Diabolical blow by the EX.

The Ex.  I keep him locked away as that poor unfortunate 7 years of our lives.  I feel guilt for being the crazy person I was.  I felt anger at the lazy unresponsive momma's boy he tended to be.  But all and all, I hoped he was happy, because he really was my first true love.

	true love
	A feeling where you cannot bare to be apart from a certain person for long, where you can clearly picture their face in your mind, where you know you can tell them anything and they will listen, where you don't need to have sex or alcohol to make a night special and just being in each others company makes you forget your troubles. True love is when the person you love unconditionally feels the same way about you, where you know you can trust each other and never want to be with anyone else ever again. It can be instant 'love at first sight' and can also grow over time. When i first saw you i knew you were special, not i know i have found my true love. http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=first+true+love   Start at the beginning.   I was working at a strip club as a waitress/concierge.  Get your mind out of the gutter, it was fairly clean.  Anyway, the EX had worked there before me and was still friends with the bosses.  He taped shows for my manager and came in to hang out a few times.  To me, at 19, he looked old.  I mean to any 19 year old a 24 year old dude looks old.  He would come in, stand as far away from my concierge desk as possible and chit chat.  I was a bit keen for my age and knew what he wanted.  My manager used to watch me on video and make fun of his attempted flirting.  Well, one night he brings me a king sized Snickers with all the innuendo and I just go blunt, as I am less want to be than now.   "So, are you going to ask for my number or hang out against the wall all night?"   He did, and we got together.  It was sad really.  He didn't know how to date, I wasn't patient enough to teach him.  The only thing we had going was sex after hours, and I was getting really sick of only knowing how to be sexual with a guy.  At that young, stupid age I thought love was possible.  I went back to my Air Force Guy who had that air of being naughty but devotion to who I was, rather than my sexuality.  I wanted connection.  I wanted sustenance.  I was a drowning girl who needed to be loved.   Shortly after Air Force Guy demolished my heart (don't feel bad for me, I get revenge later) I reached out to to the EX as friends.  We went down to the new Tempe Town Lakes and there next to the water he told me in the most laid back way possible, that he would be friends with me and that would mean so much...   And we were friends for a couple months.  We played the card game War, at which point I lost and showed how much like my lovely mother I can be about losing  I believe at one point I stood on his neck, but definitely pinned him to the ground by both arms with my feet and made him cry mercy.  Whenever it would start to get tense, I would call a friend to pick me up.   Eventually I said "what the hell" and started sleeping with him again.  I made it very clear we were not dating.  Then I got him a husky for Christmas.  Fucking dog was awesome, but hell on earth. I might as well have given birth for all the blood and grief she brought us.  But we loved her.  Together.  Before saying we loved each other.  He calmly waited.  Then it got irritating to say he was "the guy I was seeing" so I called him my boyfriend.    And what became a normal January moving forward, I couldn't bare it any more.  I felt like I was settling and getting nowhere.  My life had gone from dancing to college drop out due to panic attack.  Life as a waitress at a strip club

 days a week, working at a Lube Shop during the day, back to college and dance, teaching kids and feeling like I was too fucked up to be a role model.......  It came pouring down on me, 

Air Force Guy was back in town and that definitely made me go crazy.

I dumped the EX. 

I was so exhausted buy my 80hour work week I would come to the crap apartment I shared with pothead who had an affinity for black guys you could pick up at gas stations after dark, and pass into a coma.  I could not open my eyes if the brick shithole had been on fire.  Then, there he was sitting over me.  Shaking my shoulders that we needed to talk.  All the caffeine in heaven could not have made me respond.  He told me he love me.  Wanted more than anything to be with me.

Messed up pattern after messed up pattern we kept getting back together.  He would fuck up, then me.  It was all that youth drama pouring out of us.

Last weekend I went to LA to visit my sis and her hubby for her birthday.  I haven't actually seen Meghan on her birthday in years, maybe decades.  I have been feeling more depressed at my life than I have since I was 19, having panic attacks and driving off roads because I couldn't breath.  It is different but the same dark cloud of uncertainty.  Where am I going?
But being with them always helps.

