Charming, but single

Since my love life is leaving a lot to be desired, I’m going to listblog, so you’ll at least have something new to read.

Good things:

• It’s Friday.
• There’s potential for new boys, as I’m hanging out with a different crew
• tonight.
• My boss thinks I rule.
• It’s supposed to be beautiful this weekend. (Maybe I’ll jog outside instead ofat the gym. Or maybe not at all.)
• March Madness means lots of good basketball games this weekend.
• Feta cheese (Oh, the odd cravings I have.)

Bad things:

• Road rage
• Insomnia
• That stupid “Real Good Time” song by Pink
• Sunburn

Needless purchases I plan to make and justify by saying, “Hey, it was just payday”:

• One cute black purse (This time I’m buying it. Really.)
• Brown heels (I need these. It’s a crime of fashion to wear blackwith brownpants.)
• Several expensive drinks tonight
• A nice sushi dinner for me and a pal on Saturday
• New lipstick (It’s Spring)
• Some cute cubicle stuff (I spend too much time here for it to be ugly.)

Songs I am obsessed with this week:

• “Somebody” by Bonnie McKee
• “Waiting” by G Love
• “Vindicated” by Dashboard Confessional
• “Hard Candy” by Counting Crows
• “Hello” by Lionel Riche (damn Starburst commercial)
• “Diary” by Alicia Keys
• “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers

Goals for the weekend:

• Rest
• Get new blog design uploaded (Don’t hold your breath!)
• New blogroll
• Meet charming, but single, guys with bigger brains and smaller egos

I couldn’t get to sleep last night. I tossed and turned and rearranged pillows, but to no avail.

It was one of those nights where you just want someone else in bed with you — not for sex, but just to BE there for the sake of being there. Maybe there was something in the air. Maybe it was the beers I had at dinner with B. Maybe it was my bruised ego, or the talk of the perfect couples all around me.

It could even be that my bed felt so damn inviting last night and I didn’t want to squander it. I just melted into it and wanted to stay there for days, adrift in a sea of blankets and softness, swimming the bright blue sheets. I know I’m not the only one who has moments when my bed is the only place I want to be …

I just wanted someone else wrapped in my down comforter, head on my fluffy pillows, skin on my crisp sheets.

I love those sensations — the feeling of arms around you and the sound of rhythmic breathing and comfort of shared body heat. And the knowledge that someone’s going to be there in the morning, still holding you and fighting you for his share of the covers.

I shut my eyes well after midnight and 6 a.m. came too early. Once I fell asleep, it was peaceful and relaxing. But all day long I couldn’t shake that feeling from last night … the feeling of missed opportunities and aloneness.

So, apparently half of the people I know had, for a lack of a less-used word, drama at Saturday’s all evening drunkfest. Arguments! Jealousy! Indecent proposals! Random hook-ups!

I am too old for all of this.

I had dinner with B and some friends tonight before heading to a bar for a drink. I needed to unwind, and B is the perfect person to help you unwind, because I don’t think he has a tense bone in his body. It’s nice to be his friend — I’m glad that I was able to see the good in the bad of that situation, because I do cherish his friendship.

There is very little I could do or say that would surprise or shock B. I’ve poured my heart out to him so many times, yelled at him so many times and come onto him so many times that he is immune to me. So, maybe I’m the slightly crazy chick he’s friends with. So?

I didn’t mean to bring the T situation up, but he overheard me on the phone with a friend. I gave him a shortened version of the day and he reacted pretty much like everyone else. He couldn’t believe how rude T had been. He added, “I told you that guy was odd.”

He’s right.

You know, we always make fun of our married friends who stay in and cook dinner and get up early and do yardwork and other “boring” things. We mock them for acting old and not being wild and crazy and fancy free. But maybe Billy Crystal was right when, in When Harry Met Sally, he said, “When you find the person you want to spend the rest of your life with, you want the rest of your life to begin as soon as possible.”

I am so cheesy.

I think I’m just tired of the single marathon — the dinners and drinks and dates and group dates and hanging out and exchanging numbers and waiting for calls and finding outfits and shaving legs and blah blah blah.

I had a long talk with my best friend from high school on Sunday. She’s just cut it off with her most recent beau. (Poor girl has terrible luck with men.)

She asked about my family and we talked about my younger brother, who is in one of these great healthy relationships with the woman of his dreams. She asked me if I ever looked at him and other happy couples and was angry and jealous that I didn’t have that.

Obviously, I have. I’m not going to say I’m not jealous of people in happy relationships and angry that I’ve been pretty much metaphorically running into brick walls with every new man I encounter. I look around sometimes and wonder if I overslept the day everyone paired off.

She said she tries to focus on the good, positive things in her life — a job, friends, family. But she’s also turned to home repair projects to take her focus off of the stress that is dating. She’s a real whiz with a paint brush, and her roommates love it. Maybe it’s the thing about the watched pot and the boiling.

I think I have a dresser that needs to be refinished …

I’d like to sugarcoat the story I’m about to tell, but I’m at a loss of how to do so. I can’t spin it and make it sound better, nor can I frame it with enough caveats to make a certain guy’s behavior acceptable.

