Where's the line with Willow?

Back in high school (9th & 10th grade), I had a huge crush on this guy Willow. Before homeroom, I would go with my girlfriends to walk around the halls, and we would purposefully walk by the door of his homeroom just so that I could take a peek at him as we walked by. Slowly. Another girlfriend once called him to talk to him on the phone to ask him questions while staying anonymous herself, and then she'd tell me the answers. Stuff like "what classes are you taking?", "do you have a girlfriend?" Yeah, silly high school stuff. I had a crush on him for almost a year.

This summer, I ran across his profile on MySpace. I was afraid to add him as a friend at first; after all, we never actually ever were friends. I had a huge crush on him, and he maybe knew that I existed. But a high school girlfriend who knew the whole episode convinced me that I should just do it, add him on MySpace. So I did, and ever since then, we've been emailing and talking online, for the past three or four months.

When we first started chatting, I think I had just met RC. We talked about dating a lot, and we were both single, so we were talking about our different approaches to dating. He wants to date to settle down. Back then, I said I wasn't done being single. I wanted to date for the sake of dating, and I wasn't really to settle down with anybody. Everything between us had a lot of sexual tension (if there is such a thing over IM), and we were always very flirtatious with each other, and it seemed fairly obvious to me that he was interested. Eventually I told him that I was dating someone, as RC and I got more and more serious, but Willow and I kept talking online.

He recently moved back to Ctown (in the last year or so), where we both went to high school. He had left for college, worked elsewhere for a couple of years afterwards, and recently found a job near Ctown, so he came back. Knowing that I would be home for the holidays, he suggested that we get together for lunch/dinner/drinks or something. I agreed.

Tuesday night, we went to dinner and a movie afterwards. He paid for both. I offered, very sincerely, but he kept saying that he's working, and I'm still just a student. We saw a silly movie: Charlotte's Web. Cute, but very slow, and put me to sleep at times. As we were saying goodbye (he drove and dropped me off at home), he said "yeah, we should go see a non-stupid movie next time. I'm so sorry I suggested we watch Charlotte's Web." So I told him I'd give him a call the next day.

Wednesday night, I called him after dinner and said "hey, want to go watch another movie?" He agreed right away, and we went to see Night at the Museum. I told him I'd meet him at the movie theater this time around, but when the movie ended, he insisted on walking me back to my car (we parked in separate lots). That really surprised me, in a good way, and it made me feel really good that he would be so nice as to walk me back to my car.

Through all of this, the sexual tension present over IM was kind of amplified in person. Though I tried to be as proper as possible, I have to admit that I was wondering the whole time while sitting through dinner and those two movies what it would be like to be dating him.

A really good friend of mine from high school, SK is also back in Ctown to spend the holidays with her family. I wanted to catch up with her, and she happens to have been friends with Willow in high school, and they even dated briefly during our college years. So as we were saying goodbye Wednesday night, Willow asked if I would want to all three of us hang out. I immediately said yes, hoping to spend more time with him.

So during the day today, I called SK to see if she'd be up for drinks tonight with me and Willow. She agreed right away, and it turned out that her boyfriend would be flying in tonight too, so he would join us. My immediate thoughts were, wow, so it would be kinda like a double date.

Willow insisted on driving, so he came to pick me up at 9:45. When we got to the bar at 10, SK and her boyfriend were already there waiting. We sat down in a booth, had a couple of drinks, an decided to try our luck at some pool. By this time, Willow had had a couple of drinks. With very low tolerance, I think his inhibitions were a bit lowered. Pool was me and Willow against SK and her boyfriend. Every time he handed the cue stick to me after his turn, Willow would briefly touch me in some way: hand on my back with a "good luck" or "accidentally" brushing his fingers on my knee when I was sitting down or a pat on the shoulder. We would stand really close together, shirt sleeves almost touching ... and the tension builds.

As he's pulling into my neighborhood to drop me off, he asks half-jokingly "are you hungry?", because there's a little diner right before the turnoff into my neighborhood. I look at my watch and say, "actually, maybe. Are you?" So we get some food at the diner and sit and chat for a while. I told him about why my parents don't like RC, how awkward that's going to be (not the full story, just the screws in the back thing again). And we talked about a lot of other things, like dating.

While I was with him, I played down RC a lot, saying that I wasn't sure where things were going. That I want to wait and see how things go, making it sound very up in the air... I could feel that he wanted something between us, that had I been single when I came home for the holidays, there may be some sparks flying. I felt like I was playing with fire. He's a decent guy; he would never make a move knowing I have a boyfriend, but somehow, I wanted him to tonight.

I don't know how I can act like this and what this means about RC. I came home, felt really guilty, and started looking through a bunch of pictures RC took with his webcam yesterday and sent to me. I wanted to remind myself that I'm with RC, that I love him, that I'm fighting tooth and nail with my parents for RC. How can I then go on all these multiple outings with Willow? I can deny them being dates all I want, but come on, who spends that much time with someone from the past whom they barely know?

As Willow dropped me off tonight, I told him that RC would be in town tomorrow, and that I'd probably be out doing something with him and some friends from back home whom he doesn't know, but that he was more than welcome to join us. I mentioned the same thing to SK and her boyfriend, and they immediately thought it was a great idea. When I mentioned it to Willow, though, he didn't seem to keen on the idea.

This made me think about whether or not he was wary because he didn't want to hang out with me when my boyfriend was around? ...

I think if there were a line about these things, I am dangerously close to it, perhaps even with half a foot across the line.

to evade elusiveness

Just to get it out in the open, here's what wrong with RC.

I mentioned that he was in a car accident 8 years ago. It broke his back, and it took a whole year before he was really back to "normal" again. After that, his back kept hurting for another year. Yeah, talk about how much it sucks.

The accident broke two vertebrae in mid to lower back, shattered one completely beyond repair (doctors had to graft some bone taken from his hip). The bones are now held in place by a couple of screws and 2 long metal rods (I'm guessing 5 inches, but I don't know for sure). I can feel the ends of the rods when I massage his back.

So that's the structural damage. The nerve damage is scarier. He had significant spinal cord injury. The nerves to his calves are all dead, so all of his calf muscles deteriorated to flab. If you think about how a human being walks, we plant one foot out front and lift up our heels on the back foot to move it to the front. Lifting up our heels all comes from calf muscles, so when you don't have any, you have to change the way you walk. He's compensated fairly well, but if you watch him long enough, you can tell that he's not quite walking right.

The sensory nerves on the back of his thighs and butt are dead, so he doesn't feel anything. As in, if he sits on a hot bench, he wouldn't get up.

Probably biggest deal of all is that he lost the nerves that 1) controls his bladder, 2) tells him when his bladder is full, and 3) allows him to pee. So he thinks about how much water he's drank, how long it's been, and guesses when he needs to use the bathroom. When he does, he sticks a 14" long catheter through his urethra all the way up into his bladder to drain out the liquid. You may ask, so ... can he, you know, perform his other penile function? Yes, yes he can, but there is significant loss of tactile sensation.

Alright, so that's everything.

My parents know somewhat about the back. I told them that he broke his back, and has a couple of screws in his back. That's it. And they've already gone beserk. Can you imagine how adamantly against this they would be should they find out about everything else, too? Especially the catheter. God, I don't want to imagine that conversation.

parents: "WHAT???? So he can't PEE on his own??"
me: "yeah"
parents: "You have to break up with him. He can't even have kids."
me: "err, actually, I think he can"
parents: "and HOW would you know that?"
me: "errrr"

Yeah, that'd be a really fun conversation.

here we go again ...

I haven't been home for even a day, and the talking's begun. My mom wants to know if I've given any more thought to everything they've said regarding RC thus far. My dad wants to know why I would knowingly go into a forever-together relationship with someone whom I know could very well be paralyzed in 20 years. I try to dodge the conversation, and I lose my temper, which just makes my mom more frustrated because she thinks I'm being stubborn and not understanding what she's telling me. My dad gets frustrated because he wants to know why I lost my temper when they're both talking to me in a normal tone of voice.

I just want to scream.

I understand perfectly everything that my mom has said. She needn't remind me of all the risks I'm taking in wanting to stay with RC, potentially marrying him. She needn't tell me that I have to think longer-term, I have to think about my life 10, 20, 30 years from now. I lost my temper because I didn't feel like my parents were really honestly talking to me. They wanted to pester me until I came around to their way of thinking and break up with RC. They won't rest until I tell them, "mom, dad, I broke up with RC." And then they would rejoice.

That's the worst part. I halfway don't want to end things with RC because I don't want to give my parents that satisfaction, to hear their joyous reaction as they go about their day feeling better that they somehow managed to save their daughter from a lifetime of doom for the next 2/3 of her life. They would not be sympathetic; they would not say, "We're really sorry honey. We know how much he meant to you."

No, they wouldn't say that. I can just hear the conversation now ...

me: "mom, dad, today I think we broke up."
mom: "good, the earlier the better."
dad: "good, better to not waste your time on something that would be very bad."

THANK YOU mom and dad. Thanks for all the non-support.

We're off to a city about 4 hours away tomorrow to visit some friends of theirs for the holidays. I'm dreading the 4 hour car ride. At least, when at home, I can just leave and go upstairs. Go watch TV, get on my laptop, something. In a car, I can't escape. I'm f-ing 24 years-old, and I have to go on car trips with my parents and have them treat me like a little kid.

back to the drawing board?

I woke up yesterday morning, frustrated, because I missed something with a friend whom I really cared about. Not because something came up, not because I got busy, but because I overslept. I then thought back to why I didn't set an alarm, and it was because I was frustrated with RC. He was studying for a major exam, along with having a report due. However, he was unmotivated, so I told him that I would stay up with him.

While he worked and studied, I wrote up my Christmas cards this year to mail. Around 3am, he just up and left his computer and went to bed. I still had a couple more cards to write, so I stayed up at the desk to write those, but I wasn't very happy. I felt like I stayed up for him, to help him stay up and study. But when it came time for him to say "I'm tired, I want to go to bed" he didn't even say anything, just got up and went to bed. Besides, I stayed up until 3am because of him; he could have at least stayed up a few more minutes until I finished my Christmas cards.

When I finally went to sleep, I was rather frustrated, but too tired to really take notice or think too much. But it did make me forget to set my alarm, which caused me to oversleep the next morning and miss my friend's thing that I told her she could count on me for.

Frustrated, in the morning, I started a conversation with RC about how I'm not sure we are good for each other. The point of a relationship, I said, is so that together, you make each other better people (something Key used to always say). There are faults and annoyances, sure, but overall, we should become better people as a result of our relationships. However, I told him, the two of us are more irresponsible and flakier and lazier, and we procrastinate more, when we are with each other.

