Disillusionment

So, Nikolai and I had an SOTR talk last week. It was necessary, I think, and it went very well. I think we're both on the same page. I feel like I have the closure on that end that I really needed. I just have my own feelings to contend with, and that, quite frankly, I'm not dealing with well. I deal with disappointment okay, but it's never easy. The feelings of rejection are never easy...and as I get older, I should be used to it, but it is only getting worse, to the point that i'm really disillusioned.

I believe in God, and I know He works, but I wonder sometimes if God wants me to suffer in this area. I think that this particular area is at the root of my crisis of faith, because this is the one area that I have not seen God work. I thought He could hear me back in December when I asked Him if I could be noticed by a man, and less than 48 hours later, Nikolai said those words to me. But then I find out that not only Nikolai didn't mean them, but that he was spending his time judging me and having a low opinion of me in that sense, even worse than Alex. So it was all a farce. I have no idea what I'm supposed to do with that...give it to the same God that apparently refuses to do anything about it? It leaves me beaten and tired, and without a lot of options. Actually, without any options. I have been contending with these feelings of disillusionment and frustration for weeks, with no end in sight. I've prayed, and prayed, and prayed...for years. And it's as if He doesn't hear me at all, as if He doesn't care. It's like He cares about other stuff, just not about this...and when this is the part of my life most in need of repair, rectification and redemption, this inaction isn't going to cut it.

Watching

Not like "stalking"...stalking was what my high school sweetheart did once I cut him off. Matt was too lazy to show up at my doorstep in Ohio, but he sure did know when I was coming back home. He would call my house and work, he sent letters to where I lived in Ohio, he would show up at my seasonal job in Michigan. It was so bad that I stopped telling people when I was in town. It's one of the reasons why I lost touch with many of my high school friends. Matt did it for a year before he finally stopped. He may have done so because he finally realized that I just wasn't interested anymore.

But the stuff I'm talking about isn't of that type. I was talking to a friend of mine about "drive-bys"...not shootings, but "drive-by watching." Basically it's when you drive by the house of someone you are either interested in, have feelings for, are dating, or whatever. The motives vary. It can be because you're wondering if he's home like he said he was, or even if you're wondering if the man in question has more of a "life" than you do. If the light's on in his house or apartment, and his car is there, chances are that he is there. What do you do with that information. Absolutely nothing.

Embarrassingly enough, I can't say I've never done it. Some of my friends have also done it. I've been with friends when they've insisted on doing drive-bys. But it kind of means that the person is circulating through your head.

Speaking of circulation, Nikolai can't seem to help himself. So he's been chronically reading my blog some more...this under the category of "virtual watching," in the same family as the drive-bys. And not only that. He's been getting his "read" on at school, too. Right now, I'm on the grad student computer in our department, and I noticed when I checked my email that the last to do so was Nikolai. So I looked up the browser history, and the last time the computer was used was Tuesday. I'm assuming only one person used it because only a few of us are in town for the summer, and of those in town, only a very short list of people would actually show up at the school to do anything. Besides, a short number of sites were viewed, and a great deal were sites from his home country (and considering he's the only person from his country in our department and the only one in town that can speak his native language, who else?). So I noticed that my website was listed. Hmmm.

This has moved from quite amusing to kind of annoying. What annoys me is that he is the one who wanted space from me more than anything. Granted, I wanted space from him too, but to be honest I wasn't as willing as he was to throw everything away. But what I don't understand is why, if he was so willing to pitch our friendship, he even cares about what I write? I don't get the psychology. It makes absolutely no sense to me. Doesn't he have other things to worry about - e.g. dissertation, life, etc. - to be in any way concerned about what I say?

And even more to the point...if he spends every day read about my life (or at least the parts of my life I choose to share), then why won't he just talk to me? Obviously, he thinks about me, or else he wouldn't be reading up on my life.

But then again, why do I even care? Honestly, I still can't forget how evil he's treated me ever since California and especially Chicago. There is a part of me that has forgiven but not forgotten. I really, really hate him, because of how deceptive I feel he had been towards me. Leading me on, then treating me like shit when I turn out to be human. You don't forget stuff like that. Yet a part of me misses him, and I don't understand why.

And speaking of all this, I am irritated with the course of my life. I haven't even dated in seven years. My love life seems to always turn out the same. I'm tired of predictability. So tired I don't know what to do. And considering my health issues, which affect my ability to have children, my biological clock ticks just a little louder and faster than most. I want to get married. And I really want to be a mother. But I can't even get a date. What the hell is up with that?

Pieces

Since I last wrote, I passed my comps with flying colors, doing better than I ever expected. Thank God:-).

Since comps is over, I've been kind of forced to deal with what is my life. I don't like it, and I want it to change. I hate being in the position where I am forced to pick up the pieces of my battered heart. Meanwhile, I am in something that works just fine with me, but I want something else with someone else.

I spend time with Alex every so often. He's sort of become the male friend I've always wanted - someone to hang out with, to exchange war stories with, someone I can feel I can be real with and he can be real with me, with no strings attached and no expectations. But sometimes I wonder where he truly stands. Not because I have any interest in him romantically, because I really don't. Not anymore. But because I wonder if when I see him, I'm looking at my past or my future. Last weekend, he and I went to the mall and to the bar. At the bar, he and I were talking, when he noticed that the jukebox was playing my favorite song. I didn't notice it, but he did. He told me, and I was surprised he remembered it. It reminded me of when he remembered exactly how long, to the month, he knew I liked him. Earlier that same night, we were walking around the mall, talking about clothes, and he knew what plus-size stores carry what types of clothes, even though, as far as I know, none of the women in his family are fat, and neither are his pretend girlfriends or real-life exes. It amazes me that he pays attention to my life. I guess friends do that. I just wonder, though. It's like the signs sort of point to him, but I just don't see him like that anymore. Besides, I think he would have to be straightforward for me to believe his intentions have changed for the romantic.

Meanwhile, Nikolai and I seem to argue almost every time we speak. I'm not particularly sure why. Something tells me he has grown argumentative, and like Brooke says, he doesn't like anyone and that includes me. On one hand I look at him as a miserable excuse for a human being because he is terribly superficial and he has sold his soul for his thirty pieces of silver (to be the department asskisser). On the other hand, I still have feelings for him. My body is still drawn to him, and my heart longs for him. I guess I miss what it seemed we once had. To some extent, I feel responsible for what our friendship has become. Yet, at the end of the day, it was he and not I who chose to throw it away.

I could not control everything that occurred back in April. But something tells me that the incident in Chicago, which Nikolai can't seem to let go of, is only a cover for something deeper. Something tells me that if he didn't think I liked him, none of this would've happened. How he has felt about me - well, I don't know. I think that he liked me, but didn't want to like me because of my weight and my culture. By nature, he is a conformist. They say that the difference between Leo and Aries is that Leo tends to care more about their own popularity than Aries, the natural-born rebel. I am not into astrology, but this difference exemplifies the difference between Nikolai and myself. I think he worries too much about whether or not I would be acceptable as a fat woman. Secondly, I get the sense that many of our clashes are rooted in cultural differences, particularly the more male-dominant, patriarchal nature of his Eastern European culture, versus the more female-liberated American culture and somewhat matriarchal structure of African-American culture.

In any case, I cannot be what he wants me to be. Even if I lost weight, the struggle with weight is still a part of who I am. I am an American, through and through, and an African-American at that; I cannot behave as a woman from his country or from his region of the globe. I cannot be something I am not, and I don't want to be something that I am not. I cannot live a lie.

So what I am left with is my broken heart. I really just pray that one day, I can be loved and appreciated for who I am. I cannot let go of the hope I have, no matter how easy it is to believe all hope is lost.

