out to him on an actual calendar, he too was surprised and thought it had been much, much longer than that. It's actually making my head spin just thinking about it... but as you can see in comparison to my previous post, this man broke from my ideal in almost every way. Yet I still gave him a chance... why? I'll get to that theory later, but right now, I think I need a nap.
Actually, it was a bunch of words strung together in the form of a Myspace message. I don't even remember what was said anymore... some networking question about what else I did besides editing from someone who wanted to connect with Atlanta industry people before moving here. I do remember thinking that his message seemed a little full of himself, but I tend to overlook such things. I glanced at his profile and saw that he was a motion graphics artist and spotted a bunch of somewhat cool stills. I didn't go check out his website, because I was trapped in dial-up hell at that time... having lost my DSL modem to a recent lightning storm.
I wrote back something about having taken motion graphics as a class before, but that I was mainly an editor and didn't work with anything nearly as sexy as what he did.
Granted, I was talking about motion graphics and it being flashy. Of course, he instantly took that to mean that I was saying he was sexy... which I wasn't. He was a bit cartoony... not unattractive, just definitely not what anyone would label as "sexy" by a long shot.
I also added some question asking about why it said he was in "LA/Miami/ATL" and if he accomplished that by having clones. Then I admitted to being jealous of his ability to clone himself and asked if he had a lab somewhere for that. I suppose he took that as flirting as well... "Hmm, she thinks I'm sexy and wants more of me!" I dunno... he tried to explain it a few months later, but I was laughing too hard to really hear what he said.
With that, our email exchanges were off and running... bombarding each other with messages and jokes and silly Photoshopped image comments for all to see. I didn't mind, because it was a safe distraction... he was long-distance, afterall. On the second day of messages, he was telling me he was totally smitten, he was canceling a date he had with some chick in Miami (where he still lived), and had moved me to his "top friend" spot. I was flattered, but also a bit concerned about his judgment... I mean, I hadn't even met the guy yet. I told him that I couldn't move him to the top spot, because that was reserved for Cully... but truth be told, I had decided not to date anyone for a long time, after a serial train wreck of a summer.
By the fourth day of this, he was asking if he could call... and by the end of that phone call, he was offering me a job at his company along with free training. After a few more calls, however, he was already having mood swings and showing signs of Jekyll and Hyde behavior... he claimed that it was because his first wedding anniversary post-divorce was impending and tried to blame the rabid squirrel behavior on the timing. I accepted it, but was wary.
By the eighth day, after I'd created and posted a Photoshop montage-comic to his comments, he called me to say that he really only needed an assistant in his life and not a girlfriend, so he wanted to cool off our phone calls.
I was confused, since I never agreed to be his "girlfriend" as yet, and especially since I hadn't even met the man. I suspected that he had changed his mind about me simply because he decided that he wanted to go on that date he'd originally planned, and he was trying to clear his conscience.
When I jokingly called him on it a few days later, he got pissed at me, slung some bizarre accusation or other at me, leaving me perplexed and attempting to over-explain my humor. That only gave him cause to sling yet another accusation at me about me being some sort of "Eeyore" or something... stating that although it was his favorite Pooh character, if he knew one in real life, he'd want to slap him and tell him to get over himself.
I was simultaneously pissed and amused at his accusations, especially because that's how I'd felt about him and wondered if someone in his life had gotten tired of his moodiness recently and used that exact line on him. I stopped talking to him for a bit to give him some space, while I decided if I wanted to continue being friends with the man. Mostly, however, I was dealing with some important events in my life: my father coming to visit and dropping some major emotional bombs, then my boys' birthday party... you know, typical week in my atypical life. Frankly, with all that going on, I really didn't have time for any other emotional roller coaster rides.
I did notice in my absence, however, that the girl he'd gone on that date with had been peppering his profile with new comments, and he did the same to hers. As a matter of fact, he'd actually been on a second and a third date in that short amount of time, and then suddenly he deleted his profile entirely from Myspace.