If on our own, on average, we procrastinate 10% of the time, when we're with each other, we procrastinate some 60, 70% of the time. We are both so prone to procrastinating anyway that when we're together, whenever there is a reason to not do work, we take that. Normally, say I want to procrastinate, he may say "no, I need to work", and then with nothing else to do, I sit down and work too. The way RC and I operate is I'll say "I don't want to work", and he'll say "Man, i don't want to work either. Let's go do something!" And off we go, putting off work for yet another night/day/week.

Is something like this reason enough to believe that we would never work out? Because I feel like we don't make each other better people, and we would never get anything done because we both exhibit such low levels of self-control? Because we exacerbate each others' laziness and propensity for procrastination?

He agreed with me when this conversation came up, and said that he had been thinking the exact same thing. Because I was already late, and I had another meeting, I ran out of the apartment at that, and it was the end of the conversation... for now.

I brought it up again later in the day. I'm not sure why. I think I just wanted to talk about it. I think about why I would bring up something like that, why would I talk about whether or not we're good for each other? I think I wanted to hear him say, "no baby, we may have this issue we need to work on, but overall, we're good for each other." I wanted to tell him, "I don't think we're good for each other" and to have him beg and plead that "that's just not true." Why? I don't know, to feel wanted? It's the same feeling I get when I'm upset and I turn away, leave, go into another room, and I do it to see if he would follow me to make up.

Of course, he didn't say what I wanted him to say. Hearing what I was saying, he immediately jumped to "She doesn't want me around because she doesn't think I'm good for her". Being the take-or-leave-it person that he is, he told me that he doesn't want this because he doesn't think I want it, so what's the point? He realizes that I think he's bad for me, and he thinks what I want is to end things because he's a burden to have around, and I can't get anything done. I wasn't about to give in that easily, because I didn't REALLY want us to break up (what is wrong with me anyway?? all these mind-games ...).

I asked him if he thought I'm bad for him, too. At this point, I think he was kinda pissed off, so he very quickly said, "Yeah, I don't think you're good for me." I mean, I guess what did I expect him to say? "No baby, you're good for me. I'm the one who's not good for you." What am I? In a fairy tale?

His quick response made me throw up my arms and say "Wow, so what IS the point?" He said "there is no point" and gathered his stuff and got up and left. Of course, I'm the one who goes running after him, but I didn't REALLY want him to leave. But the discussion got tabled because he's right, time's not really on our side right now. We don't have time for these conversations that only arise because I want him to want me even when I show that I may not want him. He has an exam, a big report, and I have a meeting with my adviser. We don't have time for silly discussions that have no purpose, and really go nowhere.

He went to the library to study, and I went home feeling bad. I started feeling worse, so I went to the library to find him, kissed him, and sat down next to him to do some readings while he kept working. Everything turned out peachy, or so it seemed ...

Ever since yesterday, I've started to get a sinking feeling that I actually don't know if I really do love him, if I do want to be with him. I'm just not enthusiastic about the thought of "us."

So is it time to go back to the drawing board? I don't know. I feel like I shouldn't give up that easily. One day of feeling not quite right shouldn't lead to drastic changes like a break-up ...

Which leads to the question of what does/should lead to a break up?

where is the line?

Tonight, I'm going to dinner with a friend of mine whose birthday party I missed because I completely forgot about it on the day of. I sent him an email the day after, apologizing profusely (and very lamely) but offered to take him to lunch. He emailed back, saying that since had also missed my bday party (he was sick), we owe each other a meal, so how about sushi sometime at this place he knows downtown?

He then wrote a PS: "So I noticed you were originally down for 2 people [for my party]. Were you going to bring a boy and try to make me jealous? At my own birthday bash? That's so mean. I don't think this is going to work between us :)"

I was going to bring a boy; I was going to bring RC, so I wasn't sure how to answer that question, or whether or not to even acknowledge it at all in my reply. I ended up writing that sure, I'm up for sushi. "When are you free? I'll have to check my calendar, and of course, that of my gentlemen friend :)"

I don't think my intentions were to be vague and ambiguous, but I just thought saying something like "yeah, I was going to bring my boyfriend" would have been really awkward, so I made a joke out of his joke. Maybe I should have just not acknowledged it at all. I was also plagued by the feeling that he was perhaps trying to make a date out of this.

So he ended up making reservations at a sushi place for tonight at 8:30pm. He just sent me an email asking if we're still on for tonight, with the addendum, "The sushi restaurant is downtown, how about I swing by your place around 8:15, and we can take a cab there? It's a reasonably swanky place, so I can't imagine you'll want to walk if you have heels on."

I don't know if I'm reading too much into this. Does he see this as a date? Am I just paranoid in thinking that guy friends who want to go get sushi at a swanky sushi place is looking for a date? Why can we just take the subway? Was this also a hint that I ought to dress up and wear heels?

I don't really know how to handle this situation. Have I already gone too far in somehow leading this guy on? I told RC that I'm going to dinner with this friend whose birthday party we forgot about, obviously not hiding anything, but also I'm not telling him the whole complete story, too...

I think I'll offer to drive, and pick my friend up and go downtown via car.

what goes around, comes around

If I don't invite people to stuff, I shouldn't get upset when they don't invite me, right? Back a month ago or so, I had to do some serious picking and choosing for my birthday party because I was paying per-head for an hour of appetizers at a club. I only wanted to pay for my friends, and not random acquaintances whom I may want at a large party, but no way I'm paying $25 for each and every one of them.

So I dwindled the list down to some 50 or so people, and many got cut. Now I look around on Facebook, and see that some of them had elaborate holidays parties, to which I wasn't invited (of course). I couldn't help feeling left out. After all, their party was at their house, and there really isn't an issue with capacity or having to pay per-head. Having 50 people there is the same as having 40. Or maybe not?

Then I thought about it, and realized that hey, I shouldn't be too upset. Firstly, would I have actually made the effort to go in the first place? And second, I didn't include them in my elaborate birthday party, so they're totally justified in also not including me.

why do i do this???

Randomly, with nothing to do, I went to facebook again (yes, I know I'm addicted). Looking at friends' updates wasn't enough, I had to look up EJ again (Key's girlfriend). What do I find? It was her birthday today. F*ck. Now I'm going crazy thinking about what he got her, betting that he got her something awesome, took her to do something awesome because he was always so good about the things he gave, and the things he planned for special occasions.

I kept organizing stuff today, putting things away in their new places after some major furniture-rearranging ... and what do I find? Letters from Key. Letters from when the summer I was in Atlanta: "I don't know what the future will be, but I know that I love you, I want to be with you, I need you, and I'm going to do everything in my power to keep that."

How people change.

Why do I look up information on EJ?? Ugh, why can't I just let things rest and not know details? I just make myself more depressed thinking about her, seeing pictures of her, knowing that it's her birthday and he probably did something so wonderfully sweet and thoughtful that she was on the verge of tears and all she wanted to do was to hug him hard forever.

I know that's how he always made me feel.

in general

Even after all the crying I did about RC while on the phone with Mom, I cried about Key.

An old college friend of ours IMed me today and said that old pictures came up on his screensaver all of a sudden, pictures from Disney World (spring break 4th year) and Beach Week (right before graduation). I have these pictures on my laptop, too, and every now and then when I sort through files, I look at them, but somehow his mentioning it was different. It made me want to cry.

I then went to facebook to look at Key's profile, to see if anything's been changed recently. I noticed that his new girlfriend (not THAT new, since May-ish) left him a post on his wall, in response to something one of his residents wrote last year about having interrupted a date of his. I think about how he told me he wasn't sure whether or not things would work out with EJ (the new gf) because they each have one more year of law school left, and they both want to go to different places after graduation. And knowing that it wouldn't work out geographically in a year, he wondered whether or not to expend the energy to date her in the first place?

I guess he kept expending the energy. That made me want to cry more. All that energy he's expending on her, he used to spend on me. All the love that he's giving her now, he used to give to me. One of his roommates from last year of college got engaged recently (I found out through the same friend who IMed me today). They started after Key and I, and everything worked out for them. Now, some 2+ years later, they decided to get engaged. Why couldn't Key and I have that too? Why was it so not in the cards for us?

This past week, I got motivated to rearrange my apartment, bring some stuff out to the living room, clean up my study, get rid of a rug, rearrange a table, etc. etc. This required thinking about what new places to put random stuff I have on my walls. I haven't moved any furniture yet, but I did stare at the few things I have up on my walls, one of which was from Key.

It was my 2003 Christmas present, and I remember having gotten into a fight about it. I went back to school early from break, and drove up to DC to visit him while he was still at home on vacation. That was the first time I met his parents. Since it was already after the New Year, I thought that I would get my Christmas present on that visit, especially since he had been mentioning it when I talked to him on the phone. When I realized that I wasn't going to get the present until later (as in a couple of weeks later when he returns to school), I got really disappointed and threw a temper tantrum (yes, I was really mature back then).

To this day, I still feel so terrible about that incident. The presents I ended up getting were so thoughtful, and the reason he couldn't give it to me while I was visiting him was because he wasn't done making it. The main thing he made was a framed hand-drawn/written verse of "You are my sunshine, my only sunshine. You make me happy when skies are grey. You'll never know dear, how much I love you. Please don't take my sunshine away." He had translated the verse into Chinese himself, and while there was plenty of awkwardness in how he literally translated the verses, I couldn't help crying looking at it because I knew how much love he had put into the piece. All around the verses that he had written out, he also copied scenes from Calvin & Hobbes, Peanuts showing rain and happiness, all hand drawn and hand-colored.

After Key and I broke up (it's been more than a year), I still haven't had the heart to take the frame down from my wall. I took it down today just to look at it more closely, and the tears instantly came streaming down. I cried harder thinking that he's now pouring all that love and all that thoughtfulness into EJ.

I really miss Key. I know we probably would have never worked, but that doesn't make me miss him any less. That doesn't make the pain any duller. Right now, as I type this, tears are running down my face. I really want to cry hard, cry until I have no more tears. But RC is in the other room; I don't want him to see me crying. I wouldn't know what to tell him. I wouldn't be able to explain what is making me cry.

i still am lucky

I just got off the phone with my mom; we talked for almost two hours, 2/3 of which was about RC. I told her that I was really surprised she and dad had already made a conclusive decision regarding RC, that I should no longer see him. She said that in the grand scheme of things, they do think that would be the best decision for me because it's not as if I have my own problems that make me unattractive to men (she means things like an amputation, stuff beyond the typical physique, personality), why do I need to go into something knowing what the long-term risks are?

