strange musings of a distracted spunk

Randomly, I dreamt that GDB and I were back together. And he was married and had a kid. This devastated me.

Then I dreamt that GDB and I were in a show together. And he grabbed me off the stage to make out with him behind the curtains. Oh. And then he met my entire family and announced we were on permanently, which made me very happy.

Then I dreamt I sent him a text message that said, “You’re not married with a kid somewhere, are you?”

Yeah. That last part? I didn’t dream.

He responded with “What the hell?!”

Moral of the story: Turn the phone off when I go to bed.

I never expected to read an old professor’s book and leave it feeling profoundly depressed.

She writes of her experience as a 38 year old woman, never married, subject to the experience of watching nine of her ex-boyfriends marry the girl right after her. She details various dates with men she so desperately wants to have a spark with, but feels nothing for at all. She interviews other women in her field who are also alone and reveals this uncompromising truth:

Women who are smart end up alone.

In fact, the higher the IQ, the more likely they are to end up alone.

This bodes well for me. So well in fact that it leapt me into second thoughts about whether or not breaking up with Gymnast Drummer Boy was the right decision. I may only be 24, but as I read the book, it occurred to me that my entire family, second cousins included, have been married by the time they were 24. (Though I am a bit disappointed that no one has proven to be gay. I feel like Jewish families such as mine could always use a little bit of spicing up.) It was a sinking sort of revelation, when I realized that for as much as I may have thought and cared about GDB, the vast majority of people I am friends with know nothing, or very little about him. There’s a strange paradox of knowing that I spent almost a year and a half wanting just him, and as far as they were concerned, it was just another year and a half of me being me, doing my nomadic thing, relationships be damned.

Is it my nature of being open but guarded? (Yes, walking contradiction, acknowledged.) Is it my nature of wanting to wait till something is serious before I really make any necessary introductions? Or is there a part of me that is so hesitant to see something succeed because I believe it will fail anyway, I don’t bother?

For that matter, what is it about girls that when we meet a genuinely sweet, smart, funny, caring individual, we wait for the other shoe to drop or swear if things keep going this way, we’re going to end up hurting them? Why are we so hesitant to believe that we deserve something good? We’ve been conditioned into believing that we don’t want to be alone; whether it’s nature or nurture that put us there, I don’t know. But when I think back to my septuagenarian boss who has never been married, I can’t help but wonder, “Did she miss out?” and then feel ashamed for subscribing to such conventional notions. And at the same time, I know I don’t want to be where she is, no matter how content she may be with her life.

It’s not that I want someone right now. Not at all. I’m simply licking my wounds, waiting for them to heal before I re-emerge back onto the scene as a single girl. I’m not the sort of girl who needs someone. But I am the sort of girl who will want someone. And at the end of the day, after reading the stark reality of how smart women fare in the dating world, I wonder if someday, there will be someone waiting for me at home, or if instead, I’ll be tucking into my bed alone.

For the last few months, I’ve been walking a precarious tightrope. The thing about tightropes is you know there’s a chance you’re going to fall and break something. But you do it anyway. I walked it because love was on the other side. But love can only take you so far. You can mean it, you can want it, you can live and breathe it; but sometimes, it’s just not enough.

Today, not enough came through. So I took my first step off that tightrope. The ladder may shake and quiver under me, but with each step, I’ll come closer to solid ground. It was nothing to do with him, and everything to do with me. Or perhaps it had everything to do with him and nothing to do with me. Quite simply, I want more.

I want love, the kind where you breathe each other’s name every time you exhale. The kind where hearing the other person’s laugh sends shivers up your spine, like it did the first time, and like it will each and every last time. The kind where life may come and go, but your hand is still there for the taking, no matter what happens.

I want the kind of love where it’s not about who loves who more, but how can you love me any more than you already do? I want the kind of love where his hurt becomes my hurt and my hurt becomes his. I want his heart to become my heart and my heart to become his. I want to experience every elation, every sadness, every quixotic moment in bliss because it is what life is made of.

