Aaaand it's boring again

So, I haven't heard from either one of the guys that I talked to almost two weeks ago now. Neither one has even been online since we initially talked. I was telling myself that last weekend was a holiday weekend so I shouldn't expect anything because people have plans, get busy, whatever. The professor said he was going to the UK for a wedding, so I figured, he's out of the country. Excuses, excuses, same old shit I do to try and make believe that I actually have hope. I logged onto the online dating site I'm on and the professor deleted his account. So, unless he by chance happens to log online again, I don't have a way of talking to him anymore. Figures. Aaaand this is exactly why I don't get my hopes up.

I think I should change my blog title from Kisses from God to Punches from God or Bruises from God haha. Because thinking my freckles are kisses to show how much he loves me is alone ridiculous, not just because I'm atheist, but because it doesn't even makes sense if there was a god. I have been pushed down when I'm up more times than I've been happy, happy is a strong word, more like mildly indifferent, and kicked when I'm down on top of that. It would just be a more fitting title considering the luck I've had in my life.

Oh well, at least I know what I'm in for and know that I can live this way for some time and avoid self-harm. It would probably be worse for someone who had known what love, even like, was like and then had that taken away. I guess never having known it is a blessing in disguise. Fuck, maybe I should be thanking god, ya know, if he existed.

It finally gets interesting

So, the conversation the other night with the young guy ended up flowing fine, which was a relief, and we ended up chatting for 3 hours. I still don't know about the difference in age and education, but I haven't even met the guy, so who knows.

Last night, the other guy, the professor, IM'd me and we talked for 2 1/2 hours. The conversation seemed a bit more forced at times than with the young guy, but I think it was partially due to finding it hard to gauge sense of humor over the internet. I kind of get the impression he has a very dry sense of humor, and sarcastic, which sometimes doesn't always translate merely with words.

Neither of them mentioned meeting in person, nor did I. I'm not sure if I should, since I was the one who initiated both emails, but maybe it'll just come up. I have a feeling that upon meeting I will be able to tell instantly if I like them or not, as is usually the case with me.

I'm not getting my hopes up, since I find it pointless, but at least it gives me something to talk about. This blog is getting pretty boring, even to me, and it's my life.

Is this settling?

So right this minute I am talking to someone online that I saw on a free dating sight. I'm not sure how I feel about it. I was looking really quickly and wasn't paying attention to details very well, which is something I do all the time and decided to send this guy a message. Well, what do you know, he replied and we exchanged IM names.

Well, I later find out that he didn't finish undergrad, but is finishing up now. He is pretty young, almost 3 years younger than I am. AND to boot, he's Christian and I think he might be serious about it. If I had seen those things before emailing, I probably would've left his profile alone. I know in the end, it's the person that matters, not stupid standards. At the same time though, if you didn't have standards, where would you be?

I guess it doesn't hurt to IM for a while and see what happens. It's not like I'm marrying the guy. Right?

I actually messaged another guy who responded to my initial email, I don't know what's going on here. They NEVER respond. This one is my age, I think he's a professor from the sound of his profile, and he's Agnostic. I kinda hope he responds again, but we'll see. If I don't hear from him in a couple days, is it creepy and stalkery to email him again and ask what's up? or just leave it in his court?

I have totally forgotten how to play the game. I can barely come up with things to talk about over IM. Pathetic. People say be yourself, and I am with my friends, but I doubt this guy wants to talk about Sex and the City, references for a waxing place, or how I'm feeling a bit gassy lately...TMI? Yeah, thought so. Being myself is hard. with guys. I don't know.

Shaking in my rain boots

Today I went to this seminar on web tutorials for work. On my walk through the yard, who did I see? T walking with his coworker. I haven't seen him since January? I don't know what came over me. I got so freaking nervous I nearly spilled my coffee. We said hi, how are you, blah blah blah. He went to grab a coffee and I told him I'd see him in there. I picked a row with a bunch of open seats, but ended up being filled with other people. Needless to say, I didn't see him in there or when I left. I don't know why I can't just get over it. He still makes me so nervous. He's so freakin hot. I couldn't even look him in the eye.