Noticing that he'd disappeared from my top friends list, I called him to find out what happened. It turns out that on his third date with this girl - whom he was still claiming wasn't a date but had previously admitted he found drop-dead gorgeous - he went to sit down on her couch while she "changed into something more comfortable" and he split the ass of his pants. Embarrassed by the realization that he was too fat and too dorky to ever consider being with such a stunningly hip girl, he freaked and dashed out of her apartment, returned home as quickly as he could and immediately deleted his profile, hoping the rest of the world would forget he existed.
Yeah, I know... that's what I said. "Uh, wait... what? You freaked out that you split your pants, so you deleted your Myspace page?"
He also said that he was taking the next 3 days to pack up his things and move to Atlanta, two and a half weeks ahead of his original schedule... all because of this "horrifying" weekend he'd had. Gosh, in hindsight, if that wasn't predictive of what a relationship would be like with him (not to mention all the other flip-floppy behavior), then I don't know what was. He said he'd be calling me from the road... he didn't. He talked to the other chick and to his brother the whole drive instead.
(to the privileged few of you readers out there who saw the "Patience Grasshopper" blog back in March, this is the same chick that he was calling constantly throughout our relationship and who later emailed me that unprovoked bitchy message about how I had no right to let my insecurities interfere with her friendship with him... yet another mind-boggling moment in this Outer Limits relationship)
When he got to Atlanta, he wanted to take the first day to look for houses with his new roommate, then the second day he was going to teach a class he was unprepared to teach, then that night he wanted to meet me for sushi. Why I didn't think that was too much of a whirlwind for me, I'll never know. I think I was too confused to see straight.
When he walked up to me on the night of our first meeting, I thought he was even cartoonier in person... short, very round, totally shaved bald, picket-fence smile that was bigger than life, and a LOUD Bronx accent. He was a bit like a living, three-dimensional, Puerto Rican version of Homer Simpson. Did I mention he was loud? We met at Rusans, which is a very chaotic place on a Friday night, but he somehow managed to talk over all the din in there. And instead of writing his order, he drew pictures of what he wanted, along with a cartoon of himself looking very sated and happy. I had to tell the chefs what he meant, so we'd get our order right.
He then proceeded to whip something out of his wallet. It turned out to be a ragged, folded up piece of legal-size paper that apparently contained his whole business model. The strange schematic made absolutely no sense... just a bunch of bubbles and lines and arrows and boxes with strange captions in them, like "The Lab" and "The Egg" and "The Anvel" and all created in some lame Windows graph program, with hand-written scratchings and other arrows and things written in with more ideas. He almost never took a breath while he described it all in animated detail... hands flailing, eyes ablaze with keen enthusiasm. My head was spinning, but I was also drinking a large sake by myself, so I thought maybe I was just a little tipsy. He finally asked if it all made sense and I jokingly said, "Perfectly." I thought my sarcasm was quite clear, but he thought I was serious and went on to gush about how no one else has ever understood his plan before me. (Gee, really? No one? Shocking.)
At the end of the night, I drove myself home (in case anyone's wondering, I wasn't at all tipsy... we went to see a movie after dinner) and I hadn't gotten more than 5 minutes down the road before my phone rang. When I answered, all I heard was him yelling, "Now that I've met you, I have to date you! I know it'll be complicated by us working together, but I'll figure out a set of rules. It'll all work out, I know it will." He wasn't asking me, mind you... he was telling me. I suggested that we should go out the next day and maybe discuss it further, but he was adamant that he had to date me.
The next day, we did talk about it... for quite some length... and he hadn't changed his tune, nor was there anything I could say to convince him otherwise. I tried telling him that I had a strict policy about not dating married men - separated or not - to which he said he just knew he was divorced by default and the papers had been filed over 6 months earlier, he just hadn't received the papers yet. I told him that it was too soon for him, to which he replied it wasn't soon enough. I told him that maybe he'd like to take his time - month or two, perhaps - and get to know me as friends, before jumping into dating me... to which he replied, "No, I can't wait. I have to date you now. I don't have that kind of time. It has to be now."
