Last night, I turned down a date with the friend of a friend (i.e., easy rebound sex) to go to yoga with my best girlfriend RA. Then I turned down drinks with S and the Software Developer.
I am not sure I made the right choice.
Right before I left for yoga for an 845 pm class, C and the Software Developer were getting together at a bar and C invited me to join them. I was briefly tempted. SD and I have seen each other once since our trip ended, as he’s been super-busy with a new project and I’ve been caught up in other drama. C knows now, thanks to Jerk Face, that I’ve slept with SD, who has had a crush on C for like a year and routinely follows her around like a puppy. The funny thing about that is that SD is a hugely popular guy who is regularly pursued by women, by C is like his white whale and she flirts with him just enough to keep him interested. They’ve made out. They have spent the night together, and they may have slept together, though they each deny it. Anyway, despite the inherent weirdness now that she knows I slept with him, I still was sorely tempted.
I was less tempted by friend of a friend. He’s very good in bed. He’s easy to deal with. There is no romance, but we have a nice friendship that’s developed. But I am just not ready.
And when I am ready, I don’t think I am ready for super-casual.
The commitment I made to the Bon Vivant last week was really a commitment I made to myself. I am doing more things for me on a fundamental level, holding myself to a higher standard, living more authentically.
I want to be the best version of me and part of that means taking myself more seriously than I did in the fall. I had fun, essentially to keep passing the open window, but now it’s time to make bigger changes and bigger shifts.
I have been extremely depressed for a while. Being with BV helped that. Being with other people helped that, too. I picked fun over sense because I needed fun.
Now, I need more than just fun.
I am angry at BV because he lied to me. I am not angry that he was on a date, as I always assumed he was when he was not with me. And he took such offense at that implication. Which was TRUE.
Such a douche bag.
So, his being on a date: no big deal.
His lying to me about it: very big deal.
By choosing yoga — and meditation in a dark room — over drinking with my friends, I thought I was making an excellent choice. I didn’t, though. I am not ready to meditate. I am not ready to empty my mind. Instead, I saw his face and wanted to cry. Then I saw his face and got really angry.
I am angry, which puts me on a better pace to healing.
I have other men in my life, but I am not ready to date anyone yet. I am not ready because I need to be less hurt and angry. I am also not 100% certain that BV and I are done with each other. After all, we’re never done, every time I think we are. Every time he disappears from my life, we reconnect.
When I decide to move on, it’s to move on to something real, not something else.
I am tempted to revisit LP, though he is my white whale. I reread an entry from when things were “good” between us and I loved him deeply and ridiculously, as he loved me. It was all too much. I am older and smarter now, and I do wonder if things could be different. He is present at times, and I wonder if I could just say to him, let’s grab a glass of wine tomorrow and catch up. It’s been months since I have seen him — an impromptu dinner and then a chat in his car he’d just picked up. We held hands. We kissed. We made plans. It was lovely and sad. Like our relationship, which has never really been over.
For now, I am focused on making my life better. I am focused on doing things that make me feel good on a fundamental level, rather than feeling good on a momentary level. That means, new job, better health, stronger foundation. A better me. And part of being a better me depends on fixing my life.
I am a woman of substance and I need to act like it more often.
So, I am recommitting to me. This process was beginning before BV and I went sideways (again) and it’s essential for my future happiness.
I am convinced I can be very happy again. I spent some time talking to A, my ex-husband, about his dating life. He went from me, to a 4 year relationship with someone he met while we were together (no overlap), to now being single. My life is better when I am better in my life.
My focus has to be internal and everything else falls into place.
This is still my fresh start.
Again.
And always.
Why are you not 100% certain you are done with the douche bag? He doesn’t deserve your tears.
I feel you about the “not ready for yoga” incident. I had a similar one in the fall. Luckily the room was dark!
Well, I could say “I will never speak to that asshole again!” but it’s just not true. I haven’t yet figured out how I feel about any of it. I just haven’t processed it fully because I am not emotionally ready yet.
There is so much swirling around. I am beyond hurt, but I think our relationship jump forward from the week before was more of an outlier than him being on a date. (I’ve been seeing other people for months. And, frankly, lying to him about it.)
I reread our first “date” post yesterday (“Trouble”) and that emotion I felt with him — and that he felt with me — was so real and so palpable. It always has been. I don’t think he’s someone I should be dating or will be romantic with again, but he is someone I love and someone who I will save the next time he needs me. I’ve often thought of him as a friend, who had romantic potential, rather than as boyfriend. Since we split weeks into our relationship, I have treated him that way, as well, which he found mystifying.
The last time we were together romantically, all of that changed. Had it not, I would not have felt as hurt as I do. That it happened so quickly — reconfirmation of commitment, expression of love, hours of physical intimacy — followed the next week by our breakup has left me reeling.
I have referred to the fact that he is depressed and self-medicating. I certainly see that as he unhealthy and I have intervened to get him better. I will again if he needs me. I will again send him back to his family — or to rehab or both.
I have not stopped loving him because we are no longer together. i also haven’t sealed my emotions in carbon and locked them away. It’s all raw and I am working through how I feel.
In breakups, I often envision a brick wall between me and the other, which grows taller as need be. I would say that the wall between me and BV is waist-high. I could see him, I could hug him over it, I could scale it if I wanted to, but we’re no longer connected romantically.
It may be that we never speak again, but that’s unlikely. As he is someone I love, and someone I understand on a fundamental level, I am not willing to write him off completely. I will save him again as I did two months ago when I had decided we were done and I still saved him, nearly ran away with him, and then sent him home to his family.
At this moment, romantic? No. Sexual? No. Friend? Yes.