Uneasy Like a Sunday Morning

I thought I had it. Love. It was so close. I was holding it in the palm of my hand & when I blinked, it was gone.

Was it unrequited? Hmmm by definition of 'not returned in kind' then yes, I must say yes it was unrequited. It was certainly NOT returned in kind. As in the way in which it was given. Did he love me? The answer is yes but the full answer is really, does it matter? For if it's not returned in kind then it's not worth it.

From Day 1, it was a challenge with him. There was something there that I just could not quite put my finger on. Eventually, I figured it out. Game. It was a horrible game to him. Not one of he was trying to 'play' me. Oh no. This was a very insecure man who wanted my love proven to him. How? Hell if I know. Nothing I said or did appeared to have done the trick. It's like I was in it hanging out on a limb fully naked & raw while he was standing there holding his breath & paying more attention to his own insecurities than he was paying attention to ME.

Eventually, his insecurities became daggers that I was dodging left & right. He kept trying to change the terms of everything then screaming, "This is who I am!" & faux laughing like it was a joke. Never realizing that the joke would eventually blow up in his face & no one was truly laughing. A relationship is not a joke. And why do men do that shit? The competition crap. I am NOT in competition WITH YOU. I want to be LOVED. Just as YOU do. This is not a god damn competition!!!! Just shut up & love me, damn it!

I don't pull any punches. I'm very direct when the time calls for it. So calling him on his "shit" became secondary because every other step I made was due to dodging the daggers of his insecurities. I wanted to sit back & ENJOY the relationship. He wouldn't allow it. And my discontent became greater & greater due to that.

He would call & I could hear the hesitation. The emotional holding of his breath. It was palpable even through the phone lines. It eventually felt like he was playing a game of fishing with me. Fishing for information like tip toeing through the tulips to a place where he felt safe to actually utter the true reason in why & which he called. Sometimes he would actually get to the point in that. Other times he would cower out & throw up the defenses. Either way, it left me frustrated beyond belief & I got sick & tired of trying to sooth his injured spirit & cuddling his insecurities to make him feel okay.

It's sad to have to deal with damaged spirits. I didn't cause that damage. I am me. I am not them. I can jump through a few hoops to help you feel safe with me but when it becomes all that I am doing then I have to call 'game over'. Especially when their defenses are daggers thrown at me, causing me damage in which I don't deserve.

Jealousy. I don't do it. I don't believe in it. I just can't deal with it. Jealousy is a convenient cowardly way of dealing with something & I have no patience for it. It's a made up "emotion". When it comes down to it, jealousy is a combination of emotions coming at you all at once. Break it down & THEN we can deal with it. But until then, I don't want it.

Seriously. Think about it. Jealousy is not one single emotion standing alone on its own. For if it was, it would simply be envy & we already have envy. Guess again. It's envy. It's inadequacy. It's betrayal. It's sadness. It's rejection. It's anger. It's pain. It's helplessness. All added together. Plus a few others due to whatever situation you are in at the time. Never, ever is it an emotion that simply stands alone.

If I am put in a situation where someone wants me to be jealous, I walk. That's a game. It's a stance of 'I want you to show me how much you care about me.' But I just let you into my home, my heart, my bed, my sacredness of being what else do you fucking want from me?!?!?! And if that is not good enough & you need more concrete notions to feel better about yourself then deal with it but do not ever shove me into a position where you want me to feel envious, inadequate, betrayed, saddened, rejected, pained & angered in order for YOU to feel good about YOURSELF and where you stand with me. Hell no.

I hate it when men do that. Especially when they just cannot shut up about other women. I don't sit around talking about other men so shut the fuck up. There's just no need for that. In fact, NO good can come of it. Again, it's part of the 'competition' shit game they play. I reiterate. This is not a game nor a competition. I want to be loved so shut up & just love me. Thank you.

So here I am alone again. On a Sunday morning. I'm sick of looking for love. Not that that is my full time goal in life but you get the drift. It just comes down to why do I even bother? Love just is. There isn't any work to love. You just do it. Now like, that's a different story & I am sick & tired of feeling like I'm the only one who GETS it. Every time I hear someone utter the statement, "___ is a hard person to love." I want to SCREAM. NO ONE is hard to love. Let's just set the record straight right here & right now. Quit confusing like with love. Get over it. They're hard to LIKE. LIKE. Like is NOT love. Like. They are simply hard to like at times.