I was a bit shocked and thought, "Wow, he must REALLY be horny, because this is the most brazen and direct approach I've ever seen." Little did I know, we were apparently talking about 2 different things. When he was talking about "dating me," I thought he meant a full relationship, including sex. However, I later found out that when he was talking about "dating me," he meant that he just wanted a pal to go to the movies and comic book store with and occasionally kiss or hold hands... that's it. He also later (much later on) told me that he only wanted to get me "off the market" so that no other man could date me, while he monopolized my time... even thought I'd told him that I had given up on dating anyone and was ready for one of my long stints of alone time.
After a couple hours of this overly expressive, highly enthusiastic man selling himself and why it would be a great idea to date him and about how all of his other ex-girlfriend in the past always thought he was the most fun guy ever, I finally caved in and agreed. I still didn't know that he didn't want to have sex, but that's a story for the next segment.
All of the above occurred in just 3 weeks time - September 8 to September 30. Seems like a lot longer, and when I later pointed this out to him on an actual calendar, he too was surprised and thought it had been much, much longer than that. It's actually making my head spin just thinking about it... but as you can see in comparison to my previous post, this man broke from my ideal in almost every way. Yet I still gave him a chance... why? I'll get to that theory later, but right now, I think I need a nap.
Monday, July 16, 2007
Fish Tale - a prelude
Introduction
As a blog writer, I've often found myself afraid that I might run out of "crazy" to report. Seriously. And as a result, I sometimes hang onto stories for a while, just to keep that from happening. Maybe that's the pessimistic way of looking at things. I mean, perhaps it's just the way that I keep the well of crazy half-full?
At one time I promised that I'd write a book. A few folks got to read some chapters of that proposition, but I knew from the start that it felt like it was the wrong approach. You see, I was using the book idea as a reason to stay in a very messed up relationship. Well, technically, there was nothing wrong with the relationship as a concept... it was more that it was a relationship involving a very messed up guy... an eternal prepubescent.*
But first, I'd like to go back a little ways... long before the relationship, back to a time when I'd just been freed from another jail sentence: my marriage.
I knew coming out of that marriage that I wanted another chance... not with the man who'd made me miserable for 7 years, but with a better match. Unlike many divorcees I've met in years since (mostly male), I didn't blame the problems of my marriage on the institution itself. That's stupid. I knew exactly where I'd gone wrong and exactly what I wanted to avoid in the future. But more than that, I also knew exactly what I wanted... what would make for the right match for me... and I was willing to wait until he presented himself. It was everyone else who had doubts, however.
When the ink wasn't even dry on the divorce papers, everyone began asking me "When are you going to get back on that horse and start dating again?" Their point was that I needed to "get over it" and "move on," with sleeping with someone else as the apparent only way to do so. I told everyone that I wasn't ready, but inside I started doubting myself... and when my therapist at the time suggested that I needed to be dating as well, everyone else's opinions really took sway over mine.
To keep the Doubting Thomas's at bay, and too keep myself tickled pink and too busy to care, I got another dog... a puppy (Queequeg)... my canine 4, at the time. That's when everyone began to fear that I'd gone off the deep-end and would forever be the "crazy cat lady all covered in hairballs," only my cats would all be dogs... but the idea was still the same. My ex-husband, having already well-established relationship with his then future wife 2, rather smugly remarked to me, "The only reason you got another puppy is because you don't have a boyfriend." Nothing can rankle a single woman-scorned more than being reminding that she is loveless by the very person responsible for anointing her with that undesirable status in the first place.