I want to know that I’m the first thing he wants when he wakes up, and the last thing he wants when he goes to bed. I want to know that when he looks at me, he doesn’t see if, he sees when. I want to know that when I finally let him in and am ready for the next step, he will already be waiting for me on the last. I want recklessness, impulsiveness, silliness, because I am worth all of it and more. I want him to buy that damn plane ticket. I want him to want the world for me and the milky way too.

I want him to distract me with laughter when my family hurts me. I want him to brush aside his own work when I need to be handled with care. I want him to yell at me and snap me out of my brain, reminding me to live in this life, here, with him. I want to argue with him, passionately, exquisitely, until we’re out of breath and logic is rendered useless. I want sex, hours of sex and love mingled together, tracing lines on each other’s bodies, finding each freckle and errant hair and the scar from when I fell off a seesaw when I was four.

I want love. The good and the bad, the pain and the joy, the explosion that will occur when I find the one who is meant for me, who will love me with as many atoms as I love him. I apologize in advance if we send the universe out of orbit, but my love is too much for only me.

I want love. I’ve had it before. I’ve seen what it can do and how it makes me feel. I can say it now. Love. Love. I’m ready for you.

His hands traced circles on my skin, green eyes on mine. First he lined my palms. Then he traced my wrists, marking my skin with his invisible words. His hands nimbly moved up my arms, slowly, carefully, climbing up to my neck where they kneaded and pressed. I’ve never been good at eye contact. But this time, something forced me to match the intensity of his gaze, to focus my eyes on his while his fingers lingered.

His hands were warm on my skin, Wesley offering “As you wish” in the background while I watched his eyes. I couldn’t see my reflection there, in the dim light of a television, but I wondered what he saw. Did he see the unexpected pleasure as he touched me? Did he see the jagged wall, spiked from my most recent entanglements with the past? Or did he simply see iris and pupil, gazing at his own?

What is he doing? I wondered. Earlier, he had stretched out, the mock-arm-around-the-shoulders move, before pulling back in and laughing. I had shaken my head at him, grinning all the while. He had tickled me, till we were both breathless and flushed of face, traces of laughter gurgling out. We sat on the futon in his living room, facing each other, as his hands grazed my skin, declaring a tickle truce.

I marked my own words into his skin, asking how I could feel so fundamentally me with someone I had only met twelve hours before. I asked do you like me? before deciding I like you. Not the kind of like that would collapse me into bed with a friend, lazy kisses and fumbled fingers. Not the kind of like that would result in denied chemistry and repeated frustrations. This was me, implicitly, wholeheartedly, convincingly in like. Had I ever experienced this before?

My fingers skimmed over his skin, almost as white as my own, but more carved and sculpted, as I kneaded, pressed, pulled. I wrote the stories of everything and nothing at once, of how I was so utterly in the moment, of how there was no aha moment, he’s going to kiss me realization. I wrote how spontaneity can get lost in the face of basic lust. I told him it didn’t matter if he didn’t kiss me; it was enough to meet someone I felt so utterly comfortable with. I etched lines of my contentment, too cautious to look into his eyes anymore because I was afraid of what I would see. I scribbled and doodled the longitude and latitude of my heart, giving directions the only way I knew how.

He didn’t need them. Without warning his hands wrapped my face, his eyes met mine, and his lips crushed mine; wrenchingly beautiful, soul shattering, and utterly different from anything I had experienced before. I didn’t know then like would become love. I didn’t know then the roads we’d take, full of shortcuts that led to the same place. I didn’t know then how much I’d want him every time I saw him, spoke to him, thought of him, in every possible way and even some impossible. I didn’t know.

He held my hand, loose but warm. His enthusiasm caused him to pump it up and down as though we were swinging along as we walked, though we were only standing in the back of a restaurant. Something felt different about that moment. As though our world was about to shift, again.

