You can't always get what you want...

It's a very strange feeling when you wake up with a naked man in your bed and you wonder how you got to this point....
(It's also strange when he walks around the house naked, happily exclaiming "Nudies!" when you try and shoo him back into the bedroom...)
Anyways, you wake up in the bed that you've slept in alone for years and look over and there's this big slumbering hairy man and he seems like an alien creature, completely foreign and unknowable.

You know those stereotypes about how men think, about them being from Mars?  I never really thought of men as that different from me, but now all the stereotypes seem true.

Also, now my sister talks to me conspiratorially about men and how they think.  This is new.  (She also said to me that our Mom realized I 'was growing up now', which was weird.  I'm 30!)
I said one day to my sister that I was 'part time girlfriend, part time nurse.'  She said, "yeah, no matter who you date, that's how it goes.  And if you move in with them, you can add part-time housekeeper to that."

My mom said the other day that all the troubles in her life were caused by boys and she wasn't going to get married again.

I've lost the point of this story... 
I can't even explain how guys are different from girls, but I just keep getting surprised by how he thinks.

New tangent.  My Christmas present from him had a GAP gift card tied to it, and I was so upset.  Artists don't shop at the GAP!  I've boycotted the place since I was fifteen, not for any particularly good reason.  But when I opened the present, it was very thoughtful and quite well suited to me.  the gift card was specifically for office clothes for my internship coming up, so I let that pass.  The other items were lovely, and he wrote me a poem that made me cry.
I spent Christmas with his family.  They're a fussy bunch, and it made me miss my scruffy family.

Various Thots

Well we keep muddling on.
Walrus hates the group home he's living in and is trying to move to another one as soon as possible.  I try to be sympathetic but I think a little bit of the problem is how he communicates with the staff.  They're not good at their jobs, I agree, but he needs to tell them his needs, what he's planning, and ask questions when he needs help.
There's a chance there for him to step up and 'be the bigger person' and try and work with them patiently, but he's just frustrated with the stroke and can't do that right now.
Other than that, he just hangs out here at my mom's house and we cuddle on the couch and watch TV.  I don't know what's supposed to happen in a relationship; I kinda thought we were supposed to stay up all night talking about everything.  He's had a stroke. Right now simple things like getting himself dressed, eating right and getting lots of sleep take up most of his time.
I'm just going to be there supporting him.

We're not um...intimate at the moment.  It's been attempted three times and I found it extremely painful.  So I'm trying to do Kegel exercises for a few weeks. I just found this podcast and website  Sex Nerd Sandra so I'm going to go through the archives there.  I was looking for books on painful sex and found Healing Painful Sex and When Sex Hurts.  I also found out that Amazon sells dilators... I didn't even know what a dilator was until today.

Anyways, thank heavens for the internet.

Ups and Downs

Sometimes he's the sweetest, sometimes he's frustrating.
He likes to drink, and I have never been drunk in my life.  I don't think drinking stories are funny and I suppose I think men should drink a little but I get nervous when he orders a third pint...
He smokes, which ugh!  I can't stand.  I assume he's trying to quit because of the stroke but we haven't really talked about that.
He likes to eat, and I'm a fussy eater on a health diet.  I'm finding out just how much I don't know about food.  He also can't stop himself from eating if it's in front of him.  He bought ten dollars worth of fudge, which annoyed me, and I'm pretty sure he ate it all in one day.
I didn't eat candy for three years.  I admire discipline, and he doesn't seem to have it when it comes to what he puts in his body.  I think he's going to need it to get better from this stroke.  There's so much work ahead of him.

Aside:  My sister-in-law lent me The Brain that Changes Itself by Norman Doidge.  I recommend it to anyone- it's absolutely fascinating so far.  There's a chapter about love that I might blog about here in the future, if I remember.  Back the point, there's a chapter about stroke recovery where patients recover the use of paralyzed arms in two weeks.  Just two weeks, and all they have to do is prevent themselves from using the good arm by wearing an oven mitt or a sling.  I haven't discussed this with Walrus yet because miracle cure stories might be frustrating, but I'm convinced he could use the theory and help his own recovery....Any thoughts?

So much for the downs; now the ups.  I feel loved and beautiful.  That's why I'm still in this thing.  I found an article about what I think is preventing me from enjoying sex.  Basically I'm nervous and tense up and it hurts, which in turn makes me nervous...The good news is that it's curable if I do Kegel exercises; the bad news is no sex for a few weeks.  Walrus was very supportive and sweet when we talked about it.

Not feeling it.

Yesterday another bedroom fiasco.  It hurt on the two previous attempts so naturally I was apprehensive.  He was moving pretty quickly and I was too shy to tell him what I thought would work better, wasn't feeling ready and the whole thing was a no-go.  Afterwards we did sort of talk about it.
He doesn't seem worried.  I'm a nervous wreck.

I don't think I love him.  Not feeling like I'm in love at all.  This past week some minor character flaws were revealed, that I take to heart way too much.  The incident in question was very minor.  Walrus spit his gum on the ground and I freaked out, because to my mind that showed poor citizenship if not outright selfishness.

The bigger issues are perhaps 1. that with his skin problems, it's hard sometimes to find him attractive;  2, that I think he should be more in charge of his own recovery; 3 that strokes are difficult to deal with in general and 4, that getting him to talk about 'feelings' is like pulling teeth.

How easily could I walk away?  I don't know.  I do think about him all the time. We see each other almost every day, and I do miss him when we're apart.  Maybe there's a new phase coming in the relationship.  I don't really know how these things work.

How do I fix this one?

A second attempt at sex finally happened.  It still really hurt and we stopped right away.
I cried afterwards (because I was sulking, not because the pain lingers.)  I did some reading and I suspect some health problems, but then again I'm a bit of a hypochondriac.  At the very least, it is incredibly frustrating to have waited so long and then have the experience be so miserable and slightly embarrassing.  I'm already insecure about bedroom stuff, because I feel like I don't know what to do... I want so much to be 'normal'.

 Walrus was very sweet and comforting and told me he loved me about twenty times...
I knew there was a reason why I keep him.  :)

I'm going to try and get some books from the library and see if I can figure out what's going wrong.

Strides

The other day was mom was telling me about an old neighbour and I asked about the middle son (he's a few years older than me).  I haven't seen him in years, but I used to think he was cute.  He was really smart and a talented photographer as well. Apparently he's dating a woman now with severe health problems, like Crohn's disease or something, and he's become her main caregiver.  He never dated before this (which I didn't know) and his family thought he might be gay.  But his mother likes the woman he's dating and thinks she's good for him.

It was just a weird moment for me because it sounds exactly like my story.  Walrus was in the room at the time; I don't know if he clued in, or if my mother knew how much I was cringing while she was telling it.

This is going to be another jumbled outpouring, but here goes.  My best friend recently told me I had made big strides the last three months.  This was in a discussion we had after I heard a rumour from my sister that Mom might have to sell the house, due to some continued money disputes between my divorced parents.  Moving out is the next big step in me becoming you know, a grown-up.  Nothing's happening yet; it was just a hypothetical emergency to make me wake up.

Side note:  my best friend met a man on a train while travelling in Europe and wants to move to another province to be with him.  I'll keep you updated.  Life is strange sometimes!

I am a lot happier than I was last year, or even this summer.  School was so terrible last year, but it's not bad this year, and often enjoyable.  I had a fun summer job.  I have the long-awaited boyfriend.  Somehow I don't think it's just circumstances, although I know that's easy to say that now.  But at least some of it is my personal growth, and my attitude.  I have a plan, a plan I actually set in motion during a time when I was feeling really low, and it's starting to take shape.  I've found the kind of work I want to be doing and am impatient to be doing it.  Only a few more months of school, and then look out world! I really worked hard to get contacts in the field I want to get into and I've met some amazing people.  I've said yes to invites and taken chances when coincidence or fate threw something unexpected my way.  I'm still working on overcoming shyness, but strides there too.

I'm not going to lie- it feels nice to finally have a boyfriend and to do the things everybody else takes for granted.  At first holding hands and kissing freaked me out and now- well, never mind that!  (For the record, we haven't had a chance to have sex again yet.)  In a blushing and confused attempt to educate myself, I've been reading Cosmopolitan online for sex tips.  Women's Health magazine has some blunt ones as well.
I've been trying to buy pretty underwear for the first time.  I'm dressing up a bit more, paying some attention to how I look, even wearing a bit of makeup.  I wish I'd done this stuff a long time ago.  I think I would have been readier to have a relationship.  I've been a bit of a prude my whole life.  Maybe I had to be so I didn't go crazy.  The prudishness is dropping away very quickly.

I don't know if I'm qualified to give advice based on my expertise of a relationship of two whole months, but I know what has helped and what I regret.  It took me so long to realize I was in charge of my own life.

Muddling On

I said I love him, but do I?  I certainly don't love his stroke.
I worry that I 'love' being in a relationship for the first time, 'love' being adored...taking love more than I'm giving it.  Yet, I go out of my way to do things for him, and endlessly fuss about him...I help him put his jacket on and do up his buttons, because his frozen hand can't do it very quickly.  I drive him hither and thither.  I'm there- isn't that what counts?

