Sunday, March 30, 2008
A good excuse, for a change
So, this is just to let everyone know that the SXSW recap will not be posted today, surprise surprise. At least I have a good excuse this time. I have a short presentation to give at work tomorrow, and prepping for it is proving more time-consuming than I thought it would. Also, out of utter necessity (involving the IRS!! Scary, huh?), I had to go through and organize some paperwork this weekend. It's always something, isn't it? And unfortunately, I still don't feel all that organized. . . . Anyway, after tomorrow, things will calm down at work, and the RWBF will be out of town most of the week, so I will post the recap soon--no excuses. Please check back in soon. (And I realize that after the long delay, this better be a hell of a recap! I'll do my best.)
Sunday, March 23, 2008
RWBF Update
So, I guess it's about time for my monthly post, huh? Yes, I'm very aware of the fact that my posts have been unusually sporadic for a while now . . . but at least I haven't abandoned the blog completely. I've considered it--I've been working on some other writing, and there just doesn't seem to be time/energy for everything I'm trying to accomplish outside of work. But, the thought of giving up the blog makes me sad. I've been blogging for almost four years now (!), and it's nice to have that outlet, a place to get things off my chest and share and hopefully entertain you all a little, now and then. So, I'm just trying to get comfortable with the fact that I will never be a daily blogger or overly prolific at it, at least not for as long as I have a full-time job and a boyfriend who practically lives here. . . .
Speaking of which, I know I owe an update on the RWBF, especially after the ambiguousness of the last post about him. Well, believe it or not, we did finally have that talk, before I left for vacation . . . and it was really good. And then I left for Austin, and he must have missed me, because when I got back he was here all week, every night, for six nights in a row, until yesterday when he really had to go up north to check on his house. And he's coming back today. And we've been getting along really well, having a lot of fun the way we did at the beginning of the relationship, and not worrying about things so much.
Quite the turn-around, yes? Well, a big part of it has to do with me, actually. I had something of a revelation when we were talking before I went on vacation . . . and I realized I was "acting like a girl," for lack of a better, nonsexist description. Somewhere along the line, I started pushing the relationship along faster than it should have been going . . . why? To what end was I pushing? I have no idea. I also started expecting him to read my mind (as evidenced by the classic "What's wrong?" "Nothing" conversational exchanges we were having). I also got suspicious of all the time he spent working, although he'd given me no reason to--he still called and texted me all the time, and he IS in sales, after all; of course he has to take clients to dinner and whatnot. (This last issue particularly bothered me--I mean, it bothered me that it bothered me. I of all people should be able to understand the whole career-oriented thing . . . ! And I've never been the jealous type, so I don't know where THAT was coming from at all.) So, for once I am acknowledging myself as part of the problem here. Personal growth--yay!
By the way, I should mention that he didn't point any of this out to me--I came to these conclusions myself. This happened while we were having our talk. We were out at a restaurant, and he was sitting across from me, and I was trying to explain why I'd been unhappy--and then I saw the look on his face. It was just . . . earnest, and caring, and genuinely confused, and a little sad. There were no pretentions, no furtiveness, he just totally didn't understand what I was saying. And that's when all of the above started to occur to me. . . .
Of course, I'm not saying that everything should be put on me. There is still the issue that he's not always the best listener . . . he's a classic alpha male in almost every way, and that's definitely one of them. So, I'm being much more adamant and direct about MAKING him listen, and it seems to be working--he really is trying. (This is a technique, by the way, that I probably should have employed with my ex-husband. Conservative guys aren't the only ones who sometimes aren't the greatest listeners . . . I hate to keep rolling out the sexist stereotypes, but A LOT of guys have this problem. Trying to find a single guy who doesn't is a pretty ambitious endeavor.) And then there's the whole politics thing. We've both gotten a lot better at talking about stuff we're obviously going to disagree on, and dropping it at the right time. And sometimes, we find some common ground. The other morning, he even made fun of Bush--twice!
Communication really is the key to everything in life, isn't it?
Of course, I still can't predict (nor am I trying to) what's going to happen in the long run. For all I know, our vast differences will still prove insurmountable, eventually. But it's all about the journey anyway, and for now, the journey is fun again.
[Note: I am still working on my SXSW recap . . . hope to post that soon, before everyone totally loses interest, including me.]
Speaking of which, I know I owe an update on the RWBF, especially after the ambiguousness of the last post about him. Well, believe it or not, we did finally have that talk, before I left for vacation . . . and it was really good. And then I left for Austin, and he must have missed me, because when I got back he was here all week, every night, for six nights in a row, until yesterday when he really had to go up north to check on his house. And he's coming back today. And we've been getting along really well, having a lot of fun the way we did at the beginning of the relationship, and not worrying about things so much.
