sometimes all we have to offer is ourselves

Redemption

2009-05-13T12:48:00.005-04:00

Since last October, a great deal has occurred, and life is quite different in a few important ways.

Unexpectedly, my older sister (who I had previously never met) found me back in January. A couple of months later, I got a chance to meet my birth mother, siblings and some of that side of my family. It's amazing, really. It has been a real blessing. I'm having the opportunity to get to know them, and they are getting to know me. I'm also getting to know a side of my father that I was not aware of, and even though he and I were close, I feel like in death, I'm getting to know him better as well. I'm also learning more about myself, my own identity, who I am. I feel more...whole.

I stopped talking to Jordan sometime in October, after it became clear that he did not care about me, he had thrown me under the bus and he was going to stay with Bertha. I also found out that he had cheated on Bertha not only w/me, but had slept with at least six women other than Bertha in a few month time span. I'm glad I didn't go all the way with him, but it still made me angry that he played w/my feelings like that, even on a friends level, which we were supposed to be... friends don't do that to friends. I briefly went through a stupid phase where I just stopped caring about myself. I made some poor choices in regards to who I was going out with, including a 21-year-old frat boy who wanted to be with a fat girl discreetly, and a middle-aged man who turned out to be married with three school-aged children and wanted a fling with a young chubby. I never had sex with them, but even going out with them wasn't smart on my part.

After a nervous breakdown that same month, I went into counseling, and back to church. I learned how to value myself more, and I learned to value the important things in life, like family and friends, instead of worrying about being in a relationship.

In late November, after I had stopped looking, someone came across me out of the blue. I started talking to someone new, and early the next month, we started dating. We'll call him Ryan. We clicked pretty much from the get-go, we're similar in a lot of ways, our backgrounds are similar in some key ways, and well, he's just really an awesome guy. He's around my age, from Cincinnati, he's a student at a local technical college, looking to finish in about a year (similar timetable that I have). Yes, he drives. He does live at home, but he does so in part to take care of his grandmother who raised him, who is now wheelchair-bound. He's smart, and he has a sarcastic sense of humor, much like myself. He's also white, chunky but not uber-fat, but not new to dating interracially or dating larger women publicly.

Ryan and I are in love with each other. We're attracted to each other, have great chemistry...intellectual, personality-wise, sexual, etc. We're really good for each other. Ryan and I have been together over five months now, and it's just gotten better, really. I've met his family and friends, he's met my friends, and will meet my family next month when we go up to Michigan for my 10-year high school reunion. I don't want to jinx things, but I think he's it. Yay! But we shall see.

So, what happened to Jordan, Bertha, and the baby after I stepped out of the picture? I don't care on a personal level, but it's interesting for curiosity's sake. Given the fact that I know his friends, and his website is ridiculously rife w/personal information, I know the postscript.

Bertha moved to my family's/Jordan's neighborhood in November with her father, both on Section 8/public assistance. Jordan moved in with them shortly thereafter (technically in violation of rules pertaining to Section 8). Their baby girl was born in late February. Apparently, they had been having problems for a long time, but predictably, it intensified after their daughter was born. He kept up his cheating lifestyle, and not only that, he was mooching off Bertha and her family. She still took drugs and smoked, and got the cops called on her for domestic violence for throwing objects at Jordan. Her siblings, including a convicted drug dealer, moved into the house. Jordan's computer (his baby) was pawned for bail money, and for his part, he was screwing around on Bertha with his good friend. When she found out, she tried to fight her.

Meanwhile, Jordan sent me a text message sometime in early April, noting that I had deleted him off of my friends list on the social networking site (I had done it months earlier). To which I ignored him until he messaged me again a week later, and also messaged me online. He made the comment along with it, "Did my brother talk to you?" To which I told him that his brother did not, but that I knew that he had been sleeping with a lot of women, and knowing that I was not so experienced and just not in a good mindset, he looked to take advantage of that for his own personal pleasure, which is not what friends do, so I cut him off.

Then, at the end of April, Jordan and Bertha broke up, and Jordan moved back in with his parents. Bertha got into trouble again with the police for driving without insurance and for possession of unauthorized prescription narcotics. Jordan, for his part, isn't financially to his daughter's care (not shocking), and will most likely end up getting child support sucked out of his check at work.

Jordan made his blog and webpage public, probably to try to make Bertha look bad, putting out there the problems she and her family has. At the same time, he also inadvertently looks really bad doing it. Apparently, his mom and Bertha don't get along, and his brother (the one he asked me about, who lives overseas), Jordan and Bertha have been engaged in a flame war via social networking site. Jordan's brother is probably the only person in the whole situation that I respect. He called both of them out on what they did: Bertha because she acts crazy and ignorant, Jordan because he is promiscuous, doesn't use protection, and used someone for sex w/out being honest about it, and both for thinking that living together would be best for their daughter.

I don't get excited at other people's misfortune. However, I don't feel bad for anyone in this situation but the baby. She has stupid nutjobs for parents.

I don't feel bad for Jordan at all - he is getting his just deserts. He is a very selfish person, and he cultivated his own karma. Using and misusing other people without regard for their well-being equals bad juju. Now I understand why He led me on and almost took my virginity without any regard for my feelings, he screwed over as countless other women, but he screwed Bertha over most...leading her on, using her for a fuck buddy without making that clear to her, getting her pregnant. He asked for all he's getting right now. His life is screwed, and he has no one to blame but himself.