After I got back to my office, he emailed me saying it was good to see me and if I wanted to grab lunch sometime. So we are. Next Friday. I might shit my pants.

I hate that I'm so transparent and not in control of my emotions. He rejected me. He DOES NOT want me. Yet, the mere sight of him makes my heart race and my knees buckle. So frustrating. All I want to do is jump the poor guy. It doesn't help at all that I have made out with him, so I have to live with the taste of what I'm missing. I'm sure he can see straight through me. Ugh. But how could I say no? I'll prolly just come home and cry like I always do.

Not to mention that two seats down from me was such a cute guy (a rarity in the library world). Why didn't I introduce myself? I mean, I'm at work with a bunch of other library people, why not take the opportunity to network, right? Then another hot guy sat in between us. Though, he was married. First I saw him check his phone, which had a pic of a girl as the wallpaper. Then I spotted his wedding band. Still, too much testosterone around me today. I can't handle it. I feel like I'm in heat or something.

It's official

I'm miserable. I caught a cold from my nephew last weekend so physically I've been feeling awful. I feel a little better today, but still not 100%.

Emotionally, I can't say that I've been feeling much better. My mind has been all over the place this past week. Mostly, I've felt just numb, almost to the point where I forget that this life is not the one that I want, the one that I would choose for myself. I feel neither sad nor distressed. I just am. Other times, I have very serene moments where I realize that this is my life and I can envision my life this way forever and feel very mature for coming to this realization, like maybe I'm a bigger person for accepting what life has dished out for me. After all, I'm healthy, I have a family, I have a good job now. I, in other people's eyes, have a pretty good life compared to some.

But there have also been times when I miss being around people, miss going out and doing things, only to angrily turn on myself and think “You're such an idiot. You did this. You pushed everyone away thinking that taking time away from them would help you understand how you feel and give you the opportunity to resolve your feelings. Only, time apart just allowed any feelings of hurt, jealousy, and resentment to fester and grow. It's all my fault. I did this, and so I must live with it. It's too late to fix things. It will never be the same as it was, it can't be, too much has changed. It's never going to get better.” I find myself repeating this little mantra in my head over and over again. “It's never going to get better.” This can't be healthy.

And still other times, I think, “Well, if I just pretend that everything is fine, maybe it will be fine.” You know, if you think happy thoughts, happy things will happen, and you will be happy. I was at work a couple weeks ago and there is this Simpsons card that when you open it it's Marge Simpson saying “Well it doesn't matter how you feel inside, you know? It's what shows up on the surface that counts. That's what my mother taught me. Take all your bad feelings and push them down, all the way down, past your knees until you're almost walking on them. And then you'll fit in, and you'll be invited to parties, and boys will like you, and happiness will follow.” I literally almost cried at work. What is wrong with me? I started thinking that this is what people do, this is how normal people probably deal with their problems, right? You just deal with it like a grown-up and move on. But is it? Is that healthy? Shouldn't you embrace your bad feelings to a point, to find out why they're there, where they came from, and then to deal with them?

I don't know what to think anymore. I feel like nobody has the answer. I have nobody to talk to. Even my shrink doesn't seem to be pointing me in the right direction, or any direction for that matter. When I try to talk to my mom about it, she just doesn't get it. No. 1: she doesn't understand anything about men and how to deal with them in the 21st century. She has to be THE most naïve and innocent person I've ever met and she's 58. She started dating my dad when she was 15 and waiting til marriage to have sex. She was shocked when my sister came home with a hickey once in high school; she'd never had a hickey. She didn't know what a beaver or twat was until she was in her forties. She just doesn't get anything. No. 2: She doesn't understand anything about my friend situation either. Sometimes I feel like she really doesn't want to know how sad I am because she doesn't know how to fix it and that to her is frustrating as a mom.