Saturday (yesterday) was a huge all-day party that a guy friend of mine gives every year. (We did this sort of thingt more when we were all still in school. Being an adult tends to take its toll on your social life.) This year’s party was at a bar, where the juice and the beer were free for us for several hours. We took advantage of these no-cost drinks, and the party quickly went from fun to ridiculously fun. (For awhile.)

This is the party where I was to see T, who has been calling me for two weeks without asking me out. T, who has been flirting with me and joking about needing to control himself around me. T, who, by all accounts, dragged me out of this same bar on New Year’s Eve, and couldn’t even make the two-block walk to his apartment without stopping to press me against a fence or parked car and kiss me full on the mouth several times.

In fact, you could even go out on a limb and say that T, even though he’s begun to act less taken with passion and more traditional and even shy, has been sending signals that he liked me.

But you would be wrong.

I was with some friends when T walked in. I resisted the urge to run over to him and wrap my arms around him and hug him. I remembered that I needed to hang back and let him come to me. I heeded the advice of numerous people to not just throw myself out there and be so available. So I pulled back, waiting for my Martian rubber band to snap back.

He walked over to where I was and said something to a friend I was standing (literally) right next to. She answered and I said something. Never looking at or acknowledging me, he said something and walked away.

I was stunned. My friend gave me this horrified look and another commented, “Um, was that the first of many awkward silences of the day?”

I tried to put it out of my head. Perhaps he wasn’t ready to talk to me, I rationalized. The boy’s been known to act odd and shy, so I tried not to freak out and tried to enjoy myself.

But he talked to every other person in the bar last night. He flirted with half of the women in the bar and carried on like he was having a wonderful time. He did ask me if I’d seen someone, addressing me by my name, as if to acknowledge that he did, in fact, know exactly who I was.

It was humiliating. My friends know he’s been calling. His friends know he’s been calling. Half of the party witnessed our New Year’s makeout session or heard rumors of our bathroom romp at a previous party. Everyone who knew me kept giving me these confused sympathetic looks that just made me more upset.

Drinking did not help things. I had several beers and some punch. T was drinking like crazy — he drank only Guinness (not free) and probably had a 12-pack himself. He was drunk. Unattractively drunk. He was falling all over himself flirting with everything that moved, save me.

I gave him opportunities to talk to me and even tried to spark a conversation once when I was getting a new drink at the bar. Nothing. He looked as if he’d sooner die than speak to me. You would have thought that he either didn’t know me or absolutely hated me. His demeanor chilled me to the bone and left me more upset than angry, more disappointed than furious.

Then, things got worse and he tipped the scales from hurt to anger. I was attempting to have a non-T-related conversation with some friends when some song came on and a very intoxicated T leapt up from his barstool and pulled a woman to him and began dancing with her. (This wasn’t a dancing type of party.) He spun her around and dipped her and they danced while she squealed with delight.

I almost fell out of my chair. The conversation at the table died down, because it was next to impossible to ignore this spectacle.

But I had to try to not notice or to at least look like I didn’t care. I pulled out my cell phone and tried very quickly to think of someone to call. As I dialed the number of a friend (who was also at the party) and tried to look cool, I saw T look over at me. We locked eyes for a few seconds and then he dipped the drunk woman he was dancing with, as if to punctuate some sort of silent communication between the two of us. I wanted to not exist. It is one thing to want to avoid someone and something completely different to make a point that you are not talking to them and having a great time doing so.

My friend picked up her phone, confused as to why I would call her from across the bar. I told her to turn around. She let out an audible gasp as she turned and saw T engaged in his little Dirty Dancing moment. She rushed over to talk to me.

My feelings of disappointment quickly became feelings of rage. I was seething mad, because there is no reason for a 27-year-old adult to act in such a childish way. I don’t care how me drinks he’d had. He was being an ass. A HUGE ass.

I blurted out plans to my friend. “I’m going to walk over and yell,” I said. “I’m going to yell at him and embarrass him and make sure that no woman in this bar would even THINK of speaking to him.”

She stopped me and pointed out that “Drunk Yelling Woman” was not an attractive role to fill. I offered up another plan, one where I called his voicemail and left him a message that said, “T, this is S. You know my number? Forget it and forget that I ever gave it to you or hooked up with you or spoke to you.” My friend assured me this fell into the category of “Drunk Yelling Woman” and another pointed out that after a guy called her and said that same thing, we referred to him as “Psycho Boy” for months.

My third plan was to pull him aside and say, “Hi, did I do something that caused you not to speak to me all day?” My friends rejected this as well, saying I could not let him know that I cared.

The party continued. We watched some basketball and drank and had a good time. I was pissed, but trying to keep my seething internalized, because I wanted to have a good time. T was so drunk that he was stumbling everywhere. I did get up the nerve to go speak to him, and our conversation went like this:

S: Hi. What’s up?
T: Watching this pool game.
S: So, um, what’s been going on?
T: I think you know what’s been going on.
S: Ok, so, you’re dangerously loaded. [Motions to Guinness] How many of these have you had?
T: I don’t keep count.
S: Well, maybe you should.