F***tards

I love men...they make me laugh. I just hope, though, that the man I end up spending the rest of my life with won't be as utterly idiotic as the men that are in my life right now. Memorial Day Weekend gives me the opportunity to remember that having a "Dr." in front of one's name, or being on one's way to having one, such as the case with Nikolai and Alex, doesn't make that person any smarter than anyone else. Sometimes, it's to the contrary.

Yesterday afternoon, I got into an argument with Nikolai over the phone. Actually, it was more like he started arguing with me over the phone. I had asked him an ill-advised yet innocuous question, and in response, he started telling me off, getting into issues that were not even relevant to the conversation. Just about went PTSD/'Nam on me. Of his gems were the following: "I don't want to talk about the past situations," and "I can't tell you what to write in your [public] blog, it's your first amendment right. Just know that other people are reading it," and "I was reading [the blog], but I won't be reading it anymore." So after I looked to calm him down, everything was okay - I think - and then he and I got off the phone.

Today, I checked my webcounter for my public blog, and Nikolai looked at it just last night, a number of hours after telling me over the phone that he won't be reading it anymore. I did inform him right after the Chicago trip that I can tell when he reads my blog, so he should know that I am well aware just how full of it he is. He can have all the space he wants from me, but he just can't tear himself away from my words.

I called my mother yesterday, upset about the argument with Nikolai. She advised that I go out with Alex, because it'll get my mind off of Nikolai, and besides, I don't have any feelings for him anyway so it shouldn't be stressful. So I talked to Alex tonight, and he invited me out. So we went out for beer. On the way home, he reminded me of when I called him vain and superficial, and then asked me if muscular men are attractive. Then, over the course of the conversation, he talked about how he was getting back into weightlifting, and revealed that he was considering taking performance-enhancing drugs to accelerate the muscle-building process. He asked me if I felt he should do it, considering that it would make him look better.

After reminding Alex of all the serious potential health risks, I told him if it was that important to him, he could do it, prompting a friendly yet high-stakes debate. At the core of it was the question of if I was being double-minded, or if in fact I am of more depth than he is, and I consider actions long-term. He wanted me to agree with his consideration, but I wasn't biting. I said he was thin, which he took as a negative, although I didn't mean it that way. I explained to him that while I do look at the physical, that is not as important to me as the spiritual, mental and emotional.

Physicality can only take a person so far. I used Nikolai as an example - he's solid, although not muscular because the only working out he does is walking to school and moving his arms to shovel food into his mouth as if it's the 1980s and he still has to wait in a Soviet bread line to get his next meal. But his solidity is physically attractive to me, and overall he is sexually attractive. The problem is that he is defunct in character and he has less integrity than a political hack. Physical beauty wastes away much more quickly than anything else - but the essence of who a person is will always be there, and that is what you have to live with. I think Alex might have "got it," although it may take more than that to keep him away from the juice.

The past two days has me wondering about the mental health of the men I seem to know. What the hell is wrong with these people? Tweedle-Dee and Tweedle-Dum...or Tweedle-Dum and Tweedle-Dumber. One seems to think that I'm not going to know he's addicted to my public blog like it's a pure cut of coke, while the other is so image-conscious that he's willing to shoot up like Barry Bonds just to get noticed - even though they really should know better.

The WTF moments of 2006...

Desire

The written portion of comps is over, and next week I'll know my future. I don't like the suspense.

Lately, though, I feel like I've been in emotional meltdown.

Alex calls me every weekend faithfully, which is really sweet, but it's over a half decade too late. Years of caring for someone who didn't know I was alive - until I finally took my bat and glove and went home. He now seems to care when I no longer do. It's nice and I think it's funny. But I don't know what he wants, and whatever it is, I don't have it in me to show any reciprocity.

Meanwhile, Nikolai reads my blog faithfully, but I haven't heard his voice in weeks. It's embarrassing, but the truth is that I miss him. At least the part of me that sees something in him. The rest of me doesn't. I almost hate him. Not because he ever owed me anything, because he sure didn't. But because he was so charming and so deceptive, and allowed me to get sucked in before he showed me his true colors. And then he basically dropped me. I guess that deep inside, I resent him for that. I hate being lied to. I hate being manipulated.

I saw him in passing about a week ago, and we said hello and that was it. I had this awful feeling in the pit of my stomach. I didn't know how deeply my feelings truly ran, and how hurt I really was, but I couldn't think about it because of comps. Now that my written exams are over, and I have a little time on my hands, I have been feeling it, and it kind of hurts. I think it's the idea of Nikolai more than Nikolai himself. The idea that someone of quality could notice me, care about me, like me for who I am. And then come to find out, that person is in fact the most judgmental of them all. I can forgive, but I can't forget. And when I saw him last week, I could not forget.

Yet, there is this small, miniscule part of me that still likes him. Very little, very small. But it's still there. It's the part of me that wants to impress him, that wants to make him feel what he's missing. It's the part that enjoys my interesting and deep conversations with him, that likes to look at him as he's talking and moving around, that loves hearing the sound of his voice. And that's the part that must die, or else it's going to get me really hurt. The truth is, even if I did get what I wanted, chances are I would ultimately end up heartbroken anyway. Maybe I'm emotionally masochistic.

Exhaustion

I am ridiculously exhausted, and comps are next week. I pray really hard that I will pass these exams, because I feel like I remember everything and nothing at the same time. I have so much in my head, so many paradigms, concepts and frameworks, but I question to what extent I can put anything to paper, and to what extent I can explain my thoughts. I hope I can remember enough to be precise, since this is not an open book exam. There is so much riding on this. So much. Basically my future for the next year and a half is based on nine questions and an oral defense. If that's not pressure, I don't know what is.

Freshmen

I can't be held responsible
'Cause she was touching her face
I won't be held responsible
She fell in love in the first place

Not a whole lot is happening. Nikolai's blog-reading streak ended yesterday, thank goodness. Maybe he realized I wasn't going to be a jerk and put his business out on the street. But I did find out through Brooke that Nikolai truly felt bad about what happened in Chicago, and didn't truly blame me, and now I have a little more information as to why. That night, when we were at an Eastern European-themed nightclub, Nikolai had bought me a shot, which contained a super-strong liquor (approx. 100-proof) popular in Eastern Europe that is difficult to tolerate unless one is used to it. I wasn't aware of this when he got it for me. This may have also contributed to the unfortunate and life-threatening end of the night.

Honestly, I don't blame him. I don't think he did that on purpose, and I don't blame him for not realizing that I as an American, and especially an American who doesn't drink often, wouldn't know what that shot was or its strength. I mean, I was the one who took a shot of Absinthe down in Mexico in one gulp and only ended up buzzed. I didn't know about my condition either and I don't expect for him to have known that either. In the end, I made particular choices that were not wise, but I didn't have the information in front of me to make better choices. It was what it was.

Something tells me, though, that to some extent, he had a hard time accepting at first that he contributed to the situation - he even blamed me for accepting a shot that he offered. Given all of the other issues we were dealing with, especially a misunderstanding of how I felt about him (his belief that I thought God was putting us together...ha ha ha ha!) placed all the blame for everything that went wrong that night and with our friendship at my feet.

Ultimately, though, his conscience caught up with him and it really bothered him. The most surprising thing is that he actually has one. Anyway, though, it's kind of messed up that his need to be right and to have control endangered the friendship. I think that what it came down to, though, is that I made the mistake of almost falling for him. That messes lots of things up, including the fantasy of who I was and who he was. And for that, our friendship was altered, probably permanently.

Duplicity

Alex has been calling me every weekend (even though he claims he has a love interest), and Nikolai reads my public blog every day, even though supposedly neither has an interest in me. Yeah, okay. The story of my life.

