I had a bizarre run to close out the year. I've been mostly keeping my head down guy wise for a long while, especially when I had the cast on and self-deprecatingly noted that a girl with a hobble probably wasn't high on anyone's priority list. I couldn't even dance with that thing on...nor for a fair amount of months afterwards. It's only been the past month or so that I've really been feeling consistently close to my old self again and still I'm at about 85% with some fun physical therapy sessions to do. Exciting stuff I know.
Anyways, just before the ankle blew out, I adopted this bar I've alluded to in my spare posting as my non-local local where I can perch, drink, and pass the time in peace. That peace last a few months before strangely enough the randoms got used to my face and I became fair game. I was good about fending off advances and became this weird yet friendly untouchable barfly. I made friends and finally allowed myself to have crushes and it was all humming along until one night.
This past year, I've been disentangled by choice. The situation with the boy in itself didn't mess me up, just the fallout and a few years of self-directed bad feelings. It was important for me to focus on getting my shit together without dumb distractions and I did it. Besides it was tiring on the soul to basically date the same guy with a different skin over and over again with the results constantly ending up the same degree of suck. You begin to wonder if the problem isn't with you at a certain point and I think it was, so I (hopefully) fixed it. Still, I wasn't quite in the nunnery and there was a brief moment where I got genuinely geeked over this new kid I met over the summer. It was nice to be with someone unafraid to be smart and literary and the long buried English nerd in me rejoiced at the possibility of coming out of cold storage. Didn't quite pan out, but I was happy for the widening of the criteria besides the old vague template.
But, the one that boiled over was straight out of my typical mold. He reminds me especially now of this kid I liked for a few angsty months in high school: musical, wears too much black and punk attire, long hair, and masking the issues with manic behavior and wit. It built over months and I got drawn into this strange push and pull thing and soon it was visible from space that we liked each other. Still, I tried to resist it all because at this point in my life, I don't see the point in doing all the old habits over when the end result is always the same. I don't feel like being as careless with my feelings as I used to be.
Unfortunately for me, I'm a sucker for a major declaration. After a long night perched at the bar leading to an after party at some random's loft, he cornered me mid drink pour with "I like you. I know you like me. Don't you? So what are we dancing around this for? What are we going to do about it?" And I said "nothing because I don't think it's right for me." And he pressed me for reasons and I halfheartedly spoke of work, being busy, and just not being in the game and he smiled at my hollow words and ignored them. We woke up together the next morning in his freezing apartment with me fully clothed including hoodie, minus shoes. As the day was heading into the next one, he formally asked me out and I think I finally started to silence the little cynic in me.
That was a waste. We had talked briefly about getting together after work (for me) early in the week and I was in charge of planning. I threw some ideas out there and realized they'd fallen into the abyss soon enough. So, imagine my surprise to see him strolling in the bar and walk up to me nonchalantly after blowing me off. I asked him to explain himself and he said he'd been on a four day bender and didn't mean to let me down. I coldly responded that there had been a window open with me that was now closed and he slunk away. Only to return a few minutes later if I wanted to hang out and watch a movie. I gave him a funny look, but spontaneously agreed because I wanted to see if I could get a less ridiculous excuse out of him.
Not quite. But, I did get a load of emo and it turned me off him for good. It reminded me of what I'd taken the break for. I just don't really have it in me to play doormat for some vaguely self-destructive narcissist anymore. Especially since eating all the shit doesn't do much in terms of having a good relationship or an especially lasting one. I called him on his pity party and countered with my own set of problems and the fact that some days it took all my energy just to feel okay, so I didn't have it in me to prop someone else up also. "God...who hurt you?" he said as if I was the messed up one. Wouldn't be him, that's for sure.
Over the holidays without work or much to do, I was a professional barfly and all that crap made hanging out at the bar tense for a bit. It was water under the bridge as far as I was concerned, mission aborted before it got out of hand, but he was acting very funny for a while there. One night, I had way too much to drink and let my mouth run (poor blackout ruined the memory for me), but from what I gather, it wasn't very nice, but at least deflated some of the excess ridiculousness. An uneasy truce has been called, but the place is kinda ruined for me. I'm glad all that time off grew me some backbone at least. Not so long ago, I would've glossed over the blow off as him being sweetly misunderstood. Nowadays, it correctly pegged him as a jerkface and he got the cane. Life's really just too short for that crap.