What she said, which I have definitely thought about independently of what her & dad have talked about, is that who knows what RC's wellbeing would be 20, 30 years down the road? Would he be bed-ridden at 50? Would he need a wheelchair because of advanced osteoporosis? Would we need to hire help every time a light bulb on the vault ceiling needs to be fixed because he can't climb ladders at age 40 because of his back? What would this mean for me? Would I be significantly caring for him on a daily basis as early as 10 years from now?

Her point was that if I'm already committed, married, and an accident happens, nobody can predict that. In that situation, as his wife, I should absolutely take full responsibility of supporting and caring for my husband. That's just what life calls for. But right now, why would I go into a commitment KNOWING that I would be shouldering all of these responsibilities?

She then added that all of this, of course, is if I don't feel like he is absolutely the one. If I have reservations about him anyhow, then this ONE BIG ISSUE should be one big issue over the edge to break up now and not drag this out any longer and make it any harder on both of us. However, if I do absolutely want to be with him, if I said that this is it, then she and dad would be okay with things. They would then only remind me to think about, acknowledge, and fully accept the responsibilities I have to him 20 years from now.

If I really decide that I want to be with him, she said that she and dad would be happy for me, and they would support me in that decision and embrace him as a part of our family.

That's when I started crying. I told her that I knew she would feel this way, but that I thought that dad would not be as understanding, and he essentially told me last night that I shouldn't be with RC anymore. Mom then said that was because my dad thought I was taking things too lightly, that I told him I was out with friends and couldn't really talk, so he felt like I just wasn't taking things seriously enough, not considering everything there is to consider. Mom said that she and dad had already talked so extensively about this, and their conclusion was that with the facts, they don't think I should keep seeing RC. However, they have no way of knowing how deeply we feel about each other, and in the end, if he's the one that I truly want to be with, then they would only be happy for me.

I told my mom that if it weren't for this one thing, I'm pretty sure that RC is the one for me. But this one thing, I've kept thinking about. Then I started crying again and I asked my mom why things are always this hard. Why is there always one BIG thing that breaks the deal?? Religion broke the deal with Key. And now this with RC. She just sighed and tried to tell me not to cry, that it's just all a part of life.

But in the end, I feel lucky to have parents who love me so much and support me so much through what I want to do and what I want in life. I think that's all that I can ask for from them: their advice, and always their constant support.

never perfect

Last weekend when I called my parents, I told my mom that RC had been in a serious car accident many years ago. I told her that the accident broke some vertebrae, so he has some metal screws in his back. Additionally, he walks with a bit of a limp because the accident damaged his spinal cord a bit, affecting some nerve endings that control his calf muscles. I held back telling her about other permanent damage that are probably more key, but which make them even harder to tell her. She seemed okay with it, saying that she shuddered when she heard me say he had lasting damage/injury from a car accident, but the conversation ended at that.

I usually call my parents on Sundays, but this week, I called my dad yesterday (Saturday) because I knew he was going to leave today on a business trip. I was out eating Sushi with RC, having a great day, when I remembered that I should call my dad before he leaves. It was the usual mindless chit chat, but at one point, the conversation got serious. He said that mom had told him about RC's injuries.

The way he talked about it seemed like there was no way he would accept RC. I knew this would be a problem. He kept saying, "It's not like you have no one else to date. It's not like he's so perfect in every other regards that this can be overshadowed and overlooked. This is serious; I really didn't know RC has this problem."

I tried to play it off, that I was taking his advice in full stride, and said that I would keep that in mind when I'm evaluating RC as a whole for my future, thinking that he would back off because I was accepting what he was saying. That didn't seem to be good enough for him. His response was that I need to be more serious about this, that something like this just wouldn't work, and if I'm still just sitting around only "evaluating it" and "taking it into consideration", I'm wasting everyone's time (RC's and mine) and diminishing my chances to meet someone else.

I wanted to crawl through a hole. Here I was, sitting across the dinner table from RC, who is smiling at me and doodling things on his paper placemat to pass time as he listens to the "pretty words" I say in Chinese when I talk to my parents, completely oblivious to what I am talking about with my dad.

I felt really desolate, wondering why is it that nothing can be perfect. Just when I think I've found the perfect guy, something major is not right, makes it not work. I remember looking across the table at RC while my dad's going off on one of his rants, wondering how in the world I could ever tell that face that I can no longer be with him because my parents cannot accept him. Then I had to fake a smile, so as to not let on what I was really thinking.

RC's coming home with me for a few days over New Year's; we had talked about this for about a month now, and he just got his tickets this past week. When I originally told my mom about his situation last week, she asked me how bad of a limp was it when he walked. I remember telling her that she can see for herself when he comes to visit over New Year's.

Yesterday, my dad said "Whether or not he comes to visit is completely up to you guys, but you should think hard about if you want him to come as just a regular friend or as something more." That really sent shock pangs through me because I realized that if he had his way, he would want me to end things with RC asap, right now.

I don't know what to do. I feel like I have my own reservations about RC's injuries that I was fighting with. The last thing I need right now is for my parents to add to that pressure. I want whatever decision I make to be my own, and not something that was encouraged by my parents. Lastly, if I choose to stay with RC, I don't want my parents to be disappointed in him.

cold, then hot

It turned out to be a nice Thanksgiving after all. I had a friend in town who flew out Thursday afternoon, and RC told me to call him after I dropped her off at the airport. I left my phone at home to charge, thinking I would call him after I got home instead of on my way home. I was surprised when I got home to have had two missed calls from him and a message along the lines of "I know you're probably really mad at me right now, after last night. Call me. I'm sorry."

So I called him back, and he said he really didn't think I was going to call him after I dropped off my friend. He didn't even think I would pick up his calls, and I realized that he thought I screened his calls. He asked if he could come over. I think I was just cold and aloof on the phone, but I told him sure he can come over.

He apologized profusely, even started crying. He said that he didn't know why he said the things that he did the night before, and he is so so sorry. He did say that when he essentially gave me an ultimatum of "That's just the way I am. If you can't deal with it, then this is it. Is this it for us?" he said partly he wanted to see how easily I would let go. Had I said yes, that really would have been it, and his reasoning would have been that if I'm that willing to let things go, then it probably wouldn't have worked in the end.

So he was testing me???

Then it got intense. He told me that he is sure he wants to be with me, as in forever. I asked him why he was crying, and he said he had been crying all day because he thought he had lost me. We had kinda joked about getting married before, not ha-ha joking, but the not-so-serious yeah let's get married in Hawaii on the beach. Thursday, though, it was no joking. He very sincerely and emphatically said that I am the one for him.

I don't remember exactly what I said, but I did tell him I could see myself marrying him. Then I got a little freaked out because he seriously started asking questions, "So I don't know how really to go about this. What do I need to do from here?" I coyly told him that was his problem; he needs to figure out how he wants to propose. He then said that we could get engaged in the spring (!!!!), and get married the next year (2008!!!).

Holy shit.

So many things started running through my head. First was a comparison to Key. Key and I were together for 2.5 years, and we started talking marriage maybe 1.5 years into the relationship, and I remember him saying that he's pretty sure we would stay together forever, and my asking him, "well, when do you want to do this?" His answer was always, "oh, well, we have to finish school first. At least I need to graduate, you know? So definitely not for a few more years." A year later, his answer changed to, "well, after I graduate, I want to get settled a little more before getting engaged. So not for a few more years."

I felt like Key always tried to avoid the topic, and he never gave a straightforward answer about the whole thing, whereas RC is here saying "yeah, let's get engaged in the spring." No hesitation, no lolly-dollying, he really is sure about this.

What about me? How do I feel? I feel like I still have reservations. Reservations about things that I can't change, all consequences of that fateful car accident. Were those things not there, I think I would be in this 100%, and then who knows, maybe I will actually be engaged before I turn 25. But with those things, I'm not certain, and it wouldn't be fair to me nor to RC if I commit to something I'm not 100% sure about. But then the question is, are we ever 100% sure? How do we know?

It is scary how quickly things can do a 180. Just this summer, I was thinking how I am at odds with myself. One part of me has this pre-conceived notion that I've always thought I'd get married around 25, that my mom getting married at 27 is too late, that I want something sooner for myself. The other part of me can't even seem to settle down to date one person for more than a month because of commitment-phobia. And here I am, a mere 4 months later, closer to being engaged than I've ever been.

I just think everything's happening too quickly, though I'm not ruling out the fact that with the right person, things can be fast and passionate. I only just met RC in August, August 13 in fact, at our mutual friend's wedding. It's been less than 4 months that we've even known each other, let alone date. Should we even be talking about how sure we are about spending the rest of our lives together?

UGH, men

It turned out that he didn't get the ecard. He said that he would have replied had he gotten something like that; maybe it went to his spam folder. I told him that he can't just disappear like that. If he's stressed, that's fine. If he wants some space and time, that's fine. But he can't be incommunicado. I told him that it's not something that I can deal with; it would be an incompatibility. I can't be with someone in a serious relationship, a marriage, if he's the type of person who, whenever he gets stressed, disappears off the face of the earth and cuts me out of his life for three days.

His response? "Well, that's how I am. I don't think I'm right for you. So is this it?" It is true; that's how he's always been. He cuts off everyone from his life. He drops people. But can't he at least say he's willing to try??

I asked him why he says things just to hurt. I knew what he was doing because I used to do the same thing. To Key. I would say things expressly because I knew those things would hurt, and I wanted to hurt him in those situations. I've learned since, and have gotten over that. Now RC is doing the same to me.

He's such a all-or-nothing person. At the first signs of things not working, any inkling that I am doubtful about us, he wants out. "Why be with someone who doesn't want to be with you? I'll leave, no problem, no regrets" he said. That was his response when I made the statement, "If that's how you want to be, you can take your stuff and go home." We both are so stubborn, and I guess I still do throw words out because I know they would hurt. He just throws that hurt right back at me.

We're going to his friend's Thanksgiving dinner--because he said, "we always go do stuff with YOUR friends, so for once why can't YOU be the one who doesn't know anybody around the table and feel awkward?"--"okay baby, we'll go to your friend's place."

Even though THREE of my friends invited me to Thanksgiving dinner weeks ago. I'll turn down all three of them to go with you to your friend's, who decided two days ago to cook Thanksgiving dinner.

