Archive for dating

At a snail’s pace…

{ April 16, 2009 @ 9:26 pm } · { dating, life, moving in }
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Hello people!

What’s new?  Is it just me, or is it easier to write blog posts when something is going wrong?  Seems I can only find material if I want to complain about something.  Hence my absence from the blog for the last couple of months.  I should be interesting enough to be able to write about my life, even in good times.  But, well folks, I’m just not. 

Let’s see, where were we?

B and I moving in together.  Will happen sometime.  But evidently no time in the foreseeable future.  You’d think it would be easier.  We are two grown adults, both wanting to live together.  But no.  I can pretty much pick up and move at any time.  I am not the problem. 

B has a condo.  It is far too tiny for me to move in there with him.  So he needs to sell his place.  But before he sells the place he needs to fix the crack in the ceiling and get a new tub/shower.  Both of which he has been talking about since I’ve known him.  I’ve been riding him about this stuff lately.  His friend (always nice to befriend a contractor) can do it for him, and don’t worry because, “it won’t take Mark long to fix this at all.”  Ok, so DO IT!!!  But first he needs to get an estimate, and then approved by the condo board and blah blah blah.  Ok, dude, but please, just do something!

Now, mind you, even once he does this stuff, we are still not in the clear.  He still has to sell the place.  Which is not looking too great since there are several units for sale in his building.  One of which has been up for 1.5 year and another that has been for sale for 2.5 years. 

Awesome.  So basically by the time he gets the stuff done, gets the place on the market, and gets it sold, all of my good child-bearing years will be gone. 

I know this all begs the question (which my mother already asked):  does he really want to move in with me?  But he does.  I’m confident about that.  It was all his idea to begin with.  And he never really worries about how long it will take to sell his condo because he had always planned to borrow money from his parents to buy a bigger place and just pay them back when his place sold.

Um, no.  Maybe that was a fine idea before I was in the picture.  But I’m not comfortable borrowing money from his mother so that we can live together, even temporarily.

So we wait. 

And I’m pretty sure that every time I tell my landlord I need another extension/lease for 3 more months or 6 more months, or whatever, he laughs behind my back.  Because any way I slice it, I am not getting out of that apartment any time soon.

NEXT UP:  The only man on earth who doesn’t want to vacation (for free) in Hawaii.  Otherwise known as my boyfriend.

What’s new?

{ January 30, 2009 @ 3:21 am } · { dating, life, moving in, relationships }
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I had such good intentions for several posts I was going to write in January, discussing my goals for the new year and whatnot.  That didn’t happen.  But suffice it to say that none of it was terribly original anyway.  I mostly have the same goals as everyone else.  Blah blah blah, you know?

Anyway, I’ve been gone for a while.  Not from my life, just from this blog.  When everything is going along normally, I don’t have much to write about, I guess.  I guess I need more angst.  Not that I want it.  I would rather have writer’s block than genuine angst, I guess.

So what have I been up to lately?  More of the same, mostly.  I saw Wicked over the weekend.  It was the last weekend in Chicago, and I hadn’t realized it was leaving until the last minute, so I got totally nailed on the ticket prices, but I did manage to get tickets so B and I had a nice night out in the city.  Wicked was great, by the way.  Go see it if you can when it tours. 

Also, I got a new car!  Yay!  I am 30 years old (for another month) and this is my first new car ever!  Actually it is the first car that I’ve ever really bought.  The last one I bought from my mom, so I don’t think that counts.  I am extremely lucky that I had gotten a rather large settlement (on one of my cases I was working on) right before my tangle with the plow truck, so I was able to buy the car.  Had I gotten in the accident about 3 weeks earlier, I would have cried a lot of tears worrying about how I was going to get a new car.  Sadly, I cleaned out the savings account I had just opened, but I had enough to buy the new car (Honda CR-V) and don’t have to worry about a car payment.   So I was happy.  Now I’m back to poor.  It was so nice to have a nice savings account for once.  It was fun while it lasted. 