My sister isn't any better either. She has her own problems to deal with. Her house is pretty much a money pit with one thing going wrong after another. Her kids are a lot for her to deal with too. So I feel like I shouldn't bother her with my problems. When I've tried to talk to her about my friends and was letting her know that I was pushing them away, she didn't seem too concerned or wondered why I would want to create my own loneliness. She just said, “Sometimes people grow apart and friends move on.” But, she was never one to have lots of girl friends, either. She has one, but mostly she hung out with guys. Plus, she is the type of person who always had a boyfriend. Ever since high school, it was one guy after the next all the way through college until she met her husband in her post-grad. So, I can't talk to her about men either. I've told her about the guys, but she's never really been the friend I've needed, only a sister, if that makes sense. She's there to remind me how they're jerks and that I deserve better than that, but, I don't know, it's not the same as talking to a true friend somehow. I can't describe it.

So all along, I've told myself that I'm not depressed. I'm not, I'm just unsatisfied with the way things are in my life right now. But, maybe I am. I'm starting to feel a bit crazy inside. I don't like to use that word, because I'm sure every mentally unstable person has a medical reason behind their actions besides pure insanity.

I'm not even sure what I want anymore, which makes it harder too. I feel like I'm on an emotional roller coaster. I thought I wanted a normal life, which for a single woman living in a decent sized city, would entail going out with friends, dating men, having fun. I've tried to look further into the blogosphere to seek solace in the fact that there are other women like me out there, but what I've come across more often than not are these sites where women basically talk about their sexcapades with men and I think that is nowhere near close to what I want or who I'd want to be friends with, or is it? Sometimes I think that yeah, if I had friends we'd be like the Sex and the City girls talking about all the men we've dated and slept with, but is that actually what I want? I guess the Catholic upbringing did have some kind of effect on me because I don't think of promiscuity as a good thing, but at the same time, sometimes I am so jealous of having a “normal” sex life. I can't find an official average, but it seems women usually have an average of below 10 sexual partners in their life. The older I get, though, the harder it is to get close to men without the fear of them “knowing” everything about me and being completely embarrassed and humiliated. (Although, I'd have to actually meet a guy first.) Other times, I'm completely jealous of some of my friends who found their partners in college and never had to “sleaze it up.”

With my friends too, I have no idea what I want. All along I've said that I want friends who are interested in the same things I am, who want to go out and do things. Sometimes, I wonder what these things are that I talk about. I feel like I really first got upset when they didn't want to go out on the town like we used to. Usually we would go to bars and pretty much get wasted. Is this really my idea of fun? I often think about college and look back and think about how much fun we used to have, just us girls, but realistically, all we did was get trashed every weekend, hook up with different guys, and then laugh about it all. Is this my idea of fun? Is this all I see for my future? I've seen what that kind of attitude can do to someone. My dad had a fun time in college, probably too much fun for his own good. He's always told stories about his friends and their shenanigans and they always involved them being drunk. My sister and I have always thought that was partly the reason for his alcoholism, that he still thinks that those were the best times of his life and he's stuck in the past, which is why he acts so completely immature. I don't want to be that person, always living in the past, thinking that those times were the best and that no other part of my life will ever be as good. Sometimes I wonder if I really do want the life that I've envisioned for my future: the husband, the family, friends that are married with kids, so we can raise our kids together. Maybe I'd want them more if I was in that place, but I'm not. I'm in the single girl place. To me, being single, has always been going out, getting drunk, hooking up with a random guy, which for me has inevitably led nowhere. Maybe I need to get out of that place, but how? That's all I've ever known. And what's on the other side? Grown-up stuff. Does that equal boring stuff?

Man, I think I'm either bi-polar or have a raging case of Peter Pan syndrome. The screen's making my eyes hurt, this post is way too long. I'm not even proof-reading. Sorry for any errors.

"What's with today, today?"