I wish more people could separate the two. Life would be so much easier. I know there are plenty of times when I am a hard person to like. Hell, I don't even like myself about 57 times a day. But I never, ever stop loving myself. Ever. And not only that, but of those 57 times, it's not that I don't like myself. It's that I don't like a choice I made or a behavior I displayed. A moment. In time. A simple utterance. A blip on the screen of my life. Nothing huge. Just a pause. And sometimes, those dislikes are from a moment in my past. A time you can't just go back & redo. But it popped into my psyche & I was left to do some self reflection. Kind of like the Universe's way of showing me the simple fact of "Do you really want a repeat performance of that act? Here's your Mulligan! Try it again! You can get a different result if you try. We believe in you!" ha!

I've missed "writing" as in the blogging form. I haven't stopped writing but I have stopped putting it out there blindly. I have filled a few journals since I stopped blogging but I did miss the typing because my writing simply flows better. My mind works too fast for my fingers to write but in typing, I can keep up with it.

Dating still sucks for me. I'm sick & tired of the superficiality & mentality of the men I am encountering. I ended up on an 'accidental date' & my head spun. I thought I was clear that I was looking for friends but apparently the guy was illiterate. I don't believe in this 'let's meet for coffee' bullshit. I meet friends for coffee. I meet colleagues for coffee. I am insulted that meeting for coffee has become the substitute for a so-called date. Meeting for coffee is telling me that you are not serious and/or you just want to be friends so I show up with the mindset of getting to know a new potential friend. I don't bring my 'date' face. I save my 'date' face for men who are serious. I'm seriously considering showing up to these 'let's meet for coffee' encounters looking & acting my worse because I figure why bother? Right? ha!

I don't want to hear the bullshit about how meeting for coffee is this, that or the other. I've heard it all. I've seen it all. I've read it all & I am simply not complying with that new memo. Let's just look at it this way..... if back in high school, a 16-year old boy could take a 16-year old girl, like myself, to McDonald's & a movie then why in the hell am I going to settle for less than that at 40?!?!?! When one can clearly see that you were treated, by the opposite sex, far better in your teens then why in the hell are we buying the new rules of dating AND why are we doing that at 40?!?!?! WHY?!!?!

So yes, dating has become harder and harder for me. I keep busting men's chops. I keep calling them on their shit. I keep turning on my heels & walking when the situation calls for me to remove myself from a situation that is not condusive to my 40-year old life. I am sick & tired of hearing how 'hard' I am on men - especially from women. Why do I have to keep on reminding my own gender that complying with new ways of thinking that sets mankind back a thousand leaps is not a good thing?

Here's another example I will break down for you all. Internet dating. I keep hearing, "But it's so much different now than it was when we were in our late teens/early 20's because you haven't MET the person yet."

I'm now going to jump into my Time Machine & go back to 1986. I was at the mall. A cute guy came up to me & chatted me up. Within 15 minutes he asked for my phone number. Within 24 hours he called me. We talked. He asked me out.

Now let's jump back into my Time Machine & come back to 2009. I'm on a dating site. A cute guy sends me an email. We chat back & forth via email a few times. We exchange phone numbers. He calls.

Stop.

What's the difference between the two scenarios? Well take the 1986 one. I didn't know him. He didn't know me. We agreed to one date off of a brief encounter & one phone call. Take the 2009 scenario. That guy knows MORE about me & I know MORE about him than we did back in the 1986 scenario!

We spend MORE time now in finding out info about who we are dealing with BEFORE we go out on a date than we did back in the 80's. And regardless of the so-called 'safety' factors in that situation, I do NOT understand why dating has become such a factory of BULLSHIT & hurdles before a face-to-face meet-up. Dating in my teens was a blast!!! Dating now is drudgery. Dating use to be about REALLY getting to know someone. There was conversation flowing. There were "me too!" moments. There was FUN!!! Not now. Oh no. God forbid there be fun!

I miss the simple competition. The cute bravado of showing off for one another. Done to connect & for "do they like me?" confirmation moments. Instead, I am sitting across from some idiot playing a game of "Go Fish" via 'fishing for compliments & information about me' instead of a meeting of minds & spirits. The "Go Fish" of 'do you have any 5's?' so you can both say, "Me too!" at the exact same time doesn't seem to exist any more & I am PISSED.