At Disneyland, I tried not to think about my last two trips there with the Principal, or the one before that with the EX.  Unexpectedly, Meghan asked about the EX.  I told her he moved to Colorado, and joked about my stupid phone call to him a few months earlier.  He adored our dog Cutter, as anyone in their right mind would.  I had been rubbing Cutter's belly and instinctively called the EX.  He responded the next day in an acerbic text, but relented a few days later with questions on how everyone was doing.

Meghan laughed, it was so Ex to be that way.  I recalled how I had wanted him to be more well read when I was 20, so he bought a book of love poems for us to read in bed- completely oblivious to the fact that reading them aloud mortified me.  The one time he had taken me to a restaurant where they had fine diner and dancing, but he couldn't dance to save his life.  How he made dinner at his place and selected the romantic channel so we could dance after desert.  Or how he used to let me climb him like a monkey in my early dancing days so I could show him how a partner had to react on stage.

Or how after the final time we broke and he moved out and hadn't spoken a word in 3 months he stepped out of a busy bar to take my frantic phone call about how my dad had almost died and I was so sorry I had never asked him how it felt when his father had gone through triple bypass when he was 19.  How in the declining months of my father's health, the EX had taken the animals when I needed to focus on work and family hospital visits.  Visited dad at the hospital when he was dying.  Had fed me my favorite Mexican food while I cried in his lap after my dad was given his last rites.  Had made love to me, with no expectations of rekindling, but because I needed it.  Came to see me at the condo where our relationship met its demise, to comfort me by caressing my head and telling me my father loved me.  Coming to the funeral, too hands off for my liking.  For taking walks with me as I tried to exercise more.  For taking me into his arms that last time and kissing me passionately, though I was too far gone, and telling me to take that into consideration.  He said he always pictured, some day, walking down the street we would run into each other and it would happen.  We would be together again.  Then months later, watching my dog and cat and my mother's animals while we went to Iowa, coming to jump my car at the airport when I was hysterical and couldn't cope.  Giving me his car to take to work the next day so he could get mine fixed for me while keeping all the beasts.  For picking me up at a bar some months later with just a call saying I needed him, and holding me all night long without trying for more......\

No, I did not say all of this to my sister and brother in law, but it got my mind thinking.  Meghan said she always thought we would have worked if we had met later in life, after all the crazy days had been worn out of us.  Instead, we had endured that together.  I rather thought we had inflicted it on each other.  I told her I felt like such a shit girlfriend, all the things I did to him.  All the things I took for granted.  But she just laughed, it was meant to be at the time.  Wrong timing.

I told her I hoped he was happy.  I hoped he had found love.  And I really meant it.

For some stupid, unfuckingthinkable reason I looked at his Facebook a week later.  On his timeline it said he had gotten married a week ago.  My whole world shifted.  I was punched in the gut by an invisible gremlin.  I couldn't think beyond texting my sister and Ange.  I was sobbing uncontrollably.  It was mostly disbelief that I had to acknowledge that this very long timeline had come to an end.  He was forever out of my reach.  Guilt at all I had put him through.  Despair that I had not been the one.

But beyond all of that, I was happy that he was not like me.  Not stuck in a pattern, but could find true happiness.  I didn't envy him.  I was thankful he was finally appreciated as he should be.  When you truly love someone, you wish them that even as your heart breaks into 84,000 pieces.

The next day at work one of my guys told me I looked good, like I was tired and didn't care but it worked for me.  I told him what I learned the night before and he hit on me.  I may not care, but I still can shoot you down.

The weeks following this painful revelation have taken its toll on my liver and I am ready to move on. 

One word of caution:
To you who have married my EX.. Make him happy or I will return to my 19 year old persona of going ape-shit crazy.  I am bigger and stronger now.  I am completely capable of ripping every strand of hair from your homely assed head, beating your face and I will make sure your teeth are so broken when you swallow them that your ass will bleed in reminder of the pain you have caused one of the nicest men I have known in my entire life. 

And that is all I have to say about that.