Just the night before, he had accompanied me to an event in our shared hometown. Where we wandered among vendors, performances, and hundreds of people, wailing kids, and smeared faces of cotton candy and funnel cakes. We had friends there, and were just putting in an obligatory appearance. Yet I was excited; there would be fireworks. The first time in our history of friendship and more that there had ever been the fireworks of the exploding kind, and not just the ones that jumped when his lips had touched mine. I wanted to stay, sit on the dewy grass on an early summer evening and watch everything I had felt for him light the sky like a visual stage of our tumultuous relationship.

As we walked into the park, I teased him. “You know there’s no one more awesome than me,” I said. He nodded sagely. “Yeah. You are the coolest girl I know.” Half teasing, half wistful, his words were the lyrics of the song I had been waiting to understand. After three years of tense friendship, a week of romance, and another year of tense friendship, I was reassured to know that I was his number one girl. His hand swung close near mine, but we never touched. My heart didn’t leap, but it was then, in that moment, that I knew something was there still.

We stood in the restaurant the next day, me in a strapless dress, and him in maybe a blue checked shirt, or a green one. His eyes were bluer than I recalled seeing them, and even with my family and friends surrounding me, all I could think of was, “He’s holding my hand.” In the past, we would only hold hands when one of us wanted to pull the other somewhere. Or when I was tipsy and about to fall over. We had said goodbye to the days of romance when he said he couldn’t do it, not now. That he regretted kissing me, being with me, after we spent five hours exploring each other, mouths, cheeks, shoulders, more our first night together.

But that day, when the sun was bright and shining, and I was already in a great mood, surrounded by my closest friends and family, he held my hand, vigorously, excitedly. I teased him about how the past year had been hard on our friendship, but we were better than ever. He blushed, turned red, ran to sit with my friends from college, all of whom he had befriended when he visited during a particularly eventful weekend.

I felt as though light would stream from every pore, like Beast at the end of the film when Belle revives him with a tear and a kiss. I had wanted for so long a signal to say he was still there. He was still in that moment. That he never regretted kissing me, being with me, that he cared about me as more than a friend. That him holding my hand in front of everyone was a sign of more to come.

But like the night before, when he suddenly turned sick before the fireworks and I could only turn behind me to watch them splinter the night sky as we drove back to his house, I wasn’t meant to see those fireworks. I wasn’t meant to watch spinning Catherine wheels of delirious delight. I’d see the occasional spark, a brief rush of “Can we do this again?” before a tree would block the view. Had I been able to watch our story, it would have showed spikes, up and down, holding onto the smallest detail for more. Why is it that we cling so tightly to the actions we construe as signs?

Our story wasn’t written in the skies that night or any night. Our story ended with an angry text message, leaving behind a blank sky and a broken me.

The youngest sexual fantasy I remember having is being dressed as Jasmine, but in the red outfit, and seducing men to get myself out of ugly situations, such as kidnappings or attempted rapes. I imagined myself witty, clever, and cunning; all things that would capably render them useless as putty in my hands. I can’t tell you why this was my youngest sexual fantasy as I don’t think the Disney company set out to give young girls new ideas on redefining the sexual norm.

I always thought I’d be sly, my hips rolling in red pants that showed off every curve I had (this of course assumed I had curves and not the stick straight boyish body I had up until I hit puberty right before college.) I never had pretensions of just who those men would be; they tend to be of the faceless sort, but as long as they had nice bodies, it didn’t matter. Steve, from Full House, who voiced Aladdin would do quite nicely, but there was something about the slightly nerdy and thin yet muscular look to Aladdin that I loved. Prince Eric was always a bit too muscular for me, but I did love his blue eyes. Slightly ironic, seeing as you know, the boy I loved for the last year is all muscle and no fat. (Jerk.) I even imagined that I’d have my own Rajah and Abu to hang out with, a carpet to lay on when I grew tired of my current scene and wanted to float elsewhere. I would have everything I needed, and my sexuality would be just one of my many charms.