I don't feel all that bad for Bertha either. Sort of, but not really. On one hand, she was self-medicating, probably due to a screwed up family life and the death of her mother. She also seemed to have bad self-esteem, and Jordan took full advantage of that. After apparently being treated badly, she met someone who told her what she longed to hear, and it made an impression on her. At the same time, she knew pretty much from the beginning that Jordan was not a good person for her or anyone, but like most women (myself included), she heard the right words instead of looking at context. She knew that even though they were together since March 2008, he didn't come out public with their relationship for months. She knew he was being unfaithful from the beginning. She knew that he slept with others unprotected, and that behavior could give him an STD or HIV, and she could catch it from him. Although she wanted children, she knew he wasn't interested in kids or even being a one-woman man (he wanted to be a "pimp"). She was aware of all of these things and yet gambled with her health and her life, and stayed with him, even choosing to have a child with him, and allowing him to use her for sex and money. Nevertheless, I hope that she learns to love herself, and lives a better life going forward with her little girl.

As for myself, I'm very glad that I left out (or was pushed out) when I did. Unbeknownst to me at the time, it was one of the best things that could have happened to me. I escaped getting an STD or HIV (made sure I got tested). I escaped pregnancy and the prospect of being tied into this messy situation forever. Also, considering that Bertha is drug addicted and violent, and would rather blame other women than Jordan for Jordan's bad behavior, I'm glad that her ire wasn't directed towards me or my family, who live in the same neighborhood as she and Jordan. I'm glad I could make a clean break, and start my life anew. I'm glad that I could meet Ryan instead, who is a better man than anyone I could have ever expected.

Sometimes, bad things happen to good people. Sometimes, things work out the way they should.

Realization

2008-10-21T19:15:00.004-04:00

As Alanis Morrisette says, "Life has a funny way of helping you out."

So after the weekend spent with Jordan, everything was pretty much over. He and Bertha are moving into a house together in the same neighborhood, and they're going to make their life together. I ended up being the odd woman out. To be expected, but it really hurt a lot.

I spent the week following my trip to Michigan on the edge of a nervous breakdown. I was either crying or sleeping, with little else in between. Sunday was the worst. I spent most of the day asleep, and almost missed my friend's dinner party, where Brooke's husband was coming back to town from central Asia, and Nikolai was breezing into town as well. It was great seeing the both of them. And the funny thing was that Nikolai and I were sitting around and share war stories about liars and babies. Even he said that it was bad to see that happen to someone like me, and I'll meet someone better. So the time spent was great. But later that night, I went home, couldn't sleep, began to cry uncontrollably, felt paralyzed with hopelessness, and thought I was losing my mind. I was at the end of my rope and I had to do something.

The next day, I went to the doctor for a routine physical. She put me on medication to calm me down, and referred me to a therapist. I've been on the medication for two days and already I'm feeling better. I'm also looking forward to the therapy as well.

I know it's a little early for reflection, but I'm doing it anyway. While I still feel sad about what happened with Jordan, I think that meeting him, dating him, becoming romantic with him, and then finding out about him - collectively speaking - Jordan was the best thing that happened to me in a long time. Somewhere in Cincinnati (the first stint) I lost my mind. I had lost faith in God, which is the foundation of a healthy life. I was battling some form of depression, and I figured that if I found a person who could make me happy, it would help. In Michigan, I met Jordan, who in retrospect, I was sexually compatible with, but not compatible with in most other areas of life. But I did not know what the feeling was, and I felt great with him, so I took it for what it was worth and then some.

I am a doctoral candidate in the social sciences and he was a slacker with a dead-end job. This was a guy who, as Brooke would say, has an online "boob gallery." What was I doing with him? While I am not an elitist, the fact was that Jordan was not good enough for me, not by a long shot. i had everything to offer and he had nothing to offer but great sex. Even after finding out that he had a drug-addicted, insane, "baby mama" girlfriend that he refused to leave, I still stayed with him. I continued to be sexually intimate with him and I almost lost my virginity to him. And then he decided to make it work with her and he was effectively done with me, after I made it clear to him I no longer wanted to be his fuck buddy. Combine the "breakup" with the impending two-year anniversary of my father's death, and you get a nervous breakdown.

Since getting help, I am starting to see my life a little differently. I have not been myself since my father died. I have been making decisions that are stupid, self-destructive and potentially deadly.

Intimacy

2008-10-11T15:44:00.003-04:00

It is so easy sometimes to talk about people who allow themselves to be a party to affairs and cheating, who fight so hard for what is not theirs, even knowing that if they had this person, he or she would still cheat. Once a cheater, always a cheater...and yet, people jump into it anyway. Christine Beatty did it, my professor did it, at least two of my family members did it. And I did not get it, but now, I think I do.

Yes, it's selfishness to some degree, but it's something deeper. I wonder if for these women, it wasn't that they didn't care about hurting anyone, but that they saw something in one man that they could not find anywhere else, and the only thing standing in their way was that this man belonged to someone else.

I originally intended not to bother with Jordan after the situation with Bertha came to light. It was completely against my moral code, it was a sin in every sense of the word. To have romantic relations with him knowing he was with another woman would be the worst thing - by far - I would have ever done. I did not think I could backtrack into a purely platonic relationship with him, and for that I did not think I could deal with him at all.

At the same time, one of my personality flaws is that I have a very hard time saying goodbye. Also, there was something about Jordan that made it hard to just give up, even though any chance of he and Bertha breaking up and he and I being together instead would be slim to none. Yes, it was the fact that I liked him and felt comfortable with him the same time. But it was also something else that I could not put a finger on until yesterday. When he and I kissed the day I moved back to Cincinnati, it was different than any other kiss I have had. I have kissed two other men besides Jordan. My first kiss sucked. The second person I kissed was Matt, and he was a great kisser to be sure. Jordan is also a good kisser, but it wasn't so much his technique, but it was something else. It felt like I was kissing myself - maybe not myself, but it felt like Jordan was an extension of myself. I wasn't sure exactly why that was until yesterday.