Basically, Nikolai and I are getting along again, though we did agree that space is still necessary if we're going to salvage the friendship. I got a chance to think over things a little more. Even though the situation and everything was still messed up, I could've done my part to handle it better. Besides, I have to be the mature one in a relationship in which one person readily admits to being immature. Although a casual friendship is fine, I think, I still need to keep my distance emotionally from him because it's just not healthy for me.

Backing away from everything, I'm not angry with Nikolai. It was what it was. I just think that we were working with ideal images of each other, and we expected too much out of each other. Then, when we started digging behind each other's walls, he and I didn't particularly like everything we found. He and I found out the truth about each other - we were human.

There's a part of me that is still attracted to him, and there is a temptation I've never had before with any other man to try to lose weight and look more "attractive" to impress him or even to snag him. But the truth is, I don't believe such an effort would even be worth it. First of all, if he would only give me the time of day if I were thin and "beautiful," he's not the kind of person I would want to be with. Secondly, making such an effort doesn't even guarantee that he would give me the time of day in a romantic or sexual way. And, honestly I don't think I would want to be with someone so duplicitous anyway. I think I was smitten by the idea of Nikolai, but the reality is that I don't know what aspects of him are real, what are imagined, and what constitute an act on his part. In other words, at the end of the day, I don't know him at all.

The Talented Mr. ______.

There's no way in hell...

Impasse

In the course of a week and a half, I found out that my parents are getting a divorce, an unfortunate and potentially life-threatening situation occurred involving me in Chicago, because of that incident (and other points of conflict) Nikolai and I have fallen out, and I found out that I am a diabetic (which probably was the cause of the incident in Chicago). And all of this three weeks before my comprehensive exams.

I think that some of this issues were just going to happen (such as my parents' divorce and my diabetes). Other things, such as the falling out between myself and Nikolai, were a logical result of me trying to work out this area of my life alone and without God. I knew that it wasn't going to work out with myself and Nikolai, even though I couldn't admit it to myself until the California trip last month. I saw the red flags...his pervasive and unrepentant sin, his utter lack of purity, my feeling when around him of being led away from mental renewal and into lust, his inconsistent talk regarding where he was spiritually...they were more like red flames.

But I didn't listen, because I figured if God wasn't going to fix my love life (as evidenced by my relationship with Alex), I was. Even after the California trip, I knew it wouldn't work out, yet I allowed myself to get too close emotionally. The day before the Chicago incident, I wrote in my diary that I sensed that I wasn't in control of my emotions regarding him, and that if I didn't get some space from him, I was going to get hurt. Something told me not to go with Nikolai and Katerina. But I didn't listen. In the end, God saved me from foul play or assault, God allowed for me to be with people who would do their best to take care of me, God kept me from falling into a diabetic coma, God kept me from dying. But I have to live with the consequences of my repeated choice to ignore the leadings of God. I can't blame Him for what happened between myself and Nikolai.

And so now I'm at a strange impasse. My friendship with Nikolai jumped off, hit its height, and crashed and burned in a period of less than five months. Apparently, this "going it alone" tactic doesn't work. At the same time, I dealt with Alex believing that God was involved in that situation, and I ended up wasting six years of my life. I've got three choices...still go it alone knowing I can't do it myself, give it to a God that honestly I'm not sure will even do anything with this area of my life, or do absolutely nothing. And sorting out this dilemma will have to wait until after comps.

Nikolai

My twenty-fifth birthday was really awesome. Nikolai and Brooke took me out to dinner and drinks across the river, and then later on Brooke and I met up with Katerina over by campus, and we had a bottle of wine. It was really cool to be able to celebrate with my friends...that's really what made it special.

I have such conflicted feelings concerning Nikolai, and I'm not so sure why, exactly. I consider him to be one of my good friends, and considering that, I care about him very much. He is one of the few non-family members I trust with my well-being. I have forgiven him for what he said to me in California, but I can't exactly forget because it says a lot about his character, and not in a good way. I have no interest in dating him or getting involved with him romantically, but there's something about him that I can't put my finger on, to where I'm very turned on by him sexually and I would probably sleep with him if I had the chance, but I know that it's not gonna happen. This is the part of my feelings for Nikolai that I don't particularly feel comfortable with, but I can't help who "does it" for me (unfortunately). It comes out in my dreams. I had a strange dream a few nights ago that he and I were running around naked looking for a room to have sex in. Weird.

I think that I need to talk to Nikolai, and soon. I'm wondering what is floating around in his head. Why? For a couple of reasons. Recently, I heard from Brooke that Nikolai had mentioned to Katerina that he wondered if I was angry at him. Secondly, when we were at dinner yesterday he did admit that when we were coming back from the California trip, he was angry at me because I was "on the phone" (although if one reads between the lines, and takes that day in total perspective, it is clear that it was more to his anger than that). Thirdly, I've been sensing kind of a weird vibe from him anyway. It's hard to explain, except to say that I've noticed a difference since the trip, and I can't explain it exactly. Now here's the thing. I know that he's starting to burn out work-wise, so it could be that, and it wouldn't have anything to do with me. But I just don't know. We haven't had a really deep conversation about his life since California. I wonder. But at the same time, though, I can't get drawn into any drama or anything that resembles what happened in California, because I have my exams in a few weeks, and I absolutely have to pass them - there's no other option. Maybe we might talk later on, when we go out of town to our next conference this coming weekend. I don't know - we'll see.

25

I'm going to be 25 years old tomorrow.

This birthday feels kind of strange. I don't think that any of my birthdays felt this strange. Not 16, or 18, or 21. This one feels weird. I think it's because right now, my life feels so different that I don't recognize it.

I look in the mirror, and I clearly don't look like a teenager anymore. I don't really look...old. But I don't look super young either. I am only a huge exam and two years away from earning my doctorate. The people I'm close to now are not the same people I was once close to. When I experience joy, pain, drama and trauma these days, Brooke and Nikolai are on my speed dial, people who weren't even in my same time zone three years ago. My best friends are still my best friends, but to some extent I don't feel as connected to them because we don't see each other in our day-to-day lives. Alex is sort of back in my life, but I don't want to be with him, and to be honest it seems like without that desire I am not too inclined to really be his friend either. And I'm kind of back in touch with a few old friends I had previously lost touch with long ago. My relationship with my parents is different. They treat me like their friend and confidante as well as their daughter. And it seems that they're finally divorcing, so that's another change. My time in college seems further and further in the past. It was probably the best time of my life, yet I don't wish to do it all over again, and I don't wish to go back. I don't like being in the desert of my life, and yes, it feels like the desert of my life. Yet there are parts of my life right now that I truly enjoy.

My dreams are no longer my dreams, and what I really want is so much more abstract. I don't want to marry Alex and settle down in Chicago with our 2.3. And as far as I'm concerned, it's not gonna happen. I just want to have devoted companionship from a man I can trust, I want to be a mother, I want to live somewhere beautiful, I want to see the world, I want to make my life count for something. Yeah, 25 feels different. Really different.

Twisted

"Do you ever feel like you're normal and everyone else is crazy?" I said.

Alex replied, "No, but sometimes I feel like everyone else is normal and I'm crazy."

This is from a lunchtime conversation I had with Alex about four years ago. I didn't get it then, exactly, but I think I get it now.

Last night I was talking to one of my good friends from back home. I was explaining to her two things: first of all, why I have this even stronger hormonal attraction to Nikolai now that I know he's a shallow immature jackass and I would never want to mess with him a million years, and secondly, why I have not discarded this friendship the way I discarded the friendship with Alex. In my head, I know that if the roles were reversed, I would have the same concerns as my friend. But I did have reasons, at least for why I didn't stop being friends with Nikolai. It is pretty simple, at least to me.

