Friendly Fires - Relationships
My first real post. It's a doozie. I know I'll come across as a wishy-washy, stupid, crazy bitch (or just a bitch in general), but I don't care. Think what you want....I just need to get it all out. I'm leaving out A LOT of details, but I think I've written enough to give a general picture of the situation. At least I hope so. Feel free to shake your head. Feel free to 'tsk tsk'. This is going to be a long one....you are more than welcome to skip over, erm, the whole thing.....
Relationships. Ahhh. Foreign territory for me. Well, not really. But kind of. I’ve always had this idea that I can’t pull off a proper relationship, so I tend to do whatever I can to avoid one. I don’t know what it is. Self-doubt? Fear of commitment? Selfishness? Not ready? (hell, I should be by this age!) I really couldn’t tell you. Anyway, that leads to the point of this post....
Among others, I have a job that I work at every fall and spring. It’s just a shitty temp retail position, but I tend to return every year for the (tiny bit of) extra cash. About a year ago, I noticed someone there. Not really attractive in his own right, but there was something about him that appealed to me. My complete opposite, this dude was a full-on gangsta thug with the bling and the swagger - you know, the type I would normally want to spit on. Even so, I had a little ‘crush’ on him, but never did anything about it and kind of forgot about him.
Fast forward 6 months and we’re working there again......I got to talking to him and realized that he’s actually a nice guy. He complimented me a lot, seemed to like some of the same things I do and even lived in my ‘hood. (I'm trying to use the gangsta lingo - are you impressed?) Again, the job ended and I didn’t care enough to do anything about him....
Zoom ahead another half year or so to last autumn. I was finally working in a pretty good job in my field (it took over 3 years after graduation for me to be successful in finding a paid job in my field! So much for a University education making me set for life!) Anyway, I figured that this full time job would probably mean no more retail for me, but when I got the call about the temp job, I decided to pick up a few shifts here and there (and more as my full time job’s season started to wind down.) Despite being happy about the 'career' job, I’d been feeling pretty down for a while. I hadn’t ‘dated’ anyone in quite some time and felt like I had no time to see my friends with all of the ‘work, eat, sleep’ing I was doing. Most of my friends seem to have their shit together too, so it's been making me feel a little down about my life seeing everyone around me doing so well. It's not that I'm not happy for them, but it seems to set a standard with where I feel I should be, you know? Not to mention that I’m still a saddo who lives with her parents, so I was getting shit for not doing anything around the house or taking the dogs on the long hikes they used to get when I was ‘underemployed’. (I was out of the house 13+ hours a day, so it was hard to do much else...) Anyway, long story short, I started working with Mr. Thuglife again.....and he seemed more attractive to me than ever....
I decided to get over my dumb shyness and talk to the guy some more. Just friendly talk, buying each other coffee, making up silly inside jokes and flirting a lot. It was fun. I kinda liked him. I know I liked the attention. We decided to start spending time together outside work and exchanged phone numbers. That’s when the texting began. He was a textoholic, which is good because I am too. (I guess I'm part of the tech generation - I'd much rather text someone on and off throughout the day than pick up a phone and dedicate an hour to a conversation.) There were many, many red flags (he never called me from home, only from work and would text me lots while working, but when it was home time I’d barely hear from him, being warned about him by coworkers, among others.) He admitted he had kids, but said he wasn’t with the mother anymore. That doesn’t mean he wasn’t with someone else (or he wasn’t lying) but you know what? I didn’t care! If he was someone who could be around when I wanted him to, but not be completely emotionally available, then that was exactly what I was looking for. I know it sounds terrible, but I am looking for neither a boyfriend nor some casual sex fling - I’d like a happy medium. It isn’t even as complicated as it sounds, actually. Anyway, I decided to ignore all of the stupid red flags and go with the flow (I’m so damn easygoing, you see? hahaha)....
The job finally ended and the holidays arrived. During this time it was texttexttexttexttext.... neither of us had time to meet up, but we sure did keep contact. There were some late night conversations that got a little steamy. We eventually got together again and blahblahblah - things got intimate. The last time we were together, we got really drunk and had a wild night. It was fun, I was happy, he seemed happy. The next morning he texted me to tell me how much fun he'd had. I’ll spare you the details, but we texted back and forth all day and the next day, flirting and joking around with each other. The following day I didn’t hear from him, but the day after that, he texted me first thing actually apologizing for not talking to me the previous day. (It’s not like I expected him to...) We texted a lot that day and the day after until he left work that night. Our conversation never hit a low and nothing negative was said. It just tapered off like it often did in the evenings, so I thought nothing of it. Fast forward a few days - I hadn't heard from him, so I texted him and didn’t get a reply. It’s been a month now and I’ve still not heard from him (and know I won’t.) WHAT THE FUCK?!
Ok, so I know about that whole “He’s Just Not That Into You” thing and I’ve gotten the hint. (Even a complete idiot would.) He’s just not that into me, but you know what? I don’t actually care! What I care about is that he just suddenly stopped all contact. Who does that? Especially after all of that bloody texting and time invested in whatever it was we were doing. I mean, if you just wanted sex, why waste 4 days of your life texting some girl who you don’t give a shit about? It doesn’t make sense. If I hadn't heard from him after that last night together, it would have been so much clearer. That wasn't the case though, so I've been mindfucked.
I’ve been thinking about the situation a lot. Not because I had deep feelings for the guy (in all honesty, I barely knew him and I knew he was a shady character.) I saw no real future for us, nor did I want one. It’s more because he kicked me while I was down. I should have been smarter and thought ahead. Instead of thinking “hey - this guy could turn out to be a real asshole and make me feel worse about myself”, I just saw it as an opportunity to get a little nookie with someone I somewhat liked but didn’t have to get emotionally involved with. As terrible as it seems, I think I also thought of him a few notches below me, so it was an easy target/ego boost that I didn’t have to feel badly about if things went awry. I guess I didn't realize how vulnerable I still was. Little did I know that he would be the one to come out on top.
I know I'll see him again. Whether at that crappy job or just around town. I don't know what I'll do when the time comes. A civil hello? Awkward small talk? Completely ignore him? Hide from him? I just wish I could know why he was too cowardly to tell me that he didn't want to talk to me anymore, but I never will. I won't ask him and I doubt he'll ever willingly talk to me again.
Oh well. I’m sure he hasn’t thought of me for a single second since. I don’t care though. I’ve decided that I'm over it and I’m not going to let it bother me anymore. Time to better myself and move on....and be happy......
The moral of the story is don't trust a man with fake gold teeth. ;)
“If you could have relationships and end them with a simple handshake, would you?”
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