I’ve never been overtly sexual, or perhaps I have, but I can’t recall ever thinking about being sexual until I saw Jasmine seducing Jafar. (I still can’t believe she kissed him!) When I watched Aladdin today, I groaned when she did. I guess we block out the parts of our minds that disturb us most. Also, I never actually pictured myself having to kiss the bad guys. I’d just trip them up with how cleverly spectacular I was.

I used to look at Victoria’s Secret catalogues and imagine myself as having one of those bodies, with large, luscious breasts and flat abs and while I knew the perfect tan was just not in the cards for me because I’m pale as sin, I thought I could decently rock a teddy or a negligee. Even the sound of the word negligee rolling off my tongue still evokes a bit of that twelve year old me who knew that one day, she would be a sex goddess. Even then, it was clear that one could use one’s femininity to get whatever one wanted from a man.

I don’t exactly know why sex became such an important factor to me; I don’t think I really truly understood what it meant until I was older, in my teens, when I held my first penis and was told, “Just pull on it, and tug it back and forth. If you keep your hand wrapped around it tight, it’ll feel really good.” So I did. I tugged. And I pulled. And at the end of it, there was a little surprise which I knew about from health class, but you never really see it in the movies. I became an expert semen-cleaner then; napkins quickly swiping at their stomach, their balls, my stomach, my breasts, wherever it happened to land really. And from that moment on, I knew that the penis was my friend.

I’ve lured boys in with my subtle maneuvers, my simple flirtations, and sometimes, my flat-out honesty. I’m sure I’ve said on at least one occasion, “Want to touch my boobs?” It helps that by now, I do have those large, luscious breasts that one does see in a Victoria’s Secret catalogue. Granted, my bras range in sizes because my breasts have more mood swings than I do. I’m not ashamed to say that when I’m annoyed with something or bored, I have pulled out the bombs as a weapon to distract the male of the moment and lure them into bed. I have a 99.9% success rate.

But I’ve never had that chance to so completely and utterly seduce someone, to play the wily female of the night. I want to put it on as a costume, slip my skin into her languorous whispers in clandestine coat rooms or in a stately ballroom, wearing clothes unfamiliar to my body with the intent to have the man I want to control submit completely. (This makes me sound like I want to be a dominatrix, doesn’t it?) I want to do something so out of the norm for me, that the guy can barely speak, and he’s completely overturned by lust. I want to know that in a time where I can’t predict anything more than what I’m doing in the next minute, there is a scene I can portray that will play out much more erotically than it ever would in a Disney movie, where kisses last no more than a few seconds.

And maybe it will even involve a red outfit.

First off, I’d like to clarify one thing. There have been moments where you have made me giggle, clap my hands delightedly, and grin until my face feels like it’s going to break.I don’t doubt this will happen again someday. There are moments where I feel like I’m one of those movie moments that were someone else to view me, they’d cringe from the sappiness. There are also moments where I wake up in the mornings, completely content with where my life is at and who it’s with at the moment.

But over the last few years, I’ve learned a few things from my experiences with you. You all know how to be mighty big assholes from time to time. Even when I don’t have feelings for you or care much about you, you still know how to get right up in there and make a few tweaks that have me all up in a storm, arms flailing around, ready to pound down on anyone who dares come near, man or woman.

If you feel sorry about something, that’s one thing. If you feel as though you should apologize to smooth things over, that’s another. Why is it that you, as a gender, are so prone to apologizing for things without understanding why you’re apologizing in the first place? For example, Rebound Boy. Telling me that you didn’t really understand that wearing a condom was a part of the whole, “I don’t care if you sleep with other people since we’re not dating, but at least be safe and honest about it,” discussion does not get you out of jail free. Furthermore, contacting me to apologize and then saying, “I just didn’t want you to think I was some asshole player,” when the point is, you were? If nothing else, you’ll always remember me as the first girl who kicked you out of her bed. When you told me today, “I still can’t believe you kicked me out of bed. That’s never happened to me before,” I thought, “Get used to it kid. I’m sure I won’t be the last.”