First of all, when we had our major argument, while what Nikolai said was unnecessary and really mean, he was giving his honest opinion, which should count for something (that's better than anything Alex ever did). Secondly, despite the fact that sometimes he annoys the crap out of me, there are still things about him that I like, and I do still consider him a friend. Thirdly, I had always felt that if nothing else, I wanted to stay friends with him, even before the California trip - I had never schemed to date him or be his girlfriend. I just felt that if it happened, it happened, and if it didn't, it didn't. And as it turned out, it didn't, for a lot of reasons I won't print here. This is not Alex Part II - Slavic Style. In addition, I was still (and am still) making sense of mixed impressions. On one hand, he tends to put me on a pedestal and think I'm a better person than I am in reality, but on the other hand the things he said that precipitated our argument gave me the impression that he doesn't perceive my worth as a woman coming from anything outside of my physical appearance. I don't know what to make of that. Finally, to sever the friendship before truly knowing if that is what I wanted to do would make things problematic logistially. Nikolai and I have some of the same friends, we're also colleagues, we might be roommates next year. I'd better make damn sure I wanted to end the friendship before I did it. And since I decided not to, that's the end of story. I basically figured I know how he is, and I can deal with that. And I have forgiven him, although I have not forgotten. My name is Jaye, I never forget.

However, the first issue is not as easy to explain as the second. Apparently, I am emotionally masochistic...I like assholes, and I like pain. And with Nikolai, I've got plenty of both. For some reason, him being an irreverent, immature, shallow, miserable excuse for a human being is a turn-on. I guess I thought he was kind of hot before, but now a part of me just wishes I could have the craziest, wildest, roughest kind of sex with him imaginable. Just once. I know it cannot and will not happen. He is not going to sleep with me, and in all actuality, I am not going to sleep with him. I don't believe he sees me like that, and while it would be a temptation for me, going out like that would be a whorish thing to do, and I could see him losing respect for me (even though sex takes two). Also a few religious/spiritual considerations. And if any "accidents" happened, well...I'll put it this way, he is not the kind of man I would want to deal with in case of "accident." So getting screwed by Nikolai - literally - ain't gonna happen.

But why it would cross my mind? I am not really sure. And it's messed up. My friend said that I hadn't been "right" since December (because of Nikolai). Honestly, though, I haven't been right since college...as a matter of fact, I don't think I've ever been quite right. I think twisted thoughts, I do stupid things, I have a thing for unavailable men, and I tend to concern myself with men that are too blind to see my worth as a woman and as a human being. What the hell is wrong with me?

Crisis

I've moved from the "crisis of faith" to the "quarter-life crisis." But either way, my emotions are just messed up.

In the last post, I talked about how I still had some feelings for Alex, or at least I felt like he was still in my heart. The whole situation with Nikolai really demonstrated to me that on some level, I wasn't completely "over" Alex. Nikolai could never replace Alex...the feelings are of a different nature.

So earlier today (technically yesterday) I called Alex to see how he was doing. So he called me back a little later, after eating dinner, and asked me to go to the coffeehouse with him. So I did that...I figured that would be fine because I hadn't seen him in almost a year. We caught up on our lives, we swapped war stories, etc. It was like old times, but it was also different. I felt more comfortable in my own skin, I was more assertive, and I felt more confident in my interaction with him. Besides, while I still care for him and he still has a place in my heart, the feelings overall are no longer there like they used to be. Seven months without communication did wonders for us. I think we can be friends again, though I think the dynamic will be totally different.

But here was the strange thing - as I was talking to Alex, I could not stop thinking about Nikolai. I had to make sure I didn't call Alex the wrong name. I don't know exactly what that means, because I know that I am not in love with Nikolai, and I don't feel the same way about him as I ever felt about Alex. I don't have an interest in dating Nikolai or being anything else other than close friends with him. Yet, here I was, spending time with a man that I love, and in spirit I was somewhere else.

It's the weirdest thing. Brooke thinks that Alex has feelings for me, but he can't admit it to himself for whatever reason. And all things considered, I think she's right. The fact is that after I cut him off, he kept following my life by reading my other blog, and he admitted that he was at first angry at me for how I ended things. In addition, after purposefully not speaking to him for seven months, I call him and he is excited enough to ask if I will hang out with him right then and there. What man does that?

Here is what my life currently comes down to. I have a man in my life who lives in a good neighborhood, drives a somewhat flashy car, and is currently in school for a profession that will potentially make him a relatively rich man in a few years. If this man can get his act together (and I'm not betting money on this), we could possibly date or marry at some point in some future life. But at the same time, I can't stop thinking about another man who lives in the ghetto, drives an old beater car, and is currently in school for a profession that is difficult to break into and will only make him middle-class at best. This man and I are not compatible because we are too much alike, and due to mutual considerations and certain life circumstances chances are that we will never be anything other than good friends.

This weird situation probably proves two things about myself. First of all, financial security is apparently not a major consideration in my dating/relating choices :-). Secondly, I am one emotionally messed-up human being.

But then again, maybe it all makes sense. I think that probably I think about Nikolai more because he is someone I understand on many levels. Even though he can be aggravating at times, and there are certain things in his life I don't agree with (and there are things in my life he doesn't agree with), I truly believe that beyond the complexity of his life, I "get" him in a way I don't think I will ever "get" Alex. And that counts for something. I borrowed the below excerpt from an anonymous prose piece on the "quarter-life crisis" I found on the Web. It summarizes this situation better than I ever could:

You get your heart broken and wonder how someone you loved could do such damage to you or you lay in bed and wonder why you can't meet anyone decent enough to get to know better. You love someone but maybe love someone else too and cannot figure out why you are doing this because you are not a bad person.

Friendship

I stayed angry at Nikolai for a number of days. Then I chose to go ahead and forgive him. A lot of what he did is stuff that I should've seen coming. He sometimes has this fault of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time and expecting that others will understand him for what he meant rather than what really came out of his mouth. I guess I'm still trying to figure out exactly what he meant. Some of the things he said the night before we returned to Cincinnati do not match up well with the way he has claimed and continues to claim that he sees me. It might just be immaturity in action, perhaps. In any case, I'm not devoting a lot of time to figuring him out. I think I've made the mistake of messing around with another overly complex man.

I do have more clarity in terms of knowing where I stand with him. We are friends, and that's the extent of it, for the most part. That's a mutual decision. But the boundaries within the friendship are not drawn very well, I don't think. And in California, I think that we both did our share of crossing them. I'm not completely clear on how Nikolai sees the friendship dynamic, except to say that I think he sees us as closer friends than we probably are, and I don't think there's a whole lot I can do to make him completely change his perception of me as damn near close to moral perfection. On one hand, I don't like being on a pedestal, but on the other hand, it's an odd sense of security, and I know I can trust someone who does think highly of me.

As for myself, while I consider Nikolai a friend, and I trust him more than I trust a lot of people, especially men, I recognize that we have only been getting to know each other better for the past half a year or so. That said, the only way you get to know someone better is to ask "why" questions, and sometimes that means inadvertently crossing some invisible boundaries. I also find that, like Alex, Nikolai's life is too complex for his own good, maybe even more so than Alex. When creating a statistical model, the trick is to make it parsimonious (includes only necessary variables) and fulfill its purposes of explanation and prediction. The problem is that Nikolai has placed too many variables in his model, yet he expects it to fulfill its purpose. Unless he makes his model parsimonious, he will not be able to make it do what he needs it to do. I can and do accept him, even with his character faults and issues...

Speaking of that, the strange thing is, what I found over the course of this week is that although I have every reason to hate Nikolai, I don't. Even though there's not a lot about him for me to like these days, I like him anyway. Not as someone I desire to date (ain't gonna happen), but as a friend I would like to keep around in my life for a while. The truth is that, even though I don't let him in on this, I really do appreciate him for the mostly positive influence he has been on my life since I've been getting to know him better.

