Neither missing me by my hair nor missing me everywhere…

Seems fitting for Groundhog Day, but with advance apologies to the few readers who emailed me to say I shouldn’t waste anymore time in this place…

This is the point in the That Guy cycle when I’m worried we’re not actually done — that I’ll let my guard down and then he’ll pop up somewhere. It’s been a discernible pattern, so much that I’m in a mental fighting stance every time I check any element of my digital existence.

I don’t think it’s going to happen this time. We weren’t exactly kind to each other. And he wasn’t trying to resurrect our friendship, which it turns out we never HAD. He was just finally confirming he’d been using my body and affection to make himself feel better, and that I was inadequate in both capacities. (Still a great feeling if you ever get the chance.)

Logistically, I don’t see how he COULD pop up. He can still see this page because it’s public (everybody wave!). I’m not changing that to avoid one person. (Unless it’s, like, Dexter.) But I don’t think he’s going to “like” anything after I gave him a bunch of shit about liking posts about my body or masturbation.

I think I’ve taken every other precaution, but I’m still a little on edge. When I stopped speaking to him last New Year’s, I don’t think a month passed thereafter where he didn’t remind me he was checking on me — a text, blog like, Facebook friend request (to my professional account), a LinkedIn profile view. But I probably said enough that he’ll avoid setting off that particular powder keg again.

And we’ll just save it for therapy that I still miss him. (Shut UP, I don’t KNOW. He told me I “claim dysfunction and use it to explain away being wrong,” so…yeah, dibs on that. I was crazy, I thought we were friends — I was wrong. I’m basically Clarissa right now.)

Oddly, I think I’ll relax about all this around Valentine’s Day, since that’ll be about 6 weeks. I’ll aim to spend that day finally unclenched, hopefully in more ways than one, with a movie, a glass of wine, my bombass lasagna, and an obscene quantity of really good chocolate. Ideally with a man under me as well, but I think it’ll be a decent day either way. Me and my Valentine “Serenity” — in all the ways. Shiny.

Wisdom of “Serenity”

Inara: “I’m fine! I’m…giddy.”
Mal: “For a woman schooled in tellin’ a man what he wants to hear, you ain’t much of a liar.”

Ain’t nobody got time for that!

I’ve been attracted to a good friend of mine for a long time (about a year), and there’s been some pretty heavy mutual flirtation, but he has a girlfriend. Yes, a serious one. And no, I’m not trying to break them up — first, I’m not an asshole; second, I wouldn’t win that battle; third, even if I “won,” I wouldn’t know what I wanted from him. I’ll just stick to dating/breaking up with transient morons, rather than someone I want to ensure remains my friend at a minimum for a long time. But our interaction was making me feel a number of things that were not OK for either of us.

ANYWAY. I sent an email to another friend about this, saying:

“He and I are OK, I think. We had a conversation, and now it’s possible we’re both faking it ’til we make it, but we’ve been talking normally and not flirting. It’s like a fog lifted: I’m still into him, but I’m too cute to place second. Plus, I have to get a fucking job (or a job fucking), but either way, I can’t be dealing with that right now. If it’s meant to be something else, it will be when the time is right. For now, I got shit to do.”

This discussion happened about 2 weeks ago. Even though he and I have both tried 100 times before to be “just friends,” I think we’re finally on the same page at the same time, so it’s actually working. Neither of us is goading the other into flirting, and I’m not being needy or throwing myself at him — aspects of my personality that I HATE but sometimes can’t control. If nothing else, I don’t want to be in any relationship (even a friendship) where I’m That Girl, so that needs to get settled first. I think it was happening as a byproduct of an otherwise restless time in my life, so I have to take care of me first. (Which, by the way, still feels absurd. I’m an “adult,” right? How do I still have so much to work on just to be the kind of person I WANT to be?) But I don’t want to be That Girl, I am NOT That Girl, and I’m not interested in the kind of guy who’d be into That Girl. So That Girl needs to get bitch-slapped.