Friday was supposed to be our day by ourselves. A friend visiting me from out-of-town put that in a bit of jeopardy, but in the end, she changed her flight to leave Boston tomorrow instead of Friday, so Friday is now once again Mini-and-RC day. I asked him at the beginning of the phone conversation if he still wanted to keep with those plans because I knew he has so much he needs to get done in the next week or so. I asked repeatedly, checked and double-checked. He assured me that's what he wanted to do, and he'll get everything done tomorrow, Saturday, and Sunday.

At the end of the conversation, I asked him the same thing. Does he still want the bed and breakfast reservation we have for Friday night. I asked because I felt like we may not even be dating anymore on Friday. Our relationship is *that* fragile right now. He said he still wanted the reservations. Maybe it'll be a good day for us, or maybe we'll just end up spending the whole day talking.

Toward the end, he admitted to having said some things because he was just going off of the steam and momentum of being pissed off. He said that he wants to try, to not completely block me off when he's stressed out, to let me inside that perpetual wall he has up. He asked me if I would let him try. I told him I would.

Of course I would, as long as he's worthy. And he's worthy ... right? RIGHT??

what's acceptable?

RC's really stressed out. He has three major things coming up next week, and I'm not sure he's worked on any of them yet, and he always wants to sleep. When he sleeps, he sleeps until noon the next day, thereby wasting the entire next day. Thus begins a viscious cycle whereby he needs to stay up really late the next day to do work, going to bed late, and sleeping in until noon again.

I asked him how he got everything done when he was writing his Masters thesis (he was back with the ex-girlfriend then), and he said that he had to isolate himself. So I told him if he needs to isolate himself, not come over, not stay over, do work at lab, then go ahead, if that's what he needs to do. Problem is that I think my definition of isolation is different from his. His definition seems to be complete isolation; I haven't heard from him (no email, no phone) at all. My definition is simply a physical isolation; you still call/email because you think about each other.

We made some tentative plans for Thanksgiving weekend; going to a friend's house for dinner and then Friday we had planned to go around Boston like tourists, go to see some stuff neither of us have seen before, and stay at a bed & breakfast Friday night in the heart of Boston. I emailed him yesterday (I'm tired of calling him) and basically said that even though I know we'll have a good time, if he at all feels like it's an obligation/burden right now because all the stuff he needs to get done, he doesn't have to do it. I would rather spend a day & night together being tourists in our own city when his mind isn't stressed and preoccupied.

I also sent him an ecard along the lines of "hope to brighten your day, and i'm thinking about you."

Nothing. No emails. No phone calls. No quick email to just say "hey, got the card." A thanks would be nice; a mere acknowledgment would suffice too. I know he's busy, but I find it a little weird that he completely cut me out.

Normally around now, I would give him a call. Today, I'm not going to. I'm tired. He can call me when he gets around to thinking about me.

Am I being unreasonable? Or do I have reason to be rather upset?

and we're back ...

... back because the questions just get more numeous and seemingly more serious. RC asked the same questions that Key once asked. "Why do you want to know so much? Why all the questions?"

I just want to know because I'm curious. I'm the kind of girlfriend (yes, I said it, I'm his girlfriend) who wants to know all the details of history. How many people have he slept with (and before that, how far had he gone physically)? How long does he date people before leaping into bed with them? How deep did he ever get emotionally? Etc. etc. etc.

RC claimed he had nothing to hide, and he would answer all my questions, but then said he didn't want to because he thought I would use the answers against him in some grand plot of ulterior motive. Umm ... ok.

my absence

The reason I haven't really posted in here is because I think there is someone reading whom I don't know about. An acquaintance, maybe, but definitely not someone whom I personally told about this blog's existence. And I can't come up with a new name for this space. So I'm going on a sabbatical.

my own stupidity

Irish actually called me last night. I grabbed my phone like it was gold, flipped it open immediately, but then tried to sound calm and collected when I said, "hello". He called to say hi, to see how things were going, and to wish me a good trip if he doesn't see me before I leave on Thursday. I quickly interjected that I want to see him before I leave, and he floundered around a little, "oh, okay, I was just assuming you didn't want to be bothered because of your thesis proposal."

So we set up lunch for today, to meet at 11:40am. All sounded well, and I started rehearsing lines in my head as to what I would to say to him (I'm sorry I've been a bad friend; RC and I are together; I'm really sorry, etc. etc). Except I overslept my alarm and woke up at 12:02pm today. Yeah, take that for irony. I grabbed my phone in alarm and called, trying to sound as groggy as I could, "Irish, I am so so sorry; I totally slept through my alarm and just woke up." Ugh, how much lamer can I be???

He said "oh, don't worry about it. I ran into another friend, so we're having lunch here; you're welcome to join us if you want." So I put on some clothes, ran downstairs, grabbed my bike and went. Once I got there, his friend was actually just leaving, so I thought to myself, "Okay, at least I can still talk to Irish one-on-one."

Except he didnt seem to want to talk about anything substantive. I managed to squeeze in one sentence of "I don't want to dismiss what you emailed about, so I just want to make sure to say in person that I'm really sorry." He totally non-chalantly said, "Oh, don't worry about it. I was just upset that weekend. Apology accepted, but you didn't have to apologize."

Case closed, and he totally changed the subject to something trivial before I could say anything else, and he had a class to run to in 5 minutes, so I couldn't say anything else. I really wanted to tell him about RC, just to set the record straight, and to finally be mature and confront the situation with Irish and me always teetering on this fine line between friendship and dating and telling him that I choose friendship only. He's probably figured that by now, but I felt like it would only be right if I were to actually say it to him in person. I didn't get to say that. In fact, our whole conversation seemed strained; I'm not really sure what would even happen with our friendship.

I've been keeping RC in the loop through all this saga with Irish: from the whole feeling really really terrible about having been a bad friend to starting to feel annoyed that Irish was being so immature to the whole sleeping through half of our lunch date today. RC recently voiced the opinion that he thought Irish was going a bit overboard in his unwillingness to call me or talk to me, and that he's being too passive aggressive.

It's nice to know that RC is on my side of things (though my side's the only one he's heard). At the same time though, I can't help but feel guilty that I haven't given him the full story on Irish. All I've told him is that Irish and I are good friends. RC's picked up on the fact that he thinks Irish may resent him for taking up a lot of my time, and the words on the tip of my tongue that I never dare say are, "Yeah, that and because Irish wishes he were in your shoes being the one dating me."

I've come so close so many times in coming clean on the whole thing with RC, going into the whole fiasco of Irish and I going back and forth between friendship and something more, but I would always hold my tongue at the last minute. I want to tell RC the full story, but at this stage, I feel that it's wiser if he weren't in the know, especially since he works so closely with Irish in the same lab. I don't want to add to the awkwardness of his lab situation by making him aware of the full complexity.

Is that the right decision? I hope so. Maybe some months down the road, I'll fill RC in on the loop. But right now, things are so fresh that this part of the story may be better left unsaid.

umm ... awkward

I was out last night going around campus doing some crazy stuff with a fairly large group (RC was my partner in crime, and 4-5 others were there to help out). Around 11:30pm, we walk by a main part of campus, and we run into Irish out with some other mutual friends. I freak out initially ... what do I do? What do I say to him? Then I remember that HE's the one who hasn't called me; I haven't done anything wrong.

So I did what I usually do, go up, give him a hug, say hello. Then I called him out, "You haven't called me." He kind scrunched up his nose, wobbled his head back and forth a couple of times, and said "Yeah, I know." I didn't say anything further.

As our two groups were saying goodbye, I went up to him specifically and said just to him, "Hey, call me when you're ready." He said, "okay."

Yeah, bullshit, I thought to myself as I walked away. No way he's going to call me because he is a damn passive aggressive coward. If he really has so much disappointment bottled up, quit hiding behind emails and just tell me to my face. I know that he probably also resents RC because pretty much every time I've run into him recently, I've been with RC. I doubt that makes him feel any better seeing as how his problem with me was my lack of time for him.

RC told me the other day that he ran into Irish at lab, and everything seemed fine. They chatted, talked, had a good laugh, and I just rolled my eyes. Knowing Irish, he probably had all kinds of stuff he was thinking against RC, but he's too cowardly to ever display discontent/dislike to anyone's face.

This is so frustrating and has gotten to the point where I am just fed up. Irish needs to grow up. If he has a problem with me, he needs to tell me what the hell it is. I get the feeling that it's much bigger than what he's letting on, and I told him so in an email (to which he has not replied). I am trying to be the adult and deal with the conflict whereas he is hiding behind some weird wall. He is so afraid of confrontation.

update

I haven't written in a while, mainly because I lay in bed until 2pm everyday with RC. Yeah, what a great and productive life we lead. I like being with him, but it's becoming a time sink that I can't control. I ought to be able to control it by just getting out of bed, but I have a hard enough time getting out of bed in the morning when I'm by myself. I basically just need a strong injection of self-control.

On the friends front, apparently I screwed things up with Irish. Irish wanted to do something last Thursday, and he emailed me earlier in the week about it. Irish wanted to go see this band play at a bar in a town north of here. The show starts around 10pm, and he wanted to go at 10, stay a couple of hours, and catch the last train back. I told him initially that I have something I do with my students every Thursday at 10pm, and that's non-negotiable, but maybe I could go with him when that's over around 11pm, but then I'm not sure about catching the last train back. He emailed back and said "yeah, sure, I think 11pm would work fine. And since we can't get there earlier, maybe there's another faster way to get there other than public transportation (hint hint: maybe you can drive?)"

Okay, slight digression. That email kinda annoyed me. I hate driving in the city when I don't have to. It's crowded; there are too many people; I get terrible gas mileage (not so big of a deal now that gas prices have come way down); I can never find parking; I inevitably get a parking ticket slapped on my windshield because I'm parked somewhere I'm not supposed to. I don't think Irish ever thinks about any of this; he only thinks to himself, "oh, she has a car, that's so much easier." Just the other day, he asked me if I could drive us to this museum that's a 20 minute walk (driving there would take 20 minutes, and I'd have to pay $15 for parking because it's the stupid city). I feel like he really takes me for granted when it comes to giving him lifts everywhere. If I'm out with the car already, I don't mind giving him a ride somewhere, even if it's slightly out of the way. But if my car is happily parked at home, and I'm going into the city, 95% I'll opt for public transportation because it's so much easier, cheaper, and just less hassle.