Deaf, Dumb and Blind?

I get it that women are the ones who over-analyze, pick things apart looking for a deeper meaning.  But men can't be completely oblivious.  Can they?

I have explained my situation with Scotty to Chloe, who was dumbfounded by the fact he would invite me to meet his family when I have cooled off considerably.  We haven't discussed any feelings or relationship equators.  By the end of September, when he plans to take me to meet parents, we will have been non-exclusively dating for 5 months.....  It makes no freaking sense.  Here I am, wanting to bring things to an end and he thinks we should plan vacation? 

Chloe shared my head scratching at this puzzle.  There is something rotten in the state of Denmark.  Is he turning a blind eye because he wants someone to hang out with?  Does he just not see the signs?  Can he believe this is really how relationships progress?

Last week when we drove to Payson for the day I was talking about age and feeling like I have come to the realization that it is all ver for me. I have reached the age where there is little to no hope of getting married, having a family...  Those options are fading away.  Scotty scoffed, tried to reassure me that I had plenty of time.  I kept waiting for him to put two and two together- I'm talking about not finding anyone while I'm travelling with you!  Alarm bells!  Talk about the future.

That would have been too easy for me.  I could have segued into my flawless monologue about how we haven't gotten closer.....

With our empty, repetitive texting and run of the mill conversation.... (I talk about the fucking weather!  I hate when people talk about their own weather like they can't just walk outside and figure it the fuck out on their own?  No, I need a male to text me about it?  Should I just say I don't care when weather comes up.  It shouldn't b this hard. Sigh.)

...There aren't any emotions other than friendship developing.  (If he was only my friend I could tell him how much it irritates me when he baby talks to his cat.  Or over-annunciates my cat's name because I corrected him after three months of him not getting it right.  He would text "How is drago?" and I would respond "Draco is an asshole." Yet he would continue to spell it wrong an pronounce it sharply "Dra-Go".  So now, he says Dra-CO very, very pointedly and  I want to choke the living shit out of him right after I rake my eyeballs out.)

But no, Scotty doesn't seem to notice he is bothering me.  He doesn't see we are not swooning over one another.  He doesn't hear my monotone side of the conversation, or understand when I do not laugh at his not funny attempts at humor.  This cannot be beneficial for him in anyway...... Yet, there he is.  Still texting me.  I think the guy just needs something to do.

Another one bites the dust

After much strained communication with Scotty, it is finally over.  A few weeks ago I had strengthened my resolve to throw that fish back in the sea, even role played with Chloe on how to say it right.

"I don't feel like this is working for me.  We shouldn't see each other anymore."  And other such stuff.

I invited him over for dinner, planning to have the talk but he pushed it back to the weekend.  I was irritated that I would have to endure 3 more days of worrying about it, not to mention all the same texts over and over and over again.

Friday night arrived and we went to dinner at Pita Jungle again, because he knows I like that place and was trying to be accommodating.  I talked non-stop about all the documentaries I had been watching, so it wasn't all that awkward....  Back at my house he pinned me against the refrigerator and was trying to passionately kiss me.  I kept pushing him back, but he was forceful.  I shoved at him and said I didn't want to make out.  He insisted that he did.  He didn't understand why I never wanted to kiss him any more.  We sat down on the couch and I started.

"When we would make out before, you would take it as far as you could and I would have to be the one to keep things in check.  It was exhausting and frustrating.  I got to the point that is was much easier not to make out with you than to have to over think it constantly."

"We should have talked about that."

"We did.  It didn't change until I felt I had been mean enough about it."

"Well, I don't want you to feel that way.  You were never mean.  I'm sorry I wasn't doing my part."

"It's ok.  I just don't feel like we're where we should be emotionally for having dated four months."

I kept feeling like it was closing but apparently he felt like we were opening up.  This guy just wants to be with someone. 

Our texts died away over the weekend and after an entire day without any I thought he may have finally realized what I was talking about.  As much as I hated to do it, I texted him.

Me: This isn't working, is it?

Scotty: Doesn't seem that way.  I have just kind of given up.

Me:  I'm sorry it didn't work out.