This blog has over 1,000 pages views now.  I can't believe it!
The story has changed drastically since I started, in a way I never, never NEVER saw coming.
It felt so hopeless last summer; I felt so alone, so stuck.  It seemed my inexperience was a self-fulfilling prophecy, that no one would want me because no one had wanted me before, and that my fear and skittishness would scuttle any prospects anyways.

Walrus had a stroke, and with it he lost brain cells, and the use of some body parts.  He lost a significant amount of weight.  He lost his job.  His fiancee left him, which also left him homeless.  Some friends drifted away, I imagine, although he hasn't talked about it much, and a big family issue came up this year.  Basically every aspect of the life he had built for himself was destroyed or threatened.... Everything changed.  Everything.

Then I came along.
Sometimes I wonder how he can ask someone to take on all his baggage...
He needs support.  He has nothing to give but love.
I used to worry I wasn't loved for who I was, but just for being there in a difficult time.  Then I decided I didn't care.

Maybe we are just two lonely people who needed someone.  It's certainly a weird story...
I found someone who was willing to be patient with me and my inexperience, because he needed someone to be extremely patient with him as he heals and rebuilds his life.
(I mean, he needs to sleep 12-15 hours a day!  Patience is required.)

Side note- I just found out his fiancee is a doctor.  He was going to marry a doctor!

And I have some embarrassment about introducing him to my family and friends.  I am ashamed of myself for being ashamed of him even in the tiniest way.

As hard as this is, I'm getting something out of it.  I feel happy, in a confused, frightened, frustrated kind of way.
This week he stayed the night.  No hanky-panky, just sleeping.  (We had somewhere to be early in the morning.  It made the most sense logistically or I never would have had the nerve to suggest it.  I didn't ask my mother; I just did it.)  It was so nice to wake up and have him there.

Big stuff, short post.

Sooooooo, a lot has happened since I last wrote.  I found out Walrus smokes occasionally, and I'm so grossed out by it and I've told him so.  He told me something major about his family which he's going to have to grapple with emotionally, on top of all the stroke stuff.  I told him I loved him and ummmmm....we had sex, or at least we attempted it.  It hurt me so we stopped.  I hope this is normal for the first time.  I am scared to try again.

Different Strokes...

I'm learning how to be the girlfriend of a stroke patient. No wait, I'm learning how to be a girlfriend, period.
Shouldn't we have endless amounts of things to say to each other?  Okay, the man has mild aphasia and a paralyzed vocal cord, but still.  We want to be together all the time, but we don't do a lot of talking.  Or at least he doesn't.  And emotional stuff- I've prodded him a little bit, but he isn't good at talking about 'feelings.'

He'll send me gushy texts late at night, he uses the 'L-word' quite frequently now in messages and in person, he's very affectionate, but anything painful- I get a brick wall.  He's said I can ask him anything, but he thinks a few sentences should cover it.  I finally finally asked about the ex-fiancee and he told me the briefest of outlines and then decided he needed to throw away his coffee cup at that very moment and shambled off.

We've talked about the stroke quite a bit, and probably will need to more, but he hasn't much talked about the emotions of having a stroke beyond expressing some frustration.

I'm frustrated.  I'm extremely frustrated.  I don't know how to explain this- It's hard to be apart from him but it isn't fun to be with him.  I'm doing all the planning.  I'm extremely busy and stealing time away from other commitments for an hour or two with him, and I'm constantly figuring out how to transport him (he can't drive, and gets tired on the bus.  I borrow my mother's car when I can), how to feed him, how to keep him from getting overtired.  I try not to fuss about him, but I feel the need to check that he's got his glasses, wallet, bus pass, phone, warm jacket, etc....

Several times I've set up elaborate plans to see him in small breaks in my schedule and the staff at his group home won't have told him they've set up an appointment for him until the last minute and all my plans are laid to waste.  Yesterday I dropped by 'The House' to see him and was told I need to phone the day ahead.  He's not treated like an adult.  They phone and check in if he's out past nine.  And the place is crazy and loud, and weirds me out.

Yet we keep pretending things are normal.  I think that's what he needs from me...but it's going to exhaust me.

To be alone we have to wait until my mother's at work.  My dog barks at us continuously and tries to hump Walrus' leg if he hugs me.  It's worse than it sounds.  A 50 pound dog barking loudly and jumping at you really kills romance.

We dyed our hair crazy colours.  Yay!  No more grey hair on my fellow!  Oh, it's so shallow of me, but skin problems and a cane and grey hair?  It really changed how I look at him.  Looks his own age, for one thing.

He looks broken. He does.  From a distance even.  He's started to meet my family and friends and I've done preliminary phone calls to explain about the stroke, the skin, the hair...
This is the first time I've brought someone home, and he looks a wreck.  You can imagine the emotions surrounding this moment.   I am hugely defensive about him.

Um yes, I could go on but it's late.

Three little words...

I'm still seeing Walrus.  I'm his girlfriend.  It's still a foreign sounding word to me.
He told me he loved me and I just cried.  I haven't said it back yet.
There is a box of condoms in my room, but um they haven't been used yet.  I told him the situation.  He's being sweet about it.
That's the update.

An experience

I am contemplating deleting the blog.  If it keeps going it might turn into a blog about stroke recovery.  Well, that and my first relationship.  It's a bit of a weird story!
I think I'll leave the blog up..There were days when I felt completely alone and that there was something wrong with me and reading other people's blogs helped so much.  So, so much!
I received a comment on my last post that was short and sweet and helped clarify things about Walrus.  It's an 'experience'.  I think I keep seeing him because it's exciting, the ups and the downs.  It's a roller coaster but it's better than this endless waiting, and it's making me realize things about myself.  Like how massively repressed I am for one thing.  I finally started to like kissing.  I haven't been able to do my homework because I'm thinking about prickly-beard kisses on my neck.
And oh it is nice to put your head on someone's shoulder.
I waited so long for this.
I only hope I'm not lying to myself, just 'taking what I can get' because I turned 30.  Sometimes dealing with the stroke stuff isn't fun.  What an obvious statement!  If we're out together and he gets tired or overstimulated, it's all stroke, no Walrus.
I have been reading as much as I can about strokes.  It's still very early and I have faith that he'll continue to improve by leaps and bounds.  But should I bet on that?  Because if he doesn't get better, I'm not sure I'll be happy once the novelty of kissing wears off.  I should like him as he is now.  I remind myself how intrigued I was by his profile; I never looked at anybody else.  He treats me beautifully and I feel special.  But I wonder if I'm actually smitten with this fantasy I have of what he was/will be, and not with him now.  He's rebuilding his life almost from scratch.  Do I want to get built in?  Does he have to do that alone?

And this is how it is

Well I have now made out on a bench in the park.  And in a car...and in the movies.... I'm still seeing Walrus and it's still a little weird dealing with the stroke.  He thinks he can do more than he can, and when he starts to get tired I start to feel like a babysitter.  Just a little.  He gets a little clumsy with his movements and has knocked over chairs in restaurants, or spilled his coffee everywhere....
He wrote me a poem for my birthday and it was very beautiful.
I'm not sure I want to share these things on the blog any more, now that it involves another person.

Um hello.  I suppose I should tell you what's happened.
I've been very busy with work and school, and I kept telling Walrus I didn't have time to see him.  He found out I was done a gig at 8pm and asked if he could meet me for coffee after.  I said ok.  I was somewhat discouraging, mentioned how tired I was, but he didn't take the hint.  I don't know what my intentions were.  I had imagined a conversation where I told him he was brave and smart but not ready for a relationship but I was sure we'd be good friends....
Yeah.  That didn't happen.  He was actually quite talkative and it was quite okay.  He couldn't get his bank card to work and I paid, but I felt better having evened out the score in that department.  Afterwards we walked around the city and held hands.  I was so tired from work I said I was ready to go home at 10.  There were two pecks on the cheek and one quick peck on the lips before I darted onto the subway train.
I couldn't sleep that night.  Very wired.  I thought it might be worth it to give it a try, and it was so nice to hold someone's hand....I thought a long time about all the weird things I've done to my pysche in order to keep going on alone for so long....I won't go into it.
We went to the beach two days later, which was weird, because there's a lot of skin showing, and we were lying on a beach blanket.  That day it was hot and we were both sluggish.  He just seemed 'off' a bit, and all the quirks of the stroke were quite apparent.  I could tell he wanted to touch me and I was so jumpy.  There was a few short kisses.  So there, I've kissed someone, but it wasn't very exciting.  That day was tough. 
We're writing to each other (texts on our phones) several times a day and those still seem very different in character from the man in person.  He can write, but his speech is muddled just a little... Grammatically it's still good but the words are simpler and the sharp wit is missing...
He's started to say very warm things to me through the texts.  I'm called several pet names, and I'm beautiful and he misses me etc...I've told him to tone it down, I don't respond to ones that make me blush...Not that he's 'sexting' me, they're all quite innocent.  He's being quite patient, really, by today's standards.  But 4 dates, and I think he's planning the wedding already....Not exaggerating! 
I don't know what to do.  When we just write, I can forget about how hard it is to communicate sometimes face to face.  Except for being too enthusiastic, he's been quite a gentleman, and supportive. 
I don't know what he was like before so I don't know what parts of his behavior are caused by the stroke and which are caused by the emotional trauma of the stroke. 
I hope I'm not deluding myself.  I keep saying I want out and I press on.