It was shortly after that salt was rubbed into my wounds when I decided to throw my hat in the dating arena and subject myself to the online meat-market. Although I believed it to be very much contrary to my original plan, I began to think that perhaps that plan was slightly flawed, as it contained no actual suggestion or means of meeting new people. The year was 2000 and I was 6 months post-divorce... and completely clueless about how to meet anyone outside of my academic life.
What's that, you ask? What was my original plan? It is a good, albeit obvious question, sure. After repeating it to a few people 7 years ago, and being told that I was "too picky," I decided to keep my wishes close to the breast... treating it all very much like a secret wish that, if repeated to anyone, it would never come true. Silly, huh? Yeah, you're right. Seems like repeating it would only strengthen the resolve. Perhaps that's where I've gone wrong.
Mind you, this was my idealized mate... the one I pictured when I thought of what I'd like in my future. I wasn't sure that he even existed, and I often joked that he'd been hit by a bus or perhaps had just recently gotten married, but that in 5-7 years, he'd finally be available.
What I believed back then --and still believe today, for that matter-- was that, first and foremost, whomever he may be, he would be patient. I believed it to be important that everything would go very slow in the beginning, so not to miss a thing... that although I knew that we would sync up very well together from the first moment we spoke, there would still be no rush to intimacy. There should be a courtship phase... almost old-fashioned and unheard of in today's instant gratification world of fast food and faster connections... everyone and everything having the attention- and life-span of a gnat. I wanted the gentle nuances that had been missed in the past, when youthful indiscretions led to impetuous, hormone-fueled partnering. I wanted there to be kind of talk that goes on for hours without the notice of time passing... a sharing of minds, before a sharing of hearts... and a sharing of hearts, before a sharing of any other organs. I wanted there to be intellect and humor and honesty and respect and compassion and gratitude. And of course, there would be passion... well timed, not rushed. I believed there would be ease from the first moment... not imagined ease where one deceives oneself into thinking it's there, but truly awe-inspiring and refreshing ease. And finally although any relationship is work, I knew that it would never leave us feeling too exhausted to extend ourselves... to one another, or to anyone else beyond us.
The other details were more like personal preferences. He'd be taller than me... he'd have brown eyes... he'd have dark hair (if he had hair, that is) and hopefully it would be curly with touches of gray here and there... he'd like movies and music, in wide variety and largely over-lapping my tastes (though not necessarily wholly the same)... he'd be close in age to me, so that we'd have had similar experiences growing up in the same era... he'd love animals and actually have his own, proving that he could make room in his busy life to care for another being outside of himself... he would have been married once before, like myself... and like myself, he would have children - hopefully more than one (not that I was hoping for the Brady Bunch, but experience with multiple kids would be needed in my house).
I was told that I was being too narcissistic and basically looking for a male-me... the therapist had wanted me to consider that maybe I was scared and a bit scarred from my marriage, and that I was thus making myself "too picky," a statement that friends and family alike repeated later when they'd ask me to describe what I found attractive. But what's wrong with being too picky, I wondered?
Finally, I knew that I wanted to be married again someday. It's not for religious or moral reasons, mind you... and definitely not for legal ones... but simply because I thought that I had cheated myself out of the experience with my first marriage. (A) I got pregnant 3 months into a relationship and decided to keep it and raise it with him, without knowing anything about him, really. (B) We didn't get married until all after 3 of our children were born, and it was purely for health insurance reasons... he never asked, I asked him... no one attended as a witness or to celebrate, we just went to a courthouse... it was utterly without ceremony. (C) I now see the reason to celebrate a good union... why you invite your loved ones to be part of the event... why you invest a day of your life in the affair... not for all the trappings and financial distractions that are sold in bridal magazines, but for sheer joy of the union itself and the investment of others in its continued happiness. I experienced none of that and really hadn't understood the reasons behind weddings, until I missed out on my own. Now granted, mine would have been more quirky and odd than traditional, but it still would have included all of the people I love.