Speaking of financials, I had one beast of a year last year.  I just got my W-2 today, and it was not pretty.  But this year has already started off extremely well for me and I have another big settlement coming.  So I finally feel better about my financial security (something that has always been an issue for me, especially because of my very very large student loans).  I hope those kind of worries are behind me.  But I guess those kind of worries never go away, right?

As for B and I – well, we’ve been dating for two years now.  Things are moving along.  For the last month or two I have really been starting to feel anxious about us moving in together.  Not anxious nervous, but anxious ready.  We’ve talked about it for a while, as you guys know, but I never felt like I was in a big rush.  Always there have been hurdles for both of us to get over before it could happen.  For me, I need to find a job closer to where he lives.  For him, he needs to fix a few things in his house and sell it before he could buy a new (and bigger) one.  I’ve basically decided that I would move up there, even with the job I have now.  And perhaps the commute would motivate me to finally hit the job trail harder than I have in the past (and present). 

So now I feel like I’m waiting on him and I want it to happen soon. 

And before I always figured that he would buy a new house (and that’s how he talks about it too), and then I would move in with him.  But now that I have more cases paying out and will have substantial amounts of capital to contribute, he has said a few things about us buying it together.  I’m not sure how I feel about that.  It seems like too big of a commitment given that we are not married (or at least engaged).  Even when I had roommates I never wanted to jointly buy anything, because at some point you move on, and then who takes the item that you bought together?  And obviously a house is a much bigger deal.  Of course I wouldn’t even move in with him if I thought we were going to break up, but one never knows.  What do you think?  I guess when it gets closer to becoming a reality we will have to talk about it. 

Anyway.  Anyone watch Lost last night?  I love you, Lost, but the time travel thing is super annoying.  Seriously.  Stop it.  Same goes for Izzy’s ghost on Grey’s Anatomy.  He’s gotta go.

A little catch-up

{ November 4, 2008 @ 4:05 am } · { dating, family, friends, life, love }
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Hey!

I briefly considered doing NaPoBloMo (or however you say that – I find the name seriously annoying), but then I thought, “Seriously, [J]?”  I consider myself lucky if I can dream up enough to say once every two weeks.  I’ve never quite found a way to turn the mundane into something entertaining.  Is it wrong that the only reason I ever really wish for a more exciting life is because it would give me something to write about?

After my last post, Jess asked me how I’ve been doing (due in no small part, I’m sure, to the fact that I’ve barely been writing).  

I’ve been fine.  Same old, same old, you know?  Same job, same house, same boy.

I participated in a couple of breast cancer events during October.  Of course, I do it because it is a good cause, but also, it gives me an opportunity to hang out with the women in life.  I did a walk with some friends (one a survivor) and another with my family (grandma is a two time survivor).  And don’t get me wrong, I love the men in my life beyond measure, but there is just something different and wonderful about spending good time with the ladies.  More giggly, more open, no shame. 

Plus I love pink stuff.

What else……

The last few days here have been GORGEOUS.  Sunny, warm, beautiful fall colors.  But man, it is HOT at work.  Ugh.  Ridiculous hot up in there.  I have a window in my office, so it is a little better.  But my poor clerk out in the front office sweats his ass off, and then it starts to smell like a boy’s dorm in there.  Not great.

B and I had an argument this weekend.  More specifically, I was mad at him.  We very rarely argue, mostly because he makes it SO HARD.  He does not engage in an argument.  And then I end up wondering if I’m nuts, being an irrational female.  

Truthfully, though, I know that isn’t the case.  I very rarely get mad at him.  Annoyed, yes.  Mad, no. 

Anyway, like I said, it is really hard to argue with him.  I think he doesn’t engage in it because he has absolutely no clue what to do/say when I get mad.  I have never seen a more deer-in-the-headlights look.   It is totally classic.  So he goes silent, and then a minute later will try to say something funny, hoping, I think, that I’ll forget and move on.  Sometimes I do. 

Yesterday I didn’t.  I kept at it.  Told him I was mad and why.  Then he left to go get some stuff we needed to cook breakfast.  He came back and tried to make regular small talk.  I let him know again that I was mad.  While we were cooking, I went on a very slight rampage during which he just stared at me with the look discussed above.  Didn’t say anything.  We sat down for breakfast and he was chit-chatting away.  I told him, “what you did hurt my feelings”.  I got a very begrudging apology (finally at least that).  This continued and he realized I wasn’t going to just drop it. 