Why bother apologizing at all? If you fucked up, and you feel bad about it, keep it to yourself. I’d rather you leave me alone and let me think of you as a jerk. Maybe in a year or two, I’ll be too focused with some other idiot who either doesn’t know how to keep it in his pants, forgets that he’s supposed to be the male and whines I don’t need him enough, the distance is too much (incidentally, an excuse Rebound Boy gave me today because South Bay is too far from East Bay? What? Talk to me after you do a Chicago-Berkeley distance) or expects me to demand a relationship from him after a week of dating. I don’t work like that gentlemen; if you want me, you need to know well enough how to hold my hand as we begin the negotiation dance so that I might just take down this wall that I have up.

I’m not going to be that girl who asks you, “Are you my boyfriend?” The very word doesn’t exist in my vocabulary for a reason. Hell, I might not even say, “What are we doing?” until about a year in, and I’ll just refer to you as my person in the meantime, and quite possibly, thereafter. You need to respect that I’m an independent fucker who will do things when I want, how I want, and if I really like you, I’ll ask you to do it with me. But I won’t rearrange my life for you, unless I think you’re damn well worth it. As of this point, only one of you has ever made it that far. Also; giving me a time line? Saying you want children by the time you’re twenty-eight, when I’ll be all of twenty-seven? My body runs in the opposite direction of a clock. Don’t bother imposing one on me.

I am a kick-ass girlfriend, when I get around to being a girlfriend. I’m also an awesome fuck buddy - as long as you’re safe, do what you want to do. Just treat me like I’m the only thing that matters when I’m around, and I’ll do the same for you. But now that my sexual health has been compromised, check it out boys. The boobs? They’re going underground. I know you’ll miss them. They’re damn fine specimens of what real breasts should look like, gentlemen.

For that matter, what part of man break did you not get, men? Why is it that when I want nothing to do with any of you, that’s when you break out the olive branches and declarations of love?

I’m tired of you all saying, “You were amazing. I had a good thing, and I don’t know why I ruined it. I fucked up. I made a mistake. You were pretty cool. [Insert variation of how awesome I am here.]” I’m tired of you saying “I know I lost a good thing when I screwed things up with you.” I’m tired of being lost, period. You know where I am boys. I was never that difficult to find in the first place.

But please. Respect my need for a break from you, without any apologies, without any desires, without any words that are guaranteed to make me go back on all the promises I made to myself and find me wanting a future that I had already said goodbye to. Please just let me make it through a day, without heated tempers or tears or words that I’m not sure I mean anymore but want to mean. Please just give me some time.

I don’t doubt that in the future, I will look forward to spending time with you again, and will admire how well I incorporate your lifestyle into my own after years of fierce independence. I love running my hands through your hair when you look at me, just after you’ve kissed me. I love how you can sometimes nuzzle your face in my shoulder and make me jump by breathing cold air on my bare skin. I love how you’ll sometimes say something so ridiculous, I can’t stop laughing and think I might fall over. I love how getting a text message from you will make me grin ridiculously, to the point where I’m not sure my face is altogether there anymore. But today? Is not that day. Until then, please. Keep your space, and I’ll keep mine.

Respectfully,

distracted spunk.

Several summers ago, I got an e-mail out of the blue from a girl who graduated a year ahead of me. I remembered her as loud; when we read the Canterbury Tales, she was quick to point out that climbing a tree to have sex was probably not the most comfortable. I often laughed loudly and heartily at her defenses during class, but we rarely talked outside of that. While we had been friendly, and had overlapping social circles sometimes, we never really hung out alone.

