gaaaaaa

I've been thinking about Broadway a lot lately and wondering a lot of "what if I had stayed" types of questions.

The image I have in my head is from the last scene of The Breakup with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. The two of them run into each other randomly on the street, and you see the care and love that they still feel for each other in their eyes. The exchange is casual and lighthearted, and Aniston's character cocks her head with a sly smile while saying "Hey," almost as if she's more surprised at how happy she is to see him than the actual chance encounter. They exchange genuine pleasantries and mention how great it would be to hang out sometime. They then walk away from each other as the end credits roll up playing "I Can See Clearly Now That the Rain Is Gone."

I remember watching that movie in bed on my computer not long after I moved out of Broadway's apartment back in June. As the credits rolled, as tears flowed down my face, I wished that Broadway and I would eventually come to our own version of that scene. But that only made me cry more because at the time, the positive energy between Aniston and Vaughn seemed so far-fetched for me and Broadway.

Now, a few months later, it doesn't seem like such an impossibility. At the time, I just wanted out of the situation with Broadway because I felt so constrained and unhappy and daydreaming about HB. HB was the escape. But now, I want an escape from HB. Given how many warm feelings are conjured up when I think of Broadway, it seems that I now want to be with Broadway as an escape from HB.

This isn't the first time that doubts about leaving Broadway have popped up. In the past though, I think about things that make me unhappy such as what sex, or rather the lack thereof, with Broadway would be like. It was unbelievable how just that one thought would completely derail any inklings of reconciliation with Broadway. I guess that was the escape that HB, and our phenomenal physical chemistry, provided.

In a way, I feel that HB and I have already run our course. We'd always had a very physical connection, and while we certainly connected emotionally during the two weeks that he was here in Boston, there wasn't enough depth to sustain us through the past two months of being 7000 miles apart. We knew then that we would see each other again in October, when he comes back to the US for his sister's wedding. In fact, I booked flights so that I could be in Chicago for about a week to maximize the time we would have with each other.

But I fear that our time together will just be more of the same as our phone conversations recently. I will get easily annoyed. I will question his intelligence. I will wonder whether or not I actually respect him. The latter two were never issues with Broadway. Broadway and I were always intellectual equals (yes, I know I am horrible for feeling this way). So really, I am just going for a 1-week long booty call.

And yes, that is basically my motivation for going through with this trip. Honestly, without this trip coming up, I am very ready to tell HB that it is time we go our separate ways, call it quits, take some time to heal from this whole situation that started back in January and then decide what to do about Broadway.

HB feels the change in my attitude. He has asked so many times why things are different now. Why can I no longer tell him that I love him? Why do I sound so distant over the phone? He sees the week together in Chicago also as a chance to re-evaluate where we are, and if he still feels the same emotional detachment during that time, then he will have to think hard about whether or not this is the right road for him.

So maybe this will all come to a mutual end in just a short few weeks.

Things that annoyed me today

Things that annoyed me today

1) Playing tech support for HB.

Yesterday morning, HB called and had a question for me. The night before, we'd been talking about his internet connection. It's been rather flakey, and despite calling the service provider several times, the connection hasn't improved. While talking about it the night before, I happened to ask him if his roommate was having similar problems. He thought it about it a bit, and replied, "no."

Um. So why have you been calling the service provider? Obviously, if your roommate who uses the same internet has no problems, the internet's not broken. Something's wrong with your computer. That really annoyed me. It's such a simple and obvious concept that he just didn't get. So I told him to look into updating the driver for his ethernet ports and controllers.

So that was the question I woke up to yesterday, "How do I backup my existing driver before I install this new one that I downloaded?" First of all, I don't know, I'm not tech support. Secondly, I don't think you can backup a driver that's already installed. You can only back up the install file. And last but not least, I kinda doubted that he'd even downloaded the right drivers. But I wasn't going to mention that and be roped into a 10-minute conversation helping him to find the right driver. So I said I was late for a meeting (which I was), and hung up.