I end up doing a mental inventory of my daily "To Do" list. They are too busy checking their iPhone for calls, texts, emails & internet surfing than to have a conversation with me. Hello! I'm right HERE. Really. If you wanted to talk on your iPhone, text, email & surf the net, you didn't need me to do that. You could have stayed home & did that. Why did you REALLY ask me out? This is ridiculous. Hmmm I need to organize my library. Which books haven't I read yet? Oh I want to read, "The Bride Stripped Bare" again. God, that was a good book. Oh yeah. I'm suppose to be on a date here. But going home to read that book seems like more fun. Okay. Time to call an end to this date. Check please!

Oh how I hate my time being wasted.

I've seriously considered giving up on dating but then it dawned on me. In order to do that, I will end up so involved in my own life that finding time for anyone new, that I may encounter along the way, may be a challenge. I will end up so complacent in my singleness that I fear I may turn into 'one of those people' & that sucks more than enduring bad dating. I fear surpassing my quota for self hypocriticalness will supercede its current comfortable allotment & I will turn into a very self centered person & I don't want that.

All I know is that a huge change needs to be made within myself & this dating thing & I don't have the answers. My attention span has always been quite short when it comes to the male gender. Not that I am picky with such high standards that a man can't meet them. It's more like, if you have my attention keep it & if you don't keep it then you're telling me that you are not interested. So if you are not interested then I will move on.

I've done this countless times. The only problem is then they keep calling. It's like they finally got the memo 2 weeks too late (though I sent it on time mind you) & then they figure stepping up to the plate will simply suffice. Uh no. That's not how it works. You had my attention. Conversation flowed. I had your attention. You had mine. There was a speed bump in the road. I bounced with it. I kept my end of the conversation flowing. I kept trying to keep your attention but where did you go? They stop calling so after 1-2 voice messages go without returned calls, I stop calling them. Why would anyone want to continue talking to someone who doesn't want to talk to them, right? Two weeks go by & they suddenly realize that they haven't heard from me & start calling me. By then it's too late. Why are you really calling?

Oops. I did it again. Pissed off yet another guy because I asked.

Oh well.

But it never 'just ends'. Nope. They'll call for 2-4 weeks before getting the hint. They will leave those false bravado 'I'm so cool' voice messages while following up by sending me whining emails how I must be too busy to return their calls.

I could (because I have on numerous occasions) tell them why I haven't returned their calls but then all of a sudden I get accused of proposterous things such as being 'too clingy' or 'too needy' or 'wanting too much attention,' etc.

My head spins.

I use to think I needed to 'defend myself' against their accusations. Eventually, I figured out their accusations were simply a cowardly tactic to shift the blame onto me instead of just dealing with reality & being accountable for their own actions. And of course that always lead to arguments. So I stopped because why bother wasting my breath? I know who I am. If they were paying attention they'd know who I was too. Duh.

So here I am uneasy like a Sunday morning. I'm hungry, starving for intellectual intercourse so I pulled up to the drive-thru of The Universe. A voice asks, "Can I help you?"

Me: "I'd like one order of a man who thinks I'm awesome, wants to spend time with me & truly get to know ME. One who has a good heart, strong on many levels, & thinks I'm funny."

A little static on the speaker then a voice says, "Sorry, we're out of that."

Me: "Well do you know when you're going to get that order in?"

A long silence is heard.

Finally, the voice comes back to the speaker, "Well Miss, all we have right now is chicken. Would you like an order of chicken?"

Me: "I'm sorry. I didn't know this was KFC. You're new grilled chicken is greasy so I'm going to have to go with a 'no thank you.' Have a nice day!"

The speaker starts to crackle loudly from electrical interference. "Miss! Miss! No, this is The Universe not KFC. We'd like to help you. Do you see anything else on our menu board that you might be interested in?"

Me: "Umm nooooooo. If I did, I'd have ordered that instead. Thanks anyways. I'll try Burger King. I wonder if they still live by the 'we do it your way' motto. I guess I'll find out. Have a great day!"

I start to speed away & all I can hear is that crackly speaker & the words..... "Miss! Miss! Miss!" as Phil Collins comes on the radio trying to tell me, "You Can't Hurry Love."

Figures.

That fucker has been stalking me for close to two years now & sadly, he's the only man willing to stick around. I cave. Sing it, Phil. Sing it. Eventually, you will remind me 'there must be some misunderstanding' & I'll get 'no reply at all'. I know. I know. Man, do I ever know.

Sigh.