Yesterday, I had a flash of wondering about Alex, so I messaged him on his blog. Chances are, he probably won't get it, and even so, he probably won't respond. Maybe it was a mistake. But honestly, I've gotten to the point where I don't care anymore. I'm living each day as if it is the last day of my life. Honestly, to an extent I think that Alex still has my heart, but I think that the friendship as it had been was destructive, and I do not regret cutting him off. It needed to be like that. I might call him today, maybe not. If I did, I don't know how he would respond. But then again, does it matter? I'm in a forgiving mood :-).

Revelations

Spending time with someone outside of the environment you typically spend time with them in is a wonderful thing. You find out so much about the people you're with, and you get a fuller picture of who they are. I had this happen with Alex a number of years back, both at retreats and in a big way when I moved to Cincinnati.

Last week I was out in California with Nikolai and a couple of other friends. I loved California a lot, I really did. The atmosphere was really awesome, the scenery was perfect, the weather was great, and it was a kind of beauty I don't think I've ever seen before. I could live there.

My friends figured that this trip would be make-or-break for Nikolai and myself. That is very true. To make a long story very short, some things were confirmed and other impressions were altered. It was confirmed that Nikolai does put me on a pedestal, which totally isn't cool. To some extent, that changed in California, as he found that I wasn't perfect, but he did say that even with that, his vision of me hasn't changed that much. I'm not sure what to make of that.

But the alterations were worse. I found out what was behind the wall, and I don't like it at all. It's really dirty, and it's not right. I'm really shocked, actually. I also noticed a side of him I really despise. I never put him on a pedestal, but I thought he was a man of maturity and character. However, the Nikolai I met in California is not the Nikolai I have been getting know in Cincinnati. The Nikolai revealed to me in California is a shallow, egotistical, immature, chauvinistic hypocrite. He's selfish and closed-minded, and thinks he's God's gift to women. He is the kind of person who just takes up space and air instead of trying to make a real difference in the lives of other people. He is a gutless conformist who doesn't have the balls to stand up against what is wrong. He makes Alex look like Mother Teresa. My respect for Nikolai has shot down to zero. He is a miserable excuse for a human being. At this point, I am thoroughly disgusted with him and I hate him more than I have ever hated anyone.

I hate Nikolai with the white-hot intensity of a thousand suns.

Karma is really a bitch, and I almost feel bad for what's coming for Nikolai. But then again, when it comes, a part of me would love to watch. Schadenfreude...

Trust

So, basically, not a lot is going on, except my need to finish my assignments for the end of the quarter and my struggle to do so. Finding out about my friend's engagement kind of amplified my usual finals-week depression, and I spent the weekend contending with writer's block induced by the news. This has made me fall behind on my work, which I don't particularly like. But what to do? I often think about the lack of companionship in my life...the idea of accomplishing great things with no one to share it with or no one to support me along the way...it kind of makes me sad.

Friday night, Nikolai and I went out to see a friend perform at a coffeehouse/bar up the street from where I live. It was really neat...he and I were talking about each other's life, etc. It kind of was like a date, but not really, because we didn't call it a date, and the intent wasn't romantic, per se. Then later, Brooke and Ali showed up. The music was cool, and the night was fun.

The next day, I was immobile, for the most part, and I couldn't stop crying. Partly because of my mourning over six years of my life wasted because I thought God spoke to me. Partly because my life seems pretty complicated yet monotonous. I later calmed down, but it just wasn't working.

Wall

"Why are you not out here dating?"

"...I don't want to talk about it."

I cannot believe that those seven words came out of Nikolai's mouth. Those words never come out of him. Shockingly enough, I was able to silence the king of gab. And I wasn't even trying.

But the thing is, I wonder what's behind that wall.

Residuals

So yesterday my friend told me she just got engaged to be married. Unlike how it always seems to happen (where someone who doesn't think about getting married gets married), she really wanted to get married...I think she has been more single-minded about that than I am. But here's the thing...she's only known her now-fiance for a month, and she says that the Lord told both of them that they were to be married. I believe that these things can happen, and considering the amount of confirmation they received, I think it did happen to them. I'm happy for my friend, I really am. She is a great person with a wonderful heart...she deserves this. I wish her and her fiance the best.

But honestly, I have not been taking the news very well. Not at all. I think that is because the whole Alex situation is not completely out of my system. I want to clarify this point. I do believe I'm "over" Alex. My feelings for him are neither love nor hate, but neutral. I don't really miss him, and I don't miss the drama. I think that not being with him is the best thing for me; within the weirdship I was not receiving the respect and acceptance that any human being deserves. I also think that, for the most part, I'm over the situation. I liked him, he didn't like me back. It was what it was.

However, I think that there are residuals. A major part of the reason I stayed friends with Alex as long as I did is because I thought Alex was "the one." I felt like it was something God said and confirmed. I waited over five years, attempting to be as patient as possible, while I watched Alex stubbornly refuse to see me for who I was. My family, friends, and ex-friends ridiculed me for this decision to my face and behind my back. I believed in my heart of hearts that things would work out and that I would be vindicated and redeemed, to the glory of God.

But in the end, that's not exactly what happened. As a matter of fact, that's not what happened at all. I moved to Cincinnati, and everything fell apart. "The one" ended up going de facto atheist on me, couldn't get over his ex-girlfriend who had gotten married on him five years ago, while at the same time dating random girls and ignoring my womanhood. And it wasn't just that he didn't like me back; he was repulsed by the idea of me liking him. And, he had no idea why this might be a problem.

Believe it or not, I'm not angry at Alex. But I am angry and a little bitter at how it turned out. I spent six years on something I believed truly was from God with absolutely nothing to show for it (except a 50-pound weight gain). While I know in my head that God is faithful, I feel in my heart that I got played. If God didn't say it and I got it all wrong, why didn't He fill me in and allow me to go down the wrong road for so long? Why would He allow me to come out looking like a complete idiot, instead of making things right?

My friends and family around my age have developed a habit in the past couple of years of getting married. Like the friend I first mentioned, most of them have known their spouses for a shorter period of time than I had been in my weirdship with Alex. Some of them are younger than me. They talk a lot about trusting God and knowing He put them together. The worst thing about the situation with Alex is that, after all that has happened, I just don't have the same confidence in my ability to hear God's voice clearly. I like Nikolai a lot, and I think he likes me. But I don't know if I can even trust my judgment on that. Furthermore, I ask God where things are going with my friendship with him, but I don't know if I would even know if He gave me the answer. I feel like I'm in a crisis of faith.

"Be patient, your day will come" doesn't work anymore. I don't think it ever did...it's the worst piece of advice I have ever heard in life...it's like rubbing salt into an open wound. I need answers - that is all I need. I am just so tired of the bullshit.

Pedestal

On Friday, it became more clear how much pull I have with Nikolai. To make a long story short, I was out with some friends and associates at a local bar. I was told by one of the guys that Nikolai decided not to show because he had a bunch of work to get done that he was behind on. So I gave him a call, and he told me what was going on. So I told him to go ahead with what he was doing, and if he wanted to take a break whenever, just give me a call. So, he asked me where I was (to which I told him), and then said that he was on his way home, but he would stop by the bar to show his face briefly. So, a few minutes later, he showed up at the bar. So he greets everyone, gets a beer, and sits down. He then proceeds to tell me that he had been debating with himself whether or not to go, but when I called him and he found out I was there, he decided to show up. That kind of made me blush and smile :-). He is so sweet...I guess that on whatever level, I matter to him.