This morning, he called with a new question. He got a domain name and host and wants to make a webpage. Red flags immediately go up in my head. Ugh, new issue for me, his non-tech-support-tech-support. He asked what I use to make my page.

-Wordpress.

-But I don't want a blog.

-Okay, but wordpress can do pages too, and it has an easy interface.

-But it's still blog-based.

-Fine, most of the themes are blog-centric. You can try Dreamweaver or another editing program.

-Okay, I'll go download Dreamweaver.

-Umm, Dreamweaver is not free like Wordpress. You'll have to either buy it or pirate it.

-Oh.

I just don't have the patience to sit there and walk him through making a webpage. He claims to know simple HTML. Yeah, I bet he knows the bold tag or something, which is obsolete. I didn't want to even start getting into FTP or stylesheets or tell him that back in the day, in the age of static pages, I coded my own site. I don't want him asking me any more questions about webpages.

Funny thing is that if I were actually there, his internet connectivity problem is one that I probably wouldn't mind figuring out for him (FOR him is the key, not WITH him). I'd spend an evening or something looking up drivers and screwing around with his network settings to see if I could improve anything. (But I wouldn't do the webpage for him, unless he wants to pay me).

Ultimately, I am repulsed by his general lack of tech-savviness. It really really bothers me. I have to constantly remind myself that he is different from the people around me here in grad school. He has other talents that I need to learn to appreciate, like being able to pick up a musical instrument and pretty much pick out an ad-hoc tune. Actually, that's the only talent of his I can think of right now. I'm definitely entering negative-HB mode.

And damn it! He's the guy! He's supposed to be MY tech support, not the other way around. Broadway was always so good at that.

2) Being told "I wish I could pull off short hair."

My labmate came up to me and said, "Man, I wish I could pull off short hair." My response: "You can." To which she said, "no way, you have no idea."

Umm, have you ever chopped off your hair? You probably haven't, in which case, you have no idea whether or not you can pull off short hair. Stop saying that to me just because you don't have to guts to go short.

I've gotten that a few times since chopping off my hair about three weeks ago. My friend buzzed the sides of my head (not completely, maybe left 1/4 inch or so), and we left the top at about 3 inches so I could spike a mohawk. But day-to-day, the longish hair at the top just sits, and I look like I have a punkish boy cut.

I like it. It's different and actually kind of empowering. But I get really annoyed at comments like the one my labmate made.

His cities

San Francisco will forever be his city. I won't be able to visit Dolores Park without thinking of him, canvas bag slung over his shoulders and hanging low below his waist, overlooking his city. Maybe he's thinking about his childhood home. Maybe he's thinking about me. Maybe he's thinking of which coffeeshop to visit for his afternoon espresso. Who knows? He just looks peaceful.

He already knows that I will leave two short months later for an internship in Beijing, but he's trying not to think about that. He is lost in the moment, in the city he loves, to celebrate his newly-acquired "doctor, but not the kind that helps people" status with his new(ish) fiancee. He doesn't yet know that Beijing will be the beginning of the end.

In a way, Boston is his city, too. He grew up here. His went to school here. Twice. He met and lost his love here. Twice. The second times, both times, were much more difficult than the firsts.

But Boston will never be San Francisco. Boston is where things are broken, where the world beats him, where he remembers the corners he retreated to because he had nowhere else to hide. San Francisco is where things heal, where the world embraces him, where he can hide from the pains in Boston without hiding from the world.

There are many other cities along the way, too. Some, he will always associate with me; others, he might only have the kinds of memories that fade easily because they struggled to imprint heavily on our minds in the first place. A gourmet burger place in downtown Hollywood might cause him to pause a second longer than usual, triggering a vague pang that he finds hard to pinpoint, but that which suddenly brings my image into his conscious thoughts. Or perhaps a dolphin's glide in the waters of a coastal city conjures up the sounds of uncontrollable laughter from a different time (and perhaps even a different city) as he pulls out his aviators to cover up the glint of the water. Similarly, a pickpocket in a foreign country might remind him of a story told on grassy fields amidst a group of giggling frisbee girls whom he tried hard to capture on camera.