Alright, digression done. So I see that email from him, and I'm fairly annoyed, but I think I said I'd consider it. Come Thursday, I realize that my schedule is as follows:

- meeting with a club manager at 5:30 to plan a party
- dinner with my university's trustees board at 7pm (part of my duties being involved with student gov't)
- study break with my students at 10pm that i do every single Thursday
- i promised my students brownies and carrot cake last week, so I had to get home around 9pm to start making stuff

The last thing I wanted to do was to get in my car at the end of all of this, pick up Irish, not find parking, go to some strange bar after parking illegally, pay cover, listen to a band I don't know play, get a parking ticket, and come home around 1am. I just wanted to relax after the study break, sleep, veg out. I didn't want to go out. So I emailed him and told him so, that I need to simplify my life, and it would be too chaotic to try to go to see the band.

He emailed back saying something like "Oh man, you're worse than my mom for how busy you are. Sure, no problem. Give me a call just to say hi." Except in my rush of reading/scanning emails, i just read the first part of "no problem" and didn't go on to read that he wanted me to call him. So I didn't call him.

Earlier last week, we had also talked about going to check out this Museum exhibit sometime during the weekend since it was a long weekend (Columbus Day?). I texted him on Sunday saying "Hey, do you want to see exhibit on Monday?" He texted back, "Sorry, Monday doesn't work so well." I text, "How about Tuesday then?" He texted back, "The next few days are all pretty bad."

I'm like ... umm, what the hell? I'm out apple picking with my students (my house took a typical fall trip because of the long weekend), so I couldn't really call. So I texted him, "okay, is everything alright?" His response was equally short and vague, "Yup, a-okay. later, Irish." And this coming from a guy who also goes over the character limit per text, so I usually get 2 texts from him at a time b/c he's so verbose his message has to be divided up and sent via two texts. Something's wrong, right?

I get back from apple picking on Sunday, and I called him. He wouldn't pick up, so I left him a voicemail, "Hey, just wondering what's going on, if you're okay. I'll be around all night if you want to talk." I don't hear from him at all. Tuesday, I send him a text, "Hey, do you want to grab coffee sometime?" I dont' hear from him.

Finally, Tuesday night, he sends me this email:

Mini,

hey, i should probably just come clean dude...I just got a little disappointed this weekend...i thought you were going to call Thursday to say hello seen as we couldn't hang out and then I didn't hear from you for a few days...I just feel like our friendship is kinda difficult at times and I don't know why...when we hang out we have a fun time and i think everything is good but it
seems when i ask to do something it's always a bad time or there's something else going on and it makes me feel like you need more space or that i'm just another aquaintance that you have to squeeze into your schedule and i don't know, just i'm fed up with acquaintancy relationships and hanging out on somebody elses schedule...makes things not seem that natural when we don't just call to say a quick hey and see how things are....i understand that you are busy but something makes me feel that there is more to it than that...i feel like there's some barrier there that i've been trying to work around but just can't bridge...this weekend i just lost my energy for it and didn't really feel like talking it to death or intellectualizing it to death...so flaking seemed like a cowardly, but easier option...

yeah, so i don't know what to say, i guess sorry, but that's the way i've been feeling...

Irish

Well, fuck. Part of me felt really extremely bad. Yes, I was a total flake. But the other part of me felt really defensive. I've got so much stuff going on (whether or not I spread myself too thin is certainly debatable, but the fact of the matter is that there's a lot of stuff I have to do), ON TOP of needing to do this thesis proposal, which he knew about. For him to add stress to my situation is just slightly unfair (or am I being too selfish here?). When I don't have a lot on my plate, I do think to do random little things like calling a friend just to say hi, or emailing to get lunch together. But when I'm so behind on everything, I just don't think about any of this stuff. (Or perhaps more accurately, when my mind is pre-occupied with another person, I get really behind and I don't think about other things in my life ... I can't multi-task attention-giving).

Ugh, so I emailed back apologizing profusely and very sincerely, not saying anything about my being a bit annoyed that he would lay this guilt trip on me because I knew that I have not been a good friend to him. I told him that I want to talk in person instead of emailing essays of feelings/thoughts back and forth, but I haven't had luck in contacting him because he's essentially ignoring me. I told him to call me if/when he wants to talk, but I understand if he needs some time.

His email back said that he wants to chill a little bit, think things over, and maybe he'll call me Wednesday night (last night). I had to email him back and say that I'm unavailable Wednesday night because I have a meeting at 5:30, and my weekly ultimate game is at 7pm down south from here, and I don't get back until really really late. I told him that I'd be up for meeting up before 5:30 ... and I mentioned the irony that in trying to meet up to address this issue, my schedule is once again getting in the way, and I'm asking him to hang out on my schedule. I tried to put things in context (I have 600+ emails in my inbox, 5 voice mails on my phone ... I haven't replied to most of those emails, and I only called back one person) and to reassure him that when I say "I'm busy" or "That's not a good time", I'm not trying to avoid him, my schedule really is just the shits.

He never called me yesterday. I don't know what I should do here. Should I keep calling him? (at some point, I don't even want to try anymore because he obviously isn't mature enough to stop being such a passive-aggressive knucklehead). Should I just wait for him to contact me? How long is that going to take? Am I seriously losing this friend whom I've come to call my best friend at grad school?

Why can't he just understand that my schedule is really ridiculous, that I don't talk to much of anybody unless it's business, and unless I'm dating someone and can see him at night at the end of the day in the comfort of my own home, I don't see people period?

he said it

The L word, he said it. I couldn't believe it. We were just laying around in bed all day (among other things), and he had something at 2pm, so around 1:50, he finally said he had to get out of bed, get ready, and go. But it's always so hard for us to tear ourselves apart from each other, and get out of bed (I know I'm making you gag, I know ...), so we kept hugging and kissing each other, and when we pulled back after one of the kisses to just look at each other, he blurted out "i love you."

It took me a couple of seconds to even realized what had happened; it was so unexpected. He then said "Oh my gosh, I don't know where that came from; it just came out." I kinda just stared at him with wide eyes of disbelief, and I didn't say anything back but gave him a big hug instead. I was so torn as to whether or not to say it back, but once you say something like that, you can't take it back, and I honestly didn't feel like I was ready to tell him I loved him. By the time a minute or two had gone by, it was too late for me to say anything.

He said "Wow, I can't believe I just said that; I have no idea where it came from. And I generally don't say that." I asked him, "Did you mean it?" To which he replied, "Yeah, I think so. I felt it, which is why I think I said it without really thinking." I told him that he could take it back if he wanted to, if he wasn't sure. He adamantly replied, "no no no, I don't want to take it back." And then he left to go to his thing at 2pm.

Along those lines, he's mentioned several times that he feels so differently about me, with me, than he has with any other girlfriends he's had. He told me last night that one example of that is that he's never wanted to introduce any of his girlfriends to his parents. The ones whom they've met have always just been circumstantial, never planned nor intentional. But he really wants his parents to meet me, to talk to me. He said in this really cute voice, "I want to talk to them beforehand, especially my mom, and tell her to ask you girl questions when she sees you. And my dad, I'll just tell him to ask you general questions, to get to know you."

How do I feel about all of this? I haven't thought about it all enough to know how I feel. Right now, I think he feels a lot more strongly about me than I do for him. I don't know what to do with the L word. Should I bring it up to talk about? But I don't want to have to tell him that even though I feel like we're going in that direction, I'm not quite ready to say it.

public appearances

Though I'm a little confused because we had this conversation as we were falling asleep, I think I can technically call RC my boyfriend now, which is really really strange. I also think I told him that I was commitment-phobic.

There was a coffee hour/study break thing at one of the graduate dorms last night, and they were having moon cake for the Mid-Autumn Festival celebrations. My friend HM told me about it and asked if I wanted to go with him and his girlfriend. I figured that I haven't done much Chinese things lately, so I'll go with them. RC then called to see what I'm doing, and I invited him along to the coffee hour (this is a perpetual problem for me: instead of just saying "sorry, I'm busy" I always am trying to include people and ask them along to whatever I'm doing even when I kinda really don't want to).

Because the coffee hour was at a grad dorm, I knew a lot of the people who were there just from the random stuff I do around campus, and I didn't want them to know that I was there with RC.

Bad sign.

Is this me having commitment issues? Or is RC not the one either? I figured that the reason I can't seem to settle down and I keep blowing people off is that I haven't found the right person. I try to convince myself that once I find the right person, I'll be head over heels in love and I wouldn't look at anybody else. Well, I thought I really had it in for RC. So what gives? Why don't I want to be associated with him in public?

This Friday, some of us officers who work with the graduate student government talked about going out to a lounge that I want to check out for a future party. I mentioned it to RC under the context that some friends are going out (god, why did I do that?), and invited him along (why do I keep doing this?), and he said he'd want to come (ugh). So now I kinda want to retract that offer. The other three officers are all male, and I, in general, keep my personal life separate. They believe me to be single and dating, and I'm just not sure I'm ready to upset that balance by introducing a boyfriend.

Same with everybody else. I want the attention from men, but none of the responsibilities of having a relationship.

dinner with Y

Y and I finally got together for dinner last night, after the many weeks of "hey, let's do dinner" and not being able to find a time. I was no longer wondering why he would want to get dinner (okay, maybe I was a little bit), but basically I hadn't even seen him in some 2 or 3 weeks, let alone go back to the old habits we developed over the summer.

It was a nice dinner; we talked like good friends catching up. He even told me about a girl he went on a date with (it didn't lead anywhere; he never called her again despite saying "I'll call you"). I asked him how things were with M, and things really aren't so good. He said that as an acquaintance, she's okay, but he's lost so much respect for her as a person that he doesn't really want to even be close friends. He said that she lacks all the qualities he would look for in a friend, and he thinks that she always saw him as a safety net: a friend whom she could call whenever she was in trouble. Yet, he felt that she never did anything for him, and was never there when he really needed her.

Hmm ... I'm not sure what would happen with that. I think with school having started, our gang really haven't even hung out very much lately, so maybe things will be okay. By the time we're less busy and all hanging out a lot together, maybe by then, Y and M will have worked out most of their issues. If nothing else, time will have smoothed some things over. Though in all honesty, some of the stuff he said about M, I totally agreed with.

Y also mentioned my blog (the other non-anonymous one). He said that he discovered it one day and was so surprised to see this other side of me. I asked him what he meant by "this other side," and he said that he never knew I had an angry, pissed-off side. He said that it was nice to see that side, but he wondered why I never talk about the things on my blog with him or other people in my friend group. I told him that the opportunity almost never presents itself for me to mention the things I end up writing about in my blog because inevitably we're in a big group, and who wants to hear me gripe about my advisor's dog eating my homework?