I've kind of started to think about this. I had been working hard to make sure I didn't put Nikolai on a pedestal, that I wasn't going to think he was bigger and better than he was. I think I've done a good job of that so far, although I admit that I am smitten by his wit and charm. But maybe I shouldn't be worried about me; maybe I should be worried about him. I'm not saying this to sound conceited, because I don't think I'm all that at all. But after hearing stuff from him about how "good," "pure," and "nice" I am, I really do wonder. To be sure, it's nice that he likes me on whatever level. But I would hate for him to see that I'm not all that great. I have done dirt, I have enemies, I have been shady, I sin and I have had carnal thoughts. I'm not "pure," I'm human. And I really hope he knows that, because I don't want to live up to an image that doesn't truly reflect me.

Exoticism

When I was in high school, I was briefly interested in this guy that I worked with named Dave (one of the millions of "Davids" and "Daves" I've met throughout my adolescent and adult life). Dave was about my age (about 16 or 17), he lived in the old-money suburb across the street from my working-class city neighborhood. Of course, he had rich parents; he was also in a garage band, he threw huge parties, and he had a long, long leash. In contrast, my parents weren't rich, I was kind of a nerd, and I wasn't allowed to do much of anything. I thought this guy was really neat because he was different. He was from a wealthy, somewhat prominent family, he lived the kind of life that I could only dream of at the time. But as I got to know him, there just wasn't much there. As he started to like me, I ceased to like him. I don't think I "liked" him, I think I saw him as a novelty.

So, I was talking to a friend of mine earlier today, we'll call her Katerina. We were catching each other up on guy issues. So I was telling her about how things were going with Nikolai. At some point, I mentioned how I think he's very attractive, and that I love hearing him talk and say my name, to which she almost died, since he totally isn't her type. After I reassured Katerina that her accent didn't sound like his (she's also Eastern European, but not from the same country as Nikolai), she made the comment that I probably like the way he talks, as well as other things about him, because it's "exotic."

I don't know. I mean, yes, his accent is different than anyone else I know (probably because he's the only person I've met from his country). But at the same time, I don't think that him being "different" is the main reason why I'm attracted to him. What amazes me the most about him is how similar we are considering the difference in nationality and culture. I think that while Katerina might have a point in the sense that some exoticism may play a part, at the same time, my experience tells me that novelty kind of wears off after a while. Nikolai and I have been in the same program together for over two years, and I've been starting to get to know him more seriously in the past few months. I can't say that there initially wasn't something "cool" about him being from Europe or that he can speak a number of languages fluently (I believe the count is more like five than three). And admittedly, an actual European is more palatable to my parents (who are products of the '60s, and have many non-American friends) than a white American. But at the same time, the fact that I do know Nikolai, including his personality, character, and quirks that make him an individual, the novelty is kind of old. That thrill is gone, which is for the best. It is easier to know if you truly like someone when you're past exoticism. And so, at the end of the day, I think he is an great person and I like him, regardless of his background.

Closer

So not that much is new. I see Nikolai...a...lot. And we get a chance to talk quite a bit. We met up with each other yesterday at a birthday party. I mingled with other people for sure, met new people, and ran into a couple of people I know, but at some point, he and I got into a conversation about a bunch of different things, from the serious to the mundane and silly. I think that we were so into it that it was almost as if no one else existed. Then today I saw him at the school, and he borrowed one of my favorite mixed CDs.

Sometime yesterday or the other day, I realized that since he's been back in the States, we have seen each other a lot and we've talked a lot. I also feel really, really comfortable around him and with him. It's like we're on the fast track to being good friends, and that is absolutely awesome, because he's really a neat person, he's trustworthy, and I feel that we accept each other for who we are. At the same time, I get the sense that he feels something towards me. I'm not sure to what extent or what it all means. But it's really cool...I like the way things are.

Valentine

So my Valentine's Day was spent bumping heads with Nikolai, while Alex's Valentine's Day was spent virtual-stalking me. It is getting kind of creepy, but I don't want to bring him back in my life in a real sense by calling him out on it. So at this point, it is what it is. Now, if I start seeing his car drive by my house, I think I really need to watch my back.

So I didn't have much time to stew over Valentine's Day, because I spent it helping Nikolai get decent airfare for our March conference trip to California. It was actually kind of frustrating, because the prices kept changing and we kept having to find out the wishes of the other people going on the trip with us. We started looking for pricing maybe around 11:30am or noon, and we didn't get the tickets bought until after 11 at night. It was kind of nervewracking. I ended up having to go over his house to get it together and make it happen. But we were so excited and relieved after we got them. Then we talked for close to two hours, about so many subjects, so many things.

It just amazes me that the more I get to know Nikolai, the more alike we seem, which is so strange considering the fact that we are from different countries and cultures. It's really crazy...neat, but crazy. While they do say that people who have a lot in common get along better and are more compatible than people who are a lot different, it might be an issue if we find that we're too alike.

Also, I've been thinking. While I have decided to wait to see how things progress (and I still intend on sticking to that), I wonder to what extent I can push the envelope. The thing is, it's hard to read Nikolai. I believe I "get" him on a human-to-human level, but I can't completely read what he thinks of the friendship exactly. I know how he sees me, but I don't. And I'm not good at hinting. Yes, there is the fact of how close in proximity we tend to be to each other when we talk and do things, yes, it was his idea to see each other in person to finish getting the tickets (which didn't exactly need to happen). Yes, he pays attention to me, and to whatever extent, he does watch out for me. But I don't want to misinterpret what that means. Maybe he likes me, but then again, maybe he's just being a decent person and a good friend. I just don't know. And I can't exactly find out, either.

The problem is that I don't think that he would be straightforward and tell me even if he did like me. On one hand, he is pretty straightforward in general when it comes to communicating what he thinks and how he feels. On the other hand, his cautious nature may prevent him from coming out and saying it directly. Beyond that, he may not think I like him, so he may think that telling me he likes me is more trouble than it's worth. So I just don't know if it's that he doesn't want to be direct, or if he just doesn't like me like that. I'm not sure how badly I need or want to know. So we'll see.

Day

So I was in a really crappy mood today (technically yesterday). I couldn't stand hearing the sound of women's voices, I didn't want to be bothered with much of anything. Maybe it was PMS, maybe it was being somewhat depressed over Valentine's Day. I kind of wanted for people to shut up, but I had so much stuff to do so I couldn't go home yet. Well, I end up seeing Nikolai, and we spent much of the afternoon taking care of necessary business (related to school). As well, we were laughing, talking, and sharing stuff, etc. It was a really cool way to spend the afternoon. And we got stuff accomplished, too. It was kind of a reminder of why I like him in the first place. Beyond the fact that he's a great guy with character, yada yada, the fact is that we can relate to each other. Although on a surface level, we are very different, we can relate personality-wise...from being unashamed at living the frugal life to having a similar sense of humor. I think that on a certain level, we "get" each other, which is why I have a pretty high comfort level with him (despite the fact that I like him). He made my day.

I'm looking forward to the end of March. It's official...I will be going to California for spring break. Like the nerd that I am, it will be for an academic conference, with Nikolai, Ali, and some of our other colleagues. While Nikolai and Ali will be going there to present or whatnot, I'll be going for the sake of expanding my mind, networking with old professors from undergrad and others that I might know or should know. In any case, it'll be nice to be doing something for spring break other than going to Michigan or staying in Cincy. And it'll be neat to spend time with friends and colleagues. And since we'll be traveling to and from California together, and staying together during the conference, it should be fun.