End of Summer Lament

What a weird summer.  I got a niece and nephew and a sister-in-law.  I had a great job and met some neat people but didn't realize until now I wasn't having much  fun outside of that.  I didn't see many old friends, or camp or go to the fair or the beach or do any other traditional summer things.  I was sick for the better part of the summer it seems, and then there was that darn summer school!

So now it's the last few days of freedom and I've got lots of work to do to finish up my job commitments...I don't want to go back to school!  I hate it!

I'm a few weeks away from turning 30 so that adds to the need to reflect.  There was a glimmer of hope a few weeks ago that maybe I would actually kiss somebody before I reached that milestone.  Well we know how well that turned out.

Speaking of Walrus, on the way home from seeing him last night I realized he didn't smile the whole time.  Or laugh.  He indicated that he liked things, or thought things were funny, but his face can't spontaneously break into a smile.  It's so heartbreaking, the whole story.  I cried a little this morning thinking about it, then I snooped his facebook page.  I think the breakup with the fiancee was even more recent than I had previously thought.  In any case, it was only 'announced' with the status change on facebook in July.  And he's on OK Cupid in August?  He is not ready for that.  He mentioned her a few times last night, still calls her 'my fiancee' and not 'the ex'.  So, so not ready.  And why am I mixed up in this and how quickly can I get myself out of it?

I am feeling a bit 'suckered'.  I am feeling my inexperience.  It feels like the universe is mocking me.  I don't understand why love hasn't happened for me.  I'm not ugly or dumb or mean so what am I doing wrong?

 My social life is so quiet...I have a former best friend I'm not speaking to, and a whole wack of relationships that I let die away because they were tied to her....

I just want to cry a big weeping sobbing gasping glubber.  I haven't cried, properly, in two or three years.  I didn't even cry when Angie died. 

I meet the Walrus again

The saga continues.  Walrus has been texting me daily.  I was a bit sick, and somehow it became the thing for him to check up on me and start these conversations.  I have an old phone and am terrible at texting.

Anyways, we were supposed to do something Wednesday and I cancelled and took a nap instead.  When I awoke I had a burst of crazy energy and started working on an art project.  When he texted me I made a joke about me being normal one day and it started this whole conversation that made me uncomfortable and yet somewhat flattered.

He replied, 'No, no!  I like you just as you are.'  He said he tried to be normal and ended up a workaholic with a stroke, an aborted marriage and an affinity for hard liquor.  There was more stuff about how great it was that I was me being me and how it made him happy.  I said this was too deep for texting and told him goodnight.

 

So, having put it off for days, I saw him tonight.  This is the raw version I just emailed my best friend.  Why does she have to be backpacking in Europe when I need her?

 

"Met him 4:30 at a coffee shop on ____ street.  He was late.  He gets his coffee and sits down and doesn't say much and I start babbling.   He eats this huge coffee cake forever.  We walk down _____ Street and go into a few shops.  Conversation is start-and-stop.  I am racking my brains for questions to ask, he doesn't ask me any.  He might make general comments about something we pass and there's not much for me to say back. 

 

In the book store he is tired and sits on a stool and I of course feel bad and we go to look for food.  He talks about food a lot and has been to every restaurant we pass.  He picks a place and I agree just to stop walking but it was more of a drinks place with an extremely limited menu.  We sit outside at a high counter outside so we are side by side and I accidently placed myself on the other side of a beam (post?  anyways a piece of wood)  from him.  I asked him to tell me about the stroke and that at least gets him talking for a long time.  The other people on the patio left, i don't know if that was because of us.  I asked about the hospital and the treatment etc which at least let me know what was going on. 

 

He had a beer with dinner.  Then he ordered desserts, and another beer.  By then I was freezing and we moved inside while he finished beer number two.  He was pretty spaced out by that time and stared at lights for a long time.  He would occasionally snap out of it long enough to ask how I was doing.  He paid.  He walked me to the bus stop, I hugged him and hopped on the bus.  I had his stupid coffee cake in my bag and forgot to give it back so there was another round of texting on the way home, he asked if I had a good time.  I just said yes.

 

There was no compliments or attempts at hand-holding or anything romantic at all. That probably would have upset me greatly but it's weird when I get enthusiastic messages the rest of the time. Huge disconnect between the guy online and the guy in person.  It's like I spent four hours with a robot.  No, it's not quite that bad, but his emotions are a but muted.   if I try and talk about my life he doesn't really ask questions about it, he just says 'excellent, excellent' 

 

His stroke was in the right basal ganglia, which means I believe, that it was in the cerebellum or anyways a more primitive part of the brain.  It controls appetite- he said he doesn't feel hungry.  He eats a lot and talks about food constantly.  He said he has no notion of time passing.  I wonder if that's why he stares into space so much.  He might have no idea how long I'm sitting there.  Eye contact is still poor, although his eyes didn't seem so freaky as last time.

He said it was the second beer he had since his stroke.  I don't know if he meant it was the first time he'd had beer, because he had two, or the second time. 

He pulled out his iphone to look up some movie we were talking about and I saw that the background picture was one of my drawings.  I didn't say anything.

He told me his younger sister had had addiction problems and went through some sort of detox program. 

 

Conversation sometimes got going, we like a lot of the same stuff...I think a not-stroked-out Walrus would have been my undoing but this is just too hard.  I don't know what happens now.  I am very booked up for the next two weeks so that might give it enough space for me to say what i have to say.  it is very sad."

More time to think

Tonight's date (ack!  that word!) was cancelled because the hospital decided Walrus needed bedrest and observation while they did something to his medication.  He was disappointed by having to cancel and was telling me he really wanted to see me again and calling me 'my dear'.  I haven't put a stop to this even though it makes me uncomfortable because I don't know how to say it.  "I've been in your company for exactly an hour and a half; I'm not your dear!  I'm not 'your' anything!"
this is so weird!  I want to be nice but I might freak out on him.

Update

I have agreed to go to the beach with Walrus next Monday.  I'm not sure why exactly, except that I don't want to be someone who runs away because the guy 's had some bad luck in the medical department.  I don't think I met him properly last time, all I saw was the stroke. 
Hopefully this is not some weird need of mine to play at being Florence Nightengale or 'rescue' him in anyway.  I don't want to do that.  Really I'd just like to be friends and take him on an outing once a week, but his expectations (and possibly mine) started a little higher than that....
He added me on Facebook so I snooped.  He seems to have had the skin problem and the grody ear before the stroke.  It was nice to see his friends and family supporting him, and sad to read all the 'somebody come visit me on the long weekend' posts....Getting a better sense of what he's been through.  Only a month ago he couldn't button his own shirt. 
Personally I wouldn't have started online dating at that point in my life.  I never think I'm ready, think I have to lose ten pounds and move out first, and this guy just went for it.  He must know there aren't going to be a lot of takers, right?
This is really one of the weirdest situations I've ever been faced with.  I don't understand why I made it to 30 without just once, a nice normal guy asking me out. 

A Big Weight

I've spent the whole day thinking about this situation.  Maybe thinking is the wrong word.  It just sits there in my mind like a lump.

I left out stuff in last night's post....
I waited half an hour for him to show up- he was texting me with updates, missed the bus, took a taxi from way across town....When I first saw him I think I was so shocked, and disappointed that we walked to the cafe almost in silence.  He tried to make some comments and I couldn't even make pleasant small talk back...When we got to the cafe I had determined to make the best of it and started up the chatter.  I think he can't move one eye perhaps, because his eyes seem to look in different directions and it's hard to look at.  Eye contact is so important. 

His responses to my questions seemed to be on a bit of a delay sometimes, or he'd miss the point a little bit...Sometimes his stories went nowhere.  Is it nervousness, his personality, or a mis-firing brain? 

His stroke was in the right half of the brain- is it just his limbs that were affected?  What if his personality was?  He was oddly formal sometimes, emotionally on one note....I don't know how to explain it.  Little glimpses of a personality came through, but seldom.  It's hard for him to talk.  How can he communicate who he is without total control of his voice and eyes?

When you get a message on OKC it shows up next to the sender's profile picture, in this case a pre-stroke picture...I must have made up this entire person in my mind based on that image and I was really smitten.  The words he wrote were filtered through that image and I probably altered the tone to suit.  Then this guy shows up and I can't reconcile the two images....

He's really excited about this thing.  It's not going to happen.  It can't be based on pity.  Should I still be friends with him?  He wrote those messages, there's a person in there that I like.

I'm really happy people are starting to comment.  Thank you.

I have no idea what to do

So tonight I met the guy I called 'the bearded fellow' or 'The Walrus'. 
I only mentioned it once, a long while back, that he had a 'medical emergency' in the spring.
It was pretty serious- a stroke.  At that time his fiancee broke up with him.  That was only a few months ago, and even though I really liked his profile that was not really an inducement to write to him.  I figured events that traumatic would really mess a person up.  Then he wrote to me, and you can read the whole story of our correspondence in previous posts... (and see all the red flags I missed....?)