Yesterday I came back to Michigan to visit for the weekend. Jordan and I talked about getting together to hang out, so I went to visit him. We spent over five hours together...kissing, making out, touching, pretty much everything but full-on intercourse. Yes, we took breaks, but for the most part, it was lots of sexual acts and just closeness. Yes, he made me feel good, and he knew how to get me going without me telling him how. It got to the point (x-rated stuff coming) that he and I were grinding naked, genital contact without penetration, very close to sex, to where we both climaxed (x-rated stuff over).

I don't feel like a bad person, even though what I did was probably the worst thing I have ever done by a long shot. Somehow I feel like I have my own share of karma coming for this one...although I'm hoping that the good will balance it all out (but whatever). It's bad enough that I'm a bit worried/paranoid that I could have gotten pregnant since I was ovulating and Jordan did climax near the opening to the vaginal canal...maybe that'll be what I get for this and my life will really be a mess.

At the same time, I think I know now what the feeling is when I'm with Jordan. It's intimacy. I'm not just talking about the almost sex, I'm talking about when we kiss, when he touches me, when he looks into my eyes and softly touches my face, when he lays his shiny head into my bosom. Matt was a good kisser, but he felt kind of foreign, and I think it was because I did not feel comfortable with him, I did not feel the intimacy. But I feel that with Jordan. I'm not saying I love him or that he is my soulmate. But I will say this - for the first time in my life, I found someone that it feels right with. But the question is if it is all worth the cost, because in my prudent mind, I cannot see how this can end well.

Impression

2008-09-25T16:33:00.003-04:00

A few things have been going on as of late.

First of all, I'm sort of kind of talking to a new guy, we'll call him Pete. He's a farm boy in Indiana, about an hour away from Cincinnati. He seems nice enough, and I like talking to him. He also says he respects my decision to wait for sex until marriage, and actually says it makes him like me more, which one never sees out of a guy. At the same time, he seems a little too nice, a little too good to be true. My inner wise woman says to pay attention and be vigilant. I learned from Nikolai, and so this time I think I will listen.

Meanwhile, I talked to Jordan online earlier today. I think I feel better regarding the situation, and I've managed to get back to being centered emotionally. So it feels fine talking to him. He and I were kind of flirting and teasing each other, particularly after I kind of made a dig at him when I was talking to him about The Sims 2, where you can, among other things, make your sims cheat. It was just playing around, although I know it's not right. What can I say, it is what it is. At the same time, I have no intention of doing anything with him sexually. That would be selling myself short. And I don't want to find myself in conflict with Bertha, because as much as I don't like the situation, for me to knowingly deal with Jordan on that level would be wrong on my part. Even though I am not responsible to Bertha (Jordan is), I would not have a leg to stand on if it appeared that I was the other woman. Come to think about it, I'm not even sure if it's a good idea for us to see each other, all things considered.

Speaking of selling myself short, my mom saw Jordan at the local grocer, where he works. She went up to him and introduced herself. She said, "You probably don't know who I am." He looked at her, like "no, not really." She then said, "I'm Jaye's mother." Then he said, "oh okay."

I was first told of this encounter by Jordan in our online chat conversation. He said that he was surprised she knew who he was, and she seemed nice and he was nice to her. He then said that his impression was that he impressed her. He also made a wisecrack about the encounter, saying, "she probably knew it was me because she noticed my sexiness." Yeah, okay, whatever.

I talked to my mom later on today. She tells me, "I met Jordan today at the store. I went up to him and introduced myself. As soon as he opened his mouth, I knew that wasn't you." She then said, "You can do a lot better than him." I asked her if there was something wrong with him. She said, "No, but I just think you can do better. He's not good enough for you. Don't sell yourself short."

I find it interesting that the same encounter, while recounted consistently, elicited a totally different impression on both parties involved. Jordan thought my mom seemed nice and that he impressed her. My mom thought that while Jordan seemed fine enough, he was nowhere near good enough to date her daughter.

In particular, the conversation I had with my mom was strange for a couple of reasons. First of all, I didn't tell her about the situation with Jordan and Bertha, so I'm not sure where this "he's not good enough" comes from. I wonder what it was about him that gave her that sense. Secondly, my mom usually tells me that I shouldn't act so elitist when it comes to who I date. In her view, it shouldn't matter what the guy does, as long as he has a job. But when she met Jordan, she didn't think he was right for me. So it's kind of weird, in a way. I wonder what the deal was. She's probably right, though.

Untenable

2008-09-24T11:29:00.004-04:00

So pretty much, nothing has changed since the last time I wrote. Jordan and Bertha are still together, and he spends his every non-working moment with her. Apparently it's to where even his friends no longer see him and he can't do the things he normally does. Bertha writes messages on his website that are, well, crazy. She says that she and Jordan will be together and "ain't no female gonna come between us - I'll make sure of that." I truly wonder how long this is going to last. This is untenable, I can see it, and apparently so does at least one of Jordan's best friends, "Janet." I have never met Janet, but I think I like her already. She says what she thinks, even on Jordan's public website, and Bertha's extremely jealous of her.