Patience

So Nikolai is back in town. I talked to him over the phone the night he came into town, and I saw him at school earlier today (yesterday). It was a little surprising, because I would've thought that after arriving on a transatlantic flight the night before, he would take the time to rest up. It's not like he has to do stuff right away. But considering that he does have some workaholic tendencies, I wasn't that surprised. No wonder I walked up to the school looking good (hair done, nice clothes). So when I saw him, we hugged for what seemed like a good while. Then, we got a chance to talk for about an hour or two, and he was telling me stories about his time in Europe. It was really cool to see him.

There's something about time apart from a person that makes them seem more "perfect" than they are. Or maybe it's just that as you get to know someone better, you begin to notice their quirks. Today, while I was really happy to see Nikolai and talk with him, I seemed to notice every single thing that annoys me about him. Yes, everything. Without putting every annoying habit/trait he has out on the street, I will say this. What it comes down to is that he's kind of geeky and nerdy. While he was gone, I thought to myself, I wonder what his "issue" is, because everyone has one. I'm starting to get a grasp on it, I believe. I don't think that Nikolai has an "issue" in the same sense as Alex or Matt. I think that Nikolai is a man with a lot of quirks, a lot of idiosyncracies. I've noticed some of them before, but never put them together. The fact is that he's a really nice, attractive, good, and cool person. But he's not cool. And I don't believe it's a cultural thing, I believe it's a Nikolai thing. So, I think again, and I think to myself, no wonder I feel so comfortable with him, that I could say whatever to him. No wonder he reminds me of myself, because the fact of the matter is, I'm not cool either.

On one hand, I need to ask myself if I can live with his set of quirks. I seriously do. On the other hand, this might not be a bad thing. On one hand, cool guys seem really self-assured, they act and look impressive, know what to say when, either dress smoothly or have nice stuff, and come off as any woman's dream man. On the other hand, they think they're better than they are, they tend to have an inflated sense of self, they're manipulative, and they often don't care about anyone but themselves. Most of the men I've been into in the past have seemed cool. Previous guys I've either dated or been into have been cool. Most of the guys that have liked me have been uncool. Probably the closest I've been previously to liking someone uncool was Alex, but he had some cool traits (e.g. nice car, self-assured attitude), and he tried to fake the funk, even though in reality he wasn't all that cool. Nikolai is the first person who I've really liked that is not cool, but doesn't really obsess with trying to be cool. While his demeanor, attitude, and nature make him impressive, his habits, idiosyncracies, and quirks are what make him human.

After considering my feelings and present situation, I think I may take Brooke's advice and wait a little while to develop the friendship further before trying to see where it can go. Considering that I am sort of ambivalent about what role I want Nikolai to play in my life, I might be better served trying something I have a hard time with...patience.

Anxious

So Nikolai will be back in Cincy tomorrow night. I probably won't actually see him until the weekend, though, early next week at the latest. In any case, I should be happy to be seeing him again after his one-month goodbye. But in all reality I'm more anxious than excited. His return brings up questions that I'm not sure I can answer, considerations that I'm afraid to consider.

This is so not Alex II. With Alex, friendship was the consolation prize for rejection of something further; and the friendship wasn't all it was cracked up to be. With Nikolai, I am not sure if I want to stay friends or go further, and the scary part (the part I am almost afraid to consider because of fears of being too optimistic) is that unlike Alex, my friendship with Nikolai maybe could go further. And what does "further" mean? Casual dating? Something serious? Sex? Marriage? The thought of actually having a love life is thrilling and daunting at the same time. It brings up all of my issues with intimacy and trust. It brings up the issue of my own inexperience, six years since doing anything romantic (dating, relationship, etc.). And I'm scared to death.

I think that Nikolai is a good person, and I like him a lot. Ambitious and driven, yet caring and selfless. He's smart, interesting, mature, down-to-earth, and trustworthy. He's just a really neat person...no, not perfect by a long shot, not even the closest thing to perfect, but just really cool. And attractive too. I can be his friend, I wouldn't mind being his something else. I would just hate to mess everything up.

The worst thing that could happen with Nikolai would not be rejection, it would be that we would end up hating each other. As can be seen by my earlier posts on Alex, my feelings are intense - when I love, I love with all I have, and when I hate, I hate with the intensity of a thousand suns. I think that with Nikolai, I'm afraid of my feelings for him becoming too intense. While I like him, it's not an intense like, but if things did work out in terms of romance, it could be like that. Like all human males, he's bound to do something stupid that'll piss me off. No, I'm not a nitpicker, but every person is bound to let you down in some way, shape or form. I don't want my love to be misplaced, and I don't ever want to hate him.

Asking

So Nikolai will be back in town on Thursday. I'm glad, because in a way, I do miss him.

Apparently, the girls think he likes me, and the boys (well, a boy: Brooke's boyfriend/Nikolai's roommate) think I like him. Well, I don't know. All I know is that when he gets back to Cincy, all bets are off.

The more I think about it, the more I'm thinking I'll be more proactive in seeing where things stand. I don't want to push the issue too much, because honestly, I like my friendship with Nikolai the way it is, and I don't want to kill it with impatience. At the same time, after wasting six years of my life, I have no intention of doing it again. Besides, I get the sense that he would be more mature about it anyway, or at least he won't be stupid about it like Alex. But if I'm incorrect in my judgment of Nikolai, then at least I'll be aware of it. I think I know how I'm going to bring it up. It will be direct, but it won't be too direct. Risk minimizing, but not risk eliminating. We shall see how this might go. Or I just might flirt with him...I don't know.

Risk

Well, six more days before Nikolai is back in the States. I heard from him last week through email, he was doing okay. But what I can't believe is that time has gone by so quickly.

I think that the month-long separation was needed. I think that during this time, I've been able to think things through. It's not that I didn't have my head on straight, because I believe I have. I think, though, that sometimes, in the excitement of things, I don't always think clearly. It's different being in a position where I may actually be wanted by someone I like; it's weird being in a position where I just might have to make some choices that aren't limited to "get over it now or later."

I feel as if what I think and feel actually matters. But with that comes all kinds of considerations and all kinds of things I need to potentially get used to. The fact is that I am not very experienced in dating and relationships. I have only been involved in one serious relationship. Ever. And even my non-serious opposite-sex dealings have been limited. I am 24 years old and I am interested in a 28-year old man. Beyond the obvious cultural issues, there are basic issues of how do I proceed, how do I present myself so that I don't come on too strong. Here is what I want. I want to know how far things can potentially go with Nikolai without screwing up the friendship or making things weird. I want clarity without risk. And that might be impossible.

Taste

Well, stuff has been going on, but I can't say that most of it is interesting. I'm studying hard for the exam in May, and then getting my application packet together for this fellowship I'm going for. My friends are having personal and relationship issues, and I inadvertently got caught up in that over the weekend. Nikolai is still in Europe, and Alex is still a regular reader of my other blog. Not much is new.

I got a chance to talk with a couple of my friends over the past week. I usually consider ther to be a difference between being attracted to someone and liking someone. In my reflections, I realized that Nikolai is probably the first person in a long time that fits my physical, mental, and spiritual tastes. Usually it's one out of three, and I care most about two out of three.

Alex was not my type physically, but he grew on me, mainly because he was intriguing and intelligent. I met him through campus ministry, and I thought he was spiritually strong in Christ because he grew up in a Christian home. Mind you, at the time I made this judgment, I had just become a Christian, and so I didn't have a great deal of wisdom. Later on, he slipped away from Christ and became a functioning agnostic. My high school sweetheart was not my type physically, but he grew on me also, mainly because of his offbeat sense of humor. But as I started caring more about spiritual things, it put a strain on the relationship, since he was an RC ("recovering" Catholic) and much like Alex (though less philosophical), he was a functioning agnostic and spiritually bankrupt.