I told him that his apology was one of the more pathetic ones I had heard lately.  Then he told me that he felt attacked and that I was overreacting.  I, of course, turned on the waterworks (which always pisses me off), and left the room for a little while. 

But usually when we argue I just end up feeling sorry for him because he just has no idea what to do/say.  Eventually I got over it and told him if he thought that was an overreaction, he had a few things to learn about women.  And my favorite part was how happy/relieved he was that I wasn’t mad anymore.  We had a nice make-up, and then when I wasn’t coming at him in anger, he gave me a real apology.  We rarely ever argue, so I think it scares him when I get mad. 

If/when we ever move in together, I think it is going to be a steep learning curve for him.  It is easy to keep things nice and not get mad often when we only see each other during the weekend and don’t share any responsibilities.  That’s the main thing I worry about with out relationship.  If what we have now will translate nicely into a relationship that is full-time and with shared space and responsibilities.  But that is a transition that every couple has to make at some point, and when the time comes, I think we’ll be ok.

The Vagaries of Bachelor Life

{ October 3, 2008 @ 3:35 am } · { Observations, dating, random thoughts }
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I am often struck by the differences between how single men and women live, usually when I’m at B’s house:

*When I first met B, he had a random group of gnarly eating utensils.  Cheap, flimsy, mangled silverware (and I use that term very loosely).  At one point I suggested to him that he put a set of silverware on his Christmas list last year, which he did.  But even then, his mom gave him a set of Martha Stewart silverware, but it was only 4 place settings.  I suggested that he go to Macy’s and buy a second set.  He didn’t understand that at all.  I said, well, what would you do if you ever had more than 4 people over for dinner?  He went ahead and got the set.

*B cooked me dinner one night and served it to me with a plastic spoon (this was before he got the new set).  He apologized, but explained how the regular stuff was in the dishwasher, so he couldn’t use them.  I said, um, [B], you COULD just hand wash dishes if you really need them.  Hadn’t occurred to him.

*Even if he did want to wash dishes by hand, he doesn’t have any sponges or dishrags.  Nothing.  Although he does have dish soap.  I bought him some dishrags.  To my knowledge, I’m the only one who has used them thus far. 

*He also doesn’t have any dish towels.  No, I take that back, he does have one.  The same one that has been hanging from the oven at least as long as I have known him.  And he recently confessed to me that he has never washed it (and he does about 4 loads of laundry a week, not sure why that has never made it in there).  I also bought him some hand towels, but I don’t think he ever switches them up.  I just do it when I’m there.

*He has no handsoap in the kitchen.  I bought him a handsoap dispenser as well.   Mostly because I got tired of running back and forth to the bathroom to wash my hands when we cook. 

*B has whole cabinets in his kitchen that are empty.  I would give my left arm for extra space in my kitchen.

*B is actually pretty good at keeping his house tidy.  He cleans his house every week , on a pretty regular schedule.  He actually keeps his house a lot more neat than I do.  But he misses some stuff:

*  His bathroom soap dispenser is always dusty and covered in crusted over soap.  I usually rinse it off when I’m in there.

*Although he is good at cleaning his bathroom mirror, he evidently doesn’t notice the blue windex streak on the wall beside his mirror. 

*He has three things in his shower – shampoo, soap, wash rag.  I have probably twenty.  A couple different sets of shampoo and conditioner, regular soap, body wash, bubble bath, salt and sugar scrubs, face soap, exfoliator, shaving gel, razors, etc.  I admit, his is probably more on the reasonable side than mine.

*B’s entire place is painted the same color:  off-white.  He calls it tan.  Trust me, it’s off-white.  Every room in my apartment is painted. 

*When his dad passed away, my mom sent B a plant.  It needs sunlight (of course), so he rigged up two cardboard boxes, taped them together with masking tape.  That is his plant stand.  It’s super attractive.