I don't think this is going to end well. See, Jordan tries to act like he is assertive, but he's actually kind of passive. Nevertheless, even a passive person can only take so much. I said to one of my friends that from Jordan's end, this will be "resolved" in one of three ways. 1. he will regularly cheat and/or live a double life; 2. he will blow up at her (ranging from verbally going off on her to killing her), or; 3. he will break up with her. For the first six months of their relationship, he seemed to have chosen number one. However, with Bertha now taking up all Jordan's time, he will eventually resort to numbers two or three. I hope it will be three, because I would hate to see anything happen to Bertha by Jordan's hand. At the same time, I have a feeling that he doesn't want to do number three, because he doesn't want for Bertha to do anything to harm herself. But I wonder if he realizes how much danger he could be in.

Hostage

2008-09-11T14:02:00.002-04:00

Just when I thought that I knew all there was to know in regards to Jordan and Bertha, the other shoe dropped.

Tuesday, after coming back home from work and the gym, Jordan text-messaged me to say that he had emailed me back tonight, since I had emailed him a few days earlier. He said, "Please understand that this is going to shock you. It isn't bad just explaining some things better." So I text-messaged him back to ask him "Do I really want to read this?", to which he responded "Yes."

So I read the email. In the email, Jordan confessed that he knocked up Bertha back in May, but didn't find out until mid-July. At that point, they decided to stay together for the sake of the baby. Come to find out, Bertha had gotten pregnant to trap Jordan (although he didn't exactly say how she "trapped" him in this fashion considering he's anti-condom).

Recently, due to fights over his faithfulness (although I'm still sure she doesn't know about me), her possessiveness and drug use, she soured on him. She decided to get a late-term abortion and pretty much wanted Jordan to leave her alone. He said that if she doesn't change her mind by the weekend, he's letting it go and letting everyone know he's single again. He didn't want to have a child, he didn't think he was ready for that, considering he still lives at home. At the same time, he said he'd be damned if she would raise his child without him. While the way everything went down was messed up, he said that As far as I'm concerned, he said that he wanted to put everything out on the table so there are no secrets. No matter what happens with us, he wants to be able to see me and spend time with me, and that he will make sure he makes time for me when I come back to town.

So I later talked to him on the telephone. I told him I wasn't surprised because from reading Bertha's webpage, I knew she was pregnant. I just wasn't completely sure it was his. I said to him that I was planning to ask him about it, but I didn't because I didn't think it was my place, and because I wasn't sure if I really wanted to know...but I do know now. I could understand better why he was with her, considering the circumstances. He admitted to me that he met her in December, had started seeing her in March, and they were together on and off. He didn't really feel a connection with her, and she rubbed him the wrong way because right away she was jealous and possessive, and she was on drugs. Furthermore, they had very few of the same interests, and her favorite music is the same music he hates the most (country and rap). However, against his better judgment, he kept seeing her because the sex was really good.

Well, we see how well that worked...

Anyway, so we stayed on the phone for about an hour and talked a while. It was good to talk about things, whether it was about the situation with Bertha, about us, or about interests and life. It reminded me as to why I like Jordan in the first place. Even though on paper he seems so not a match for me, when we're together, whether on the phone or in person, we are just so right. It's the kind of thing I know can't be duplicated.

So since Tuesday, I've had a chance to think through everything, and take note of some developments. Bertha and Jordan have gone back and forth online the past couple of days talking about how much they love each other, yada yada, which makes me wonder what Bertha is ultimately going to do in regards to the baby and their relationship.

On one hand, I commend Jordan for wanting to stay with her for the sake of the baby, but at the same time I wonder if, considering the fact that they have such a volatile relationship, it's a really bad idea. I really think he needs to grow some balls and make some decisions regardless of those that Bertha makes. He's being taken hostage by her instability. And I feel like I'm being taken hostage by his indecisiveness.

Jordan and Bertha's relationship is like watching a really bad train wreck in slow motion.

I also have a sneaking suspicion concerning the situation, of which I don't have evidence of except for an understanding of male-female relations and human nature...as well as from my experience with silly females from in and around Detroit:-).

It dawned on me yesterday as I was talking to one of my best friends. Here are some things to consider: Bertha is very possessive and smothering (which is clear even on her webpage) towards Jordan, and then she turns around all of a sudden and says she wants to have an abortion and cut ties with him? On top of that, practically speaking, she is in her fifth month of pregnancy. It is very difficult to find a doctor that will perform a late-term abortion. In addition, she is always talking about in her messages to him how "horny" she is. But usually women don't get their super-libido until the last trimester of pregnancy. She is a big girl, too...a really big girl. I know from personal experience that many big women don't have regular periods (amenorrhea), so conceivably she wouldn't have to take that week per month to not have sex because of menstruation.

I'm wondering if she may have trapped Jordan, but not in the way he suspects. I wonder if she had invented the pregnancy so that Jordan would not leave her, because she had to know that he wasn't as interested in her as she was in him. Considering that he was continuing to sleep with her, but would not claim her as his girlfriend, would make it pretty clear to anyone, naive or not, what his intentions with her truly were. She may have been hoping that if they continued to have sex unprotected, he would get her pregnant for real. However, by the fifth month, with no pregnancy, this strategy becomes untenable and she has to find a way out. The easy way out would just to claim a miscarriage. However, considering Bertha's penchant for the dramatic, going down in a blaze of glory may seem more exciting to her.

I don't know, it's only speculation, but to be honest I don't think I will completely believe there is a real baby involved unless or until I actually see a real baby.

