Awkward Moments

So, the Vampire has a girlfriend now, one whom he is madly in love with.  She played the whole game correctly.  Where as I let him get away with being blatantly inappropriate all the time because I thought it was funny, she made him chase her.  Chase her the way Lindsay Lohan would chase an 8-ball or Jennifer Aniston would chase a husband, he CHASED her.  And finally, she relented, and the reason I know this is because he told me this one Saturday afternoon over beers when he then added, “I can’t fathom feeling this way about someone I haven’t slept with,” then proceeded to add how “off” our physical chemistry was.  I kind of sat there completely dumbfounded as to why he was telling me all of this, especially because he then proceeded to lecture me about Wedding Guy even though he has NO room to judge me for anything.

It’s hard to take a person seriously who is telling you that you deserve better after they’ve treated you like complete garbage.  I actually wanted to deck him but that’s not very ladylike.   Of all the profoundly inappropriate things he said to me, I think the worst was when he said he didn’t even remember us hooking up because he was so drunk.  Which I think was an exaggeration because I don’t remember him being THAT drunk, but that’s fine.

Anyway, the Vampire’s girlfriend inexplicably sent me an Evite for his birthday party a few weeks ago.  I went and dragged two friends with me and we all wound up loving her.  So much, in fact that we were wondering if we should stage an intervention with her because she could do so much better.  But I saw him with her and treating her the way she deserved to be treated, so once the nausea kicked in, I was ready to leave.  Really, my sole purpose of going was to meet this girl who was apparently so fabulous, and she was, and also so skinny I could have broken her over my knee.  But that’s mean.

She thanked me profusely for coming and told me how happy she was to “finally” meet me, so I deduced the Vampire had not told her what had actually gone on between us or she wouldn’t have been so nice.  Or maybe she would have…who knows.  But he was a completely different person around her:  sweet, affectionate, attentive.  The most affection I ever got out of him in public was him trying to unhook my bra in a bar (and I wish I was kidding, and yes I elbowed him in the stomach for that one).

Here’s the thing:  As wrong as he was for me, he taught me a valuable lesson.  Don’t act like a big hooch right away.  Try to seem at least a LITTLE wholesome before you start having pickup line wars via text message.  It can only lead to bad things.

Just a Thought

There is nothing more frustrating than having feelings for someone but you can’t tell them because they live in a different city and accidentally texted you they were seeing someone but still text you all the time (at like 1-2am) and said they’d come visit you but you have no idea where you stand so you just say nothing.

I have a friend, who lives in Atlanta, and we met over a year ago and really hit it off but distance is hard and I’m not sure he’s even interested and I’m not sure if I am interested or just interested because the well in Chicago has run dry (for now).  But he’s funny and makes me laugh and we talk all the time so I have this glimmer of hope that it’ll happen one day.

Basically I would sacrifice my overwhelming hatred for Ohio State to be with him.  And if you know me, that’s huge.

Horror Stories, Part I

So, I haven’t written about one of the people involved in this story but he was a participant in what turned out to be one of the worst nights of my life.  I mean…I couldn’t have written it if I had WANTED to.

At one point during my “relationship” with Chris, I finally told him it wasn’t working for me and it was either going to have to be a legitimate relationship or nothing.  He of course chose nothing so I took my heartbroken self home and was promptly dragged against my will to a Cubs game where I wound up meeting Matt, a friend of a friend.  Matt overheard me telling Maria about what happened with Chris and immediately offered to be my rebound.  Like a moron, I said yes, even though he lived about two hours away and I wasn’t really ready for much.

At first, we kept it light.  Mostly chatting online and on the phone.  It didn’t occur to me for some time that he was always drunk when he called me.  We’d talk online at work when I HOPE he was sober, but he was pretty much wasted for all of our phone calls.

About two months in, he came to spend the weekend with me, and immediately after that stopped speaking to me for months.  Maybe it was because I didn’t give him what he wanted, but it just wasn’t the right time.  I think my gut knew he would stop speaking to me regardless, so I needed to make the choice that would leave me the least upset.  Sure, it started as a rebound but we literally talked every day and I started getting attached, and I could guess that he wasn’t, especially when he told me he slept with someone else two weeks prior to his visit.  After he disappeared, I figured it was for the best.

Then I met the Vampire, so I figured, “fuck Matt” (but not literally) and then a few months later he resurfaced.  Said he’d be in town and wanted to see me.  All my friends advised against it.  But, I was curious and looking for closure so figured a drink or two couldn’t hurt.

As usual, I was wrong.  What could have possibly gone wrong, you wonder?  Glad you asked.

The night was going really well; we were getting along and having a blast and it was as if nothing had ever happened.

Until…

We ran into Chris on a date and I pretty much had a break down in the street.  Matt starts yelling at me about how “this is bullshit” and I’m just “using him.”  Which would have been a valid argument BEFORE he disappeared rather than after.  He basically storms off, leaving me crying in the street, and refused to speak to me when I tried to apologize.  And he hasn’t spoken to me since.  He did apparently tell one of our mutual friends, however, that I was being childish and he’d never really liked me to begin with.  Awesome.  Glad we cleared that up.