The other part of this equation was that I was willing to wait... however long it took to meet him, I'd wait. And I was determined not to go through dating a sea of Mr. Wrongs, but rather just be alone until he happened along. Mostly, I didn't want to be married too soon... I figured it would take me somewhere around 3-5 years to be ready, at least. I wasn't wrong, though there were moments before when I thought I might be ready sooner. My choices and approaches to relationships, on the other hand, proved that I wasn't ready, because they were sabotaged from the get-go simply by not following my first promise to myself: he must be patient (and so should I). So I allowed myself to be pushed into dating, before I was ready... and thus began a long line of misguided adventures in dating, many of which you've had the pleasure of reading about later.
The "fish tale" I'm about to tell is the one I've been promising to tell for a while now... the story of the salesman who promised the moon, but only provided headaches and heartache and hives. He was not entirely what I wanted, and I knew it... and definitely not what I needed, but I didn't realize it. So although he was certainly no "catch" and I really should have thrown him back, I strayed from my hopes and dreams yet again. Ultimately, though, the experience strengthened my resolve to stick to that original ideal of mine… and in so doing, renewed faith in myself as well.
There's enough to this tale to fill a few entries, which I may have to break it into chunks of crazy... but this is just the introduction, so I'm stopping here for now.
----------
*Author's note:
Part of me is hesitant to write any of this - despite the abundance of laughs it may bring some readers - but not because I care if the subject finds out. Ironically, he was first attracted to me because of my blogs, but little did he or I know he'd provide so much fodder for them. No, what gives me pause is that I do not wish to give more thought to this past mistake. I've chalked up my losses, shrugged, regrouped and moved on. Moreover, I do not wish to give it more significance that it deserves, nor do I wish to attract more of its kind: the kind filled with perpetual frustration, regardless of its comedic value. If I write of my personal life in the future, it will still likely be when I find comedy, but I am looking forward to it being pleasantly surprising, rather than increasingly bewildering.
As a blog writer, I've often found myself afraid that I might run out of "crazy" to report. Seriously. And as a result, I sometimes hang onto stories for a while, just to keep that from happening. Maybe that's the pessimistic way of looking at things. I mean, perhaps it's just the way that I keep the well of crazy half-full?
At one time I promised that I'd write a book. A few folks got to read some chapters of that proposition, but I knew from the start that it felt like it was the wrong approach. You see, I was using the book idea as a reason to stay in a very messed up relationship. Well, technically, there was nothing wrong with the relationship as a concept... it was more that it was a relationship involving a very messed up guy... an eternal prepubescent.*
But first, I'd like to go back a little ways... long before the relationship, back to a time when I'd just been freed from another jail sentence: my marriage.
I knew coming out of that marriage that I wanted another chance... not with the man who'd made me miserable for 7 years, but with a better match. Unlike many divorcees I've met in years since (mostly male), I didn't blame the problems of my marriage on the institution itself. That's stupid. I knew exactly where I'd gone wrong and exactly what I wanted to avoid in the future. But more than that, I also knew exactly what I wanted... what would make for the right match for me... and I was willing to wait until he presented himself. It was everyone else who had doubts, however.
When the ink wasn't even dry on the divorce papers, everyone began asking me "When are you going to get back on that horse and start dating again?" Their point was that I needed to "get over it" and "move on," with sleeping with someone else as the apparent only way to do so. I told everyone that I wasn't ready, but inside I started doubting myself... and when my therapist at the time suggested that I needed to be dating as well, everyone else's opinions really took sway over mine.
To keep the Doubting Thomas's at bay, and too keep myself tickled pink and too busy to care, I got another dog... a puppy (Queequeg)... my canine 4, at the time. That's when everyone began to fear that I'd gone off the deep-end and would forever be the "crazy cat lady all covered in hairballs," only my cats would all be dogs... but the idea was still the same. My ex-husband, having already well-established relationship with his then future wife 2, rather smugly remarked to me, "The only reason you got another puppy is because you don't have a boyfriend." Nothing can rankle a single woman-scorned more than being reminding that she is loveless by the very person responsible for anointing her with that undesirable status in the first place.