Really, what's up with this week? I don't know what's different about this week, but I've been super down. I think Monday set the tone, but it wasn't just that stuff. And I don't even feel like the meetings with my therapist are very helpful. I know people say it helps to talk, and I guess, it sort of does, but it helps more when people offer you solutions or advice to help you get over your problems, which she doesn't do much of. I wish someone, oh I don't know, maybe a fairy godmother, would come along and wave a magic wand and just make everything better.

Mostly, this week I've been lonely, for the male gender, that is. I don't know why now more than lately, because it's not like I'm a stranger to long stretches. I mean, come on now, my life is pretty much one dry spell. To top it off, the last guy I kissed was um, well, someone I'd like to forget altogether.

I don't know what to do. Thinking back, every guy I've ever hooked up with (which thinking about it is pretty gross...that I've only ever hooked up with (and no, that does not mean slept with) guys as a one-time thing that never turned into anything and have never had a real serious relationship) I've met while out with my friends. I feel like I'm trapped. I almost feel a little bi-polar/schizo-ish thinking about it. I want friends, but I can't relate to my friends, but I still care about them, but I feel like crap around them, I want to go out and meet people, but have nobody to go out with, and even if I meet new friends, it's such a pain to start from scratch to get to know people, and then I'd probably experience the same thing with them, they'd move on and get married and leave me behind, again.

It's the same with men too. I want to meet a man, but I don't have friends to go out with to meet a man, even if I met one, I'm honestly scared to death of going through the process. I don't have history to talk about, will they think I'm weird? I'm not what you'd exactly call experienced, and I HATE when guys talk to you in that tone, do you know the tone I'm talking about? You can hear it switch on as soon as you say "I've never done this before" or something to that effect. It's like you can taste the pity. Ugh, who wants to deal with that.

Is there such a thing as an octuplet-edged sword? Cuz I feel like I'm being stabbed everywhere.

Not to EVEN mention work this week. I literally thought I was going to KILL my coworker. She is SO ...I don't even know the words to describe her. She is so fake. She tries to make herself seem so smart to everyone. I seriously think she reads the New Yorker and listens to NPR JUST to shove facts in people's faces and test their knowledge against hers. I think she has some serious self-esteem issues, always trying to one-up me in meetings or counter something I've said.

Friday was the kicker. We were talking about a museum that I've been to but she hasn't. She asked what kind of art it had. And I could literally picture it in my head, but I couldn't remember the name of the genre. She goes "Weren't you an Art History major?" I wanted to say "Aren't you a rude bitch?" Sorry I can't recall something I learned in undergard 10 YEARS AGO. All I said was "Well, I was general Fine Arts and took more studio than Art History."

Then she asked me if I had plans for the weekend. Of course all I could come up with is "I have to work," "Both days?" "No, just Sunday." In my head: "So, no I am not doing anything tonight or Saturday, happy?" My boss later asked me what I was doing this weekend. I said nothing, and I literally saw her brows crease as if looking at me like a pathetic loser.

I am at a loss. To agree with ecrivain, it's crippling. If the man-loneliness doesn't get me, the friend-loneliness will, and if neither of those gets me, the embarassment of the lack of both definitely will be the nail in the coffin. Excuse me while I self-implode.

Out of steam

I had big plans for today. I really did. I bought this cute new dress (in blue) to wear, I was going to sit outside and eat lunch and look as approachable as possible, go to Newbury Comics to buy the new Weezer CD and look for cute indie boys, email T to meet up for a strictly friendly lunch (at my therapist's suggestion because who knows, he could lead me to new friends, both male and female), and go to a concert tonight by myself to see if maybe I could meet people there.

So, I wore my new blue dress, but the weather today totally sucked. It rained, so I couldn't really eat outside. I went to NC and bought my CD, but nobody else was in the store. I emailed T, but he's going to a conference and won't be around (which even though is totally legitimate bc I know which conference he's going to, still makes me feel like he's avoiding me/scared of me/not really into being friends). By 5:00, I just wanted to go home and mope, so no concert for me.

So much for high ambitions. I don't think it's a coincidence that Bright Eyes is my favorite band:

"Ambition, I've found, can lead only to failure"

What do I know?