Meet The One Who Isn’t The One But We’ll Call Him That Because It’s Easier

This is going to be the first of many, many entries about Chris.   He was technically the focus of this post but I’ve never actually revisited the whole situation.  I know I was brief in describing how we met.  It was at a party of a mutual friend who I spent so much time with I’m surprised I hadn’t met him sooner.  Anyway, it was a party that started at noon (day drinking is popular during baseball season…okay any season) and for me ended 12 hours later when I had to go rescue a friend from a creepy dude a bar.  People later asked why I left since things were going so well with Chris but I didn’t have a choice.  I couldn’t, in good conscious, leave my friend stranded.  Duty called.

Anyway.  The day went well and we were hitting it off – so much so that I pulled my friend aside to ask her what she thought of the whole thing and she told me something I will never forget but wish I had listened to: “he is a terrible boyfriend.  don’t go there.”

I should have listened because she’d known him longer and had proof.  But I didn’t.  I didn’t because I had never felt that way about someone in such a short period of time, possibly ever, and I wasn’t going to just give it up because one person thought I should.  So I persisted.

Early in the evening, the party switched apartments.  At the second apartment there was an entirely different crowd.  Chris and I huddled in a corner by ourselves until someone came up to us and asked us if we were wearing the same color shirts on purpose.  He wrapped his arms around me and said, “No, but don’t we look like a couple?”  Then when he was getting us drinks, someone asked me how long him & I had been together.  I was elated that everyone ELSE thought we were together.  But as the night wore on, I started to get more upset.  He hadn’t even asked for my number at that point, so I was starting to assume this was all in my head.

And then – finally.  He said I lived in the vicinity of a lot of good restaurants and he wanted to take me to dinner the following week.  We exchanged numbers and then he asked me if I wanted to go up on the rooftop deck with him.  We went up and the view of the skyline was striking.  Especially at dusk on an unseasonably warm evening in May.  As we stood there he asked if he could kiss me and I said yes.  So he did.  And it was one of those kisses where the world falls away, and you think that as long as you can kiss this one person for the rest of your life then all the pain and rejection and heartbreak before them was worth it because it GOT you to them and now everything is glorious.

Eventually others joined us on the roof and then I had to leave for said rescue mission.  He kissed me goodbye as I left and I spent the next three days floating on air until it occurred to me that he should have called me by that point.  Day six rolled around and I witnessed him exchange numbers with another girl in front of me (as detailed in my first post).

And yes, after that I was dumb enough to get involved with him.   It just sort of happened, a month or so later, the beginning of a vicious cycle that would test me in ways I didn’t think possible (and of course I failed every freakin’ one).

One night he told me he never wanted to get married.  It was during one of our many sleepovers and he asked me if I wanted that.  I said I did, eventually, and he said he didn’t.  And then he said quite possibly the saddest thing I’d ever heard: “I don’t mind being alone.”  But then after that night, there was a slight shift.  He started to act more like we were together.  And as soon as I started to let my guard down, he pulled away again.

There was a period of about two months, after that, when we didn’t see each other.  Every day was agony because I had no idea what was going on.  I just couldn’t believe it was possible to feel that way about someone and not have it reciprocated.  Right around the time I was moving on (after I met the Vampire) he resurfaced.  Like a little weakling, I ran back until he disappeared again.  I couldn’t tell him no.  I imagine this is what it must be like to be addicted to heroin (just kidding…no I’m not).

So this cycle continues for two years.  But finally, FINALLY, he did something so unforgivable that I finally hit my limit (the limit I should have hit six days after meeting him.  I’m a slow learner).  We were at a party at his place.  It’s one in the morning.  We’re sitting on his porch with some of his friends.  At this point I’m mostly listening to their conversation rather than participating in it.  Out of the blue, and in front of EVERYONE, he looks over at me and says, “I would really like you to leave.  You’re making me uncomfortable.”  Please keep in mind that I was doing NOTHING that would have made him uncomfortable and have witnesses to back me up who apparently laid into him so badly after that he started to feel guilty (but never actually apologized).

That kicked off the summer of rejection ’09 and for a long time I was very gun shy about a lot of things, even with my closest friends, assuming that out of the blue they’d just want to stop being friends with me.  They had to keep reminding me that they weren’t Chris and wouldn’t stop liking me for no reason.

There was never any closure.  After that, when I saw him at events, it was very difficult to be around him.  The first event he tried to overcompensate by being so nice to me it was as if nothing ever happened.  I spent most of the afternoon trying to avoid him while he followed me around.  The second event, he completely ignored me.  The third event he reverted back to his behavior from the first.  It was exhausting.

Around the holidays I finally realized that I’d moved on, that I was detached enough to really see the situation for what it was.  If anything, it was a learning experience.  But there is no greater relief than knowing now he’s out of my system.