Scotty: No need to be sorry.

Now all he is concerned with is getting his pressure cooker back.  He offers to come pick it up, I offer to drop it off.  He has to control where the stupid pot is exchanged.  For two weeks the when and where of getting rid of this thing resulted in a text asking me to place it behind my garbage can and he would pick it up after work.  Was it so terribly awkward that he doesn't ever want to see me again?  This was a bit ridiculous.

So I texted him that I understood if he didn't want to see me but this was feeling a little weird.  I would drop it off at his place, and if he wasn't home I would put it in the alcove by his door.  Of course he texted back immediately that it wasn't that he didn't want to see me, was just trying to make things easier.  On who?

Whatever possessed me, I checked Facebook and sure enough he had de-friended me.  Apparently, it was to make things easier on him.

The Boring Life

Ok, so it seems that romance novels and witty comedy movies have it all wrong.  Dating sucks.  It is a myriad of disappointments and confusion that do not ALWAYS have a happy ending.

I have been seeing Scotty for a few months now.  At first it was all making out.  Then the texts with "babe", "sweetie", and other such nonsense emerged.  It appeased my loneliness.  Made me get out of the house more.  Gain weight by eating out more often.  He is jokey and fun.  But my resolve to wait to have sex did not move.  I wanted to feel an emotional connection before pursuing the erotic.  And it was making my vagina sad.

Every time we would get together there would be intense kissing, which leads to groping which leads to me putting my foot down and drawing lines.  And while he said he respects me for it, he keeps pushing.  I became the police.  It made my vagina disappear.  My sexual hunger for him vanished and try as I might, I haven't been able to get it back.

After a very pleasant make out he slipped into "third base" and I lost control.  I said what the hell, but he backed off.  It happened again, then again, and I tried to talk about feelings.  "I like hanging out with you and seeing where this is going".  Ok, that translates to absolutely nothing.  The next time it happens and we very nearly have sex, he pulls back again.  No condom.  I try again with the "how do you feel about me, where is this going" and got the same answer as before at which point I lose all hope of ever getting laid again.

I had enough.  If Scotty was waiting to see where this is going he can stay on "first base" like a good little boy.  I was starting to feel idiotic with my attempts to keep it PG. 

In June I met his best friends, a couple.  I liked her, but the male half was a dick.  I cried quietly in the bathroom twice that night feeling like I didn't belong.

For the 4th of July I was lucky enough to have my sister and brother-in-law coming to town.  I planned a pool party with BBQ and invited my mom and her friend.  Start scene:  My sis and BIL meet Scotty, we cut veggies and wait for my lovely mother to show.  I warn my sis that I told mom to be there around two, which meant she would be there at two and we need to show some sign of work has been done otherwise she will bitch.  I have been cleaning frantically so she won't criticize my house.  Scotty keeps saying "Would she really make a big deal about that?"  Yes, that is what she does, how she works, what she lives for!  Doesn't he have a mother?

As we chop, the clock on the stove turns to 2pm and the doorbell rings.  Meghan laughs, Scotty's eyebrows hit the roof.  In enters my lovely mother with two bags full of her cats.  We put them down and the newest one, Emma is screaming like a banshee.  I put her in the kitchen where she continues to yowl.  My mom is yelling and talking and walks straight into the kitchen where Scotty is still chopping and screams "Shut the hell up!" to Emma. 

"Mom, I'd like you to meet Scotty."  She turns white.

The rest of the day went ok.  It rained, so there was no swimming.  I kept trying to get Scotty's tongue out of my ear, which was no longer turning me on but irritating me to the point I considered "accidentally" stabbing him with a fork.  I mean, he isn't my boyfriend and even if he was I don't think my family wants to see him trying to impale my ear.

After he left, Meghan inquired about the situation.  My response: We are dating and having fun.  We'll see where it goes.  And said no more.  Which isn't me.  This isn't me.  I'm not really me anymore.

