Thirty-Two And A Spinster - Part Eight

Acting Your Age

It was my actual birthday this weekend. I started celebrating on Thursday by going to see one of my favourite artists perform, #LucyRose.

Doors opened at 7pm, so I met up with my sister and a couple of gigging buddies at the venue. Drinks flowed freely, as did lots of random stories and so much laughter. It was an all round great night and Lucy's performance was as expected, top notch.

I was so stoked to wake up the next day to see she'd favourited one of my tweets :)

Anyway, Friday morning I felt a tad vulnerable.

It felt like the longest day of my life. I forced myself into work earlier than usual to make breakfast, which went down easily, but from that point I just felt like I kept slipping into a black hole of exhaustion - OLD age catching up with me!

But it didn't stop there, oh no! Friday nights we have drinks at the work bar so I stopped there for a couple. I'd managed to arrange a date for the evening, and as I'm sipping my wine getting all excited, who should walk in the door?! Mr Distraction!

I knew he was back in town for visa purposes but everyone who knew about me and him, were now looking to me for a reaction. (Things did not end on a good note).

For the hour that I stayed, we made NO eye contact, which is completely retarded behaviour... but it appears is the norm for us. I guess for me, I just don't know how to act around him when we're with people from work. Apart from a couple of my friends, no one knows.

And the date? No comment. Waste of my time! He didn't look like his picture and he had a sweating problem. This is my love life?!

*le sigh*

Have you ever seen those cards that are designed to look like they are from your "vices"?

A popular one is:

Well, after all the drink in my system from Thursday night and the Friday top ups, the no dinner and then suddenly messages from Mr Distraction.... my card would read:

"Oops, there goes my shirt up over my head, oh my"

What the f**k am I doing?! 

Thirty-Two And A Spinster - Part Seven

Freak Of Nature

Oh. Holy. Shit. I have had a nightmare week. 

First, I got into the office on Monday to find that all the work we've done towards the video stuff (scripts, guidelines, research, etc) has gone, poof, disappeared. Six weeks of work - I'm not ashamed to say that I cried.

Then the crazy guy from my post Thirty-Two And A Spinster - Part Five, has ramped up the volume on the psycho notch. I feel like I've ended a relationship and he's trying to convince me otherwise except in this case I HAVE NEVER MET HIM! 

Seriously!

Monday night I received two voicemails and countless 'apologetic but meaningless' texts after I had to block him from sending me whatsapp messages. 

Tuesday morning he called again, from a private number.  

Yesterday he text me again. This experience was starting to freak me out. I replied - why? because this guy needed to be told about himself. His persistence to contact me after I had asked SEVERAL times to stop is the exact reason I blocked him in the first place. He apologised. 

It was over. I went to bed with a sense of closure and slept deeply, peacefully. 

This morning... ready for a new day… he called again, leaving a voicemail, inviting me to his birthday drinks tomorrow night.

"If you decide to come, and you like me, it will make it the best birthday EVER." 

I mean, what the actual f**k? I'm beyond speechless and I'm also really uncomfortable, to the point that I feel irrationally scared. 

I've asked him to stop. 

I've told him to stop. 

Now I'm ignoring him. 

What scares me most is that he doesn't see his behaviour as inappropriate. He feels that if he contacts me enough times, exercising the exact behaviour he is apologising for, I'll be won over.

10 missed calls, 7 voicemails, 573 texts *swoon* I'm yours! - er, nope. I don't know what rule book he's reading from, but in mine, that s**t is CRAZY.  

                                                                                     *because I never did!

Thirty-Two And A Spinster - Part Five

When It Hurts So Bad

A broken heart mends.

Like a wound to your body, give it time and it heals. It might not work the same as it did before, sometimes it's weaker but sometimes it's a little tougher.

He is too intense. He wants everything I have and more.

I don't want to give it up.

I remember the feeling of loss that washed over me when my last relationship ended and I suddenly realised I'd invested too much of myself in him and our future together.

I want to go slow.

I want to take our time, enjoy talking on the phone, snatched evenings in-between my hectic study weekends, flirty messages. I want to learn about him, pick up on personality traits, let him teach me things about his interests and vice versa.

He wants me NOW. He wants to spend lots of time I don't have to give, meeting friends and family. He wants 'official'.

"Do not break my heart"

And then I get it.

He's pinning his hopes on me. He wants me to make it all better. I tick the right boxes, but he hasn't given it a chance to mature.

He's painted a picture and that's all he sees, but I'm interpreting things differently. I see danger. I see pain; and not mine.

I don't want to be the bad guy.

I don't like having people think negatively of me. I'd rather try to explain myself, make sure everything is out in the open and if we still can't get along then fair enough but right now I am uncomfortable.

My counsellor would tell me to try and stay in that uncomfortableness for as long as I can and not react like I usually do.

But I want to run; far and hard. I want silence. I want to rewind. I do not want this.

He wants me to save him, and all I want to do is save myself.

A Year On: In Between The Lines

You receive a text from a boy.

It's not asking a question, in fact it's more of a statement, so you don't need to reply. It's complimentary and you're flattered, but despite what he's said his actions are contradictory.

What message do you go with?

Further to my Shut That Door post, I'm starting to feel a lot of resentment towards the men in my life that seem to want me to wait for when the timing is good and ready for THEM.

It's like that song by Loose Ends 'Hanging On A String' whose lyrics are:

I've waited oh so long for you to come to me

What did I do wrong? It's all a mystery to me

Baby I feel it too, What am I supposed to do?

Maybe I've just changed, Or could I be wrong for you?

You, you've got me hangin' on a string now

I'm not your plaything x2

You never told me you were waiting, contemplating

With my heart, my love x2

Do you mean to say that after all this time

I've waited like a fool, now who's been changin' you?