Though now that I think about it more, I think the things I write in my blog are thoughts I have that I want to share with someone (anyone), but that I feel selfish expressing in a conversation because I would feel like the conversation would be too me-heavy. The things you share in a conversation with a group of friends (or even one friend), or even the way you present things, are so different than what you would say when given a chance to deliver a monologue.

I think both of my blogs allow me the chance to get on stage and act out my own one-man show without fear of appearing self-centered, talking too much about myself, complaining too much, boring other people, being rude, too self-absorbed, and a whole slew of other things that are deemed negative characteristics.

So I think Y and I are over our friends with benefits stage. It kinda started and ended without our ever talking about anything. It's a little strange to me; I feel like we should have at least acknowledged it, but things seem to be fine between us. It's almost scary that there's no awkwardness (makes me think if there are secret sentiments luring underneath somewhere, in me and in him).

Things on the RC front are going very well, and as a result, I can't seem to find a way to stop spending time with him so that I can finish writing my thesis proposal.

racist asian parents

I call my parents once a week, almost always on Sunday nights, but this past Sunday, I forgot. So I called last night, talked to them some about my upcoming thesis proposal, our trip to China, etc. etc. During the entire conversation, I was debating whether or not to tell them about RC. Finally, at the end, after my mom had nagged me enough about all sorts of random things, I blurted out, "mom, I'm seeing someone."

I think, for me, telling my parents about a guy is a definite sign that I am comfortable with how things are, where things are going, and I am ready to face the world with him being associated with me (though not a necessarily defined association). When I was younger, I was deathly afraid of telling my parents about guys because they were so against me dating. Even when Key and I started dating our third year in college, it took me a couple of months AFTER we had made things official to tell my mom and dad. I think all of this stemmed from their adamant disapproval of me dating at such a "young" age, "young" being the asian definition of young.

I am lucky that my parents now encourage me to date and whole-heartedly accept my dating. I know that sounds really weird since I am almost 24 now, but I definitely know of Asian friends my age whose parents still frown on their dating, which I think is absolutely ridiculous and close-minded. So anyways, my point here is that I think I am going along a comfortable path with RC, enough so that I told my parents about him.

I don't have a good track record of dating Asian guys (I generally don't), so one of the first things my parents always ask when I tell them I'm dating someone is "What's his race?" They don't care that much: white, asian, half asian, even Brazilian are okay (the Brazilian was okay because I assured my mother that he is very fair-skinned looks like he's white). I rarely ever stray outside of white, asian, half-asian, anyways.

Well, RC is half white, half American Indian. When I told my mom, she immediately became alarmed, and the ignorant questions poured in: "how dark is he?" "does he look black?" "Indians look black you know?" "I bet his mom is really dark" etc. etc. etc.

I tried to placate my mom by saying, "Well, Indians were once Asian; they came over across Alaska, so really RC has Asian roots." That didn't work so well. She insisted that I tell her how dark RC is, so I told her that RC is about the same color as I am when I am tan during the summer. That was probably not the right thing to say; I probably should have just left it at "he's about the same as me." My mom further freaked out when I compared RC to my summer tan, "oh my god, you are SO dark when you get tan in the summer. That is too dark. I don't approve."

She flat out said, "I don't approve." I was speechless. I kinda knew this conversation was coming, and had I given things more thought, I wouldn't have brought it up this early. The conversation then led to all the races I absolutely cannot date. "Well, at least half Native American is better than Black," my mom told me.

I decided to fight back a little because I was getting more and more angry the more she talked, "So what if I dated someone black? Would that really be the end of the world?" I asked.

My mother flipped. "Blacks are absolutely unacceptable. I will not allow it," she said. Then she added, "Indians, too. No Indians. You hear?"

I left the conversation at that because I knew this to be something my mother and I would never be able to see eye-to-eye on. It is times like this that I am glad I never told my mom about the Mozambique guy whom I dated in college. I actually really liked that guy, but I never told my parents about him because I knew the race issue would never fly. I didn't really see long-term potential with him, so I decided it was a battle better left un-fought.

The conversation with my mom yesterday ended with her highly encouraging me to send her a picture of RC. "When you get a chance, find a picture of him and send it to me. I need to see how dark he is." I have some pictures from our mutual friend's wedding (where RC and I met), but I don't really like those pictures of him, so I'm hesitant to send them. With certain people, you send the bad pictures of your friend/date so that their opinion of the person can only get better with time. With my mother, I have to absolutely send the best picture and try to win her over on the first try. If she decides that she does not like a person by his picture, his chances of ever getting on her good side would be forever slim-to-none.

now what?

Irish, when he came back from Ireland, switched labs to continue his PhD. Coincidentally, he switched into the same lab that RC is in. Last Friday night, RC mentioned that he had given Irish a ride home from lab, and Irish had invited him to a BBQ. RC said that he couldn't go because he already had plans, but didn't further specify (RC and I were going to a jazz club that night). When RC was telling me this story, he mentioned that he didn't know whether or not to mention that he actually had plans with me, because he didn't know if Irish knows we are dating. (RC knows that Irish and I are good friends).

I don't think I was purposefully keeping the news about me & RC away from Irish. The topic never came up in conversation, though I have to admit that I wasn't exactly trying to steer conversation in that direction either. So, after what RC said, I decided to tell Irish about RC and me. Last night, Irish and I were both hanging out a friend's apartment and having a pretty chill evening. When I drove him home afterwards, I told him that RC and I are dating.

That prompted Irish to say that he was glad I mentioned something because it would allow him a chance to say something, too. Here, my heart fluttered for a second because I thought he was going to say that he'd been dating someone, too, which I knew would make me feel sad. Instead, he said that he felt like some of the stuff he's said or has done since coming back from Ireland may have given me the false impression that he was doing them out of something more than friendship, he wanted to make sure I knew that his motivations were purely those of just-a-friend.

My heart still sank upon hearing this. I'd always felt that Irish would always be there for me, and here he was telling me essentially that he's over me and wants to purely be "just friends", closing the door on anything more.

Then he asked me if I ever misinterpretted his actions and thought that they stemmed from somewhere beyond plain friendship. I had to admit to him that I did. I mean, he brought me back gorgeous silver Celtic earrings from Ireland, for crying out loud. That's not something a "just friends" male friend would give a girl; it's more along the lines of what a brother or a boyfriend would give. I'm not sure how the conversation proceeded from there, but we ended up talking until 5:30am about us. Here is the stuff I remember:

1) He really likes me, and there has always been a gray area between friendship and wanting something more in his mind. He thought that when we decided to just be friends back in March, that this conversation would never come up again because he always thought I only wanted friendship, which was why his actions from there on out were focused completely on friendship and he wanted to make sure that I would see them only as friendship.

2) I told him that I have always had this gray area, which he was really surprised by. He asked why I never said anything, and I told him that I didn't know what to do about it. I was pretty sure that he has always had that gray area, so I felt like it was on me to tap into that, and if I were ever to bring up my gray area, we would certainly get into a conversation about a relationship between the two of us. However, I was really torn on whether or not I want a relationship with him, so I felt that any conversations we have on the topic would be a dead-end with no resolution. So I never brought it up.

3) He asked where I thought we are right now in terms of friendship/relationship. I likened our situation to being at the edge of a cliff. We'd gone down this gradual decline so far, and we've now come to a cliff that we can jump off of together, or back away from. I want to jump, but I'm afraid of what's down below. He asked me if I thought fear alone was reason enough not to jump, and that he would never want to always wonder, "What if? What could have been?" So he wants to jump as long as I would jump with him. I told him that I didn't know.

4) I said that there are logistical roadblocks to our being together, and it's hard for me to see a clear defined future, meaning that he's Irish, and he'd want to go back to Ireland after school is over, and I would want to stay here in the US. He said that he actually has thought of that, and he thinks he would want to stay in the US.

5) He asked if my only hesitation for starting a relationship was this fear of screwing up what we have right now. I said that I didn't know. What I left unsaid was that I'm not really physically attracted to him. This I thought some more about (and have been thinking about), and I think I could get over it. I feel that I'm starting to get over his chubbiness, but I wonder if that's me trying to convince myself that I can date him because of all the other good things about him.

6) I told him that I was really torn, especially given the situation with RC. I told Irish that I really like RC, and had pretty much settled on wanting to see where things would go with that and wanting to move it toward the direction of a serious committed relationship. I told Irish that I don't know how to turn my back on RC, but at the same time, I wanted to give Irish and me a chance because it is obvious that we have a lot we connect over, and it is definitely obvious that there is something between us.

So in the end, I didn't know how to resolve this situation. I feel like there aren't really good reason for me and Irish not to date, besides the fact that I find him chubby. At the same time, I want to give a chance for RC and me. I really see a lot of potential there, and I hate to throw it all away. I even told Irish that I wouldn't know what to say to RC if I were to break things off. My heart wouldn't be set on it; everything I would tell him would be a lie because I do really like him, and I don't want to break things off. If ever I did, it would be because I would want to jump off the cliff with Irish, and I don't know if that's the right decision for me right now.

I feel that if RC were not in the picture, I would have plunged with Irish last night to give the two of us a try. I do think the chubbiness thing is becoming less and less of an issue (and his guitar-playing and song-singing skills definitely help that :). However, with RC in the picture, I want to give RC and try, and go back to Irish if/when RC and I don't work out. That's me wanting to have my cake and to eat it, too.

Irish asked me a lot of questions last night about how compatible I thought we were, if I thought we'd have a good relationship together, what my ideal was. I told him pretty much the truth, including things like wanting a guy who knows the etiquette of dress up in a crisp button-up shirt and working/mingling a room for a wine & cheese (which I know he doesn't like), and the fact that in relationships, I'm really dependent and want to spend a lot of time with the person (completely different from my fleeting, independent nature I exhibit with friends), and that I'm very unreasonable when I get upset in a relationship and would sometimes pick fights for the sake of picking a fight (I know he hates fighting in relationships).

His responses were that he thinks I would push him to do some things he may not want to do (like wine and cheese parties), that being with me would force him to get over the chip on his shoulder about those things stemming from his experiences from childhood. He said that if we were together, we would both be independent in our own ways together. For example, he could see us arriving at a wine&cheese together, but then going in different directions as we independently "work the room". And as for the picking fights, he said that he's a "roll with the punches" kind of guy, and he would yield to me. I told him that his doing that would probably piss me off more because I would want him to fight back, and it would frustrate me that he's just taking the punches. He jokingly said, "well, in that case, I better start learning how to fight in a relationship, then!"

I do question how honest he is being with himself about that kind of stuff. Is he unrealistically bending over backwards to fit into the ideal mold that I have set up for my partner-for-life? Is he trying to convince me that we would work?