Anyways, so I knew he had a stroke.  I knew he walked with a cane.  I pictured him going to physio several hours a day, yes, but still living independently and seeing people and perhaps even still taking classes at night.  Then I started talking to him.  I knew his life was pretty boring at the moment, alternating with difficult but I did not grasp the severeness of the stroke's impact at all.

His speech is slightly impaired.  His hair has a shock of white in it.  His skin is peeling in patches, and one ear is especially hard to look at.  He's obviously lost weight.  He did not look like his pre-stroke pictures at all.

Three months ago they told him he might never walk again.  They told him his left arm was dead.  He walks quite briskly with that cane actually.  His left hand can't do much but it's not dead.  He fought this thing so hard.  I think he's still a permanant patient in the hospital.  He's lived there all summer.

It was very awkward.  I got super-cheerful and just babbled on, like some people do around invalids.
I had to go to a meeting after so there was a time limit.  I hugged him and ran off.

He's written me a few messages already tonight, thanking me, asking me to dinner, asking what my favourite flower is.  What do I do?  I feel like a shithead but I can't take on this type of responsibility.  oh dear how do I get myself into these things?  I am so sad and frustrated for him because he's a good guy, but I can't fix things for him.

My life is so surreal.

Anticipation

I'm meeting bearded fellow tomorrow.  Actually, my nickname for him is the Walrus.
I asked him if he wanted to go to coffee.  I wasn't sure how long we'd keep writing if I didn't.  The conversation was so much wordplay I couldn't sleep at night, my head was so full of words buzzing around. 
So here goes nothing. 

A big worry cloud hits

So i've been messaging the guy once a day and this morning his answer wasn't there and I worried he didn't like me and it always goes like that.  They like me and I panic and when I've thought about it and think I might be okay with kissing them they've moved on.  But he wrote.  It's very intellectual stuff, art and music, what talking about and it's making me insecure that I'm not smart enough because I can hardly keep up.  And I've totally stalked him on the internet, I feel clever and dirty.  He links to his website from the profile, and you can look up who owns the domain.  Then simply google the name.  I think he studied art history.  For fuck's sake he knows about every damn thing under the sun.  And i've just spent an hour reading his journal-writing thing page and it's so brilliant and I can't imagine telling this person that I've never done any real living and showing him my stupid little cartoons and if anybody ever does kiss me I think I'm going to break into tears and I just feel like this giant child and that I've wasted time and wasted my life and if he really did want to go out with me I would be pulled up into this world of his and I would puff up like a giant shooting star balloon and grow and be wonderful and he would be difficult and wonderful and he could fix the sink he wants to be married he just broke up with a fiancee I'll just be a rebound girl even smart guys just like boobs sometimes why can't i just hold someone's hand should I ask him to meet me am i smart enough am i pretty enough IN REAL LIFE?

Future Unclear

So somwhat shamefacedly I admit I'm still messaging the bearded fellow.  He apologized and was very polite after.  We're talking about music, presently. 

Just my luck...

Oh the perils of online dating...
Two days ago I received my first OK Cupid message and it was from someone I was interested in.  So I took a deep breath and wrote a little message. 
The next morning, two email notifications.  He had written at 11pm and again at 3am.  For some reason I didn't go read them right away.  Once I signed in I would feel obligated to answer since people can see when you've been online.  I had a very busy day and I meant to answer after dinner.  I never got around to it- we're dog-sitting and the new dog won't settle, my mother was always around, there was a big pile of dishes...Then I said to myself I don't want to look like I don't have a life on a Friday night, I won't answer today at all.  I worked on an art project instead.
This morning (Saturday) another email notification.  He had written again 9pm Friday night.  3 unanswered messages seemed a bit much to me, but until I read them I wasn't going to judge.  So I simply putting off reading them until just now.  My stomach has hurt all morning.  I was imagining him addicted to OK Cupid, spending hours on it every night, harassing girls.  My first message from him was so generic I suspected he was mass-messaging women.  Also you can see how much people are online and he always seemed to be.

I just read them and I don't know what to do.  They are super-enthusiastic- can I hold your hand, can I buy your art, can I smother you in kisses, are you having a good weekend, of course you are, you're beautiful and talented...

I told him he was scaring me.

I didn't block him.  I probably should... When I read his profile I was equally enthusiastic, a little smitten, only I didn't go shouting it from the hills.  It's the internet!  Caution is required.  It's so easy to make up this ideal person in your head, but you don't really know them at all. 
So I'm pretty disappointed that he's acting like this.   I had started to...hope. 
Does that technique really work on women? 
Too much for me.  Way tooo much. 

Ugh.

Butterflies...

I got my first OK Cupid message last night.
It was from my bearded fellow.  The only person I really wanted to hear from.

But, I have a niggling suspicion it was a copy n' paste message.  Well written, over-written perhaps, but didn't mention anything from my profile.  He said I was pretty and that he'd like to take me to a cafe for coffee and pastries.

Well, that's to the point.

Except I say in my profile I can't eat sweets.  Or coffee!

The weird thing is that I read it at 11:30 last night and I've had a sleepless, sleepless night.  I crossed a bunch of imaginary bridges and got overwhelmed. 

I've had a stomach ache all day.

I guess I will write back.  It'd be pretty chickensh*t not to. 
This guy said he was only looking for 'new friends' but he's made a pretty definite first move.  It makes me want to retreat...
Or, to go all out and send him a picture of me in the Velma costume...
Stay tuned...

Various thots

Is 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' a movie about incel?  Toula is 30 and unmarried, shy and drab.  I'm not sure, but John Corbett's pretty cute so I'll watch it in the name of research.
Just turned the tv on, I just missed the end of 'I Love You...Don't Touch Me' which is about a 25 year old virgin.  Sounds pretty lame though.

Still no messages on OKC, but someone apparently rated me highly.  They send you this email that says 'one of these 9 men rated 4 or 5 stars.  Go look through their profiles and if you rate them highly as well, we'll let you both know you're a match.' 

They talk about it like a fun game.  Oh, and it gets me on the site looking at 9 profiles, that's probably good for their advertising. 

I don't want to play these silly games.  I don't want to be favourited or ranked or winked at or sent virtual flowers.  Do we have to make online dating more ridiculous than it already is?
I just want a message! 

I read this and thought it was interesting-The Math of Beauty
Now, it's about women's looks, so be prepared, but the women featured are ordinary looking women and I actually found it reassuring that men rated them much higher than I would have.  Now I feel mean!

By analyzing profile photos and comparing them with the amount of messages the women get, the researchers found that it is to a women's advantage (in terms of male interest) if some men find her unattractive. 
A women who is rated a 4 out of 5 by almost everyone is 'cute', but no one messages her. 
A women whose rating is divided strongly between 1s and 5s gets lots of messages.

The theory, if I've gotten it right, is that being rated a 5 by someone gets you a message.  Hot = message.  Guys are excited and take action.  They might know they don't have a shot in hell, but it can't hurt to try.
Cute girls (4s) don't get messages because nobody's super excited, but everybody thinks everybody else is messaging them so nobody messages them.  Girls who get 1s and 5s get lots of messages because the guys who like them like them a lot, and they figure there's less competition so they're more willing to go for it.

You can't actually see other people's ratings.  We must all have some shared idea of beauty in our heads, enough to know when other people are going to agree with our ratings and when they're our own personal quirk.

The advice the article gives is play up your quirks- show off your tattoos and your crooked teeth...

My current photo is pretty ordinary.  A few years ago my friend dared me to join Plenty of Fish and at the time I had brightly dyed hair.  I got quite a few messages; I wonder if that had something to do with it.
Or is summer the slow season for online dating?
Well it doesn't hurt me to have a profile up.

Visited the new baby today, for only 30 minutes- bit grumpy that they went out at the time I said I was planning to come.  Weird dynamics about the family seeing this baby....we'll see how this works out.  The new mother is only 21.

Female Friend Drama Part III

Where were we?  Oh yes, we'd just come back from our big trip. It must have been May.  My mother went travelling in South America for two months and I was in charge of the house (my sister wasn't much help.) I went into a depression and cried randomly.  Things were stressful.

You see, Angie, a former co-worker, an art teacher I used to assist, had phoned me the previous December to tell me she had throat cancer.  She asked me to start substituting for some of her art classes at the rec centre, gradually I took them over.  I was also driving her to chemo, and visiting her often.  I got to know her and her family quite well.

Emily had wanted to go on our trip to get some perspective.  I think she decided she wanted the old boyfriend back.  They'd been together 8 years, both of them still lived at home.  They only saw each other about once a week.  It seemed to me to lack any kind of romance or spark.  She told me she wanted him to do a big gesture to win her back.  I had no sympathy- in one year she had considered relationships with three other men (the two from work and the one in London). 

Meanwhile we were back working on the film at the arts organization.  Both of us would bring our laptops, but only she would plug into the internet.  She would sign into online messaging and talk to people all day long.  I thought that was pretty rude.  Mostly she talked to her old work buddy Charlie, who was still devoted to her.  They played this game where they'd pick a word (like 'sunshine') and send each other songs with that word in the lyrics.  The music would play in the room so I could hear it too.  I kinda wanted to play, and sometimes I made suggestions, but I didn't really think it was very professional of either of them.  Charlie was at work, and we were pretending to be! 

