I seriously need to pour words out of my soul the way that I have been doing lately. When I am not writing I am considering things, and reviewing the way things are going and what I want and where I am going and what I am doing.
Now, I have avoided discussing this matter here because I am not sure if K was reading what I wrote here. And I have decided this: I do not care if he does. This is MY space, my project, and MY life. I have a disclaimer, and I stand by it because it is how I feel. IF you are upset, keep it to yourself, see the disclaimer.
I’m SERIOUS. Just try me.
The last few weeks I have been plagued by indecision with regards to the status of the dating situaion I am allowing myself to live within. I mean, I think I JUST managed to get it through K’s head that I am done with him, and that I do not intend to enter into a relationship with him again… ever. And until that was clear enough I don’t think I was ready to move on… but once it was, I have been able to bloom.
I started out, about a month-and-a-half to-two months ago by going online and seeking singles get togethers and other activities. I thought that when I was a teen, and my mother’s friends were going through this kind of divorce thing, that there were singles coffees and singles dances and singles EVENTS where people could mingle, face-to-face, and that’s how people met each other. That’s not how it works, let me tell you THAT right now.
Now it is all online. And you have to be a LOT more careful because people are a LOT less shy and LOT more likely to be badly behaved when they are able to hide behind a computer screen. And so I hesitated…
But then I jumped in.
I signed up for LavaLife.com first.
I have to say, that as a whole, I am not at all impressed by the LavaLife online dating or socializing thing. I found it very difficult to find other people, and they split the “seeking” into three different areas — Dating, Relationships, Intimate — so that if you get a person contacting you for one type of thing, you have to be in that area. And the “backstage” thing was a bit off putting, because there was not enough information or pictures to know if the person that you were reading about or who had contacted you was someone you would be interested in at all.
So I was pretty easily frustrated by LavaLife and I soon quit using the site as there didn’t seem to be any potential there. I don’t think I could figure out how to contact anyone, and I didn’t seem to generate a great deal of interest from anyone there (I also couldn’t figure out how to upload a picture successfully) and it seemed that a LOT of the people there were considerably younger than I was.
So LavaLife was not for me.
Then I tried OKCupid.com. Which ran me through a million little personality quizzes and only memes, but never really got to the point of the place, at least for me, which was to find other people who might want to get out of THEIR homes and out into the harsh light of coffee shops, bars, restaurants, and movie theatres. And while I enjoy the occassional online quiz once in a while, likely MORE than the average person, I did not really want a place where the only thing I could navigate was what colour of PANTIES people were or which Care Bear they most closely resembled.
So OKCupid was not for me.
And then I remembered how STBX had been charging a Cupid.com gold membership to OUR Visa (and how he had been thinking that that was an appropriate “marital” debt to try and saddle me with? I think not) I figured I might as well try that out. I guess it must seem rather vindictive of me, going on to the very site that STBX was haunting in search of his own new love… but I was seriously running out of ideas of what to try.
So I logged on and created an account. I did not upload a picture of myself, because, I really didn’t see any reason to have my ex looking at me and trying to scam out who I might be talking to or worse yet, make an eye contact to me. So I quickly figured out what his name was and blocked him so that he couldn’t see or spy on me (and since I wasn’t going to use the joint Visa to pay for MY membership to the site I didn’t think it was any of HIS business if I was on an online dating site (although the fact that he made it MY debt by asking me to take on half his credit card debt made his looking for women online BEFORE I left him my business in a moderate way… too bad I didn’t give a care in the world what he does on his own…).
So I joined, and I wrote up as much about myself as I could manage. And I looked at a few people online. And I left the site.
And within a few hours I had received a few “eye contacts” from a few interesting people. And I responded. And I received MORE eye contacts. Within a day of joining Cupid (although I have never paid for any of these sites), I had 3 messages from people asking if I could send them a picture of myself. I managed, with 24 hours, to get my first date as well.
The only thing about the first date I had, was that this guy was VERY upfront with the idea that he had more in mind than just a date. He was very upfront about wanting to come over to my house, and to see if we “clicked” because he was very interested in pursuing a relationship that included sex. And not the kind of relationship that would LEAD to sex. But sex that night.
But I went on the date. And he was pretty nice in person. But he was very upfront about being turned on. And I have to say that I wasn’t. There could have been potential there, but, the insistence in rushing towards a sexually based relationship, which is not what I am looking for, turned me off. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy sex. But I don’t want to be someone’s “booty call” by any means. And since I didn’t hear from him much after that point (at least for the next month) kind of made it clear that this one was out for only one thing.
The next guy I made a date with… and I showed up and he didn’t. To be fair to him he did try to get a hold of me and tell me that something had come up at his work, but he used an account that I don’t have access to from work, and I was intending to show up right from work. So I ended up on the phone talking to Serin and sipping my overly sweet Pumpkin Spice Latte. No harm, no fowl. We had made brief attempts to meet up and reschedule again… but he didn’t show the second time that we made a “date” and I washed my hands of him. Although he DID sound interesting.