Yesterday I found out that my coworker, C, who I absolutely HATE (yeah in CAPS), met her husband on eHarmony.com. I must be a horrible person because that news just made my day. I shouldn't talk, I've done match.com...twice. Both times a complete failure. I tried to sign up for eHarmony, but was rejected. I like to convince myself that match isn't working for me because I'm not completely invested in it the way you should be, that really, I'm not trying hard because i know that this isn't where I want to meet someone. I found this pic that I think sums it up...


I'm sure that many people have found love through online dating sites, but to me, I feel like you can't really know who people are by a profile. I'm sure that there are plenty of nice guys on the site, but maybe they aren't so savvy with their profile skills, and so I will never even think to "wink" at them. The guys I did end up emailing or "winking" never responded. Instead, the only people to contact me were either over 40, obese, and extremely not my type.

Maybe I'm too picky. People always tell me, "Give him a chance, maybe you'll learn to like him." I've done that before though, and I know this sounds really stubborn, but I have a sense of people almost immediately after I meet them. I can tell within 5 minutes of meeting someone whether or not I find them attractive. Oh, I should mention, I have absolutely no sense of physical attraction. I've known so many women who will see a guy and think "Oh my God, he's so hot!" while I'm thinking "Are you serious? Him?" Part of me thinks that I unknowingly trained my brain to ignore the common rules of attraction (symmetrical features, common standards of beauty) because throughout my life, these people have only ended up hurting me. That's just my theory. In reality, I've only really found 3 people attractive in my whole life.

Boy # 1: D
Before I went off to college, we were required to attend a freshmen orientation. We were broken up into groups and were assigned “orientation leaders.” These were upperclassmen who would give us insight into the college experience. Each group had two leaders and one of mine happened to be D. He was a skinny, quirky, red-haired sophomore that totally got me hooked. I’m not sure exactly what it was about him, but I was caught, hook, line, and sinker. This was no ordinary crush either, this one lasted the whole three years that we were both at college. I was the obligatory puppy dog crushee. I would go to parties if I knew he would be there, or I would show up at his dorm just to see him and drunkenly harass him. Probably the thing that instigated this crush was the fact that he was always the perfect gentleman. He would always politely entertain my shenanigans and would always be nice to me. For this, I loved him even more. Well, one drunken night of our Spring Weekend together, towards the end of the academic year, I mulled up enough courage to tell D exactly how I felt about him. I told him that I thought he was cute and nice and that I had a crush on him. And in his traditional polite way, he told me that he just didn’t see me that way. After years of trying to build my self-confidence, I was shot down by the one guy I thought I had a chance with. I guess it was all a lesson learned.

Boy #2: A
So, thinking that my loss of D was the end of all things love, I went into senior year thinking that this was going to be a love/lust-free year with no interferences of boys. Boy, was I wrong. Senior year I lived in a townhouse (that I had also lived in junior year when I got back from my semester abroad in London-another story) in one of the two courts for upperclassmen housing. We moved into the dorms in September of 2001 with the usual familiar faces of our senior classmates and a few new junior faces that we did not know. One of these junior faces was A, who moved into one of the rooms downstairs on the boy’s side of the townhouse. At first, I thought he was a nice, quiet guy who seemed a little dorky. Through the course of the semester, I found out a few things about A that seemed to peek my interest. First, I learned that he was a Religious Studies minor (I was a Religious Studies major, although I was an atheist-again, a whole other story). I learned that he was a religious guy, which, tying into my atheistic beliefs, I found to be sort of a challenge. Okay, I’m twisted, but I find it sort of satisfying to tempt men of religious beliefs (I used to have a high school fantasy of seducing a priest, although now, it makes clear sense that they’d much prefer young boys). Along with finding out his major, I discovered that A also liked the same kind of music that I did, a rarity at the uber-trendy Abercrombie & Fitch mentality of my college. How it also came up that he was into pot is another mystery, probably a result of the act, but at some point he expressed interest in going with me and my roommate out for “walks” to the nature trail in the woody area of the college's grounds. Soon the walks seem to not include my roommate and on one night in December, close to the final exam period, A and I hooked up. We didn’t have sex, but we made out and whatnot for about a week, until the winter break. I was smitten. I was convinced that he was into me and I was into him. I chose to ignore the fact that he had just broken up with his girlfriend of three years and chose to ignore the fact that I could possibly be just a rebound girl. Needless to say, come time to move back into the dorms in January, he did not feel the same. I went on a ridiculous drama, angst depression, which I’m sure scared the shit out of him. It was not his fault, I blame it on twenty years of rejection, ridicule, and self-loathing. I have to say, it was not a fun year.