Once he sent a song that featured the words 'stupid ho' over and over and I reached over and turned it off.  That was the end of that game, or at least my involvement in it.  Well, I still say you can't play a song like that in an office, especially when you're using the space for free.

After that, Emily wore headphones.  If I wanted to talk to her about the film, she acted like I was interrupting her most unreasonably.

I said I was crying quite a lot at that time.  Sometimes at work.  Emily had to comfort me.  We'd go for walks.  She was a reasonably good friend at those times, but what could she do when I told her I was lonely and worried about surviving as an artist and sometimes jealous of her social life and jobs?  It only made her feel bad about what she had, when she wasn't even happy with her life either.

What a mess.  What a mess.

There was this really special art show in town and even though we talked about going together, I decided to go with my sick friend Angie instead.  I couldn't believe Emily sulked about that.

Then the arts organization had a job opening, just a little short term gig, and they asked both of us to put in a portfolio.  We took a long walk to discuss that one.  I at that time felt that I needed the job to save my self confidence.  I wasn't going to ask Emily not to apply, but I must have secretly hoped she'd stand back and let me have a chance.  I was holding back what I felt.  She was getting really heated and blurted something about me thinking she wasn't a good enough artist to do it, which was hurtful, insulting....I didn't think that, and I didn't want to hold her back.  It's just that I really thought I needed it more than her, like I was drowning and clutching at anything that would pull me up...
In the end we both applied and neither of us got it.  Probably the best outcome, but the damage was done.
She withdrew more and more into the online messaging....I couldn't even talk to her.  In June I wrote her a letter, and at the end of the workday I tried to give it to her.  She wouldn't take it.  We went to the park and tried to talk, but I tried to tell her she was like a brick wall and I ended up sobbing hysterically, loud, gasping, unstoppable crying, in a public park.  She just sat next to me quietly.  At one point she said so quietly and sadly, "Why are you so sad?"  We were in the park a long time, we moved to a quieter place, I still couldn't stop, she started getting a little angry, and I gasped out 'I'm....so.....disappointed...." and she BLEW UP.   Yelled stuff at me and left me crying in the park.  I sat there and cried for a while then went home.  My mother came home that night.  I acted quite normal.  I casually told my sister Emily and I had had a fight. 
I tried to phone Emily but she hung up on me.
A few days later I got an email saying that I should go to counselling and that I should take time away to heal.  Emily had suggested counselling for me before, because she got scared when I cried. 
So I signed up right away, and started going once a week.  I didn't tell my family. 
I liked my counseller, even if she looked like the mom on Leave it to Beaver.  I think she had dentures, or just some really straight teeth.  My counseller made me say what it was I liked so much about Emily, and I couldn't think of much. 
I'm going to save everybody hundreds of dollars:  The best thing the counseller told me was "If this is the worst time of your life, and you live through it, it will be over and nothing will ever be as bad again."
For the first few weeks I just lay on the couch a lot.  Eventually the counseller helped me make a list of goals and I started drawing again.  I got a part time job at a thrift store, which changed my view on the world in many ways, but that's another story. 
Emily and I still emailed a bit, for some reason.  My counseller told me to give her space, so I never wrote unless she did, and never asked to see her.
In October there was an art school reunion and I wrote to Emily and told her I was going.  She said she was too.  I think she said she was proud of me. (?)  At the event I saw her (with Charlie) and she hugged me.  I told her a bit about the guy at work who liked me.  We met a few times after that, and hung out for short periods of times, trying to be friends again, although she kept her distance a little more than I did.  An old teacher died and we went to the funeral together.  I ignored the fact that while I had been crying on the couch that summer, she had stayed at the arts organization and worked on her own project, one she must have had secretly ready to go.  I wonder what she told them about why I never came back.  I wonder what happened to the pair of shoes I left at the office.
The film , the project we worked on for five year, was never mentioned.  I think she did date Charlie for a little while but she didn't really go into details. I didnt actually see Emily all that much, but we wrote often and it was quite friendly.  I was busy with my new job and trying to work on my art, I took a few art classes, and I stopped going to counselling.

I was really happy to have Emily back in my life.  Part of that might of been that I was seeing all my old art school friends again.  The ones she'd been hanging out with all along.  The ones that never phoned me during my disappearance...

I stopped covering Angie's classes- it was too hard.  She took a turn for a worse in the spring. 
She died at the end of June.  I didn't even cry.  I only cried when I fought with Emily.  I haven't cried in years.  I wish I could.  I wish I could.

In August I decided to have a bbq, one I'd planned for Angie to attend in June....that might have been inappropriate but I wanted my friends around me.  It rained and not a lot of people came but we had a good time.  Immediately after I was helping prepare a slide show for Angie's memorial and two computers in the house broke down.   I had a nasty cough.  I sent Emily a little message on facebook:  "I"m sick, my computer's broken and the memorial's next week.  Stress!  Do you think people had a good time at my party?"  She wrote back :"I can't help but notice your messages have been getting more negative lately.  You friends love you and want you to be happy but you have to do something about this."

I took three days to reply to that, and I said 'Angie died six weeks ago.  I'm grieving.  It really wasn't all that negative.'

She wrote back a bunch of nonsense about  having to protect her own happiness and she wasn't going to be my dumping ground anymore.  It's burned into my memory forever:  "you can't deal with stuff and you don't solve problems."
That day I found out my grandmother had cancer.  I never answered Emily's message, and two weeks later she 'unfriended' me on facebook.   This was August.
I went back to counselling once soon after that.  My counseller wasn't too impressed with Emily.

I ran into her twice after that.  There was a minimum of interaction.  I think we said 'hi' politely.
In January I received a card from her.  I opened it at breakfast and cried into my cereal.  It was a gift card for art supplies and all it said was 'the desk is very useful.  I am grateful. -Emily'.  

I cried because I had given her the desk six months earlier.  It would have given me a little dignity if she'd taken the desk from me as a gift, from a friend, because I thought we were, at the time.  And, knowing her like I do, I felt she was freeing herself of all obligation to me.  She might not have known she was doing that, but she probably thought of me every time she sat at the desk, and thought she could square things up if she send me $35.   I wasn't going to make good art if my supplies came from her- I gave the card to a friend.

35 bucks for 8 years of friendship and an old desk.  But I got my revenge!  Emily borrowed a van to pick it up.  The night before she came I discovered my cat had peed on the top and I scrubbed and scrubbed it, but never told her.  Ha!

I still curse her name sometimes.  I don't talk to anybody from my old art world anymore- I'm starting over, on my own, out of the shadow of Emily.

PS.  My grandmother is now cancer free!

Female Friend Drama Part II

Announcing the arrival of new niece today! We went to see the baby at the hospital today- oh, family dynamics fun.  My grandmother is only 75, but her conversation is getting harder and harder to follow.  It's one long cheerful stream of half-finished unrelated anecdotes about everyone she knows....My mother was cranky, my sister's baby was fussy, the in-laws visiting from England didn't introduce themselves to us, my dad and his wife hung around the neighbourhood of the hospital ALL DAY but left after a short visit with the baby...the new mother looked very small and young and wouldn't let anybody hold the baby for the first hour and a half.  My brother looked happy and quiet and possibly overwhelmed. 

Fun moment for the still-single sibling:  "Next year is going to be so boring.  What can top two babies?" 

I'm not sure how well I'm doing right now.  I am happy that the baby arrived safely, and of course I will love it like a good auntie.  Seeing the new parents, it just felt like intruding on a such a private moment, such a huge life changing moment, and one I don't think I'm ever going to have.

Also I've gotten zero messages on OKCupid.  What am I doing wrong? 

Anyways, I'd better continue with my story about Emily.  Sorry to whoever is reading this, I don't think it's interesting to anyone but me.

For two years Emily and I worked on that film part-time, each of us taking jobs as opportunities arose, and then they started to arise more for her.  During this time, my parents separate, hire lawyers and fight over money, I don't speak to my father for a year, my mother sells the house we've lived in for 17 years and we move 17 years worth of crap into a new house.

One day near the end of these two years, the day after Halloween, Emily wasn't at 'work', that is to say she wasn't at the space where we met to work on the film.  The receptionist of the arts organization told me that Emily's boyfriend had phoned in to say Emily had spent the night in the hospital.  I phoned her parents and left a message, and got no answer.  I didn't have a phone number or email for the boyfriend, even though they'd been going out as long as I'd known her. 

I was super panicked and started to cry.  I kept phoning her parents and finally spoke her to dad.  She was still in the hospital.  She'd fallen and hit her head on the sidewalk while 'running from the police'?  Her dad has a thick accent so I can't say for sure that's what he said, but that's what I heard.  I went to see her in the hospital, and when I went into the room she was asleep and had a big purple bruise.  I forgave her everything at that moment; I was so relieved she was okay.  We visited and she was a bit evasive about what happened, she just said she was 'running, just running.'  I never asked her what really happened that day and she never volunteered the story.  She stayed at home to recover for the next few weeks and  I went to visit her.  She seemed grateful for that.  She said she felt very different, like her personality had changed.  I can't remember what exactly was said but I remember that time as being very surreal.