Quite the turn-around, yes? Well, a big part of it has to do with me, actually. I had something of a revelation when we were talking before I went on vacation . . . and I realized I was "acting like a girl," for lack of a better, nonsexist description. Somewhere along the line, I started pushing the relationship along faster than it should have been going . . . why? To what end was I pushing? I have no idea. I also started expecting him to read my mind (as evidenced by the classic "What's wrong?" "Nothing" conversational exchanges we were having). I also got suspicious of all the time he spent working, although he'd given me no reason to--he still called and texted me all the time, and he IS in sales, after all; of course he has to take clients to dinner and whatnot. (This last issue particularly bothered me--I mean, it bothered me that it bothered me. I of all people should be able to understand the whole career-oriented thing . . . ! And I've never been the jealous type, so I don't know where THAT was coming from at all.) So, for once I am acknowledging myself as part of the problem here. Personal growth--yay!
By the way, I should mention that he didn't point any of this out to me--I came to these conclusions myself. This happened while we were having our talk. We were out at a restaurant, and he was sitting across from me, and I was trying to explain why I'd been unhappy--and then I saw the look on his face. It was just . . . earnest, and caring, and genuinely confused, and a little sad. There were no pretentions, no furtiveness, he just totally didn't understand what I was saying. And that's when all of the above started to occur to me. . . .
Of course, I'm not saying that everything should be put on me. There is still the issue that he's not always the best listener . . . he's a classic alpha male in almost every way, and that's definitely one of them. So, I'm being much more adamant and direct about MAKING him listen, and it seems to be working--he really is trying. (This is a technique, by the way, that I probably should have employed with my ex-husband. Conservative guys aren't the only ones who sometimes aren't the greatest listeners . . . I hate to keep rolling out the sexist stereotypes, but A LOT of guys have this problem. Trying to find a single guy who doesn't is a pretty ambitious endeavor.) And then there's the whole politics thing. We've both gotten a lot better at talking about stuff we're obviously going to disagree on, and dropping it at the right time. And sometimes, we find some common ground. The other morning, he even made fun of Bush--twice!
Communication really is the key to everything in life, isn't it?
Of course, I still can't predict (nor am I trying to) what's going to happen in the long run. For all I know, our vast differences will still prove insurmountable, eventually. But it's all about the journey anyway, and for now, the journey is fun again.
[Note: I am still working on my SXSW recap . . . hope to post that soon, before everyone totally loses interest, including me.]
Saturday, March 08, 2008
Drama, drama, drama
[NOTE: This post has a moderate dad warning. I'd say orange.]
So, as many of you know, the RWBF and I have been going through a rough patch for a couple of weeks now. Actually, "rough patch" is a silly, stupid euphemism. Mainly, I've been super pissed at him off and on, interspersed with nagging annoyance at him, interspersed with missing him intensely. How's that for a recipe for disaster? Meanwhile, he's been typically oblivious . . . sometimes, I am convinced, deliberately so. Such is the stereotypical, drama-filled, completely unhealthy dynamic we've managed to establish at this, the dreaded 5-month milestone in our relationship. Yay, us.
Several times over the past few weeks, I have come THISCLOSE to breaking up with him. When I have time on my own to think, which I've had quite a bit of lately, a thousands reasons why nag at me incessantly. The whole politics thing. The fact that we have almost nothing in common. His job and his obsession with it and the overwhelming machismo that defines his industry and has irrevocably rubbed off on him. The fact that everything about me is foreign to him as well--he's never dated a liberal before, either, or a feminist, or . . . anyone remotely resembling me. My perception of his romantic life before me centers on a string of "Housewives of Orange County"-type women, except even worse--more like "Housewives of Cleveland." One of the things that first attracted me to him was his insistence that he was completely bored with the kinds of women he'd been dating and wanted to meet someone totally new and different and challenging . . . and that was me, and it WAS new and different and challenging, for both of us. For a while.
Now, though. . . .
The problem with "challenging" is that it seems to be directly correlated to the physical relationship. As long as the latter is fantastic, the former is exciting, and can be kind of a catalyst for everything. But when the initial chemistry starts to burn itself out, "challenging" can quickly become something else--annoying, frustrating, infuriating. Too much to deal with. A definite reason to break things off.
And thus have I resolved myself, a few times now. Most recently, last weekend. First, a little background--for the past three weeks or so, we really haven't seen each other very much, mostly because of his job. He's been traveling a lot, and when he's been here in town, he's had clients to entertain. (This situation in and of itself has been a point of contention, as you might suspect. I'm not going to get into all of that, though--suffice to say that it's one issue of many.) Anyway, last weekend he was going to come over on Saturday night, and we were going to talk. And I was going to bring up . . . everything, including my increasing feeling that we should just rip off the band-aid and be done with it. But then, he got here, and we hadn't seen each other in several days . . . and it was Saturday night, after all, and it seemed stupid to waste a weekend night together arguing endlessly, toward an inevitable result that neither of us was quite ready for, and . . . well, we didn't talk. I can't deny that there's a certain benefit to going a while without seeing each other, which I don't think I need to spell out.