The e-mail surprised me. It thanked me, for inspiring her. For showing her that it was possible to lose one’s hearing and still continue on to do anything I wanted to do. She had been working as a teacher for the last year, until a tumor was detected in her brain. When they removed the tumor, they also removed some of her hearing. She asked me to come to a party of hers, in North Jersey, because she really wanted to introduce me to some people as the person who reminded her that losing one’s hearing wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

I didn’t really know how to say no to that. At that point, D was back at school taking summer classes so he could graduate a semester early. Most of my other friends who I would have usually asked to accompany me to such an event were out of town or busy. So I scrolled through my phone book, and found C.

C. was that perfect blend of acquaintance with a smidge of attraction. We met in a Communications class, but not until the very last one, where our professor instructed us to go out and test our communications skills by asking random people to allow us to try on their coats. Naturally, we made it a competition. Guy vs. girl: who would succeed? The winner of the night was me, after I scored a wool alpaca coat that retailed somewhere around $400 and the woman practically handed it over to me without any questions. He acquiesced and acknowledged that I was utterly cool, and much better at communicating than he was. But it didn’t hurt that I was pretty cute too, in his words.

“Want to go to a party with me?” I texted.

“Sure! When?”

Easy enough.

He picked me up in a car that I was positive would fall apart on the New Jersey Turnpike. We proceeded to look for what has to be the smallest square mile of town in New Jersey. Finally, after finding it, we parked and rolled out of the car, to the backyard party that was full of drunk doctors and nurses. Oh, of course. The girl who had just had surgery thought it would be fun to have a Dirty Doctors and Naughty Nurses party. She was a walking hormone, I often thought.

We made small talk. He talked about films, his motorcycle, and how he hated the people in some of his classes. I talked about work, how I hated my boss who judged me for being deaf, and general chit-chat. Sometimes, he’d lean into me, or I’d brush my arm against his. I couldn’t really tell though; was he just being friendly? Or was he into me? The night continued as we watched people dive into the above-ground pool, their black or pink or red bras peeking out beneath the soaking white costumes. We laughed, chatted convivially with those around us. Finally, we left.

The conversation wasn’t substantial, I don’t remember much. I invited him into my parents’ house, as they were away for the weekend, and I really didn’t know where the evening was headed. So we talked more, a theme of the night, my beaded necklace dangling against my collarbone and the heated air pushing against my bare legs. I couldn’t tell if he was nervous or I was nervous, but finally, one of us suggested we call it a night.

We leaned in. I decided his behavior dictated friendship more than relationship. I aimed for his cheek, when I realized it was his lips coming straight at me. Immediate instinct propelled me to duck.

Yeah. I ducked. On a kiss. Then I realized what I did. And popped back up. And went for the unnecessarily long hug. You know. That kind. The one where you hold on for slightly longer than comfortable, but you’re not entirely sure when to back away.

“I had a really great time,” I said. “Really.” (Did my face give away that I was absolutely mortified?)

“Me too,” he said. He turned and walked out the door.

I verbally whiplashed myself, wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Who DUCKS on a freaking kiss? I rationalized it was okay, because he hadn’t been giving off the flirty vibe so much, so I wasn’t prepared for it, and usually I have a good idea when a boy is about to kiss me. Usually.

Typically, the story would end here, awkward moments to end awkward moments.

I texted him again, the next day, to thank him for coming with me to the party and that I hoped to see him again soon. There was no response.

“He hates me,” I thought. I convinced myself that he would never speak to me again. Because seriously. That would be a blow to anyone’s ego, no matter how self-assured they were. (Watch, now someone’s going to duck on a kiss on me soon.)

Three weeks later, I got a text from him, which surprised the heck out of me. “I’ve been forgiven!” I thought. I opened my phone.

“Hey, sorry about that. Just got out of the hospital. I got into a bad motorcycle accident the day after we went out and I’ve been in the hospital ever since.”

Awkward moments. I has them.

“Question,” he said.

“Answer?” I replied. It had been almost a month since we last spoke.

“What’s your address,” he said.

“Why?” I asked.

“I want to send you back your watch.”