Weeks later I had a niggling feeling that it was weird that the boyfriend had called the arts organization, who really didn't care whether we were there or not, and not me.  It must have been at her instruction, no? I mention this little incident because it seems like the beginning of the end...

I can't remember what happened the following winter and spring, but it must have been when she started to get some really good jobs and had no time for the project.  That summer I hardly saw her at all.  She had a job at the best place in town, and I was so jealous.  Our mutual friend had moved to Seattle to live with her boyfriend (met online!) and Emily and I took a bus trip together.  We did a lot of catching up and had really great conversations.  She told me this guy who sat next to her at work, Adam, was flirting heavily with her and she really liked him.  She still was dating her long-time boyfriend, and Adam had a girlfriend that he lived with.  I actually encouraged her to go for it, since I didn't like her boyfriend all that much.  After a few months of hearing about all the flirting, in the end Adam wouldn't leave his girlfriend and Emily was heartbroken. 

But.  There was another guy who sat on the other side of her at work, and he seemed to have a bit of a crush on her.  Charlie was maybe 8 years older than us, and was a bit of a film-geek, really cheerful, had a tendency to talk too much if you got him started.  It seemed he'd only had one girlfriend in his life, and they were still 'long-distance' but it was fading.  He also still lived at home, at 34!  Emily was friendly to Charlie and hung out with him a bit. She suspected he liked her and still spent a lot of time with him.  She told me a lot about how lonely he was, and even suggested I go out with him.  I was having none of that.  No leftovers for me, thanks.  But Emily still kept hanging out with him, and inviting him to hang out with the two of us.  I'd meet her at the movies, and surprise!  there he was.  Her parents started to suspect things and discouraged the friendship because Emily is Chinese and Charlie was white.  He even came to my house once with her, and they sat together under one blanket.  I was annoyed.

My feelings, motives(?) at this time were mixed.  He genuinely was a nice fellow and I would have been happy to have him as a friend.  I let him come to my house I guess because I was encouraging the relationship.  I thought Emily was probably lying to herself about her feelings.  It made her feel good to be with him, but if she couldn't date him, either because she wouldn't leave her long-time boyfriend or because she couldn't stand up to her racist parents, she had to stop seeing Charlie even as a friend.  I thought she was leading him on, or using him to get over Adam.  She seemed pretty fickle to me, two guy in one summer while still with her boyfriend.  I felt really badly for Charlie if she wouldn't go through with it.  I tried to explain to her how much it hurts to be alone that long, how it feels to get your hopes up and have them dashed to pieces.... She just wanted things to go on as they were.

Her contract at that workplace ended and she was unemployed again.  She didn't know how much her co-workers knew about the two love interests, but she felt she could never work there again.  She threw herself into the old project, our never ending film.

We'd been working on the film for four years and it was a standing joke among our art friends to ask if we were finished yet.  We actually rewrote it that fall and the end seemed in sight.

Emily told her boyfriend about both the work guys, and he felt he'd been cheated on, and said some not-very-nice things.  In November they broke up for real.  Emily was probably really depressed but she throws herself into work when she's sad.  The film made some progress at this point and we decided we'd finally take that trip to Europe.  Oh to be in Paris in April!  Oh, to get away from all the turmoil at home!

I quit my teaching job that spring.  Emily got another short gig, working with this really disorganized artist who needed someone to keep him on track.  I planned the whole trip by myself since she was so stressed.
Just before we left, a guy she'd met at a wedding wrote to her and said he'd been very impressed by her.  He lived in London and offered to let us stay at his place.  I protested violently.  No way was I staying at a stranger's place while he was hitting on my friend.  I won that battle, I suppose, because we stayed at a hostel in London, but we did have to see him a few times.  He bored me.  One night she went out with him alone and stayed out quite late.  I was alone in the hostel and just to make things better there was a fire alarm and we had to evacuate.  When she finally came home I was crying quietly in my bed.  The next day she mumbled one sentence about having to give it a try but that she didn't feel anything special for him.  The subject was not mentioned again.

We travelled through England for three weeks.  It was mostly alright, but we stick so close to each other when we travel there's bound to be fights.  Travelling with a companion requires endless compromises and sacrifices and I can't help but feel some of her choices were a little selfish.  Maybe mine were just as bad.  Both of us were probably depressed at that point and had been for a long time.  We'd both been through a lot.  Travelling didn't solve our problems at home, or even let us leave them behind.

I remember one night she asked me if she had ruined her trip.  I said no, there was nobody I'd rather have gone with.

One night, we were alone in a hostel room in some big old mansion in a little Yorkshire town. I started talking about my health problems (ovarian cysts) and from there the worry that no one would ever date me, and I started crying.  She started talking about how she always notices nice looking guys with girls that aren't that attractive.  I was so exhausted I didn't even see that as insulting until weeks later.  She must have realized that wasn't a helpful observation and started repacking her bag, leaving me crying quietly on the floor.

Much later she apologized for not doing more at that moment.

Our last week was in Paris, and we fought almost the whole time.  I am on a special diet, and Paris wasn't condusive to that.  Do you think you can find multi-grain bread in Paris?  They eat nothing but white bread and pastry. Emily was always eating sweet things in front of me.  Meanwhile my digestion system was going haywire.  Emily's friend from high school happened to be in Paris at the same time and we hung out with her a lot.  I didn't think much of her, and she pretty much ignored me.  We went to dinner one night to try real French food.  I didn't want to go, I offered to leave them to it while I spent the evening exploring alone, but they insisted.  They ordered food I couldn't eat, the friend was rude to the waiters, they talked about high school while I sat there miserably.  I really thought I was going to cry at the table.  And it wasn't so much at what they were doing, but disappointment at myself that I didn't have the skills to turn the evening around.  I wasn't a food connoisseur, I didn't speak French, I couldn't find a way into the conversation, and when the high school friend asked if French people were Catholic or Christian I was pretty snotty.
Emily said quite fiercely it wasn't polite to discuss religion at dinner.
I think I went home alone.  At the hostel I crawled into bed and fell into a dead sleep.  I didn't hear Emily come in.  She told me she cried herself to sleep that night.  The next day she told me I was very rude not to join in the conversation.  I didn't do a good job of defending myself, couldn't explain how much I hated myself at that moment, nor how rude I thought they had been to me.

Somehow we got through the last bit of the trip.  Another airport separation without saying goodbye to each other, somehow another patched-up friendship.  I was pretty disappointed with her behaviour.  I remember phoning my friend Shelly when I got home and ranting and ranting.  I don't know why I didn't tell Emily my feelings....

That's enough for tonight.  The friendship takes another year to die, but I think I can tell the story pretty quickly.

Female Friend Drama Part I

Pretty quiet around here lately- I've just been cleaning the house and working.  My brother's wife is due any day now so we're all just waiting for her to pop!  Two babies, what's that going to be like?  My sister and her husband bought a new (used) car today and came over to show it off.  For all they complain about having no money, they sure seem to get nice stuff...These are the people that didn't give anyone Christmas presents last year (not that I'm bitter).  However, my sister has always been a bit selfish, even my grandmother said so, and she's really really really improved lately, and we're getting along much better.  Also my nephew was smiling and charming on this visit so it was alright.  Now, if only my dog wasn't such a spaz around babies....

I feel the need to tell the story of how I stopped talking to my best friend Emily.  It's been almost two years since we've spoken- is that right?  Wow.  I need to get over this!  For a while I was waking up in the morning laying in bed cursing her name.  Hating someone isn't really a good way to start your day. 
When she left my life, unfortunately so did a lot of other people from our art school days.  I feel like I've had to rebuild a lot of things.  It's been hard, but I probably blame her more than I should.
Anyways, here goes:

I was in a small department in art school, just 15 people in the class and we were like a family at the end of our three years together.  Emily was kinda the centre, the glue, of the group- she was friends with everyone and could make social events happen.  She really needed, and probably still does, for people to like her, and she would go out of her way to please.  In grad year the two of us became good friends.  I wouldn't have finished my grad project without her help. 

We had plans to go backpacking in Europe after grad, but then she found an unpaid internship in New York and applied.  She wanted to go for a year, I got worried (needy?) and suggested we take a trip to New York before she decided.  I used some airline points I had to pay for both our airfare.  We were there for 10 days and had a good time, but the studio she would be interning at seemed even crummier than I had predicted!  If it were me I would have backed out, but she still wanted to do at least 6 weeks internship.

Back at home, somehow, and I can't explain it now, I came up with the idea of us both doing the internship, and she agreed and we wrote to the studio and got permission.  They weren't paying us, so what did they care?  We had an idea we'd make an art project, a film, about our experiences in New York, and we sent in a grant application just before we left.

In New York- well we were two silly girls a bit scared at being on our own in a big city.  The interning turned out to be a bore, with nothing to do.  We did have a great time exploring the city and saw many unforgettable things, but we also got on each other's nerves.  Food was always a struggle... as was trying to get solitary time in the small apartment.  We hardly ever left each other's presence; it wasn't until week four that I actually went across town by myself. 
Anyways, long story short, we fought on the last day and when we were picked up in the airport back home we weren't speaking to each other.  A few weeks later- 'I miss you!'