The rest of the week was great, I got to yoga with Jeff and Meggie, make dinner, talk, swim.  Meghan surprised me by painting my bedroom.  Mom came back and I did not kill her (it was a close call though.)  I was so sad after they left.  Walking out of yoga I tried to talk to my instructor and was left feeling like I shouldn't have.  I walked to my car in tears, wondering when I became so inept at social interaction.

My loneliness had not been abated, it had been distracted.  Now it was back in full force.  Slamming into me with a dark cloud of depression.

I continued to see Scotty, but I was aloof.  His joking manner became less banter and more of a recap of every ridiculous thing I have ever done in his presence or disclosed.  If we brought up dinner, he would tease me about how I caught the crock pot on fire when I made eggplant pasta.  If I tripped over something, it was tease-fest about how I am constantly clumsy.  If I told him not to stick his tongue in my ear, he did it more and laughed.  If I was hungry he made fun of my love for pizza, why wasn't I eating pizza, was I going to get pizza?  It was as if he prerecorded sound bites of a select things for him to remember about me and used them over and over in an arsenal of what was becoming patronizing jokes. 

One night he asks if I will go with him to buy an IPhone then to dinner.  I recommend Espo's, great Mexican.  He counters with another place.  Sigh.  Whatever.  I don't really care.  I thought he understood my punctuality, or lack there of.   No, Scotty wants me to be ready AT 7pm, even though I don't get home until 6:30 and have to feed the animals who have been cooped up all day and take a shower.  I leave out the shower.  He could have gone and gotten his phone without me while I was still at work.  After and hour and a half at Sprint, Espo's is closing and we go to Chili's instead.  He mocks me for putting his phone bags under the seat.  It finally irritates me. 

"Fine.  If you want someone to break into your car I will set them back out in the open again.  I was only trying to help."  He is making me feel stupid every time I open my mouth.

Then it was a debate.  Whatever I would try to discuss he would turn around.  He called me a know it all when I would try to have intelligent conversation.  Finally, we achieved the correction stage.  We had planned to go to Whole Foods for dinner and a beer followed by some organic shopping.  The day we had agreed to go he texts me and asks me what I want to do for date night.  Ummm, I thought we were doing the before mentioned?  Every time we made plans he questioned them, making me question whether or not he wanted to do something different.  It was exhausting!  Well, he wanted to know if I was sure.  Yes, I was sure.  And blah, blah, blah.

I really just wanted to stay home at this point.

So, Scotty picks me up.  On the way to the store I strike up conversation about how I have been to Whole Foods a couple times for happy hour.

 "A couple?  How many is a couple?"  I know where this is going and internally roll my eyes.

"Four, maybe five times."  He starts laughing and pats my knees.  Thank God there are no sharp objects.

"That is more than a couple, babe"  He really thinks this is funny.

"Sorry.  I have been there a few times then."  He continues to laugh and tell me it's ok.

As we walk into the bustling store he continues to correct me and I call him out on it.  We look at all the food, and of course he makes a point to say how I will get pizza.  I don't.  He decides he doesn't want beer and we can just sit someplace else.  I gawk at him.  I wanted a beer.  They have cool beer here. But I grab a soda and can barely look at him while we eat. 

The grocery shopping was just as painful.  He grabbed a cart and told me to share when I attempted to pick up a basket.  Meanwhile, he and the cart took off wherever he wanted to go while I read up on stuff before grabbing it and I was left carrying a bunch of vegetables in my arms and missing the stuff I had wanted to buy because he wanted to move more quickly.

On the short drive home he corrected me again about something and I lost it.  I told him how it made me feel, and when he started to angry I thought "Yes!" this is my moment to end this, whatever it is.  But he quickly regained his composure and said he didn't want to have that type of relationship with me.  This isn't a relationship. This is dating.

And so it began.  My downward spiral into feeling nothing.  We hang out and I can't wait for it to be over.  He is nice enough, but there is nothing there.  I am beginning to think there never will be anything ever with anyone.  There may never be a happily ever after.

This leads me to my current situation.  Scotty and I have been weekend hiking up in Sedona and Payson, but each time I thought I could have done it on my own.  Even craved it.  I need to break things off, but how do you break up with someone when you're not even officially going out?