This whole situation seems like a good case study for the darkness of human nature, particularly the depths to which people go due to the emotions of desperation and selfishness. I also notice that even my own feelings denote a degree of less-than-noble intent. Deep inside the dark reaches of my heart, I do wish that Jordan and Bertha would break up so he could be with me. This is the first time I've really felt this kind of connection with anyone, and I don't want to lose that. At the same time, there is another part of me that knows that Jordan is, in a sense, trying to do the right thing, and I can't fault him for that at all. I do want for him to get his life together, because it is a mess and being with me isn't going to fix the things that are broken.

I told him, against every fiber of my being, that if Bertha goes through with the abortion, and they break up, he needed to be by himself for a while and not worry about dating or women. That was hard, because I would so love for him to run to me, and try to make a long-distance relationship work. But it may not be the best thing for him to rebound into something else given the seriousness and gravity of the current situation. And while I feel selfish about it, and this situation is killing me, I can't be self-serving and still be able to look in the mirror.

I wish that Bertha would just do what she's going to do and not drag Jordan through changes. I wish that Jordan had a backbone. But my wishing isn't going to change the situation. I am really considering taking a break from it all until everything is settled and I truly know what I'm dealing with.

Drugs

2008-09-04T19:39:00.001-04:00

So I thought that this was the end of Jordan. Unfortunately, men have a way sometimes of lingering a little longer than they deserve to.

I went through a range of emotions...pissed, angry, sad, depressed, etc. It's not because Jordan was the best guy on the face of the planet; he definitely wasn't. It was because on some level, I liked Jordan, and I was hurt about being lied to, and unwittingly playing second fiddle to someone else.

On Friday, I had confronted Jordan about Bertha over the phone. He was being kind of bitchy because I was pushing to talk to him and he had to work 48 hours last week. But did I care? No way. When I asked him why he didn't inform me about the fact that he had a girlfriend, he changed his tune. He said that he didn't tell me "because I suck," and then proceeded to tell me that he hadn't been sure he wanted to commit to anyone. He said that he didn't realize his boundaries with me considering how I felt and that I'm still a virgin. He said it was good that I was waiting. Come to find out, his first sexual encounter happened to be with a girl who was mixed w/black, and the sex happened to be good. But for whatever reason, he waited for a few years to sleep with someone else. In any case, he also mentioned that he was iffy on Bertha, that on one hand, there are things he likes about her, but on the other hand, she's on drugs (pill popping and smoking weed), and she's immature and full of drama. To which I told him that he chose to be with her, and he should commit if he really wants to be with her, and if not, he needs to break up with her. That simple.

I had reverted to passive-aggressivism for the past few days and wrote a series of blog entries on that site chronicling my feelings about the situation (without spelling out the situation in detail). Cried, talked, wrote, got trashed, etc. The situation bothered me even more. It seemed like something was wrong with Bertha anyway because she came off as being a little too sold out for Jordan - too clingy, too sensitive, too willing to start arguments with random people over him. The other day, she even cursed out some girl who wrote a comment about Jordan's ex-friend back in January. She also looked a lot older than 24 years of age...more like 40. And so on one hand, the fact that she's a drug user makes the picture clearer to me. On the other hand, it hurt my pride because I played second fiddle to a crazy drug addict. What the hell?

So I get an email from Jordan Monday (that he sent on Sunday). saying that he read the weblog articles, and while he wasn't sorry he made out with me, he was sorry that he didn't tell me he was with Bertha. We ended up writing back and forth since. What it comes down to is that it seems he wants to stay with her so she can get off the drugs and get over her mom dying a year and a half ago. I don't think it's going to happen, it reminds me a lot of myself and Matt. But to each his own.

I didn't realize at the time that this situation would bother me so much. It's a strange pain. I cannot say that there is anything about Bertha that makes her more desirable than me. She's on drugs, is unemployed, she lives a life full of drama, she looks old and homely, and she's bigger than me, both size, weight, and height, and doesn't carry her weight as well as me. Even he says that she is not as mature as me, and I'm more stable than she is. And yet Jordan got with her, and I was the other woman. This is hard to wrap my head around. I cannot figure out for the life of me what is wrong with me to where I ended up losing.

And also, this...we did things that friends don't do. He and I were friends, I felt comfortable with him and everything. We crossed that line between friendship and something else. And now come to find out, it was really nothing. That really hurt. How did I end up being the one who is alone? I have everything this man seems to want, and I was willing to extend grace to him, and yet I get cut?! That really, really hurts.

Cheater

2008-08-25T15:27:00.002-04:00

So I'm in the comfort of my new office at work, when I decide to check my page on a social networking site. Come to find out, Jordan (who is one of my "friends") changed his status to "in a relationship." It hasn't even been a week since we made out and almost had sex, and he's seeing someone else. Now granted, initially I couldn't be' mad because we weren't together, I live in Cincinnati and he lives in Michigan, so it wouldn't have worked anyway. At the same time, I can't say it didn't sting just a little, because considering what I saw on his page, they'd been kind of seeing each other for a while, and unbeknownst to me, I was the "other" woman.

But wait, it gets worse. I decide, in my curious nature, to do some investigating. Come to find out, Jordan and the woman, we'll call "Bertha," have been together for at least a few weeks, and they've been messing around since at least June. In mid-July, he and I had gone out on a date to see a movie, and he had said even then that he wasn't looking to be in a relationship and he liked being single. On Wednesday morning, he leaves a message for Bertha saying "I love you too." Less than an hour later, I was over his house, and thirty minutes after that, we were making out. Later on that same day, she went all out and gave him a surprise birthday party. And later on, he texts me to tell me, and implies that the person who threw it was a friend of his named "Bertha"...no mention of the title "girlfriend."

