My Back and Forth

I always jump into everything head first, eyes closed, hoping for the best. When really I should be starting out slow, eyes wide open and paying attention. I fall in love so fast, but I also fall out just as quickly. I guess it’s the poet in me that is in love with the idea of love. But I feel like I’m kind of selfish in that endeavor as well, because I want things the way I want them. Not because I’m a bitch, but at this point in the game, I’ve settled enough in my life. I’m done with mediocre. I’m done with average. I’m done with just OK.  I want amazing. I want exciting. I want variety. I thought Derek was the exception to everything I had ever experienced and the last few days has me questioning. Maybe it’s just my demons. Or maybe I was wrong and he was right. Maybe he is just average like he says. Maybe I put him on a pedestal because of how he was in the beginning. Maybe I just expect him to be better than average because I feel like I am better than average and I don’t say that in a voice of conceit. I say it with self awareness of what I have to offer. That’s a lot of “maybe”, but brace yourself, because I think we are about to get into a lot of “feels.”

I feel like I didn’t play my cards right from the beginning. I was so flattered that he wanted to spend so much time with me and dote all over me that I made myself so very accessible. Way too accessible perhaps. I was too easy to be with. Not that I was dropping anything to be with him, but instead of going it alone like I normally would I invited him to come with, which I feel was a no-no, but I’m impulsive. I do what I feel at the moment. I think that’s one of my many charms, but I’m also intuitive. I know there’s a fine line between the voices in your head and intuition, but I’m usually pretty good at separating the two, and I think that most of that has to do with the caliber of men I typically attract. I don’t have to be all that intuitive to know that the “type” of men I find myself gravitating to are less than romantic and less than loyal and  far less than interested in much more of me than what’s inside my Hanes Her Way. And I like Derek because he is so very opposite of everything I’ve ever had, but all of a sudden, it started to feel like every other relationship I’ve ever been in. 

Over the last two weeks, two completely polar opposite things have happened.

Thing one: He told me he loves me and I said it back.  Not that it’s a big thing for me to say “I love you,” because I say it all the time. I think people need to hear it. But it was different when I said it to him. When I said it to him it was more like “I love you and I’m secretly planning our elopement.”

Thing two: He seemed to be pulling away. Now, this could go both ways. Our schedules are completely jacked up and opposite right now, but his pattern changed. It doesn’t take much to figure out someone’s pattern. He would text me every single morning around 6:30 and tell me good morning. Some days I would text first, but he usually beat me to the punch.

I just find it ironic that he acted as if he loved me before he told me he loved me and then after he said it, things just got very humdrum like he knew we’d be together forever and so he didn’t have to try anymore. Not that I can prove he thinks that at all. I know not every day can be exciting. And I don’t expect to see him every day. I don’t want to actually. And maybe I do have high expectations. Maybe they are really high, but I don’t expect anything that I wouldn’t be willing to do or am already doing.

For example: If you start a job and are texting me or calling me before you go in and on your lunch and after you get out and then in conversation you start mentioning to me conversations that you are having with a “classmate” that are similar to our conversations, it doesn’t take a mathematician to know that one plus one is two when you stop calling and texting at lunch and when you disappear and don’t text me back for hours on end after work until 11pm. I know that when we were out “getting lost” together, he didn’t look at his phone hardly at all. So when he doesn’t message me back for four hours, it only makes sense it is because he is out with someone and is not looking at his phone hardly at all. And I’m not salty about it because we have not had the “talk” about being exclusive. Ok, maybe I am a little salty about it, but only because I don’t want him sharing that experience with anyone else. If he wants to just go randomly have sex with someone, I’m more ok with that, because I know that he will just be disappointed after having sex with me. Again, not being conceited, just stating facts, but I don’t want him to find someone more interesting than he finds me. And then that little voice in my head pops in and says, “whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, why can’t you be as confident about the person you are as you are about your sexual prowess? You are interesting as fuck. And funny. And it would take a grand act of fate to take him from you if he is meant for you.” But I am quick to shut that voice down even though I know she is right. Maybe it is just fear. Maybe everything stems from fear. Or maybe what I want is unrealistic and overly romanticized. Maybe it is too much to want to want to wake up one day with someone  and realize that ten years has gone by and find that we’ve traveled the world just like he said we would and we’ve laughed and cried and loved each other and when he leaves for work, I miss him like the first time I ever missed him, and when I send him a message that says, “I’m glad you’re in my life,” he will always respond, “thank you, love,” because that’s how it all started. Maybe that’s just too much to want.