Boy #3: T
While in my Master's program last year, I met T. We’d been chatting in class and on the bus and was getting to feel like he might be flirting with me. So one day I grew balls and asked him to meet me after work for drinks. Shockingly, he said yes. Drinks were good, conversation was good, and we ended up getting dinner. When we said bye, he said “see ya in class?” and I asked him what he was doing that weekend. So we made tentative plans to hang out and soon were emailing constantly that week, flirting all the while. He came down to my neck of the woods and we went to dinner and then out to a bar for drinks. I got a little tipsy, shocker, and we ended up making out on my couch. Well, I couldn’t get comfortable, so we moved into the bedroom where we continued to hook up. After a while, he stopped me and said that he wanted to let me know that he didn’t want to get involved in anything serious because he just got out of a long relationship. I was so pissed. I don’t know why he agreed to go out with me in the first place. What the fuck? I know it was probably my own fault for being so easy, but I just couldn't help it. It had been what? 5 YEARS since I was interested in a guy, and I'm sorry, but I have some needs too ya know!

So that's it, my pathetic history with men. Well, not all of it. There is one thing I haven't confessed. I'm not a virgin, at least not as of one year ago today. I'm not proud of it. at. all. This is what I do remember. It all happened the day of a beer festival that I went to with A, her sister, and her sister's boyfriend. Mind you, this was about a week or two after T totally rejected me. First, we thought it would be a good idea to smoke pot beforehand...bad idea. So by the time we arrived at the festival, we were already toasted. Four quick beers later, I was ridiculously trashed. I remember getting beers, going to the porto-potties, hanging out with my friends. Then on one trip to the bathrooms, I met Andrew (I don't mind using his name because, well, you'll see). I have no idea how I started talking to him or what made him want to keep talking to me, but for the rest of the time, we were attached at the hip. He was a financial adviser from Philadelphia up on business. He went to Villanova. He was Polish, with a Polish last name, which I cannot remember. At some point we started kissing while we were at the festival. This is where it gets foggy. I proceeded to black out multiple times. I have no recollection of leaving the festival without telling my friends, getting a cab with him, and coming back to my apt. I also don’t remember leaving my purse in the cab, which had my keys and cell phone in it. No worries, I broke into my apartment, apparently my door is easy to push open. Then, the next thing I remember is having sex with him in my bed. It hurt. A lot. I bled everywhere. We used lube, but not a condom. I can’t figure that one out since I had just bought a pack of condoms just in case I was ever in this predicament. I don’t remember if I asked him to stop or if he even finished. The whole thing is so fast in my mind. The next thing I remember after that is him dressed sitting on my living room chair calling for a cab. I wish I could remember more, but maybe it’s better that I don’t. I took a morning after pill, just in case, and got tested for everything under the sun. Luckily, I'm ok. I don’t know what I was doing, I don't know if it was a reaction to being rejected, if it was just dumb drunkenness, I'm not sure. I'm not proud of it. I wish I could forget it all. I mean, I don't remember a lot of it, and what I do remember doesn't even seem like reality. It's almost like it didn't happen. Almost.

I haven't kissed, dated, or even really engaged in conversation with a guy since then. I really don't see the point. I think I've resigned myself to spinsterhood. I think it'll just be easier.

I might delete this post.