I really don't know what to do right now. My gut instinct is that I don't want to give up on RC. It would be a lot easier if RC were not in the picture, because I think I definitely would give Irish and me a chance. I don't want to have to always wonder, "what if?" with Irish and me.

If only these decisions are ever simple and clear cut.

lunch date!

RC's going away on a conference this weekend, leaving tomorrow afternoon and returning Sunday. The timing's actually perfect, because I have a friend (let's call her Legare) visiting from out of town this weekend. So now, I can just focus on her, and not feel bad to not have time for RC, or to force some kind of "let's all hang out together." I'm sure the latter would be fun, but I kinda want alone catch-up time with Legare. She's coming with me to Poker's BBQ on Saturday, btw, and he's challenged us to croquet (or did we challenge him? I don't remember the order).

Monday, RC called me to say hi. We didn't talk very long. I didn't hear from him yesterday, and I actually wondered, "aww, RC didn't call me today." Then I realized, "Why can't I call him? In fact, I should probably call him since he's the one who usually makes the calls to me." Especially after our conversations from last weekend, I didn't want him to think that I don't want to take the initiative to pick up the phone and dial because I was no longer interested.

So this afternoon I called him and left a message, "Calling to say hi. I know you're leaving tomorrow [Thursday] for the conference, and I was hoping to just catch you before you left." He called back (he had a doctor's appointment when I called), and we chatted nicely for some 15 minutes, and he said he'd get in touch once he gets back from his trip.

About an hour ago, he called me again. I was with one of my students, so I let it go to voice mail. When I called him back, he said he realized that he wouldn't see me for a few days (well, duh sherlock, you're going out of town on a conference :), so he wanted to see if I would be free for lunch tomorrow. I actually have a meeting (with lunch provided) scheduled for tomorrow, but I still scheduled a lunch with RC after the meeting, so we now have a lunch date tomorrow at 1pm.

I just thought it was really sweet that he would call and ask to get lunch with me before he left town. It made me feel special. The way he said it too was great. He has this very patient mellow voice, and when he said "I realized I wouldn't be able to see you for a few days, so I thought maybe we could get lunch tomorrow so I can see you before I leave" ...

*sigh* I melted :)

frustration!

Because I have serious writer's block, and I get easily distracted these days while (not) writing my thesis proposal, I consult Facebook.com a lot. There's a guy on facebook (a friend of mine) who keeps poking me. Every time he does, I poke him back. So about once a day, we poke each other.

So my question is ... what is the meaning of all of this? Is this some strange online ritual that replaces flirting?

Let's back up a minute here and introduce the guy. Let's call him Poker. Poker befriended me on facebook a couple of months ago. We first met about this time last year, but I'd forgotten his name, and we never saw each other again until we went to a mutual friend's birthday party a couple of months ago. I remembered having seen his facebook profile before (when I get bored, I just surf around), but I'm always skittish about adding people as friends, so I never added him. After I got home from our mutual friend's birthday party, I had a facebook friend invite from him. It seems a bit TOO coincidental that he would meet me, go home, happen to login to facebook, happen to browse through some people, HAPPEN to come across my profile, and happen to notice, "oh, hey, that's the girl I met earlier tonight."

It definitely made me wonder if he had seen/read my profile already (like I had of his), but he was in the same predicament about whether or not to befriend me, and as soon as we actually met and talked for a while in person, he thought, "okay, time to add her as a friend because it wouldn't be creepy-stalkerish now that I've actually talked to her."

A week after we add each other as friends, he pokes me on facebook. For those unfamiliar with facebook, it has this feature where you can "poke" people. It's a pretty worthless function. Basically, you click a button, and the next time they log in, they see a message that says "Jane Doe has poked you", and they're given the option to poke you back.

I see that he poked me, and my immediate reaction was, "huh, interesting." I don't use the poke option very much (except a few times with the ex when we were still together), so I was new at this, so I poked him back.

He poked me back.

I wasn't sure what I was supposed to do at this point. Keep poking him? I didn't get it. So I left him a casual joking message saying "geez, don't be such a poker". He messages me: "I should have warned you before we became facebook friends - I love the poking". Hmm ... okay. Meanwhile, he's poked me again. Okay ... so I poke him back. Very very interesting.

Ah, also worth noting about Poker: the night of our mutual friend's birthday party, I got a sense that he may have been flirting with me. The day after the bday party (we had both added each other as facebook friends by this point), he messaged me on facebook saying that he was getting some people together to go out, and would I be interested? I honestly had plans that night, so I told him so, but I told him to keep me in the loop next time he goes out.

He leaves town to go home for a while, and returned to boston about three weeks ago. The poking was constant and consistent (about every other day I would get a poke from him, for which I would poke him back). After he got back to boston, he messaged me again on facebook, "Let's get some people together and go out." I told him that my friends and I had made some serious plans for Thurs, Fri, Sat, and Sun of the upcoming weekend, and that he was certainly more than welcome to join us for any/all of it, as well as friends he'd like to bring along.

So he baits on Thursday night, and he comes out with my friends and I to a club. Alone. He didn't bring any friends, so it's basically him and a bunch of my friends whom he doesn't know. I found that a bit suspicious (wondering if he was just wanting to spend time with me, and using the whole "let's get some people together to go out" as a discreet way to spend some time together). Hmm ... okay .... what's going on here?

Anyway, he's cute, he's tall, he's a good dancer ... and we have a good time out (though he had to leave early, and I ended up going home with my friend with benefits). I didn't really hear from him directly again, but the poking on facebook kept on going strong.

So what gives? If he's really interested, why doesn't he do something besides poking me on facebook? If he's not interested, why keep poking me on facebook?

Anyways, I'm writing this because I got really frustrated just now. I signed into facebook, and lo and behold, there was a poke from Mr. Poker. What the heck does he want? Innocent flirting? I'm a big proponent of innocent flirting, but 1) does facebook poking even count as flirting? and 2) flirting or no flirting aside, constantly poking back and forth for 2 months is no fun. (but damn it, I'm not gonna be the one to break the chain).

**ADD at 8pm**: speak of the devil ... Poker & his roommates are having a BBQ this weekend, and he sent me an invite. The email had ~10 people on it, so at first I felt kinda special (wow, I got invited to a BBQ as one of 10 people). Then I thought about it, and I realized there's no way they're only inviting 10 people. I'm sure his roommates are inviting folks too. Anyway, I think I'll go this Saturday and figure out just what gives with Poker.

a few steps forward

RC and I had a wonderful time together this past weekend, and I think that I may actually be somewhat falling for him. As I sit here working on my thesis proposal, all I can think about is him and how I wish I were spending time with him instead. I haven't felt like that in a long time. With Mr. C, all I could think about was how I was content having dinner with him once a week and how I never wanted to spend more time with him. I thought I changed to a low-maintenance girl to have around; one of those who doesn't mind only seeing her guy once a week. But no, it was just the wrong guy.

We got pretty personal this weekend, having multiple conversations about very private topics. Some of the stuff he told me were very unexpected and puts a whole different spin on things. He had told me before that he was in a very bad car accident about five years ago, and had some spinal cord damage as a result of that. That accident left some very permanent handicaps that aren't obvious/visible to the casual bystander, but that which affects his every day life, and subsequently those close to him in nlife.

After he told me, he asked if the information changes how I feel. I wasn't sure what to say. To say that it makes no difference would be a naive lie, but just how much difference it makes, I don't even know myself. I feel like it's stuff that is, while non-trivial, on the whole something I could live with. But how much of that is my trying to convince myself that I can live with it because I really dig him?

I feel like RC and I moved quite a few steps forward toward a committed relationship with each other. Just Friday, the idea of a boyfriend was appalling to me. After this weekend, I am not so opposed to the idea.

friends vs. dating

I had lunch with M again yesterday, and she told me about her current dilemma ... she's dating this guy; if she were to have a relationship, it would be with him, but she doesn't know if she wants a relationship. Furthermore, he wants to hang out with her and her friends (which would include the whole gang of Y, J, and several others), but things would be very awkward and weird with Y.

It's interesting that we both feel so alienated with our own friend circle in terms of wanting to keep our dating lives separate. I think about why I have never introduced the guys I've dated to the friend circle. I feel like I ultimately ask myself, "is it worth it?" I don't try to hide dates from my friend group, but I also don't go running around saying, "Oh, I can't come to this party Friday night because I have a date."

I think I personally enjoy the attention afforded to me by the guys of our group; it's certainly an ego-booster. I think there is always some sexual tension between me and the guys (and also between M and the guys), and that's why both of us feel like we want to keep our dating lives separate from the friends. If we introduce a date into the circle, it would disrupt the balance/status quo, and neither one of us really knows what would happen.

Back in January, when my friend circle was quite a bits different, I remember going on a first date with a guy for dinner. After dinner, neither one of us really wanted to part ways, so I asked if he would like to come with me to a bar where a bunch of my friends were that night. Everybody ended up having loads of fun.

Something like that would never happen with my current friend group, mainly because of this question I keep asking myself, "Is is worth it?" Is it worth it to introduce the guy to the group, hurt Y in the process (we've never talked about dating other people), throw my dynamic with the group into wack, when the guy may only be sticking around for another date or two?

Perhaps I can use wanting to introduce the guy to the friends as a ruler for how I feel about the guy. If I consistently want to keep things very separate, even after multiple dates, then it probably means I am not that into him. If, however, I want to bring him into the circle, then it's a sign that I'm ready to take things to the next level.

balance

RC called me today asking what I was doing tomorrow (Friday) night. Of course, I said that I had no plans, but you know what? I wasn't even too keen on saying that just because of all the conversations the other night. I thought about things, and I asked myself "How would i feel calling RC my boyfriend?" ... and honestly, I kinda grimaced at the thought. Does that mean that I'm not ready for RC? Or does that mean that I'm not ready for a boyfriend?

The balance comes into play when I think about what I want to do. Right now, my first and foremost goal is to do my thesis proposal for my graduate degree, which is set for Oct 16. Except, I still act like my life is about partying and having a good time, even though my grad student status (as unlucrative as it is) supports my habits), and the more I party, the less I grad-school, and the more likely I will lose my source of income that feeds my habit.

My second goal/desire is just to not think too much and just to enjoy myself. I thought about where I was a year ago ... I wanted to get married; I wanted to settle down; I wanted a ring on my finger; I was so in love with the ex (let's call him Key) that I lost sight of myself. I think that was great, because when we are truly in love with someone, and when we are ready to make that commitment, we think in terms of "we" and not in terms of "me". A year ago, I thought in terms of "we" because I saw "we" as being forever. Gosh, how short that forever lasted. I was burned so badly by Key.