And it gets even grimier. The woman found out only three or four weeks ago that she is pregnant. I don't know if it's Jordan's baby or not, but I don't think I even want to know, either. Considering all I read, it probably is. Now that really, really pisses me off.

I was *this* close to sleeping with the guy, this close to losing my virginity. If I had done it, I would've hated myself forever. So I really dodged a bullet there...seriously. Maybe that's God's way of saying that there is nothing good about doing things that are outside of His plan for my life. It wasn't what I needed to do...so it's time to really move on and be patient for much better things.

Peace

2008-08-24T03:09:00.001-04:00

So I moved back to Cincinnati on Wednesday. It was also Jordan's birthday. He wanted to come over my house, but I said it wasn't a great idea since my brother was around and wouldn't let us talk. So I offered to come over to his house on my way out of town to wish him a happy birthday and to say goodbye. So I went to visit him, and we talked for a little while. Then...it was almost something out of a cute romantic movie, almost like "Garden State." He finally - finally! - kissed me. We made out for a while, almost slept together, but I cut that short before it happened, and he was respectful about that (which is good). The time we spent together was good, and I enjoyed it, even the talking. It just sucks that I had to go.

I think that Jordan presents a strange case for me. I just don't know. Most of the guys I've been into are guys I've been limerent for, meaning that I was really, really dying in love with them to the exclusion of all others, while they never even realized my existence (or if they did, thought I probably shouldn't). Jordan is the first person that I've actually liked but not in a limerent way. It ebbs and flows, I think. There have been times where it seemed that Jordan liked me more than I liked him, and times in which it seemed that I liked Jordan more than he liked me. It seems, well, balanced. He is also someone that I feel really comfortable with, I can be my silly, crazy, talkative self around him. I don't feel inhibited or judged around him. That really means a lot.

That said, he and I both agreed that neither of us is interested in a relationship right now. And so for now, that's off the table, and I'm more than fine with that. I don't feel tied down to anything, and for once in my life, I don't feel compelled to seek a relationship with anyone. At the same time, a part of me does miss him. When I get my own place (I'm living with roommates for now), I may invite him down here to visit. But for the most part, I like things the way they are right now. We aren't "together," but we're not exactly platonic either.

I talked to Nikolai today (Saturday). He is doing okay. His life is kind of in limbo/transition, and he admitted he had a rough year due to the situation with Pat. At the same time, he did admit his culpability in the situation, and considering the circumstances he appears no worse for wear. He also was happy to hear that my year went a lot better than his, and he gave me valuable advice on preparation for the academic job market.

To an extent, I grew a little bit of a conscience. On one hand, I don't feel the same way about him than I once did. I also still don't feel the least bit sorry for him. At the same time, that is still a lot to endure, and I don't feel right relishing in his pain. Even when people get what they deserve, God does not rejoice in their suffering but is there alongside them in their suffering. Furthermore, although Nikolai didn't treat me right, I was also someone he respected because of what he considered to be my good heart. Even Brooke said that he would mention me and had nothing but good things to say about me. While he doesn't deserve my friendship (and I think he knows this), I am not him and I need to be a better person than he is.

Does that mean we're now the best of friends? No. Does it mean that I will start talking to him again? No. Does it mean I trust him again? No. At the same time, how much pain does he have to experience for me to be satisfied that he has suffered enough? The situation with Pat is beyond anything I could have dreamed up as far as "God's vengeance" is concerned. But maybe, just maybe, it's time to let it go.

Reaping

2008-08-21T23:23:00.004-04:00

So I talked to Brooke earlier. She's moving out of the country with her new husband within the next few months, since he got a well-paying job overseas. She was giving me the update on everyone in Cincinnati, including Nikolai.

So Nikolai was going to do right by Pat and marry her for the sake of the unborn baby. He enlists the help of his dissertation chair to get him a teaching job at a college near where her parents live, in rural Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. He moves there away from his friends and most everyone else he knows here in the States, and gets an apartment set up for the new family. As the birth neared, he stated his intention to marry her, and he was searching for an engagement ring to make it official.

In the eighth month of her pregnancy, Pat reveals to Nikolai that the baby may not be his. She confesses that while they were seeing each other, she was also carrying on a sexual relationship with her ex-boyfriend. While Nikolai was shocked, he decided to stay on for the birth. When the baby was born the next month, he was there, cut the cord and everything.

Not long after the birth, Pat gets a paternity test to see if the baby is indeed Nikolai's. Come to find out, Nikolai is not the father of the child. She asks him if he wants to adopt the child and raise it as if it is his. After thinking about it for a couple of days, Nikolai declines. Pat and the baby move out of the apartment and in with her parents.

So basically, Nikolai is stuck in the middle of nowhere, in a tiny town, at a tiny Christian college for at least a year. And all of this over a woman.

It makes me think of a joke Chris Rock told where he says that "men lie the most; women tell the biggest lies." And then he goes on to say that men might lie about something like if he's over his friend's house when he's really not, whereas women will tell a lie like "it's your baby!"

I don't revel in Nikolai's pain, at least I try not to. However, I don't feel bad for him, and this is why. I remember when I first discovered he was dating Pat (discovered b/c he didn't come out and say it, I had to stumble upon it). He said that he thought she was average-looking, but he just wanted the companionship. Later on, a few nights before I moved, he makes the comment to me that he got off on the fact that she was much younger than him. He figured he could kind of mentor her, etc., in lots of ways. I summarized it to him like this, "It's like having a kid you can fuck."