Three years of cities. Three years of memories. Three years of promises of faraway places we will have to visit during the rest of our lives.

Three years became just three years, and three is not forever.

But San Francisco, San Francisco will forever be his city. To him, and more importantly, to me.

well it's not over

Teammate has completely gone off the deep end with her stuff, getting extremely mad at Work Women for not accommodating her needs. I don't really understand, so I am in general staying out of things. But then today, I happen to look on Teammate's Facebook page, and it is full of negative, nasty, angry rants toward Work Women. I feel these are wholly unjustified, so maybe I am taking sides. Ugh.

In other news, I went to a party last night with some Friendly Frisbee People. FFP should totally be an acronym. I saw some folks I hadn't seen in a while, and met some new people. Mostly, I chatted with this guy who I played on the same team with earlier this summer at a beach tournament. He was pretty quiet, but super nice at the tournament. At the party, the told me a tons more about himself, and it was all very interesting. I left thinking maybe he would be interested in me.

Today, I got the below email from him:

Hi Seine,

I'm glad we got to hang out at the party last night. I'd suspected you might be kinda awesome. I'd definitely like to get together with you sometime soon, but this week promised to be just shy of full-tilt manic ....

...

I noticed on Facespace (by coincidence) that you're away this weekend. Can I promise to give you a call later this week, when you have a phone*, so we can make plans?

And now I feel trapped again by HB. This was the feeling I had before. I feel like I wasn't ready to give up my single life yet, and committing to him forced me to do so. At some point a couple of weeks ago, I wanted to write in here and exclaim, "REMEMBER WHAT THIS FEELS LIKE!! I WANT TO BE WITH HB FOREVER!!"

But obviously, I never got around to writing it. And it's unclear how much that would have actually helped me. I definitely feel more trapped today than I do most days, and maybe it's the temptations offered by this innocent email of simple attraction from a not-unattractive male.

*yes, I lost my phone this past week and in the process of procuring a new one.

gaaaa

I'm kinda sick of writing about HB and Broadway and relationships. HB and I did get back together, about 1.5 days after we broke up. I don't even know why we broke up. though the reasons I wrote last week for breaking up haven't changed for the most part. They just don't really seem that big of a deal and possibly exacerbated by distance. He has been working his way productively through those two issues, though, which is good. Bleh, may write more later.

Broadway made some huge steps this week. He disauthorized me on his Google Calendar. He blocked me on Gchat. And he left Facebook altogether. Of course I'm sad, but I'm also glad to see him making progress, and if that's what he needs to do, that's what he needs to do.

Other life issues have been consuming me in the meantime. This crazy drama came up involving an older woman whom I work with and a frisbee teammate of mine. The woman and her husband (both in their 50s) own a house in Providence, but both hold jobs in Boston. It's two 1-hour commutes a day from Providence to Boston, oftentimes 1.5-hours with all the heavy traffic, and they finally got sick of it and wanted to rent a room in/around Boston to stay in during the week. My 30-year-old frisbee teammate happened to have a room open up in her house, so I connected them, and everyone got along, and this woman and her husband became my teammate's new roommates. They've now been roommates for about 6 months.

I should say that I love everyone involved in this situation. I love my teammate, though she has serious emotional and self-image issues, and I absolutely love love love the woman whom I work with. I've only met her husband a handful of times, but he always seemed like a good guy, and they seemed to have a great relationship.

Last week, while Work Woman was traveling for work, her husband decided to have a heart-to-heart with my Frisbee Teammate. He told Frisbee Teammate that he's attracted to her and wondered if she had the same feelings for him. She told him no, and that was basically the extent of the conversation. I saw Frisbee Teammate the next evening at our twice-a-week evening game, and she couldn't stop crying as she told me the story of what had happened. She is completely creeped out, she feels threatened, she had anxiety attacks all day, and she is afraid to go home.