So now, I fly solo. I date, but I have become the person who is perpetually afraid of commitment; I have come to exemplify the kind of behavior that I can't stand nor understand in guys. More than anything else, I have come to really want my own space (REALLY highlighted by the incident with Mr. C).

Take for example: this weekend. I got invited to three parties for tomorrow (Friday) night, and three for Saturday (five originally, but two got cancelled). I want to spend time with my friends; I want the free time that I have to be spent the way that I want it to be spent, not the way I feel like I should have to spend it.

I am one to try to bring together groups of people. When I get a party invite, I'm the kind of person who would mention it to every friend I come across who asks me what I'm doing on X night: "well, actually, I know of this party if you're interested." So what ends up happening is that three separate groups of friends end up saying "yeah, that party sounds great; let's go" and I end up shuffling my social obligations to all three groups at the same event, who don't usually mingle with each other.

I find it stressful to go from one group of friend to another. I want to just do my own thing, which I define as picking my favorite outing activity, doing it with the people whom I enjoy being around, and not feeling any obligations to have done anything else, and not feeling any guilt that I blew everybody else off. This includes RC.

So I agreed to do something with RC tomorrow night, when really, I want to go out with my friends. But it would be rude of me to go back on that now and say to RC, "well, actually, I want to go out with my friends." Inviting him along isn't really an option, because he made it pretty clear that 1) he doesn't drink, and 2) he doesn't really go out much, out of preference.

Where's the balance between friends and dates? Will it become painfully obvious when the right guy comes along such that I no longer care about balance, and all I want to do is to spend every waking moment with him?

the current: RC

RC and I met at a wedding at the beginning of August. The wedding was in New Jersey, and before I got there, I actually thought to myself, "I wonder if I will meet anyone interesting, but oh well, they probably will be from Jersey anyways." As it turned out, I met RC, who is also a grad student like me in Boston. Despite both having known the mutual friend who was getting married for about two years, our paths never crossed before the wedding.

As we all got up to leave the wedding (there was a pretty obvious end to the celebrations with a mass exodus), RC asked me for my phone number. That wasn't the unusual thing. The unusual thing was that because everybody got up to leave at essentially at the same time, he asked for my number in front of everyone in our group while we were all standing in a circle. Very gutsy move, I thought, that also made it hard for me to not give him my # (how could I with so many people watching?).

That wasn't really an issue, because the thought didn't even cross my mind to not give him my number.

He waited two days to call (he called on a Tuesday; the wedding was the Sunday before), and we set up a brunch date for the following Saturday. This was around the time that I was getting really good vibes from Mr. C, so I actually almost called RC on Friday to say, "Sorry, I don't think we can do brunch." Instead, I decided to honor the date I had agreed to, to go, but to keep things casual and not follow up afterwards.

I'm really glad I went, because I started to really dig RC. He was the perfect stature I was looking for. He was the total gentlemen. We have a lot of the same interests. Both being grad students studying similar things was a toss-up as to being a pro or a con. On the one hand, we would both understand each others' lifestyles. On the other hand, I would sorta prefer to date someone who's not in the same field as I am (we both work on bio research projects).

That brunch led to a dinner&movies date a few days later, followed by a dinner&dancing date more than a week later (we were both really busy during the weekend in between), followed by his going out of town this past weekend, followed by another dinner date tonight.

Why this is different:
I have felt sincerely elated before each and every one of the dates (except the initial brunch), and that feeling has been sustained through all the dinner & movies & dancing. I never got bored; I was always interested. Most of all, I was always happy and giddy around him, which I really couldn't have claimed for Mr. C.

One small glitch:
At the dancing, we ran into another mutual friend El whom neither of us realized was a mutual friend. El, not realizing that RC and I were actually there together, asked RC, "where's your girlfriend?" I pretended to have been staring off into space and not paying attention enough to have heard anything, but I did notice RC shift awkwardly, glance quickly at me, shake his head discreetly while saying to El, "We're not ..." and trailing off, implying that the gf/bf status may be no longer.

Later that night, RC pulled me aside and asked if I had heard what El said. I lied, "no." RC then said that regardless, he wanted to clarify that El asked about his girlfriend because El wasn't aware that he and his girlfriend had broken up. He just didn't want me wondering what the heck was going on, and he wanted to make sure that I was still okay with things. I said that I, in general, don't care that much about history, as long as it doesn't impact the present.

Then I asked him how recent the breakup was, and he said that it happened midsummer. That's when I silently made a mental note to be on my toes a little bit. Midsummer would have been less than a couple of months ago. Also, the wedding was the beginning of August. Thus, do the math: when he and I met at the wedding, he had maybe been broken up for a couple of weeks, a month MAX. Hmm ... I wondered how ready he was for a new relationship and what exactly he was looking for in dating me? Rebound? Something working toward a committed relationship? Is he ready?

Tonight:
We met for dinner tonight, and we came back to my place afterwards (he asked what I was doing after dinner; I answered that nothing was planned, so he asked "May I come over?").

He comes over, and we sit on the couch and talk for a long time. I had noticed before that he is a very tactile person. Tonight was no exception; he played a lot with my hair, with my hands, pressing his fingers into my back almost as if he were giving me a massage while we both sat and talked on the couch. At one point, he just went in for the kiss. No warning; no hesitation; no go 90%, let her come 10 (see Hitch) ... It was just boom, kiss. It wasn't the best kiss in the world, but I have to say that I liked it :)

After a while, he definitely started testing out the waters to see how far he could get. I don't know; maybe I'm too conservative ... but I found that a bit sleazy. In general, I feel like the first kiss should be left at just that. It should be kept innocent and sweet, and not ridden with too much lust. When I think about it though, I don't really understand myself very much. It doesn't make a whole lot of sense that I would have no problems having a friend with benefits, but then be reluctant to let a guy I actually like to get to second base.

I wanted to tell RC that he could stay the night if he wanted because I wanted to snuggle, kiss, and sleep next next to him, but I didn't because I feared that there might be certain expectations that accompany staying the night that I definitely wasn't ready to meet. That or the awkwardness of saying, "I'm not okay with anything more than making out, but hey you can stay the night if you want to do nothing but sleep."

Conversations we had tonight:

1) He actually asked me where I thought the two of us were going.

This really surprised me because I still see things as being fairly early in the game, and I also see this conversation as one that women generally want to have and the men try to avoid for as long as possible. He kinda caught himself because as I thought about what I wanted to say, he asked "Or is that too early to talk about?" I replied, "No no, we can talk about it now" and told him "I see the two of us having a lot of potential" to which he readily nodded his head and agreed.

I then thought about it some more, and I said "I'd like to see us go somewhere."

His response to that wasn't negative, but it certainly wasn't positive. Instead of saying "Yeah, I agree. I'd like to see us go somewhere too", he said, "Let's see where things go." This confused me because it seemed almost like he didn't want "us" to go anywhere, but if that were the case, why would he have brought up this whole conversation to begin with by asking "Where do you think we're going?"

2) His ex-girlfriend

At the dancing the other night, after he told me about the ex-gf that El brought up, he said something to the effect of "Well, we can talk about this more when we're not out like this." So I took him up on it and asked him about her tonight. He said that things have been tricky because she doesn't want to fully accept the breakup and move on. He said that he felt he only liked her as a friend, so that's what he told her, which is how they broke up, but she is having a hard time dealing with that. I probably should have asked more (how long were you together? when actually did you break up? what does she do? etc etc), but I opted to keep my mouth shut.

3) Dating other people

Since we appeared to be talking about a lot of the hard topics anyways, I went ahead and asked him if he was seeing anybody else. He didn't answer right away (which to me meant that, yes, he is seeing other pepole) ... He paused, thought about it, and finally said "not seriously." I registered that to mean that he was dating other people in the same way he was dating me, but then he added, "You're the only one I've been dating seriously." That threw me for another loop because I no longer knew what "dating seriously" meant. I thought dating someone seriously meant dating him/her exclusively, but that's clearly not what his defintion was. I wanted to ask him "What do you mean by dating seriously?" But again, I opted to keep my mouth shut because that may have been too much.

So really, asking him if he was seeing anybody else resulted in my having even more questions.

He did ask me the same thing immediately afterwards. I told him that as of 2-3 weeks ago, I was still seeing some other people, but I had actually broken things off because I couldn't see them going anywhere so why bother? This prompted him to say that communication is really important.,"If you [hypothetical 'you'] are dating other people, that's fine, just let the other person know. If you no longer feel the same way, then tell the other person. As long as both people are honest and direct and actually communicating, then things should be okay." I told him that I agreed. Mentally, I was thinking to myself that I hope he follows through on his own advice and will do the same with me in keeping me in the loop when he dates other people and/or starts to feel differently about me.

4) Our compatibility

Earlier, I mentioned his hesitation and evading agreement when I said "I'd like to see us go somewhere." He followed that up with "Let's see where things go" and also "I feel like we don't really know each other yet. We learn more whenever we spend time together, so let's see where things go." He also mentioned that he knows I'm a busy girl, and that he doesn't want to distract me. My response to that was that we make time for those things that are important to us.

So after the conversation moved on to several different topics later, he brought up the point again that we don't really know each other very well, and because of that, he's not sure that we would mesh. I could tell there was something specific on his mind, and he finally named it: drinking and going out.

He said that he doesn't drink, mainly because of his religion (Baha'i), but he knows that I go out a lot. I wasn't sure what that meant so I asked him if he has problems with other people drinking, and he very quickly answered a definitive "no, no, not at all." Then I was confused, so I asked him if not having problems with other people drinking is the same standard he would also apply to someone he's dating. He didn't really answer the question ... instead he said that he doesn't want me to feel like I need to change my ways because he doesn't drink due to religious beliefs, or to feel like he is judging me when I do drink.

So I asked him if he was more concerned about my not being able to accept him not drinking than the fact that I do drink. He said yes, he was more worried how I would feel about him not drinking. So I said "well, I guess we'll have to just see."

I added that I actually don't drink that much, which didn't seem to really have much of an impact on his concern. Either he didn't believe me, or (more likely) it's not the drinking itself that he is concerned about incompatibility-wise, but rather the whole lifestyle of going out to clubs/bars/parties. I don't think he chooses to not do very much of that, and he is worried if we can have a relationship when our perspectives/lifestyles are so different.

So in the end, I think we had fruitful interesting conversations. I'm glad we laid a few things out in the open. I'd like to keep seeing him, but I guess anything else, we'll just have to wait and see.