*One guy I dated used a beach towel for his bath towel.  I made fun of him enough that he asked his mom for towels for Christmas.  Even then, he didn’t personally use them.  Wanted to save them for guests and special occasions. 

*That same guy lived in a pretty cool loft in the city.  His bathroom was wall was made entirely of glass blocks.  He noticed that when I went to the bathroom (for the first time) in his place, I turned the light off.  When I came out, he asked why I was peeing in the dark.  I told him I didn’t want him to see me sitting on the pot (keep in mind the loft was just one big open space so you could see the bathroom from any point)  He laughed at me, like that was totally ridiculous.  I guarantee that every woman he has had in his loft has had the very same thought.

*B has a pizza oven.  Now, I know a lot of people have those, but truly, it is a trend I don’t understand.  I asked him why he couldn’t just cook the pizza in his regular oven, and he told me that it is just easier to do it that way.  But he has to haul that thing out from the panty (where he also has entirely empty shelves) every time.  I don’t get it.

*Like a lot of women, B does a separate load of laundry for his “delicates”.  He literally calls him that.  But his delicates?  Are sports jerseys and moisture wicking shirts. 

That’s all I can think of right now.  I wonder what men think about the way women live.  Do we do weird things?

Why is coming up with a title so hard?

{ September 26, 2008 @ 6:12 pm } · { dating, family, life, relationships }
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Hey Guys!  I haven’t posted in a while.  Just been a busy week, I guess.  My dad and step-mom are coming to visit for the weekend, so I have been a lot of prep work.  Which basically just means cleaning.  I hate to admit it, but I’m a bit of a slob.  Not in a dirty way, but on any given day I may have most of the contents of my closet strewn across my room, and I have a ginormous pile of shoes that never goes away.  I just don’t have anywhere to put them.  And how many pairs of them are in my regular rotation?  Oh, about 5, probably. 

Also I decided that my house wasn’t enough of a mess already, so I decided to paint my bedroom (a task I have been meaning to accomplish since March).  So yeah, that was fun.

Anyway, thank you for all the comments on my last post.  They were all well thought out, and I thought there was good stuff in all of them.

Ultimately, I was just having a moment of insecurity.  Which, God knows I do from time to time.  I did talk to B about it when I saw him over the weekend.  Told him that sometimes I think he would never want to give up the bachelor life.  He said basically, no.  He enjoys his life right now, but he also wants other things.  The priorities he has right now will not always be his priorities.   

Also, as much as he enjoys his single man life, I don’t think it would be the same if he didn’t have me in his life.  He has been a single boy since the beginning of time, and there is a reason why he wanted to find someone.  All the baseball/football (I am SERIOUSLY regretting the start of football season) games in the world do not add up to more than having love in your life.  (I know all you men out there are shaking your heads right now, saying “huh?  What in the world is she talking about?).  In any case, I, like most women before me, am not going to force poor B to choose between me and his sports.  That would be silly.  I just always want to feel confident that I am a priority for him. 

Anyway, just to clarify, I never meant that I am anxious to get married now.  B and I are not at the point where it is either fish or cut bait.  Of course, I wouldn’t (and I assume he wouldn’t) bother to keep on dating if I didn’t think we had a future together.  But I’ve never been bothered by the pace of our relationship, and if anything, I’ve been the one wanting to take things slow.  I just wanted to make sure that he considers it a possibility.

Oh, and for those of you who asked, B and I have been dating for about, er…..18 months.  But we got off to a pretty slow start, because we only see each other on weekends, and I wasn’t completely sold at the beginning.

So anway, I cleared up my issues, and except for a little tantrum I threw when I realized that no, we weren’t going to get to play golf like I wanted (and we had discussed) because the Bears kicked off at noon.  Silly me.  I had totally forgotten about football and the havoc it wreaks on our Sundays.  Which isn’t a big deal, except that Sunday happens to be the only real day we get to spend together, and I hate football.  But I managed to ease the pain with some retail therapy while he watched the game.