Today he texted me that he wants me to go with him to meet his family in the end of September.  I have yet to respond.  I can't do this anymore!

Uncertainty

Do you ever get the feeling there is a word, or sentence, or a paragraph sitting on the edge of your tongue waiting to jump? It can't simply fall, because that would be natural.  Gravity forcing the weightiness behind your word to take the plunge.  A force of nature all its own compelling the conversation as if from destiny's own shove.  No, my words always have to jump.  My will behind them, carving my own path.  My words are eager to commit their own verbal suicide because my mind refuses to hold on to them any longer.  Jump, and find out what lays beyond...

Some days, I can resist a little bit.

I am excited by the prospect of a new beginning with my most recent Match.com guy.  I will call him Scotty, due to the fact he's first generation American from Scottish parents.  I will feel free to change the before mentioned name at any time he presents something more apt to call him by.

Even though I really want to see him, a new concept for me, I am waiting until our next date.  Even though the perilous words at the tip of my tongue are there, hopping up and down to do a swan dive out into the ether.... "Why don't we get together for some frozen yogurt tonight instead of waiting until tomorrow?"  But that would be unnatural for me. Too forward.  Implying something more, right?

I have let loose a few texts about how into Scotty I am without being a complete sap.  We have only been out once.  It would be asinine to insinuate I am looking forward to weekend hikes or watching movies cuddled up on a couch.  Did 30 fry my brain?  Have I had a stroke?  I do not think like this and I am going to ruin everything if I don't keep these little cliff-hanger words in their place.

At the evil place of work, I was so bored I turned on Facebook and was rewarded with an IM from BP.  We messaged back and forth a couple weeks ago and I wondered if he suddenly got bored with whatever distraction that had made him forget about me.  It was benign.  Yet still hours later, at home, those words laced with question marks were marching around my mouth eager to kamikaze into space. 

Why did BP just stop pursuing me?  What had I done wrong (besides sleep with him)?

Sitting here on my patio, staring at my phone while waiting for Scotty to call me after his run, I was possessed with the need to know why BP still IM'd me, acting like nothing ever happened. And I began the slow decent:

Me: Hey there

BP: New phone.   No contacts.  Help me out here.  (This was exactly what I use when I delete someone from my phone, am contacted again by them, and don't want to text that)

Me:  Ha.  Kate

BP:  New phone yesterday.  No idea how to swap contacts.  What's up.

Me:  Technology is a tricky thing.  Just thought I'd say hi.  (At this point, the words are receding back into my throat toward the hollow place in my stomach)

BP.  Well hello. What are you up to?

I say I'm doing the usual, he says he's hanging out with friends.  I say have fun.

BP:  You should come down and have a drink with me.  (Interpretation: Since you are lonely enough to contact me, drive 30 minutes to my house to have uncomfortable sex)

Me:  It's a little late.  (Interpretation: Gee thanks for thinking of me.  Ass.)

He insists it is not late, I insist that it is.  Maybe some other time, but thanks for the invite.

BP:  You look too deep into things.  Wasn't looking for anything crazy.

Me:  I didn't think that you were.  (If by not crazy you mean I could drive all the way down to have a couple of beers, be contorted into freakish positions while you had your way at my body- I won't even say with because somehow I always managed to feel conspicuously absent- and then have the option of driving home very late at night or very early in the morning)

BP:  So I'll be sitting home alone, and so will you.  Shame.

Me:  Such is life.  We get used to it eventually, right?  (Meaning: It hasn't bothered you before.)

More texts about how we need to live a little, he's all for spur of the moment.

Me: Is that why you're always out doing wild and crazy things?

BP:  I don't do much.  I just jump at opportunities.

Me: Ah, so jumping at the opportunity to have someone drive 30 minutes to keep you company? (Sounds like you're more trying to take advantage)  Btw, didn't you get a puppy?

BP:  I'd drive 30 minutes to keep you company if needed.  (Was that all it would have taken?  Because there were several months where I could've used the company)  Puppy has been put on hold.