And then I walked away. Seriously. Terrible.

T started flirting with some women I knew, but not very well. When he bounced over to a new woman, I stole his barstool and told them the situation. They were appalled, and one even reached over, softly slapped the back of his head and said, “T! What the hell are you doing?” He looked confused and went back to his new woman.

They played songs on the jukebox. I am not sure which songs were theirs, but when “Perfect Blue Buildings” by Counting Crows came on, it pushed me over the edge. Counting Crows is one of my favorite bands and “Perfect Blue Buildings” is one of the most perfect songs ever written about being miserable in your own skin and just wanting to become oblivious to what’s making you upset. I lost myself in the song and the drinks I’d had, until a friend leaned over and said, “S, let me take you to the bathroom.” One of the women we were sitting with grabbed a napkin and very slyly wiped something off of my cheek.

It was a tear.

And THAT, my friends, was the end of T being in my life. I allow people to make mistakes. But in my years of dating, I’ve learned one thing. The ones who make you cry generally aren’t worth crying over.

(Note from S: I’m on lots and lots and lots of cold medication right now … LOTS. I don’t even know if this makes sense … it’s all very free form and mixed up. Sorry!)

So, T called to chat Sunday evening.

I’ve been holding on out you! I’m such a tease!

Actually, I wasn’t feeling well Sunday and by that evening I felt like crap. By Monday I was feeling even worse, which brings me to today, and, folks, my voice is almost completely gone. So, I haven’t been holding out on you. I’ve been ill.

I don’t feel terrible anymore — my throat is sore and my voice is gone, but I generally feel ok, which is odd. I’m a bit concerned because I have some meetings later this week — including one that I have to lead on Friday. Maybe I’ll mime it.

Anyway, back to T. He called around 5 p.m. He didn’t seemed phased by my drunk dial, which means he’s either a realist or the message wasn’t nearly as bad as I sort of remembered it. Regardless, he wasn’t in town when I called — he went home for the second weekend in a row. (To me this is odd because he asked about what was going on in town when I talked to him last Wednesday … why do that if you were going home, which is like two or three hours away? Maybe he’s a procrastinator.)

Now, I can’t fault him for going home. I have a big family and I’m very close to my family members, even though I couldn’t be more different from them and they drive me crazy at times. I’m spoiled that I live very near to my family and can see random aunts and cousins and grandparents and parents and siblings whenever I want.

But, he’s driving me crazy with his noncommittal attitude . He’s so flirty when he calls! He makes references to us hanging out … and then, NOTHING. So bizarre. I don’t know about the rest of the world, but I don’t call people I don’t like and flirt with them for a half hour.

Seriously.

Anyway, we talked about my evening Saturday night and he was quick to ask if I’d hooked up with anyone. (He’s asked this before when we’ve talked about our weekends.) I told him I hadn’t and commented on the age and quality of the men there and he joked that I needed to lower my standards. “Come down off of your pedestal, princess,” he joked when I described one dorky guy who did air guitar on stage by himself like he was Bon Jovi.

Now, I don’t know if T just thinks I’m, um, friendly — which he totally could, especially considering our past relations — or if he’s just lacking confidence. Both thoughts drive me crazy. I wanted to snap back, “And what if I did hook up? What would you do? Not see me? OH WAIT!”

Anyway, the conversation was unsettling. When we talk, I think he likes me, but as soon as I hang up the phone, I always think, “What the hell?” He noticed my raspy voice on Sunday and commented that I sounded like I was getting sick. (Which I denied, because I like to try to talk my body out of illness.) He said, “Well, I’ll have to control myself around you, then. You may be contagious.”

I wanted to yell, “YOU’D HAVE TO BE IN THE SAME ROOM AS ME TO CATCH MY COLD!”

Ah, the rub.

Now, if I ever get better, T and I will be in close proximity for most of Saturday, when a mutual friend of ours is throwing a huge all-day party. (He has one every Spring.) T will definitely be there. We’ve talked about it and how much fun it’ll be. T and I hooked up after the past two parties this friend has thrown and I have no doubt that he’ll try to go three for three.

I’m so put off by the whole situation right now. I like the guy, but I hate being toyed with. I don’t even think he’s doing it on purpose — I think some of it is lacking confidence, which is very unattractive. I want to give him a chance to show me that he’s interested, but I’m more than slightly concerned that he’s not. And if he IS interested, I’m less than thrilled by his inability to express this interest in a normal way (I.e. A friggin’ date).

I will be honest. I wish I could say I’d be strong and not flirt with him and not kiss him and whatnot on Saturday. That would make me a liar. If we’re both there, I’m going to flirt and kiss and snuggle and revel. And he will too. I have no doubt. We’ll be drinking and hanging out and I’ll forget about all of the uneasiness I have about the situation, because we’ll be lost in conversation about a book or something. And I’ll convince myself that he feels the connection that I do, when all both of us is really feeling is intoxication.

I just have to keep reminding myself that what happens in Saturday is not necessarily indicative of our standing. It means nothing, because he’s still going to be awkward and noncommittal.

Remembering this is key. I should, like, write it on my hand or something.