Then there was the first one I started chatting with (a little over 24 hours after I joined Cupid.com). I moved off the Cupid site and onto MSN, which necessitated me getting an MSN address (and equivalent hotmail account apparently) in order to chat with potential “dates”.I started chatting with him early on in the dating game and as he had a similar constraint with being a full time single parent (although I am only half time single parent, I used to be, so I do understand the constraints) and we commiserated. I sent him a picture of myself, and he seemed to still be interested… and we chatted and such. We tried to meet up the one weekend, but it didn’t work out as he had some events he had to go to… but it became very important for me to talk to him when I was online at night.
And then was the unfortunate incident with the Fire Fighter. I only say “unfortunate” because although I had a good time and I think HE had a good time, he was not very serious at all. We met up 3 times in total, and then I never heard from him again. And while I was good with it the way it was and for what it was, and MOST of my friends were fine with me having a small fling and enjoying myself POST-K, when K found out he most CERTAINLY was NOT okay with it.
It has become intensely obvious to me that K and I are not friends, because no matter what he says he has more in mind. And nothing was more obvious when he confronted me about the sitation with the dating and the fact that I had gone out with the Fire Fighter and had actually engaged in more intimate activities. And the fact that I was not bothered by the fact that it wasn’t going to go anywhere, no matter that I had had my fun and wasn’t really worried too much in seeing this guy again, K decided that he had to chime in on the situation.
Over
and over
and OVER
and OVER
Even when it was clear that his attitude was causing me emotional pain, even when it was clear that he felt disappointed in the way I was acting and the fact that I didn’t need him, he continued to poke and prod and harangue me about the situation — “promise me you’ll stop seeing him”, “you have to quit, you’re hurting yourself”.
What he really meant was that it was hurting HIM.
You know what?
I was 100% FINE with the situation. I was fine with a guy that I was seeing occassionally and having fun with and not worrying about it going anywhere. I was not at ALL distressed by the fact that we were using each other and that it seemed to have burned out. I did not feel used or abused or hurt or like I was doing anything destructive. But K did. And K could not keep his feelings to himself, and pushed those feeling out through his actions and words and infected me with a feeling of unhappiness.
And you know what? I was happy when K told me he couldn’t stand by me if that was how I was going to be. I was HAPPY when I thought that K was finally going to leave me the fuck alone! And I wanted him out of my life. I thought, if this is what it takes, I am glad that I had this little fling.
Only, he didn’t leave me alone. NO. Not at all. Not for even a few hours.
He went home and emailed me a bunch of *his* views on what I am doing and what it is doing to me and him. And it seemed to open him up to dialoging with me regarding an “us” that I never felt, but he dreamed of. And it destroyed the feeling of safety I had had in the three weeks when I had been blissfully free from the constant calls and attacking emails and theories on what it was that HE thought that I wanted and needed and why I did what I did.
Since that day I have been recieving more little emails that I feel are more akin to “diary entries” and inappropriate content to be sending to anyone — at least if you are no longer in high school. The net effect of the email and text and phone calls that have been coming at me for the last few weeks, and the 2 times I have actually bent and gone out with him against my better judgement, has been that I am more sure that he is not really ready to be a “friend” and that he is harming me, whether he wants to admit that or not.
Anyway…
I continued on my way and had a few more “first dates”.
I had one formal first date — dinner and a movie — with a man whom I did not feel at all comfortable with and did not wish to spend more time alone with. He has subsequently decided that I am perfect for him and that he will “wait” for me (which, let me say, does not work. The only time it was something that I would have appreciated was when there was a long distance thing. But if I am with someone else, don’t wait, because if I went out with you once and decided not to pursue it, i am not interested, seriously, BACK THE FUCK OFF already!)… and so I blocked him from seeing my online profile.
Then I finally got to meet my online chat buddy! He came over to watch a movie at my house, and we spent all night cuddled on the couch and talking and watching movies. And it was good. I couldn’t wait to chat with him, and see him again (which I have, the last 2 weekends)…
And I joined a site called PlentyOfFish.com, which is like Cupid, but FREE… and I have had a lot of positive attention from that site. I met 3 more guys, which I have gone on dates with. Two of the dates were not really spectacular, one was promising (if it weren’t for the fact that I am really really interested in my chat friend)…
And through this whole process I have had the psychic pressure of K on my back. I no longer want that. I think I have been clear, and I know I will have to get clearer: I do not see ANY sort of future with K and I do not see any reason why I should have to pretend about these things around him. The issue is that K read more into things than I did, and K now feels I owe him a certain standard of care.
This is something I will have to continue to discuss… because it is just something that bugs the crap out of me and when something bugs the crap out of me I have to write it out. And I have to be honest with msyelf because that’s what I need to do.
(Just so you know, this entry has 2501 words)
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