I’m looking forward to this visit with my dad and stepmom.  It has been two years since they have been here to visit me.  We have tickets to the Sox game (and don’t even get me started on how I feel about the Sox right now, after they TOTALLY blew it in Minnesota), so that should be a good time.  And I’m happy that B and my parents get to spend some more time together.  I like it when they get to hang out together and B can see how great my parents are and why I love them so much, and vice versa.  And we are having such wonderful indian summer weather here lately, so I love to be outside soaking up what is left it.

Have a great weekend!

Home again

{ July 14, 2008 @ 3:29 am } · { aging, dating, friends, goals, life, relationships, weekend }
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Well, this weekend I left my car woes behind and took a trip home.  My girlfriends and I continued our 30th Birthday tour with my friend Tara’s birthday.  Tara is easily one of the best people I know.  Such a sweetheart and she would do anything for anyone.  I just love her.

Anyway, Tara’s big day was this weekend, so one of my other friends hosted a party at her house.  B was able to come with me, which was great (and also necessary since I was not going to be driving too far on my donut spare tire).  I like for him to come home with me, so he can get to know my friends better and because I think it is the best way for him to really know me in a way that I don’t think is fully accomplished otherwise.  Of course I try to be completely myself all of the time around B and his friends, but of course I don’t relate to his friends in the same way I relate to my own.  I just have so much fun with them, and I know B can see that.  And I think he really enjoys himself too.  My girlfriends like to ask inappropriate questions, and I enjoy watching B squirm and try to answer their questions. 

Last night one of my friends asked him where was the most unusual place that he’s ever had sex, and he just made up some silly answer.  He didn’t really have an answer.  He and I really need to work on that, because I don’t have a good answer for that question either.  I think we need to be more adventurous. 

One of my friends had a baby about a month ago.  I hadn’t met her yet, so I was excited when they came to the party for a little while with the baby.  When she was born she was only 4 pounds, and she is now up to 9 pounds, but she was still so so tiny.  And sweet.  I just loved her.  So I held her for quite some time.  B came inside after a while (he was outside with the boys while us girls were inside oohing and aahing over the baby) and said he some of them came outside to make a point of telling him I held the baby and I was doing a good job (although there is nothing too tricky about it).  Apparently that was big news.  You know how women are, “Oooh, J’s holding the baby!  I think she’s ready to have kids.”  Funny.  But whoa!!  No, definitely not ready yet.  I love babies (and children) and definitely feel the clock ticking and that little twinge when I see babies, but situationally, I’m not in the right place.  I try to picture me and my little baby living in my tiny one bedroom apartment, and me with no maternity insurance and no paid maternity leave.  Yeah, I’m pretty sure it isn’t the right time.

Anyway, a couple of you have expressed interest in a topic I discussed a while ago – how B and I had briefly talked about living together.  Nothing really new has developed in that area.  The problem is that right now we live and work pretty far apart, and I’m not anxious to add a long long commute onto my day.  So we won’t really explore the moving in together thing until one or both of us has a new job.  But its not like I’m actively hitting the job trail.  I need a new job and I do a lot of looking around for a new job, but that is about as far as it goes.  I’m somewhat intimidated by the whole job search/interview process, so that holds me back.  But I think a new job is definitely something that needs to happen within the next year, so I’m going to have to be more proactive about it.  And B wants a new job too, so at some point I think it will all come together, but it isn’t happening right now.  So we don’t really talk about it all that much because of the other changes that need to happen first. 

Oh, why do the weekends go so fast??  There’s just never enough time.  It’s Monday morning again tomorrow, and I’m just dreading it.

I guess that’s why they call it the blues…

{ June 25, 2008 @ 4:32 am } · { dating, is it just me?, life, love, neuroses, relationships, unattractive }
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SF (and Elton John)- thanks for the title.  Didn’t mean to steal it from you, but it fit. 

Kinda blue today.

I don’t know why, specifically.  A combination of not feeling all that well and stress at work.

But whenever I’m in this kind of mood, I tend to take it out on my relationship with B.  All of my negative feelings surface and I focus on them.

I need this boy to love me in a way that I don’t think he does.  I want him to be captivated by my words, find me beautiful, think that I’m brilliant and funny, basically adore me and be proud to be with me. 