Me:  How come?  The puppy I mean

BP:  Haven't found the right one

And I found that the perfect place to stop responding to him.  I'm sure he will never realize the perfect alignment of his half-assed hook-up attempt and the fact that it has taken him 5 months to commit to a puppy he promised his daughter for Christmas.  Maybe he doesn't feel the reason those words are dying to escape from his mouth.  Maybe he doesn't see that he doesn't want anyone or anything for companionship when he can just take advantage of certain opportunites.  Just like he didn't see how ridiculous he looked, or sounded, when he was kissing me all over saying "What are you worried about, Kate?  That I won't call you in the morning?" then faded away into nothing.

And I never had to ask why he just stopped seeing me.  It no longer mattered.  The words that had been so eager to be spoken, had their questions answered.

What I Want

I want someone who will be monogamous and nice to his mother. And I want someone who likes musicals, but knows to just shut his mouth when I’m watching “Lost.” And I want someone who thinks being really into cars is lame, and strip clubs are gross. I want someone who will actually empty the dishwasher instead of just taking out forks as needed - like I do. I want someone with clean hands and feet and beefy forearms, like a damned Disney prince. And I want him to genuinely like me. Even when I’m old. And that’s what I want.
- Liz Lemon, 30 Rock

This is what I want.  Someone who will love me even when I look like an Irish potato farmer after hot yoga.  Who doesn't mind the fact that I want to wear sweats to the grocery store or expect me to look like a Victoria's Secret model when I go to bed and understands that just poking me in the back with his "thing" does not make me get all hot and bothered.

I want someone who thinks about me as much as I think about them.  Loves my crooked teeth and white skin.  Who I can call to say "I miss you" but not be obligated to spend every waking hour together.  I want someone to snuggle, hug, kiss and do dirty things to when the mood strikes but doesn't need me to wash his clothes.  Someone who likes to do yard work, can hold a conversation without having to check his phone or Sports Center, and wants to call me when he hears a stupid joke.

It really isn't a lot to ask.

I'm Back!

Ok, so again I conveniently forgot to cancel my Match.com membership.  Auto-pay is a bitch in any industry apparently. That being said, I started scanning again, still uninterested in the prospect of any man but feeling like I should put myself out there just in case.  But let's get real...  This is never going to happen.

New guy winks at me, sends me an email asking if we should start right off with a 20 questions game.  He's pretty funny so I bite. I mean, I'm not doing anything else right now and this might be a welcome distraction from doing other things like fixing my pool, doing yard work or cleaning the house.  The email-palooza begins!  I shoot him 5 questions, he comes back with answers and questions, I respond with answers to my own questions, his questions, more questions!  It is highly entertaining!  I am laughing!  What the hell is going on here?

It seems like eventually, but is really only after about two days, he sent me his phone number.  Our emails turn to texts.  He's funny, smart, quick witted, and best of all he thinks I am the same.  After a particularly crappy day at work, the one where Work Guy's Girlfriend comes in to make a domestic appearance and I spill tea all over myself, I went home to drown my sorrows in beer.  New Match Guy is texting me like crazy and after about 4 bottles I think "Why the hell doesn't he just call me?"  So I call him.

He was laughing when he answered the phone, knowing full well I was having a beer night.  We talked for two hours, me being hilariously witty (or at least thinking I am) and he egging me on.  We have a very similar sense of humor, which is scary.  He recently took in a cat his co-worker couldn't keep any more, didn't think I was strange for keeping a zoo.  His dating history is like reading the cliff notes of mine: With one person for 5 years, living together, separating. Took time off, dated another for a few months.  Didn't work.  Dated another for almost a year, crazy.

All of our conversation was great, text and phone, that I was beginning to think there would be no way I could be attracted to this individual if I ever actually met him.  We agreed to meet up for a couple drinks Saturday afternoon.  He had plans to meet a friend downtown at 7pm, which gave us both an excuse to bow out at a reasonable hour.  I was intrigued to see if this was fabricated or not.

