As if my life weren't already complicated enough, I just threw in a whole bunch of additional factors this week. The rational, cautious side of me is freaking out. The go-with-the-flow side of me doesn't know what the big deal is: I should just go with the flow.
Broadway and I have been broken up for about a month. I completely moved out 3 weeks ago. I have absolutely loved the independence. But I think about Broadway a lot. I think about all the wrong that I did him, all the pain that I've inflicted on him, and I wish so badly that I could tell him any minute now that I've thought things over and decided that he is the love of my life, now that I've had some time and space to be myself, I've come to realize how big of a mistake it was to push him out of my life.
But I can't say that. And that makes me cry. I miss him, I really do. Most of the time, I can rationalize it away and convince myself that missing him is all a part of any grieving process following a breakup. We were together for more than three years. He came to be a central part of my life, my rock, my partner. I couldn't imagine writing an important email to my advisor/boss/coworker/friend without having him read it, and now I have to write all my emails on my own. He was my best friend, someone I'd go to for advice, someone I'd want to hold me and kiss me and smooth out my hair when I was upset. Someone I would laugh with uninhibitedly. Someone who knew all my faults and insecurities and knew when I was letting them dictate my actions or inactions.
And now I am alone again in this world. Of course I would cry.
But then at times like last week, I feel yet again that I can't live without him. The impulsive side of me wanted to call him to get lunch/coffee/dinner so that we can start dating again and starting fresh. The rational side of me rightfully controlled that urge, and this week I am back to just missing him. Missing him but knowing (for now) that breaking up was the right decision.
HB and I have had our difficulties as well. He wants things. He expects things. He was ecstatic that I am now available and has said all along that he would want to give things between us a shot if/when I become available. Knowing that helped push me through the breakup with Broadway. I think I would have stayed with Broadway otherwise, out of comfort and familiarity.
Now that I am single (it feels weird to say), I find it really hard to start something new with HB. Firstly, it wouldn't be new. We've had so much tumultuous history already, and the foundations of our relationship aren't exactly based on trust and fidelity. Small things about him bother me (yes, it's already gotten to that point), and I find that I don't respect him. Well, that's not true. I respect him as a general person, but I don't respect his intelligence.
Last week when I was impulsively wanting to go back to Broadway, I impulsively wanted to tell HB that we should stop talking to each other. That if it were meant to be, it will happen in the future. Besides, he's in Beijing right now some 7000 miles and 12-hour time difference away.
It made sense at the time: I need space from my previous relationship; I need time to myself; I need to be single and independent and go out and have fun. And with Broadway no longer in the picture, HB's become the new Broadway holding me back from some hypothetical glamorous lifestyle that I would for sure be leading if I didn't feel some connection/guilt to some man halfway around the world.
Besides, my parents already don't like him. My impulsive and irrational mother has already forbade me to pursue anything with "that man in Beijing." Broadway may not have been all that realistic in his lofty ambitions of becoming an Ivy League professor (I always doubted that he would achieve this, which never was very healthy), but at least he was good on paper: Ivy League undergrad, MIT PhD. HB has a psych degree from a small midwestern liberal arts college. I've heard of it, but my parents undoubtedly have not. He has no advanced degrees to speak of (nor any desire for any) and has essentially been puttering around China the last seven years teaching English, worked for an NGOs, and now holds a job (albeit a good one by Asian standards) that only exists for white people in Asia.
I'd be lying if I said that I don't compare HB's paper credentials to Broadway or that the serious differential doesn't bother me. It does, but I think on my own, I can get over it. I'm more worried about my superficial Asian parents.
That aside, HB does add stress to my life right now, which is why I want to cut him out of it. I've made it very clear to him that I am in no position to commit to him right now, and I don't know when I will be able to. He's made it abundantly clear that I am what he wants right now, and he is willing to move back to the States as early as December to make it happen. But even then, he would move back to Chicago (where his family is). While Chicago is much better than Beijing, it's still long-distance. Do I really want to start a relationship long-distance?
Do I really want to start a relationship with HB?
The sex is phenomenal. But a relationship? I don't know.
The additional complication is that I met a couple of new guys this past weekend. Well, one isn't completely new. We have some mutual friends and have met before, but we reconnected when our friend circles collided this weekend. He got my number. He invited a bunch of people to his place Saturday to watch the USA/Ghana game, and we hung out a bunch. We're going to get lunch, just him and me, on Thursday. I feel guilty with regards to HB, and I haven't decided whether or not to tell him.
The second guy was more random: a friend of a friend who happened to be having birthday celebrations at the same bar my friends and I were at. I'm not remotely interested, but somehow got cornered into giving him my phone number. I did tell HB about this and asked for his advice, as a guy, for how a girl should/can get out of giving her phone number graciously.
This conversation made him emotional, and he flipped out a bit thinking about my going out to bars and flirting with guys and giving out my phone numbers. He rightly caught himself, realizing that he was in no place to get jealous about what I was or wasn't doing with other men because he's not my anything.
HB's sister is getting married in Chicago in October. He asked me to go with him a while back, and not knowing any better, I said I would. But I think that is somewhat in limbo right now.
I do want to write in here more often, more frankly. If nothing else, I would have something to go back and read a year from now.