Ok, so maybe that’s a little bit too much.  I’m a real person with real flaws, and I don’t expect them to go unnoticed.  But at the very least, I would like him to, no, I need him to be interested in what I’m talking about, engage in conversation with me, understand my sense of humor, and in general, be happy to be with me.  I don’t mind conflict or argument (I am an attorney, for Pete’s sake, so I can handle it), and I think you need to have some conflict in your relationship so that wants and needs can be more defined and understood.

It’s not that B isn’t a good boyfriend.  He is.  He treats me very respectfully, and he would do anything for me.  But I don’t always think he gets me.  Sometimes I feel like I’m just someone for him to be with.  Like his love for me has nothing to do with me personally.  I would be afraid to ask him what it is that he likes/loves about me, because I’m very nervous that he wouldn’t be able to come up with an answer. 

Part of the problem is that it is not his nature to really discuss his feelings.  I asked him about a month ago about affection in his family.  Basically what he told me is that there is none.  His parents never showed him physical affection or told him that they loved him.  They are nice people, and certainly do love their family (and he knows that), but like a lot of people, it just isn’t their way to openly express it. 

My family is not entirely different.  My dad is affectionate, my mom isn’t.  My relationship with her doesn’t suffer for it – we are very close.  And she is better now than she used to be, but she isn’t a huggy,  PTA type of mother.  My dad on the other hand (as well as his extended family) is affectionate.  He liked to hug me as a child, and hold my hand and tuck me in at night. 

So as B and I had this conversation, he said, “oh, so you are more like your dad.”  And I had never really thought of myself that way.  Because affection is not that easy for me to give in a romantic relationship.  I have to get it before I can get it.  The more comfortable I am, the easier it is, but I don’t jump into a relationship quickly, physically or emotionally.   And B is reasonably phsyically affectionate.  It comes in waves.  He was definitely more affectionate at the beginning our of relationship than he is now.    And so I’ve become fairly affectionate with him, and now I do a lot more touching than he does.

Anyway, I got off track there.  Anyway, I know that just because B doesn’t express his feeling for me doesn’t mean that he doesn’t have them.  Of course, he tells me that he loves me.  But in a more perfunctory way, at certain times, like when I’m leaving.  Not in a “I’m really feeling it right now” kind of way.  And that is ok, I don’t necessarily need him saying the words all the time.  But I need to feel it somehow.  We have moments when I feel it.  But I’m not sure it all adds up to enough. 

I need to know that there are specific things that he likes about me.  I need to know that he finds me attractive.  I need to know that he wants to be with me, that he misses me when we are apart all week every week.  I need our phone conversations during the week to be at least a little more than just a recitation of our days.  I hate to fish for compliments.  I find it humiliating to ask if he finds me attractive, if he misses me, to make a joke about him finding me charming.   But I do it, because sometimes I need to hear it.  But when I do fish for it?  Still NOTHING. 

For example, here is an exchange we had tonight.  And believe me, I’m embarrassed even to write this.  But anyway:

Me:  I still haven’t taken my dress (for a wedding this weekend) in to get hemmed yet.  I definitely need to do that tomorrow.

B:  Why didn’t you do that today?

Me:   Well, just because when I came home from work I wasn’t feeling well, so I took a nap, and just didn’t end up to getting around to it.  Plus, I feel self-conscious when I have to put on a dress for the tailor to pin up.  I’m always worried they are thinking that I shouldn’t be wearing this dress.  I know that is stupid, considering I’ll be wearing the dress in public on Saturday, but I can’t help it.

B:  I’m sure they’ve seen everything.

Me:  I know.  But I don’t want them to put me in that same category:  gnarly people they have to deal with.

B:  I’m sure its fine.

Me:  Do you think I’m gnarly?

B:  No.

Me:…..do you think I’m cute?

B:  Yeah (in an unconvincing tone of voice).

Now, mind you, I know my part of that conversation was nothing to brag about.  I’m not saying that I don’t have my issues.   But seriously, the best compliment I ever get from him is “you look nice”.  And that doesn’t come very often, believe me.