Nikolai thought he had one over on Pat, that he could be "Daddy" in life and in the bedroom. But she played the heck out of him, and now, at least for the time being, his life is screwed.

I also feel, to a degree, vindicated. He led me on from December of 2005, and when our relationship didn't turn out the way he planned, his attitude did a 180. He lied about having a fiance somewhere else, and then later, he figured I wasn't good enough for him to date. In his opinion, I didn't make good dating material because I was his equal intellectually and because of my looks. He berated me for passing out at the wrong time, which I couldn't see coming because of an unforeseen health issue. Dealing with his betrayal almost cost me a passing grade on my qualifier and a year-long academic fellowship. On top of that, I spent the fellowship year dealing with my father's death, and then on top of that deal with having to see someone who betrayed my trust. He figured that I should just "get over" what he did and act like everything was cool, just as he was flaunting his new girlfriend in my face.

But here's the irony of it. If Nikolai had dated me, I would have never done that to him. Even if I had slept with him, I would not have done so without insisting on protection, and I don't believe in two-timing anyone. He didn't want to be with me, in part, because being with me would have been like "fucking the Virgin Mary." He wanted to go for the easy thing, not for someone who would challenge him and make him a better man. Nikolai made his bed, and now he must lie in it.

Rehabilitation

2008-08-10T18:13:00.004-04:00

Shockingly enough, it looks like I will be moving back to Cincinnati, and soon. I accepted a year-long position at a university in the area, and will also be teaching part-time for my school's department. I'm excited about the position, and I feel good, for the most part, about the move.

This past year has been a rehabilitation of sorts. I remember leaving Cincinnati with my tail between my legs, my entire emotional and spiritual self torn to shreds due to the toxic relationships I experienced with Alex and Nikolai.

I think that these days, while I am not a fan of men in general, my image of them is somewhat more balanced. I've begun to learn how to be friends with men again. The truth is that while most of my friends are women, I often feel like I have more to talk about with men than with women. I have more in common with them. Men will talk about harder issues, and even their small talk is more interesting...fighting, action movies, actors, singers and personalities I've actually heard of. Women, on the other hand, tend to talk about their families, and fluffy things on TV. I can identify with neither.

Also, I have become more convinced that men are capable of seeing my beauty. Not only Jordan, but others as well. I've been approached by other men, and I have begun to learn how to speak to men I find attractive.

Speaking of Jordan, I'm also friends with a couple of his friends that he grew up with (although met by different avenues)..."Gary" and "Jimmy." Gary works with Jordan. He is well-educated, kind of quiet and serious, but a nice guy. Gary is always hanging out with Jimmy. Jimmy can be cool when he wants to be, he's kind of hometown bound, and he can be a little bit of a dick, but otherwise, he's not a bad guy. He's animated, has good stories, and he's great with kids.

Gary reminds me of a cross between Alex and Alex's best friend (he looks like Alex's best friend, but kind of acts like Alex), but I have zero feelings for him, probably because he seems to lack any kind of belief in himself. Jimmy is so not my type physically...short, stubby, tattooed and blond, like a mini chunky Eminem. He reminds me of Matt without the drugs. But I had found myself having a mini-crush on him, probably because he's a dick who thinks he's the best thing since fried ice cream. I notice I tend to be attracted to assholes, probably because they act self-assured and have a take-charge attitude. I think that Jimmy does notice me to some degree - I can tell he pays attention, and he notices things about me, etc. At the same time, I would never date him even if he liked me (which I don't believe he does anyway but I could be wrong)...I don't want to date assholes anymore, and besides, he's a manwhore. While I'm not stuck on my guy being a virgin (the chances of meeting a decent, sane man my age who is a virgin is slim to none), I have no desire to be a notch on his belt either.

If nothing else, living in Michigan has helped me to develop a more balanced view of men (to a degree, although some of my dating experiences sucked). More than that, I have a more balanced perspective on my time in Cincinnati. Surely, it sucked, but at the same time, the primary reasons why the time sucked involved the things that happened to me while I lived there. Alex and Nikolai, finding out about my health/fertility (or lack thereof), losing my father...it was a lot to take in and very difficult to process. Does it mean that it will be so bad the second time around? Probably not, prayerfully not. On one hand, I do hope that something great will happen. At the same time, I don't expect that it will. No expectations. I plan on teaching a great course and finishing school. That's the extent of it.

Jaded

2008-06-09T22:25:00.004-04:00

These days, I'm at the point to where I have been looking to take some control over what happens in my life, from my finances to my love life. I can't say that I'm particularly thrilled with my position in life, but I can't say I'm miserable either.

Nikolai apparently defended his dissertation today; I received the announcement from the department via email. I'm not sure how it went, but it did motivate me to make more progress on my own research. The way that everything went down still stings to some degree, although I think that in the end, I'm better off for things ending up the way they did. As for Pat and the baby, I have no clue...haven't talked to Brooke, which is another story, I guess.

As for myself, I'm not sure to what degree I'm feeling Michigan. It's just more of the story of my life...those who I like don't want to acknowledge my existence, although unlike in the past, I believe that it speaks to their character (or lack thereof) and not some deficiency on my part. At the same time, there is someone that I think likes me to some degree, but I'm not sure it will work.

I'll call him Jordan, he's about my age, and he lives in my neighborhood. We have gone out a couple of times, and we talk on the phone or online from time to time. He's great to talk to, and I feel comfortable with him and enjoy his company, not to mention that he is also attractive. I also know that he is attracted to larger women, which is rare among my age set (and works out because I want to be with someone my age). I also like the fact that he shows interest in me.

