Love. Meh...

Meh...love. Wtf is up with that...?!

Ok, I've been doing this 'dating' thing for better than a year, off and on. I am no better at it  now than I was way back in the day when I actually half ass knew what I was doing. Not that I've ever known what I was doing...but I'm digressing. 

I've been spending time with one of the guys that I spent time with when Todd and I split the first time. I knew at the time that I shouldn't be spending time with this particular guy, but I found myself doing it anyway. Almost in spite of it. Come on...I knew he was seeing someone he'd been in a long term relationship with for as long as I'd known of him. But in all truthfulness, he'd been the first one of us show interest and then pursued me, not the other way around. Knowing this, I'd signed on with a guy who would admittedly cheat on his partner. Omg, he's Todd...........  


Hearing myself spell it out here in black and white, it is hard to try and sell myself on the idea that I didn't know what I was getting myself into...so how do I move forward from here? Shit. I've gone and allowed myself to have increasingly stronger feelings for a totally unavailable (emotionally or otherwise) guy, and now am almost to the point of crying and being morbidly depressed when he leaves town for the weekend. I am even jealous of his truck. Fuck. You gotta be kidding me, Susan....ugh!

Good lord, where to begin. I suppose going back over the our time last year and our last few months may let me get a clearer perspective on how I got where I am, and a larger picture so I can see where to go from here.......hmmm...where to start.....*sits with chin in hand, staring off into space with a blank look*

Alright. I was breaking up with Andrew when I 'met' Brad. I'd known of him for some five years or more from working at Riverside Conoco.  Understand, it was a passing acquaintance only, simply for business reasons, and didn't allow me to know anything too personal about him what-so-ever...with the exception that he was always working or playing and never had a female with him. Beyond that, all I knew was his name and status as a customer. Brad had been invited by Andrew to assist in convincing me that I should give Andrew another chance to prove his worthiness. Of course, Brad being the good guy that he is, did his best to convince me that Andrew loved me and wanted nothing but the best for me. I informed him that I didn't have the capacity to provide care for an alcoholic when I had a family relying on me at home. He said he understood and waited for an alone moment to offer his phone number so that we could talk about our concerns for Andrew more privately. This should have tipped me off and set my alarm bells ringing...and in many ways it did...but I ignored it. Besides talking on the phone, Brad came over later that day as well. In a phone conversation that followed, he told me about the 'spark' of electricity he'd felt pass between us when we'd spoken the first time at Andrew's...and how it had happened again at my house. How could I deny it if he said it had happened.... After all, it wasn't the kind of thing that it made sense to fake....right?

Ok....so, enter Brad onto the scene. I texted and talked to him many times over the two months that followed. We got together every now and again and even had some close encounters, but all in all, I knew about his significant other and neither of us ever went any further.  Cut to January of this year...and I sent him a text not but a few days, possibly a week, after asking Todd to leave the house...while I was out on a hockey night with my girlfriend's. We ended up drinking while at the game that night, and had quite a few more while dancing the night away in Florence at the High Spirits. That night I'd been chased around the bar by a very handsome and sweet 22 yr-old that I later took home...anway, I get off track here obviously...so, I never heard back from Brad that night. Sometime the next day I think he texted me back...and seemed to be surprised and delighted about hearing from me. He asked if I actually meant to text him, or if it had been an accident. I assured him I had meant to, although I didn't tell him I'd also texted a few others that night as well. No sense in sharing everything right out of the gate....and I still knew about his significant other, Kris.

So, seems that much hadn't changed in the year that we did other things...and other people. We both were in about the same place as we'd left one another...and here we were again. I eventually ended up being so put out by the single guys I was dating (insert Ryan and Jeff here) that I gave him more and more time to entertain me. I was so entertained sometimes that I even offered up cash to help purchase a radiator for our toy of choice, the 'big' truck...and allowed him to continue to taunt me in a sexual way for weeks and weeks...until he kept hinting that it was going to happen eventually, so I put him to the challenge and told him I expected not to be disappointed..which really seemed to deflate him some and cause some anxiety...but brought him down a few notches. Until then, he'd had an arrogant streak that was hard to tolerate, especially since I knew it cleverly hid a very damaged self-esteem. As much as I wanted to feel sorry for him, I wanted to slap the fuck out of that arrogance first...so I issued the challenge and sat back to watch the show. It worked. For that I was grateful. Ever since then, his damaged self-esteem has come to the forefront and arrogance is now saved for his friends and acquaintences, instead of for me. He seemed to be spending all his time with me, and didn't really seem to have any time to still be seeing Kris, so I assumed that he'd cooled things off with her...which was helped by the fact that I never brought her up or questioned him about anything, but in a way it wouldn't have mattered to me if he had still been seeing her...as I never saw her as competition. I actually felt and still feel really sorry for her. While I'm sure he has his flaws, Brad is a sweet and kind soul; very loving and affectionate...and passionate. He has a hard time believing I see him this way, but if he could see what I see, he would be amazed...surely.

We ended up being a very favorable match physically, and for that I am extremely grateful, although I sometimes wish I weren't as attracted to him as I am. It can be inconvenient to want to keep my distance and then he comes within a city block of me and I am unable to say no or resist even the slightest suggestion. It is especially inconvenient if I at all wish to keep my heart and it's ability to love freely intact, as I put myself at risk every time we touch. He seems surprised by my intense physical and emotional reaction to his nearness, but it's simply because he doesn't understand me...which can only be solved with time and nearness...and that is in short supply these days.

He's called me several times over the last week or so, since saying he needed space and time to figure things out. In the last few days he's asked a couple of questions that seem to be easy to answer, but he had difficulty asking them. The first was if I'd work in the office, helping his mother to run the family business. The second was about sharing problems and bills. I said yes to the first, provided it was on my off time. To the second, I responded that a shared life means shared resources/assets and liabilities/responsibilities. There is no middle ground where I handle my shit and he handles his. That is leading separate lives and not how I want to live my life. God in me knows that I was meant to be a partner and work and live side by side with a mate. I have not a single doubt that a person who feels the same way will someday find me...

Love. Meh. -/-