I truly don’t think I’m needy.  I don’t need him to hang all over me, I don’t need him to shower me with compliments.  But I need SOMETHING.  Anything, really.  Some spark of life, some indication that I mean something to him. 

I know that he loves me in some sense.  I know that he sees me in his future.   We’ve made vacations plans, he’s talked about us moving in together at some point, things like that.  But I need to be more than just a person to be with. 

I know, I need, I need, I need.  I don’t mean to make it sound like the relationship is all about me.  But my blog is.   And honestly, if he needs something from me that I’m not giving, I would be happy to hear it, really.  I would honestly be happy that he gives our relationship some thought, as well as thinking about what he is looking for.  I don’t want to be unreasonable.  And having very little experience with relationships, I just don’t know.  What is reasonable and what isn’t?  I know relationships have ups and downs and everything is not all candlelight and roses and grand gestures of love.  Like I said, I know still waters run deep.  And I understand that not everyone expresses their feelings very freely and openly.  I certainly don’t.  But I gotta have something. 

Ignore me.  I’m just in a mood.

Batting A Thousand

{ June 12, 2008 @ 3:08 am } · { baseball, dating, love, neuroses, relationships, worries }
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So B called me after work tonight.  He was on his way to go out, I was out at the mall.  We were just chatting, and he was telling me that they (see my previous post) had a good time at the game.  And he was telling me how bad traffic was and how long it took them to get there.  Great, I thought, more time spent together.

So in my typical perfect-timing fashion, I told him that it makes me a little uncomfortable when he hangs out with other women alone. 

Silence.

“Rebecca is my co-worker,” he tells me, with the slightest touch of irritation and defensiveness.

“And yet……she is still woman, no?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Listen, I’m not saying that you can’t hang out with her or other women, I’m just saying it makes me a little uncomfortable, especially when it is a girl I don’t know.”

“But you’ve met Rebecca.”

“I know, but I don’t know her.  The only things I know about her is that she is newly divorced and she saw your man parts at the Christmas Party.”

So then he proceeds to tell me about her – about the work she does, and how his friend M fixed up her townhouse when her husband moved out, and how she has had a really bad year.  In addition to the her divorce, her 28 year old cousin passed away from a brain tumor, and her aunt passed away also from cancer about a year later.  So she is going through a rough time.

So, yeah, I’m an asshole.  A selfish paranoid asshole.  Here I am begrudging this poor girl a good time out with my boyfriend. 

But really, all I was thinking was that all of the facts that he was giving me about Rebecca are not the kind of things I need to know in order to feel comfortable with them being alone together.  

But after that I just let it drop because like I said, I wasn’t trying to say that he shouldn’t have women friends (although I would be happier if he didn’t have SINGLE women friends that he hang out with alone).  I suppose there was no point in even telling him that it bothered me a little, but what can I say, sometimes I like to hear myself talk.   Sometimes I even like to hear myself whine.  Kinda like right now.

Ok, I’m done.  Oh, and Kara, SF, and RWG?   Thanks for the comments on my last post.  It always helps to get input from others so that I know I’m not totally nuts/paranoid and what might be an adult way to handle the situation. 

Getting to Second Base Redux

{ June 11, 2008 @ 4:58 am } · { baseball, dating, love, neuroses, relationships, worries }
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So tonight my boy is on a date with another woman. 

Ok, so technically it isn’t a date.  He’s at a baseball game with a girl from work.  We’ll call her Rebecca.  Anyway, last night I was talking to him and he mentioned that he was going to a game tonight.  I expressed suprise, I wasn’t aware he had a game tonight.  He said, yes, I told you that.  I said, well, who is going with you?  And he told me Rebecca.  Oh, I said.  Yes, I’m very articulate. 

It bugs me a little bit.  Don’t get me wrong, I trust B.  I do.  I truly don’t think he would ever cheat on me.  But there is one little tiny part of my brain that says, “you never know….”  And it’s not even so much that I worry he would cheat on me so much as I worry that he might enjoy spending time with another girl more, and ditch me somewhere down the line.  I know this is ridiculous.