Having no idea about how the real world worked, I thought we would start working on our film right away, so we could send it to film festivals and get lots of job offers.  Instead, Emily got a job she hated, but we tried to work on it nights.  Only Emily had social engagements almost every night and when we met she would confess she hadn't worked on our project.  This went on for a while until I finally clued in and found a part-time job. 

Then we found out we got a grant!  Thrilling!  I thought she would quit the job she hated so we could devote all our time to seriously working on the project.  Nope.   I was always angry at how little time she put into it, and probably jealous of her social life, but I was still at my part-time job, assistant teacher at a kids' art school, and I was surprised at how much I liked it.  Emily and I still met once a week or so, until the day my dad left my mom.  I was a wreck for a while and the project stalled.  Eventually we had to finish up some paperwork for the grant, and we put something together, totally missing the deadline.  It was now more than a year after the original NY trip and we still didn't have a finished product. 

At that point we talked about whether we wanted to keep going.  I sorta didn't want to, but she did, and so we agreed we'd take it more serious.  We had gotten a grant after all.  We found an arts organization willing to let us use some space for free, so we wouldn't have to meet in her parents' basement.  For the record, the arts organziation was my idea.  If only I'd known it was going to bite me in the butt later.

Two more years followed of still working on this bloody project.  I kept my part time teaching job throughout.  Emily worked more hours at the job she hated, then finally quit to devote herself to the project.  However, there were two problem with that- she expected I'd do the same, which wasn't fair considering her record.  (Much later she told me she was depressed at this time and jealous of how much I liked my job.  I had no idea!)  When I left in the afternoon to go teach, she'd still be working in the borrowed space at the arts organization.  She started using this time to chat to the staff there and ended up getting lots of contacts and job offers!  The tables turned again:  she had lots of work that was well paid and artisically challlenging, and I was teaching kids part-time and getting burnt out.

Oh if only I had known it's not how good you are, it's who you know.  Networking is how the world works.  We had the same training, I'd say I was the better artist technically, but I can't network to save my life.  Emily got jobs, which gave her experience, which led to more jobs.  I was left in the dust. 
I was also very jealous, while trying to be supportive, and secretly hoping Emily's success would be good for me too, since she could possibly get me a job as well. 
It's hard to explain, but there would be all this tension while working together but if we did something "as friends" and left  work behind we got along great.  I'm remembering things out of order, this was all over several years.  We were together nearly every single day and we talked a lot about our fighting.  The film and real life began to imitate each other as we put more of the conflict and drama of the friendship into the film that was supposed to be about New York.  The film was rewritten and rewritten, it was probably 5 different films in its evolution....
As rocky as the friendship was, it was still hugely important to me.  Emily was my work and my play, since so many of my art friends were also connected to her... The day she hit her head was the beginning of the decline...
To be continued...

Just Keep Swimming....

My cough has come back AGAIN and I'm feeling miserable.  Hopefully writing this will help me get my thoughts in order so I can get things done today.

1. Moving Out:

I've started inquiring into apartment for rent ads on craigslists.  I've written to two! No answer yet.  Both were for rooms in shared houses of people in their late twenties.  Both sounded really good.  Maybe I should phone?  Write again?  Don't want to be rejected based on two sentences in an email!

I've been looking into collective houses.  A group of maybe 6 adults buy or rent a house together, share groceries and meals, and often grow their own vegetables in an organic garden.  It's a very environmentally friendly way to live.  It's also very cheap: rent, utilities, and food for under $500 a month.  I think living alone will not be good for me, and random roomates with their own lives and friends might make me feel left out or jealous.... 

Collective living sounds perfect for me, and yet the idea of it brings out my insecurities.  Will I fit in?  Am I easy to live with?  Can I really live the lifestyle I say I admire?  You don't have to be vegetarian but shared meals are generally vegan/vegetarian, in the houses I know of.  My friend lives in one, and she and her roomates often bring home food from the dumpsters outside the grocery store.  I'm sure it's safe to eat and shouldn't be wasted, but the middle-class part of me still thinks it's yucky.  At her house they put on music and everybody cleans together for an hour.  I am a bit messy when working on my art projects, and I'm fine with letting things build up and then doing a big clean up when the project's finished.  I'm sure I could learn new habits, but there would be a lot of struggle as I learn the ropes.  I'm also not a good cook.  Pity the roomates on my night to prep dinner! 

Do other people feel this anxious about being good enough, about being liked?
However, I need to push myself or I'll never leave the nest.  I need to talk to my mother, tell my friends I'm looking for a place, and be ready to jump at any opportunity.

2. Online Dating:

I set up an OK Cupid profile maybe two weeks ago to check it out, and have been slowly filling out the profile.  Two days ago I added a photo.  I've gotten no messages yet except a 'wanna chat?' from a 22-year old, which I ignored. 

I had found a profile that I really liked; I've mentioned it before- a bearded fellow who recently had a medical emergency.  After thinking about him for a few days, I finally went back and read it again.  This time all the negative stuff jumped out at me:  He drinks quite a lot, and smokes when he's drinking.  His fiancee left him only last April.  The imaginary picture I had in my head totally changed and a new picture emerged.  My imaginary crush was somewhat cooled. 
And yet, none of the other profiles I've read have caught my imaginaton in any way.  My friend says I should just write to him.  He's online almost every day and 'replies often'.  I'm working up the courage.  It's silly, but I'm kinda glad to know smart, idealistic, quirky people like that exist in my city.  I never seem to meet them!

Out of curiosity, I looked at some of the women's profiles as well.  Why are there so many pretty and smart women in their thirties on an online dating site? 

3.  Self-esteem/ Miscellaneous

Self esteem, and general energy levels are all over the place the last few weeks.  I've been really excited about the future and I've been really feeling hopeless.  I am looking for a place to live, and trying online dating, and then panicking that I'm not ready, that I don't have whatever it is people are looking for in an employee/roomate/girlfriend.   The long and short of it is I don't really like myself right now and I don't know what to do about it. 
If I can just make progress in one area, achieve one little step forward...

Portrayal of Incel in Film

I was watching 'The Music Man' on the classic movie channel and was inspired by the character of Marian the Librarian to start a list of films that portray loveshy characters.  For those of you who don't know the film, it takes Marian '26 years to get to the footbridge with a fella.'  She is a music teacher and the head librarian in the town library, the keeper of all things cultural and intellectual in a small farm town.  She falls in love with a travelling salesman, and even though he's a swindler she defends him because he's brought some excitement into her buttoned-up life.  "There were bells on the hill, but I never heard them ringing, til there was you", she sings to him.

There's a similar plot in 'The Rainmaker' (1956.)  Katherine Hepburn plays Lizzie, smart and practical and plain.  She's fated to be an old maid until Burt Lancaster, the rainmaker, comes into town.  He is revealed as a phony and chased out of town but not until he and Lizzie share a kiss in the barn. For the first time she feels beautiful.  Burt Lancaster leaves, and Lizzie settles down with the town sheriff.  (Burt Lancaster is absolutely magnetic in this role, by the way.)

Katherine Hepburn played a few spinsters in her day...There's also The African Queen, where she plays a prim and proper missionary, and Summertime, where she plays a middle-aged school teacher who has a fling with a married man on a trip to Italy.  Katherine Hepburn is such a quirky, smart, strong woman herself that she seems to either get the role of powerful wife who has to embrace domesticity in order to live peacefully with a husband threatened by her independence, or the spinster.  Women who choose to remain single and are fulfilled by their independence challenge woman's role as wife and mother in the structure of society, so they have to be shown as depressed, dumpy, objects of ridicule.  I'm stealing some of these ideas from this great article I just read, on a blog I'm going to check out again when I've got more time: Hollywood Spinster

Bette Davis in Now Voyager transforms from a dumpy old maid to a stylish confidant woman through her love for a man she can't have and a child that's not her own.  All of these women are grateful beyond expression for the chance to be loved, even if it's only temporary or socially unacceptable.

The only film I can think of that deals with incel for both sexes is Marty (1955.)  From IMDB:  "Marty is a 34-year-old butcher whose Italian family is constantly after him to get married. He meets plain-looking schoolteacher Clara. They are both lonely, unglamorous people who have resigned themselves to their unloved lives. But they manage, in time, to grope their way to love."

Some quotes from the movie:
"All my brothers and brothers-in-laws tell me what a good-hearted guy I am. You don't get to be good-hearted by accident. You get kicked around long enough, you become a professor of pain."

"Ma, sooner or later, there comes a point in a man's life when he's gotta face some facts. And one fact I gotta face is that, whatever it is that women like, I ain't got it."

"See, dogs like us, we ain't such dogs as we think we are."

I find this film very hard to watch, and yet I'm drawn in.  I think at one point one of the two characters actually talks about thinking about killing themself.  Marty calls himself and Clara 'dogs'.  They meet at a dance when nobody else wants to dance with them.  Clara's date leaves her for another, more attractive girl, and Marty is asked to take over for him.  His family and friends discourage the budding relationship, but he decides he was happier with Clara and asks her to marry him. 

Sometimes I feel like love is only for beautiful people....In the movies it is anyways.

Numbers, Decisions and Support

I think writing this blog is helpful, even though I've been pretty negative lately...
Feeling slightly better today, since summer school is almost over, and I'm looking forward to a month of feeling healthier, enjoying summer and getting my ducks in a row.