I empathized with her feelings and offered her my place to crash (which she turned down), and supported her decision to ask Husband and Work Woman to move out. Frisbee Teammate sent a very angry email to Husband requesting this and basically chewed him out for having done this to her. She feels very wronged and victimized in the situation and told him so.

Husband agreed to all of Teammate's requests, is moving out and also paying an extra months' rent so that Teammate has ample time to find someone else to fill the empty room. In addition, he told Work Woman what had happened, and they are now going to therapy to work on their relationship.

I definitely felt a bit lost, caught in some kind of weird triangle. Teammate confided in me, but it also involves Work Woman, whom I work closely with and absolutely adore. I felt wrong that I knew all these details of something that's obviously very private between Work Woman and her Husband and at first wasn't sure how to approach it. I finally went up to Work Woman on Monday to give her a hug, and she broke down a little, and we talked about how hurt she was and how much she doesn't understand why this happened. She said that Husband was horrifyingly embarrassed and claims that he has learned his lesson and knows that he made a HUGE mistake in approaching Teammate about this instead of talking to his wife.

As this week progressed, Work Woman in trying to better understand her husband's actions, asked Teammate for her side of the story, just to make sure everything lines up with what Husband had told Work Woman. Teammate's response was that she does not feel comfortable talking about it and telling Work Woman everything, especially now that Work Woman is obviously staying with Husband and trying to make their marriage last. Teammate also told Work Woman that she doesn't understand why Work Woman would want to stay with Husband after all of this, to give him another chance, and to try to preserve their 15-year marriage.

As I mentioned, Teammate has some serious emotional and self-image issues, many of them related to her disastrous history with men and relationships. Her response to this situation was definitely an over-reaction. I'm not saying she shouldn't be upset, but her feelings of victimization are a bit extreme. She does not want to talk to or see Husband or to have him ever step foot in her house (not surprising), and she also insists that Husband could not have possibly told Work Woman everything (not surprising given her general distrust of men, but is essentially paranoia). This of course made Work Woman question her husband's integrity and honesty. She wondered if a lot more happened (like did he try to touch Teammate, did he actually proposition something), and if Husband was still keeping things from her.

On top of this, Teammate sent a really nasty email to Work Woman (bcc'ing me, why??) with requests such as: "You need to move all of your stuff out of the room Saturday night because that's the only night when I won't be there." I felt deeply sorry for Work Woman after reading the email. Teammate's harsh email was a bit uncalled for, but not surprising given her general fragile emotional state. But it just further adds distrust and stress to Work Woman whose Husband did something very very stupid, but did not ultimately break the sanctity of their marriage in any way.

Work Woman asked me today if I would listen to her and what Husband told her and let her know if there were discrepancies with Teammate's story. I did, and Husband did indeed tell her everything. Like I guessed, Work Woman was very concerned with Teammate's discomfort at telling her side of the story. That indeed led Work Woman to further question whether or not Husband told her the whole truth.

On the other hand, Work Woman very intuitively wondered how much of Teammate's reaction to the whole situation from beginning to end was a result of Teammate's past, and how much of it was actually in response to what Husband said to Teammate. I assured Work Woman that a majority of Teammate's reaction stems from Teammate's chaotic history with men, and that her reaction is a bit of a disconnect from what actually happened. I believe that Husband has told Work Woman everything, and I told her I am glad that they were working on healing their relationship. They obviously have some problems they need to work out in their relationship, but they love each other, and this situation has forced them them to take a look at those problems so they can be better together. And that is a good thing, as unfortunate as the situation was that led to this evaluation.

I hope this saga for me has finally come to an end. I still feel for Teammate, but I find it hard to counsel Teammate in any way. She does not take advice well and has very different ideas about men than I do. I'm not sure there is anything that I can do for her except to listen, which I have done so far. I don't share her distrust for men, and sometimes it feels like she just wants to wallow in her own negative thoughts and wants someone to provide redemption that her hatred of men is warranted and rational. I don't share that view, and it's especially hard because I feel that she is in denial about her own prejudices against men.