It was shortly after that salt was rubbed into my wounds when I decided to throw my hat in the dating arena and subject myself to the online meat-market. Although I believed it to be very much contrary to my original plan, I began to think that perhaps that plan was slightly flawed, as it contained no actual suggestion or means of meeting new people. The year was 2000 and I was 6 months post-divorce... and completely clueless about how to meet anyone outside of my academic life.
What's that, you ask? What was my original plan? It is a good, albeit obvious question, sure. After repeating it to a few people 7 years ago, and being told that I was "too picky," I decided to keep my wishes close to the breast... treating it all very much like a secret wish that, if repeated to anyone, it would never come true. Silly, huh? Yeah, you're right. Seems like repeating it would only strengthen the resolve. Perhaps that's where I've gone wrong.
Mind you, this was my idealized mate... the one I pictured when I thought of what I'd like in my future. I wasn't sure that he even existed, and I often joked that he'd been hit by a bus or perhaps had just recently gotten married, but that in 5-7 years, he'd finally be available.
What I believed back then --and still believe today, for that matter-- was that, first and foremost, whomever he may be, he would be patient. I believed it to be important that everything would go very slow in the beginning, so not to miss a thing... that although I knew that we would sync up very well together from the first moment we spoke, there would still be no rush to intimacy. There should be a courtship phase... almost old-fashioned and unheard of in today's instant gratification world of fast food and faster connections... everyone and everything having the attention- and life-span of a gnat. I wanted the gentle nuances that had been missed in the past, when youthful indiscretions led to impetuous, hormone-fueled partnering. I wanted there to be kind of talk that goes on for hours without the notice of time passing... a sharing of minds, before a sharing of hearts... and a sharing of hearts, before a sharing of any other organs. I wanted there to be intellect and humor and honesty and respect and compassion and gratitude. And of course, there would be passion... well timed, not rushed. I believed there would be ease from the first moment... not imagined ease where one deceives oneself into thinking it's there, but truly awe-inspiring and refreshing ease. And finally although any relationship is work, I knew that it would never leave us feeling too exhausted to extend ourselves... to one another, or to anyone else beyond us.
The other details were more like personal preferences. He'd be taller than me... he'd have brown eyes... he'd have dark hair (if he had hair, that is) and hopefully it would be curly with touches of gray here and there... he'd like movies and music, in wide variety and largely over-lapping my tastes (though not necessarily wholly the same)... he'd be close in age to me, so that we'd have had similar experiences growing up in the same era... he'd love animals and actually have his own, proving that he could make room in his busy life to care for another being outside of himself... he would have been married once before, like myself... and like myself, he would have children - hopefully more than one (not that I was hoping for the Brady Bunch, but experience with multiple kids would be needed in my house).
I was told that I was being too narcissistic and basically looking for a male-me... the therapist had wanted me to consider that maybe I was scared and a bit scarred from my marriage, and that I was thus making myself "too picky," a statement that friends and family alike repeated later when they'd ask me to describe what I found attractive. But what's wrong with being too picky, I wondered?
Finally, I knew that I wanted to be married again someday. It's not for religious or moral reasons, mind you... and definitely not for legal ones... but simply because I thought that I had cheated myself out of the experience with my first marriage. (A) I got pregnant 3 months into a relationship and decided to keep it and raise it with him, without knowing anything about him, really. (B) We didn't get married until all after 3 of our children were born, and it was purely for health insurance reasons... he never asked, I asked him... no one attended as a witness or to celebrate, we just went to a courthouse... it was utterly without ceremony. (C) I now see the reason to celebrate a good union... why you invite your loved ones to be part of the event... why you invest a day of your life in the affair... not for all the trappings and financial distractions that are sold in bridal magazines, but for sheer joy of the union itself and the investment of others in its continued happiness. I experienced none of that and really hadn't understood the reasons behind weddings, until I missed out on my own. Now granted, mine would have been more quirky and odd than traditional, but it still would have included all of the people I love.