And that's my biggest fear.

Someone said to me recently that perhaps I'm attracting men at a crossroads because I'm at a crossroads. At a fork in the road. 

I think it's probably best for me to cut myself off. 

A Year On: Shut that door

I could be learning new skills or I could be honing existing ones. Why waste energy on people who aren't fussed? 

Honestly, what do we look like; bus stops?! Guys need to realise they can’t just pitch up to have a rest!



I love these conversations because they do make you question your priorities, your actions. 

I spend a lot of my energy on love. 

Thinking about it, writing about it, wishing and hoping for it, occasionally looking for it. 

I listen to it, friends regaling their own issues or happy experiences with it, songs that paint different pictures of it. 

I watch it play out in front of me, couples walking hand in hand down the street, canoodling in the park on a sunny day, movies idealising it. 

I read about it in the simple chick lit novels I'm addicted to, in the magazines my housemates litter our front room table with. 

It's within my reach wherever I am and yet I can't quite grasp it. 

"If you want to be in my life, open the door. If you want to leave my life then shut the door. But don’t stand in the doorway and block traffic."

Someone somewhere

Seven Year Detox

I came across an article this week, which stated, over a period of sevens years all the cells in your body are renewed so you are in fact a completely different person you who you were seven years ago. Amazing huh?

So I figured, what with this old boyfriend popping up in my life again, what would the calculations look like if I applied this to 'getting a boy out of my system'?

Here are the phases:
P1: Age 0 - 7
P2: Age 7 - 14
P3: Age 14 - 21
P4: Age 21 - 28
P5: Age 28 - 35

I met boyf #1, the out of the blue boyf Blast From The Past is about, when I was 19, last stages of P3. We were together for all of about 5-6 months and went through some pretty life changing experiences, for me at least. I'd say he was my first love.

I met boyf #2 when I was 16 but we didn't get romantically involved until P4. He left me for America. If you really want to be depressed, read some of my earlier blogs. They were written around that time. Blogging helps heal the heart :)

And I met boyf #3, him, when I was 28. Unfortunately that means, if this theory is correct, I have 4 years and 23 days left before his hold over me wears off.

Damn, this boyfriend detox is worse than working cocaine out of your system. That only lasts 90 days, and I know this because I did my research, not from personal experience :)

One step...

Feeding or bruising the ego

At what point should I get offended that I just cannot seem to secure a date?

I've not been on Tinder since the beginning of Jan. That date has put me off a little.

But I did match with another guy, who seemed super keen, organised a date with me then cancelled the day before - something about a funeral for his step mum's sister-in-law - and then didn't contact me for a week. When he did it was like "Hey been busy with work and extra-curricular activities. Will be available in a week. Hope I'm still in your considerations" like I'm sitting at home in my onesie, drinking wine with my housemates every night... which is totally what I'm doing.

But not only that, in the last month I've had TWO guys from my past message me out of the blue, both who are now married with children. Like WHAT THE ACTUAL F**K?

Is this what I've got to look forward to? Now that I'm wandering in to district 31 all that awaits me are guys who think I must be desperate enough to become a home wrecker? No thanks.

Someone said to me today, a guy I might add, that all my past relationships and flings have ended because the men I've liked/loved have not quite been ready to take care of a woman like me.

Well, as much as I'd love to be taken care of, I'd just really like someone nice to share my life experience with, even the mundane experiences like a bad wax - you know?

Happy Valentine's Day

Every night I ask myself,

Am I giving enough?

Am I loving enough?

Am I?

Colombia - Local Natives

Over before it began

Whatever happened to men wooing women?

When exactly did the tables turn and the woman had to ask the man out for a date? I've heard the term "if you want something doing..." but this is a tad ridiculous.

At my age, I'm sorry to say, it's slim pickings. If they haven't got children already, they have serious baggage AND men just do not dust their shoulders off and get back on the relationship saddle in the same way that women do.

I mean, look at me; heart ripped from chest, stamped on, set alight and then promptly shoved back into my chest barely still beating, and yet I'm riding that old mare as if I never fell.

However, all my 'big and brave' talk means absolutely nothing when I'm trotting in a field full of seemingly gay horses. Obviously I'm not being literal but seriously, when did men making the first move become extinct?

I'm not looking to jump into another relationship by any means, I'm only just starting to enjoy this time on my own. I've managed to make working out into a habit, although like washing my hair I don't look forward to it because it's such an effort, I know with time I'll start seeing some great results.

It's been the same getting over him.

At first it was hard to get up every morning, hard to spend time on my own but the more time that passed, the more distance I put between myself and that event, I started to feel more content and appreciative of the things that I already had in my life which made me happy.

And now, what would make me that little bit happier is a smidgen of male attention.

What?

I'm still a hot-blooded female, last time I checked, with a cracking smile and a great personality (no that doesn't mean I'm ugly).

Such a shame that all this chit chat about men being stronger than women only applies to the physical and even then, it's all relative.

Come on boys, take a chance. 

Waiting for the phone to ring

I've never been very good at the whole dating thing. I've kind of just ended up getting into relationships with friends, or friends of friends.

They already know some or all of my 'special' qualities so I'm more comfortable around and that makes the flirting side of things A LOT easier.

My ex and I met under special circumstances. We took things into our own hands. If we hadn't I'm sure we would probably have never met. And, though it ended, we had a great time together.

So here I am, single, my heart on the mend and a recent influx of male attention. A guy has asked me out on a date, we've confirmed the day but not the time and that's the last I've heard from him.

I refuse to get in contact with him first but am I entitled to feel pissed off with the fact we've not communicated for over 5 days?

I feel like calling the whole thing off just out of principle.

Urgh, what a headache!