We met at a bar around the corner from my place at 4pm, or in my case 4:12pm.  I was glad I'd warned him I am habitually late to every function on earth.  He found it hilarious that I was honest.  Parked at a booth, I could better evaluate this potential suitor.  Taller than me in my platforms, has all of his hair in a receding fashion most men in their mid-30's have without losing the thickness.  Gap between his front bottom teeth that is slightly annoying.  Eyes remind me of the Principal, round, smiling, crinkling up when he thinks he's been funny.  Arms were toned but not obnoxiously.  I found him quite attractive.

The world must be about to end because I find him attractive, fun, disarming, comfortable, and easy to talk to.  Sitting there sipping my Stella, talking about how my dog once ate 5lbs of dog food and proceeded to shit and puke for 12 hours and he was still looking at me like I was fascinating.  None of this is making any sense.  He grabs my hand across the table from time to time just to touch me...

His friend bailed on their 7pm plans.  I was dying to ask if there had really been any plans or if it was his escape hatch, but I kept my mouth shut and thought "I'll just ask him after we're dating for a while."  What the WHAT?  Where had this thought surfaced from?  I barely know this dude!

Another crazy connection between us= he lives next door to the very condo I had lived in with the EX before moving to my house.  He moved in a year after I left, knows all my old neighbors and haunts the same down-the-street bars I used to meet Ange, Kelly and Markie at.  He smoked up until December when he took up running and quit cold turkey, but understands the fact that I can't quit until I decide to quit.

So that takes us out to a mostly deserted patio where I have a couple of cigarettes and we continue to jammer away at each other.  I'm telling some story, this guy is looking at me really intently.  He has the "I'm going to kiss you look" on his face and my mind hops into overdrive.  With eyes darting back and forth, anywhere but forward, this is what shoots through my head while I'm telling him some pointless story about God knows what:

-Is he seriously going to kiss me?
-This is the middle of a first date/meet-up, is it acceptable to kiss on the first date without implying you're easy?
-What if he's a bad kisser?
-What if he kisses away the pound of make-up I applied and realizes I'm not attractive?
-Does his wanting to kiss me so early make him a lech?
-Do I want him to kiss me?
-Should I lean away and start into my new-found belief system that I need to take things slow?
-Should I judo chop him in the head?
-Should I tell him he's looking at me funny?
-Would telling him that he's looking at me funny just make him jump into action more quickly or would it turn him off the idea completely?
-Why had Insurance Guy said he wanted to kiss me but never looked at me with even a semblance of this expression after saying how interested he was?
-What am I doing here?
-I'm kind of hungry....
-Could we get food?
-Would suggesting food be too forward?  I mean he is paying for the drinks and all...

But then he stood up to go to the bathroom, leaned over and kissed me.  Right there. It wasn't tentative or demanding, just like a statement.  Here, I want to kiss you and I am.  To my utter astonishment, I kissed him back.  It was more than nice.

For the next hour or so we continued to talk, hold hands (yes that still icks me out quite a bit), and kissing.   It felt normal, like a routine I have enjoyed with this stranger for a long time.  I declared it was 9pm and time to go so he walked me to my car, which I had unconsciously parked next to his.  I would like to say we kissed, hugged and parted with a sigh, but alas.... I made out with him like a crazy hormonal teenager.

Up against the side of my car, bodies entwined, kissing fervently, nipping at necks, ears, arms.  Laughing, joking.  I realized this was the first time I was actually turned on to a person rather than the action since last having my heart plopped in a blender.  It was dizziness coupled with warning.  Stop here.  You're getting very close to the New Year Resolution you made not to make any what the hell decisions....  This is a first date with an Internet dude.  Keep. It. In. Your. Pants.

So, as we are intimately wrapped in each other's arms, probably to the horror of all bar patrons passing by, I tell him.  I will not be jumping into bed with someone I am not emotionally intimate with first.  He laughs, pulling my face up to look at him which horrifies me as I am fairly certain my makeup has dissolved.  But he makes me meet his eye.  He doesn't mind waiting a month or a year, as long as it isn't forever.

Damn men, they know how to work it.  This made me just want him more.  But I extricated myself from his grasp with more kisses, got into my car and headed home.