Nikolai is someone who I have liked for a long time, but I didn't allow myself to really "feel" it until a month and a half ago. Liked in a mental/personality sense, because he is smart, insightful, down-to-earth, and a genuinely caring and kind person. But I was also attracted to him physically. I have always, at least since my hockey-watching days back in high school (though maybe even before that), been attracted to Eastern European men. I think it's the contrast in coloration (light skin, dark hair/eyes), and the hairiness that is seen in many of them. And the accent. So there's that :-), but then Nikolai has other physical features, probably independent of his ethnicity to some extent, that are attractive. And then, to find as well, through his admission and evidenced through his actions, that he is a person of faith. And it's something he's serious about, but at the same time he hasn't checked his brain at the door. That's really cool...kinda different than how it is normally for me.

Musings

So I've been spending time trying to get things together. I am studying so I can pass comprehensive exams in May, and also for fellowships so I can get a running start on my dissertation and so I can stay in Cincinnati for at least another year. Just lots to do, and needing to make myself do it.

One of my good friends from Detroit thinks that the main reason I want to stay in Cincinnati is because of Nikolai, who also plans on staying another year. At the same time, my family thought I wanted to leave Cincinnati because of Alex. Apparently, I am only capable of making decisions based on hormones :-P. I cannot make decisions as a forward-thinking, rational human being. Basically, I can't win for losing...

In other news, Alex apparently cannot quite let go, as I noticed he's still checking out my weblog (not this one). I mean, it's not like I can do anything about that, since it's public. It's not even a big deal. It is what it is. I just find it strange that someone who didn't give two craps about me would care to know what is going on in my life. Maybe if he sees that I have no use for him, he'll get the point.

The weirdest thing is, I kind of miss Nikolai. Not in a "oh so in love" kind of way. Anyway, looking forward to the first full week of February...

Continued

Okay, so I'm still up, b/c I came back from Nikolai's about an hour ago. The night was really cool. Well, he and Brooke's boyfriend "Ali" are roommates, and so me, Brooke, and Ali were going to have a dinner for him. So I ended up deciding, since Brooke and Ali were doing some other things, that after I made my buffalo wings (Mom's recipe), I would see if I could go over to the house early. So I called Nikolai, and went over there. He was packing, so I kept him company. Then he had to run a quick errand, and so he let me use his laptop (which was where the last entry came from). Then just as I sent it, he came back with a friend of his (male) who was there for a little bit, and left maybe 30 minutes later. Not long after Nikolai and the friend came to the house, Brooke and Ali showed up. We ate the wings, which Nikolai (as well as everyone else) loved. Maybe I'll observe my mom cook more often, from now on.

Later on, we had a beer/champagne/orange cleaner fight (don't ask), and so we were all beer soaked and gross. Nikolai and I ducked out of the fight at some point, and got to talking in another room. Then a couple of the neighbors came over, so that was cool. Then they left. At that point I asked if he was ready to go to bed, since he was exhausted with all the preparation for the trip. So he said that he wasn't yet, since he was used to being up really late, and he knew I was too. So we talked for another hour or so, then I got up, told him I would wash dishes since I had brought my pan over the house, and then I would leave. So he kept me company while I did that. Then I went home.

So apparently I will be the last of his Cincinnati/American friends to see him before he leaves, since I will be taking him to the airport. Apparently, Brooke was supposed to take him, but she had something come up. So she was going to take him even earlier than he needed to be there, but he remembered that I offered to take him, and so he decided to take me up on it. Come to find out, he hadn't taken me up on it before b/c he thought it would conflict with my classes, since unlike them, I'm still doing actual coursework. But I told him that it's no problem b/c I don't have Monday classes and my grad assistant work is primarily in the morning. So there you go.

I was talking to one my best friends earlier about what it means to truly get over someone, since she recently experienced a relationship breakup. After all I've been through, I think I finally know what that means. You're truly over someone when you're not thinking about them, when you're not angry with them, you aren't dwelling on what went wrong, and you are no longer jaded because the relationship didn't go the way you wanted it to.

Five years after the initial rejection, I really believe I'm finally over Alex. Yes it took me half a decade, and I was into him for a quarter of my life, but whatever. Even if I think about him (usually b/c someone else brings him up), I'm not angry at him or what he did. Besides the fact that I am finally getting my positivity and optimism back, earlier I realized another marker of getting over him. I forgot his birthday. No seriously, I forgot his birthday. Up until now, I always remembered his birthday, even if I pretended not to acknowledge it. But it came this past Wednesday, and it passed, and I didn't even think about it. At all. It just occurred to me earlier tonight, and I had to laugh.

Probably the only reason why it even occurred to me was because I added Nikolai's birthday to my mental calendar of friends' birthdays...his will be very easy to remember b/c it's three days after my father's, although no it's not the same year, of course :-). Just like I thought, he is 28, and so that makes him almost 4 years older than me. He's probably the oldest person I've been into, not just in terms of raw years, but also in terms of age difference. I have always been into guys close to my age. Really close to my age. Like usually within a year or two. Maybe I'm getting older, and since I'm getting older, age differences don't mean so much. Just so long as he's not old enough to be my daddy.

I think that I'm happy right now, not just b/c of Nikolai, but b/c I'm beginning to see more clearly what I want from my life, what I want from a man, and for the first time in, like, ever, I believe that I can actually get it.

Wondering

Yeah I'm an idiot since I'm writing this post from Nikolai's computer. But whatever. It is what it is, I guess.

So not a whole lot new is going on, but I am the happiest I've been in a long time. I've just been in a great mood. And no, nothing has changed. Tonight myself, Brooke, and her boyfriend are doing a dinner for Nikolai, to send him off. He'll be going to Europe tomorrow for a month, for research and to see his people in his home country. I am glad I've been able to see him before he goes away. Yeah, I think I'll miss him, but he'll be back. In any case, what I'm really wondering is how he'll be when he comes back in February. Hmmmm...

Back

Happy 2006!

So break is over, and I'm back in Cincinnati. I have a good feeling about this year. I don't know how it will turn out. But at the same time, I think it will turn out well overall.

Over the break, I spent plenty of time with my family, had a chance to talk to a couple of my friends that I grew up with. I also got a chance to talk to Nikolai a couple of times. It's funny...as I was getting off the phone with him on Christmas Eve, he actually asked me when I was making it back to town, and offered to come get me from the bus station. And I didn't even have to ask him. Of course that's not a huge deal, but at the same time, maybe I'm used to dealing with self-centered men.

So the year from hell is over, and it's the start of a better year believing in faith. I have seen just how amazing life is, and that good things can come from the most unexpected of places. I also have seen that sometimes we don't always see the big picture when we're in the middle of small situations, but when we do, it can be mindblowing.

I think that Nikolai and I are becoming better friends. I don't know if anything else will come out of it or not. But it's really, really cool. I ran into him earlier today. And we were talking, and I noticed that he was touching me. A lot. No, not in an overtly sexual manner, and definitely not inappropriately. But it was still noticeable. I don't know exactly what that means. I don't know if it's that he's into me or if it's a sign that he's more comfortable with me as a friend. And it's even harder to figure out b/c of the cultural difference. In any case, I was just fine with it, and I felt comfortable with it. Which is weird for me, a person who tends to tense up when people up and touch me unexpectedly. My goodness, I was even like that with Alex. Maybe it's nothing. Maybe I'm just weird.

I think I like Nikolai, but in a different way than I've been into anyone. I think that every friendship and every relationship in general is different. I think it's different because I don't feel like I have to impress him, or be someone that I'm not. Because he and I are friends, truly friends, I feel like I can truly be myself around him and be completely real with him. Also, because he is a relatively upbeat and positive person, I feel good when I'm around him and after being around him. I don't think I have a crush on him. But I do like him. And it truly doesn't matter what happens between us - what trajectory the friendship follows. I just feel blessed to have him in my life.