That same watch, which he held up to his web cam for me to see last night, has been in his possession since July. When I accidentally left it in his apartment in New York before he left, and has since traveled with him to multiple homes and apparently, multiple desks. The very impetus of our discussion, which led to his acknowledgment that he also wanted my address to visit me. He had been thinking of surprising me. Oh, and by the way, he fucked up. And he loves me. He had been waiting for the right time to tell me, but it never happened.

Rest assured, some of the same contradictory nature that had turned me off in the first place was still there. But as I sat, a brief respite from the overtime and non-stop motion that has been my last few weeks, there were only a few thoughts running through my head.

“WHAT?! THE?! HELL?!”

Jack of All Trades’ response was, “Are you hallucinating?” Indeed, it was something I had only dreamed of, but never thought I would ever actually hear. Though I was wary and unsure, his words left me thinking, “What does this all mean?”

He asked, “You would never want me back in the picture anyway, would you?” I said, “The only way I’d ever consider it is if you showed me how serious you were about this. Hence, flying out.”

No promises have been made. You can’t break an unpromise. And I won’t allow myself to be disappointed, because I don’t even know if he is what I want anymore. I won’t deny the physical attraction is still there; I don’t know if that’s something you can ever walk away from and have it just dissipate when it was so chemical. But as I watched the end of “Father of the Bride,” today, and saw how Bryan looked at Annie at the end of the aisle as she walked towards him, I thought, “I want that.”

I don’t want the big fancy wedding. That’s not what I mean. I am all for a big party, but you will never see me in a poofy white dress, in some big place with hundreds of guests there to watch me make the most private of vows. My relationships are private. My friends may know I’m dating someone, but I have never been that girl to kiss her boyfriend or boy of the moment in front of others. Except for when I’m drunk. Or when boy gets my friends to attack me in a tickle-fest and then kisses me (I’m looking at you, K.) That’s not who I am. My relationships are meant to be private, shared in moments, memories, and more. I can’t picture standing up in front of my ridiculously large family and every close friend I have and saying vows that I know I would write, that would render me emotional, and then kissing someone. If I get married, I want it to be about me and this one person, who understands me so infinitely, that I can’t imagine ever letting go.

What I do want is if that day comes, I want to find him at the end of the aisle, smiling, amazed at how lucky he is to have found me and still have me, and slightly dazed because is this really happening?

It’s certainly not going to be Rebound Boy, who I kicked out of my bed on Saturday morning when I found out he forgot to mention he had unprotected sex with another girl on Thursday night. His response of, “Well, we used a condom,” was not enough. I suggested he should probably leave, despite his complaints of, “I’m tired,” and told him not to call me until he got tested. Thus ends the story of Rebound Boy.

I don’t know if GDB could ever be that boy, or better yet, that man. Sometimes I think he can, when he makes me laugh so easily, when sometimes it feels like we haven’t spent any time apart, that conversation flows as easily as it always did. When I can see how much he still cares in his eyes, in his words, but I still wonder, “How much?” I’m not willing to give something my all, when his all hasn’t been given, and he still maintains the distance is a factor.

I don’t know that I want to put myself back in that place, of ever considering him, despite how good what we had was when it was good. I’m happy that for the first time in months, we had a conversation. Where we laughed. And smiled. The bickering and the nasty comments and the anger, while it’s still there somewhere, it’s just not worth repeating anymore. I don’t want a boyfriend right now. I just want friends. The male sex, as appealing as it can be, has run its course, and I am officially on a man break. No more seeking. No more flirting (if I can help it.) I just know that between GDB’s shocking revelations on Friday and last night, and Rebound Boy’s skankiness, this is a time where I need to be me, outside of any relationship-heralded influences.

No matter what happens now, at least I know he knows that he was the one who screwed things up between us. That when he talks to others about me, he acknowledges he’s the one who messed up, and that I am still the girl he loves. It’s just strange to think that everything I had wanted to hear for the last month has happened. Where do you go from there when all you wanted has come true?

What do you do when everything you want to hear comes true?