The other part of this equation was that I was willing to wait... however long it took to meet him, I'd wait. And I was determined not to go through dating a sea of Mr. Wrongs, but rather just be alone until he happened along. Mostly, I didn't want to be married too soon... I figured it would take me somewhere around 3-5 years to be ready, at least. I wasn't wrong, though there were moments before when I thought I might be ready sooner. My choices and approaches to relationships, on the other hand, proved that I wasn't ready, because they were sabotaged from the get-go simply by not following my first promise to myself: he must be patient (and so should I). So I allowed myself to be pushed into dating, before I was ready... and thus began a long line of misguided adventures in dating, many of which you've had the pleasure of reading about later.
The "fish tale" I'm about to tell is the one I've been promising to tell for a while now... the story of the salesman who promised the moon, but only provided headaches and heartache and hives. He was not entirely what I wanted, and I knew it... and definitely not what I needed, but I didn't realize it. So although he was certainly no "catch" and I really should have thrown him back, I strayed from my hopes and dreams yet again. Ultimately, though, the experience strengthened my resolve to stick to that original ideal of mine… and in so doing, renewed faith in myself as well.
There's enough to this tale to fill a few entries, which I may have to break it into chunks of crazy... but this is just the introduction, so I'm stopping here for now.
----------
*Author's note:
Part of me is hesitant to write any of this - despite the abundance of laughs it may bring some readers - but not because I care if the subject finds out. Ironically, he was first attracted to me because of my blogs, but little did he or I know he'd provide so much fodder for them. No, what gives me pause is that I do not wish to give more thought to this past mistake. I've chalked up my losses, shrugged, regrouped and moved on. Moreover, I do not wish to give it more significance that it deserves, nor do I wish to attract more of its kind: the kind filled with perpetual frustration, regardless of its comedic value. If I write of my personal life in the future, it will still likely be when I find comedy, but I am looking forward to it being pleasantly surprising, rather than increasingly bewildering.
Thursday, July 05, 2007
Eat me.
So after seeing Michael Moore's SiCKO, I decided that if this country doesn't start to make some serious improvements in 5 years, I'm definitely leaving it within 10 years tops. I know I've made this similar threat before, but it's just getting more and more bolstered with each passing year.
I don't care what your past opinions of Mr. Moore are -- and compared to past films, he stays waaaay out of this one, other than in voiceover and a brief on-screen appearance near the end -- I cannot stress this enough: everyone must see this film.
I know all of my Liberal, Progressive, Green, and Socialist friends will go at some point, but those of you who are living with the blinders pulled over your eyes really need to wake up and go... don't be afraid, don't be reactionary, don't be a sheep and allow FOX "news" or talk radio personalities dictate what to think of this before you see for yourself. And if you go and do not come out of it feeling truly sick to your stomach over our situation, it will be official: you are made of stone... which is probably a good thing, since you likely won't need your worthless health insurance then!
I don't care what your past opinions of Mr. Moore are -- and compared to past films, he stays waaaay out of this one, other than in voiceover and a brief on-screen appearance near the end -- I cannot stress this enough: everyone must see this film.
I know all of my Liberal, Progressive, Green, and Socialist friends will go at some point, but those of you who are living with the blinders pulled over your eyes really need to wake up and go... don't be afraid, don't be reactionary, don't be a sheep and allow FOX "news" or talk radio personalities dictate what to think of this before you see for yourself. And if you go and do not come out of it feeling truly sick to your stomach over our situation, it will be official: you are made of stone... which is probably a good thing, since you likely won't need your worthless health insurance then!
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