Mostly the problem is that I don’t really know Rebecca that well.  Here’s what I know so far:  she is newly divorced and she saw B’s weenus at the office Christmas party.  I exaggerate a little- she just walked in on him in the men’s restroom.  It was a story that I didn’t find particularly amusing at the time, and I don’t now.  Anyway, the point is that there is so much I don’t know, such as what exactly is their relationship and if she has any romantic interest in my man.  And, she gets to see him everyday, and I don’t.  He has this whole life that I’m not a part of, and so I think in many respects the people he works with and his friends know him much better than I do.

I had this same issue last year when B went to a game with another girl, Katherine (I’d link to that post if I weren’t too lazy to find it).  If he went to a game alone with Katherine now, I wouldn’t care at all because I know her a lot better now.    If it is a girl he is friends with that he knew before me (which is pretty much everyone), then I assume they would have gotten together before I entered the picture if they wanted to.  But Rebecca was married before, so this is a little different.

Anyway, it really is no big deal, but it is bugging me a little bit.  But my problem is this – I could talk to him about it, but what result am I looking for?  I don’t necessarily mean to say that he shouldn’t go to a baseball game with Rebecca (or any other woman for that matter).  I certainly don’t mean to say that he isn’t allowed to have female friends.   I definitely don’t want to be that girl.  So I don’t know.  I’ll probably be over it by the time I talk to him, but I might just tell him it sketches me out a bit and leave it at that. 

But I still don’t know (a la “When Harry Met Sally”) if women and men can ever be just friends.  Is there always some sexual tension from one side or the other?  I don’t have any male friends that I hang out with alone.  All of my guy friends are the husbands of my girl friends.  I have ManWhore, but he doesn’t live around here, so I don’t ever see him.  And if we did hang out, he would forever be trying to get into my pants. 

Anyway, good night.

Cohabitation?

{ June 5, 2008 @ 4:35 am } · { dating, is it just me?, life, love, neuroses, random thoughts, relationships }
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After my last post, several of you dear readers asked me what I think about the possibility of moving in with B.

My feelings on the subject are somewhat mixed at this point.

On the pro side? Well, first and foremost, we would get to be together a lot more. We would be more intimate, more honest, more real, and learn a lot of things about each other that we don’t already know. Our lives would be more together, and not so clearly his life and my life. And that would be great. I want to be able to share myself with someone, with B. My life for so long has been just about me.

Some of those things fall on the con side as well. I guess I’m afraid to be that completely intimate and open. Of course, I’m always myself when I’m around B and try to be honest about everything. But still, the times that we share right now are easy and carefree. We don’t share any responsibilities.

When I think about the fact that there are a lot of things I don’t know about him and a lot of things he doesn’t know about me, it makes me very nervous. And not really because of the things I don’t know about him, but mostly because of the things he doesn’t know about me. It’s nothing I could say in so many words, nothing specifically I have been keeping from him, but I just don’t think I’m a picnic to live with.

I’m a slob. But I always clean before he comes over here, so he doesn’t really know that.

Also? I’ve been living completely alone for 8 years. I’ve gotten used to it. I like it. I can do what I want when I want, or nothing at all if I so choose. I can leave the dishes in the sink for tomorrow if I want to. I can sit around in various states of undress. I can watch what I want to watch on tv, I can eat what I want and when I want, I can go to bed as early or late as I want, and I can wake up as early or late as I want. My money is my money and my debts are my debts.

Geez, selfish much? I know, I know. And like I said earlier – I never intended my whole life to be entirely and wholly about ME.

So anyway, despite the fact that I just spent about 5 paragraphs being all negative about it, if everything fell into place (or rather we made everything fall into place), I would probably move in with him. Because otherwise, what am I doing? Things will never really progress past a certain point with this relationship if I don’t. I’m sure it would be great, but I’m just a cautious person by nature, and I have trouble making even the smallest decisions. I’m so afraid of making mistakes. So that decision would be a big one for me.

I guess I had always pictured me moving up BY him at some point (but still in my own place) and easing into it a little more. Who knows. It just depends on timing and any number of other factors.

Later!

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