Last night I started an 'official' Moving Out Budget excel spreadsheet.  I realized I was trying to make a budget for a year of not working, when in fact it's only 8 months!  I will graduate in May 2012, and can start working that summer!  I'm going to get a nice city job right after graduating, right?  Even estimating next summer's income using the wage I'm getting this summer, moving out is not completely unattainable.  If I can make $150 a week while at school I wouldn't even have to touch my savings at all...

It's still going to be a penny-pinching life, but I'm keeping my eyes peeled and if anybody I know needs a roommate I think I'll go for it.

In other news, my pregnant sister-in-law had false labour last weekend so she could pop any day now, although her due date's next week. 

I am still coughing a little and short of breath, especially when I wake up.  I have to use a puffer twice a day! 
I am still watching as much Big Bang Theory as I can, and my favourite classic movie dvd 'I Know Where I'm Going' had to go back to the library but I watched it daily for two weeks. 

My best friend in another city is getting ready to move back to town, just a 10 minute walk from me!  I can't wait, but right now she is very very very stressed and busy.  We usually talk to each other several times a week, hour long phone calls, but right now our schedules aren't allowing that, and when we do talk she is very distracted.  She talks a lot about all the things she has to get done and it's very boring for me, but I'm trying to be supportive since she's supported me through a lot of distraught phone calls!  In the meantime, this blog is my release for those sorts of feelings- maybe a way for me to be more independent?

I also check this forum, Incel Support almost daily, although I'm not a member.  I believe that is called 'creeping'!  I find the success stories and the solutions page very helpful, although I warn you that there is a few people who use the forum as a cry for help, and their posts are very negative and even suicidal.  Suicidal posts are deleted and their posters banned.  It is sad that people are driven to that, and that the forum can't help, but they really can't...  Also it seems that male incels react sometimes by hating women, all women....

I'm not doing a real good job of selling it, am I?  There are really positive and helpful discussions, most of the time, I promise.  A few days ago I read a post that I'm still thinking over.  A guy posted he'd went on his first internet date and had a good time, but realized he had no business dating until he got a better job, moved out and lost weight.... Sounds exactly like what I'm telling myself now.  Everyone told him that he shouldn't wait, shouldn't put off working on finding a relationship until some undefined date, that if he had a good time he should run with it, that he should work on everything all at once...  I don't know.  If he doesn't like himself, if he isn't happy with his life, how well he do in a relationship? 

It seems that older virgins aren't in general very successful in other areas of their lives...is it low self esteem creating failure or failure creating low self esteem? This study paints a picture of the typical older virgin- I don't quite fit the mold except that I'm white and I don't drink much....

Note- Watching Big Bang Theory as I write- it's my favourite episode, when Leonard and Penny first go out.

At This Moment...

At this moment the light at the end of the tunnel is flickering and growing dim.  At the beginning of the summer I was excited about all the job offers I was getting.  I was telling myself I wasn't going back to school in the fall, but signed up for two summer school courses anyways...I was going to eat healthy and get back on track with exercise and with my own creative work.  And most importantly, I've been carrying around in my head for months the idea/half baked plan that I would move out at the end of the summer, just before I turn thirty.

Today it feels like nothing's going to change.

I live in the suburbs, away from all the arts organizations I work for, away from the nightlife (whatever that is), away from the young (single) people...It takes me an hour on transit each way.  I've probably spent years of my life on transit.  My little dream is to rent an apartment in this funky neighbourhood.  I'd settle for a basement suite.  (The catch is I want to keep my dog or at least be able to take him when my mother goes away, and the city is so expensive.)

I'm bummed because instead of listening in class tonight, I started making a budget on a piece of scrap paper...Of course I'm making up numbers out of my head; I don't really know how much I'd spend a week on food for example...If I was generous in some areas I skimped in others.  The number I came up with was still $4000 more than my savings and summer wages combined, when I include next year's tuition costs.  Is it really worth blowing my savings to do this?  If I live at home one year longer....finish school, get a good job, all without student loans?  Financially smarter, but can my pride stand it?

Of course I could work and go to school at the same time.  I didn't work last year and I could barely keep up with the homework.  There was a lot of group projects and I ended up doing the work of slackers...slackers who had nice cushy city jobs and will have nice cushy city jobs after they graduate regardless of their marks.  If I'm working and going to school and learning how to live on my own, I won't have much time for art or fun.  Would I be happier than I am now?

Oh I hate school so so SO much and dread going back....Is that piece of paper really going to guarantee me the job, or am I just wasting two years? 

The thing is, there are two things I avoid telling people- that I live at home and that I've never had a boyfriend.  I worry I won't be able to feel good about myself until I move out.  That is, I won't actively try the dating scene until I'm independent.  I know moving out is going to be a real shock for me and I'm going to learn so much about the real world.  It's going to be extremely unpleasant and yet I want to make myself do it because I think it will make a new life start for me.  It's the only way to break old habits.

I don't know how people fit so much into their lives- work school social time and just taking care of the daily chores.  I'm exhausted all the time doing just a fraction of that.  It doesn't help that I've had this cough for a month now, and all the work and volunteering I'm doing should be fun, but are a bit stressful because I'm feeling behind and overwhelmed. 
So much work to do in all areas... I have this chart on Joe's Goals where I keep track of all the daily habits I'm trying to build up:  Draw every day, exercise, clean, talk to a new person, walk my dog...The only problem is if I really did them all it would take me 6 hours a day!  If I want to be an artist, I need time to make art and experiment and develop....economically impossible...oh, and I've had years to do that and it's been fits and spurts....

The other complication in all this is that my mother, whom I live with, hasn't decided what she's doing about school next year and my father has recently sold his business, stopped paying her alimony and is trying to negotiate a final settlement with her.  She expects she could get more money if she started going for her Master's....another two years at the university.  We don't live near to the U, would she be better off in an apartment on campus, will she have to sell the house anyways?

On another topic:
I mentioned that I had read a profile that intrigued me on OKC.  I haven't done anything about it; I haven't even logged into OKC to read it again, but I've spent the day making up silly daydreams about seeing him on the bus, recognizing him, and boldly starting a conversation.  I would know all these things about him and he wouldn't know anything about me.  I would be witty, mysterious, intriguing and he would just have to see me again...
I should explain that the guy seems quite brilliant and quirky and he's got this sad story of having a major medical emergency some time ago and his fiancee not being able to handle it and dumping him.  He is still recovering physically, and I imagine emotionally.  I wonder if he's bitter about it.  Maybe I should be seeing red flags but instead I think it's tragic and romantic.  I wonder if it says something about my own opinion of myself that I pick the invalid- do I think he's the least likely to reject me?  I will say again that I was very impressed by his writing and his passion for making a difference in the world...I even worry I'm not smart enough for him.
Listen to me talking like I know him...I saw a picture and 500 words and made up this ideal person all without even messaging the fellow.  It is fascinating to me to analyze what it is I think I want.  I think I don't really know what men are like at all.  I don't think I'm planning to do anything about it at all; I think I've told myself I have to move out first.  In the meantime it's fun to make up these little scenarios but oh!  eventually I think I will drive myself mad....

Feedback Loop

This is going to be all over the place, thematically.

My blood test came back fine and the doctor said he couldn't do anything for my cough.  He couldn't find anything wrong with me.  Does that mean I'm depressed? 
A few years ago I was at the point where I would randomly start crying all the time.  I went to counselling and worked very hard.  I like to think I've beaten it, but at the same time I think I accept a mild depression as part and parcel of never having had a relationship.  Self esteem can only go so far when faced with the cold hard reality of nobody wants to snog me.

Found this video today:
http://blip.tv/the-incel-project-/dr-carpenter-977157


It's an interview with a sociologist on the subject of incel.  It's over 13 minutes long but reasonably interesting even if somewhat disheartening at times.  She talks about involuntary celibacy leading to more involuntary celibacy since the individual's self esteem is lowered the longer he or she lives with it, and possible partners being turned off by the seeming oddity of an older virgin.

How do I get out of this feedback loop?

My self esteem is pretty good, on the surface.  If I was asked, I would say I was a good person, smart, not bad looking....However I do this thing where I fixate on one area of myself that needs changing.  As soon as I work hard enough and fix it, I will be a successful human being deserving of whatever reward I'm after.  I have put off applying for jobs until I had one more qualification, or a few more good drawings in my portfolio.  In terms of relationships, I have tried online dating on and off and always feel like I'm not ready. 
I'm a perfectly lovely human being, just in need of some polishing before I'm ready to put myself on the market...(job or meat as the case may be.)

When I move out.  When I lose a few pounds.  When I get my career going.  When I've got a bigger social circle...
Honestly, I've even told myself I'm waiting till my hair grows out!  (I had a pixie cut that I'm letting go long, it's awkward at the moment.)

On a lighter note, I was browsing OK Cupid and am quite taken with this bearded fellow who likes Velma more than Daphne and lists Amelie as a favourite movie.  Fantasizing about dressing up in my Velma costume (because I have one, like every good geekette), and a mask and photographing myself holding a 'Do you want to meet me?' sign like Amelie sends Nico.  Not going to do it, but imagine the 'how we met' story....