So, here we are, a week later. I haven't seen him since he left last Sunday morning. He was in Indiana and Cleveland for most of the week, and then we got hit with the great blizzard of '08, which complicated things. Once again, I've had a week to let the creeping doubts seep in, and by last night I was once again fed up. I had one of those horrific nights when I was just obsessing, thinking about him, getting angry and upset, and totally determined to NOT call him or respond to him until I was firm in my decision to just break it off.
So this morning he texts me at 8:30. I don't respond. He texts me again at 10:00. I respond, but not in an overly friendly way. He immediately calls. I don't pick up. He leaves a message, wanting me to call. I don't call. An hour later he calls again. Again, I don't pick up. He doesn't leave a message this time.
So, can you guess what happened next? I called him, of course. Drama, drama, drama.
He's coming over tomorrow, and we've renewed our plan to talk. But of course, once again, we haven't seen each other in a week. How much faith do I have in my resolve?
I'll let you all guess.
So, as many of you know, the RWBF and I have been going through a rough patch for a couple of weeks now. Actually, "rough patch" is a silly, stupid euphemism. Mainly, I've been super pissed at him off and on, interspersed with nagging annoyance at him, interspersed with missing him intensely. How's that for a recipe for disaster? Meanwhile, he's been typically oblivious . . . sometimes, I am convinced, deliberately so. Such is the stereotypical, drama-filled, completely unhealthy dynamic we've managed to establish at this, the dreaded 5-month milestone in our relationship. Yay, us.
Several times over the past few weeks, I have come THISCLOSE to breaking up with him. When I have time on my own to think, which I've had quite a bit of lately, a thousands reasons why nag at me incessantly. The whole politics thing. The fact that we have almost nothing in common. His job and his obsession with it and the overwhelming machismo that defines his industry and has irrevocably rubbed off on him. The fact that everything about me is foreign to him as well--he's never dated a liberal before, either, or a feminist, or . . . anyone remotely resembling me. My perception of his romantic life before me centers on a string of "Housewives of Orange County"-type women, except even worse--more like "Housewives of Cleveland." One of the things that first attracted me to him was his insistence that he was completely bored with the kinds of women he'd been dating and wanted to meet someone totally new and different and challenging . . . and that was me, and it WAS new and different and challenging, for both of us. For a while.
Now, though. . . .
The problem with "challenging" is that it seems to be directly correlated to the physical relationship. As long as the latter is fantastic, the former is exciting, and can be kind of a catalyst for everything. But when the initial chemistry starts to burn itself out, "challenging" can quickly become something else--annoying, frustrating, infuriating. Too much to deal with. A definite reason to break things off.
And thus have I resolved myself, a few times now. Most recently, last weekend. First, a little background--for the past three weeks or so, we really haven't seen each other very much, mostly because of his job. He's been traveling a lot, and when he's been here in town, he's had clients to entertain. (This situation in and of itself has been a point of contention, as you might suspect. I'm not going to get into all of that, though--suffice to say that it's one issue of many.) Anyway, last weekend he was going to come over on Saturday night, and we were going to talk. And I was going to bring up . . . everything, including my increasing feeling that we should just rip off the band-aid and be done with it. But then, he got here, and we hadn't seen each other in several days . . . and it was Saturday night, after all, and it seemed stupid to waste a weekend night together arguing endlessly, toward an inevitable result that neither of us was quite ready for, and . . . well, we didn't talk. I can't deny that there's a certain benefit to going a while without seeing each other, which I don't think I need to spell out.
So, here we are, a week later. I haven't seen him since he left last Sunday morning. He was in Indiana and Cleveland for most of the week, and then we got hit with the great blizzard of '08, which complicated things. Once again, I've had a week to let the creeping doubts seep in, and by last night I was once again fed up. I had one of those horrific nights when I was just obsessing, thinking about him, getting angry and upset, and totally determined to NOT call him or respond to him until I was firm in my decision to just break it off.
So this morning he texts me at 8:30. I don't respond. He texts me again at 10:00. I respond, but not in an overly friendly way. He immediately calls. I don't pick up. He leaves a message, wanting me to call. I don't call. An hour later he calls again. Again, I don't pick up. He doesn't leave a message this time.
So, can you guess what happened next? I called him, of course. Drama, drama, drama.
He's coming over tomorrow, and we've renewed our plan to talk. But of course, once again, we haven't seen each other in a week. How much faith do I have in my resolve?
I'll let you all guess.
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