As for Work Woman, I feel so much better that she feels better after our conversation today, and I do think we relate to each other well. In the end, I am really glad that I could be there for Work Woman because I know Teammate so well and can help explain some of the reasoning behind Teammate's actions and let Work Woman know that most of it has nothing to do with Husband but rather an entire line of men in Teammate's past who has hurt her and deceived her and done who knows what else to her.

Whew. Putting this behind me now.

Well, that didn't last long

HB's visit to Boston was phenomenal, so fantastic that I didn't have time to write because I wanted to spend every minute with him. While he was here, we also decided to give us a shot. Yes, we defined the relationship. He became my man (which I think sounds better than boyfriend), and I became his girl(friend).

Unfortunately, all that shimmers in this world is sure to go away. So on August 2nd, HB flew back to Beijing. At first, things were still going well. Then he became consumed by the idea of moving back to the US and the accompanying job search process. Then I became a ball of panic regarding my grad school situation and just when exactly I'll be able to graduate.

All of this came to a head yesterday. And we broke up.

My reasoning was that we were not the right influences for each other. I have a hard time motivating myself and want a partner who can help to provide me with motivation, and/or talk me into having more internal motivation. I felt that HB wasn't that person and thus not providing the support that I really need right now. With him then being 7000 miles away, it seemed pointless to pursue a relationship. I'm not getting anything out of it, and he's not close enough to hold me and f- me to make it worthwhile.

He on the other hand feels just as lost as I am in terms of looking for a job that would be along the lines of his current career trajectory. On top of that, he came to realize a couple of things about himself that are very big issues that he needs to work out. The potential conclusion from his working out these issues could very well be that I am no longer the right person for him. I don't know if I can stick around to help him through these issues providing all the support that I can, only to have him tell me in the end that he can't be with me.

These issues, by the way, are completely out of my control. Issue #1 is with his mother, feeling that she's always let him down his whole life. Issue #2 is with his sexuality, feeling that he might be gay or bisexual. Bisexual I can deal with. Gay is obviously a dealbreaker.

So we're done. We're through. Exactly a month after we officially started dating (July 17), we broke up. Maybe this isn't forever, and maybe we've become one of those troubled couples who go through multiple cycles of breaking up and getting back together ... but that doesn't seem all that healthy, does it?

Either way, that's it. I'm back to being single. I miss him, a lot, but I don't cry about HB the way that I cried about Broadway. Maybe that's because I've known Broadway for so much longer.

My next goal is to soul search. Find the values that are core to my needs as a woman and core to my needs in a partner. I'm not ruling out that HB can be that partner (yes, I do think we will get back together), but I need to know what I want in a partner without a current partner whose very status as my partner jeopardizes my objectivity.

Grrrr, sometimes I do wish I weren't such a nerdy engineer. Love isn't so objective and logical after all. If only I could not over-analyze everything.

New developments

I've been working like crazy the last week or so in preparation for my meeting with my advisor this morning. It looks like I am on track to graduate soon-ish. What a relief. I just want to get out of this place. Granted, I took some time off with the whole China stint, but this coming September still marks the 7th year from when I started this program back in 2004. Yikes, that's a long time.

In other news, HB is going to be in Boston in less than an hour!

I know. Craziness.

It started with that commitment we talked about where I can look, but I can't touch. Then he found an awesome flight deal on Air Canada to fly from Beijing to North America. We contemplated his coming here for a while and decided that we were both super excited about it, so he looked into the Air Canada deal, only to find that they don't have any available flights until late October (what??).

That completely bummed us out. It's one thing to think it an impossibility to see each other. It's another to build up hopes that we can see each other, only to have them utterly dashed.

Since regular fare flights are about $2k from Beijing to Boston roundtrip, he was really iffy on whether or not he would still be able to come to Boston. That's when I stepped in and offered to pay for half his ticket.

His response? "Seriously? Wow, if you're offering that, I would book a ticket in a heartbeat."

Which is exactly what he did, last Tuesday. He timed it coincide with the end of my meeting with my advisor so that we can celebrate together. I can't wait to see him.