However, he has a dead-end teenager's job, doesn't drive (never bothered to learn), lacks ambition and curiosity of the world outside what he knows, and he's agnostic.

I think that if at least two of those drawbacks were different, I think I could live with it. However, I can't help but to feel that if I were to pursue anything more than friendship with Jordan, I would be selling out and falling into the "big girl" trap of settling for less than what I desire and what will make me happy.

The truth is that beyond being a larger woman, I have a great deal going for me. I'm well-educated and on my way to a lucrative career, I am self-sufficient and I have my own income and transportation, not to mention that I am ambitious, curious, fun-loving, loyal and honest, and willing to try almost anything once. I also possess integrity and character, and I have chosen to be chaste in a world that celebrates anything but. I don't see why a number on a scale should preclude me from finding happiness with someone who also brings something to the table.

I feel that if I compromise my own standards, I open myself up to be used with nothing given in return. I don't want to be anyone's sugar mama, I don't want to be taken for less than I am worth. I don't want to just give myself away.

I love to travel and I want to see the world, and want to have someone I can do that with. I don't mind being the one making more money, but I do mind being the one to take care of everyone else, the one to take on more than I can bear. I don't want to be any man's chauffeur. I want someone who will make me feel like a lady and cared for to some degree...I don't want to feel like a man, or a mother, or something other than a girlfriend or a wife.

Jordan's agnosticism doesn't bother me as much as it probably should. The truth is that I have major issues with Christian men...the ones I have met are more shallow than most men in general. I'm the kind of girl who knows from experience that eHarmony and religious personals sites are a waste of time if you don't look like media's gift to the male gender. Honestly, I would love to be with someone who is on the same page I am when it comes to something so core to me as my faith in Christ. At the same time, the Christian men I meet tend to be the kind who will swear up and down they are sold out for God, they try to live in Christ's image, etc., yet have no appreciation for the fact that God made us all in His image. I seem to have better luck with non-Christians, because they're not so conformist. Maybe God can help to rehab the image I have of my brothers in Christ.

In any case, Jordan presents a tough case for me, and one that I haven't had the occasion to face before...someone that I truly like and feel great around, but at the same time doesn't seem to offer what I need long-term. I don't know how to deal with that, or make it right. I can't make Jordan into someone he is not, just like Alex or Nikolai couldn't make me into someone I was not. At the same time, he is someone that I both like and feel like I can be myself around, and I've never felt like that before about any man. I just don't know how I can deal with this the right way.

In other news, sort of related to the long-term prospects of a relationship with anyone here in Michigan...there is an outside possibility that I might move back to Cincinnati in the fall. I applied for a possible job opportunity that would allow me to finish school more quickly and conveniently, gain experience in teaching subjects that dovetail with my research interests, and for the first time in my life, allow me to earn a solid middle-class salary. But it's in the Cincinnati area. That said, if I did move back, I would not live in my old neighborhood, and I am no longer in touch with either Alex or Nikolai, so it probably wouldn't be so bad. We'll see. It's not likely, but we'll see.

This week, I'm going to an academic seminar on the other side of the state. I'm so looking forward to it. If anything of note happens, I'll mention it:-).

Karma

2008-02-08T20:00:00.000-05:00

"His judgment cometh, and that right soon."

Since August, I have started my life back up again in Michigan. It's a time of transition for me. I'm working on my dissertation...slowly but surely. I'm also working two part-time jobs - I teach a political science course twice a week an hour away from where I live, and I substitute teach for a local public school system. It keeps me sane. I also talk to old friends occasionally, and meeting new ones as well.

I have no intention of staying in Michigan long-term, although at times I wish I could settle down. However, now is not the time, really. Once I finish school, I will want to start a real job, and chances are, it won't be in Michigan. So while I do get lonely at times, realistically it doesn't make sense to get into a relationship with someone.

Alex and I no longer speak, and I don't even know where he lives. Occasionally I think about him - where he is, what he's doing, what his life looks like - but not enough to take time out to look for him. It is true that he was in my life for a long time. But at the same time, nothing lasts forever.

Brooke and her boyfriend are now engaged and will be getting married over the summer. I'm happy for both of them, especially for Brooke...of all people, she really deserves to have someone that makes her happy.

A couple of weeks ago, I received a message from Nikolai on a social networking site. Apparently, he took the time to actually look me up and find me, and wanted to be one of my online "friends." Rather than accept, I chose to deny. It's not that I'm still angry...I'm not. It's just that I now live in Michigan and I'm looking to move on with my life, and frankly he is no longer a part of my life now (nor do I want him to be). I need to be healthy mentally and emotionally, and I cannot have people in my life that will derail that, especially considering that I have no obligation towards him now that we no longer live in the same city or state.

However, that is not the end of Nikolai's story.

Brooke called me earlier today. Apparently, Nikolai got Pat pregnant. Pat told him she was on birth control, but she didn't tell him that she didn't take it regularly. They had unprotected sex a few times, even though at the time they hadn't been together long and barely knew each other. Then, a few months later, she came up pregnant. She is now five months along.

In Nikolai's mind, leaving Pat with the baby is out of the question. He feels that he is obligated to marry her, but she doesn't want to get married. Also, her parents want to raise the child until she finishes college. The crazy thing about it is that the father of the child is 30 years old and definitely old enough to raise a child without shifting the responsibility to the child's grandparents. It is a product of the fact that he impregnated a woman who is barely an adult. At the same time, Nikolai doesn't have a real job, and he has yet to finish his degree. Having a child means he will have to make tough decisions, and that may delay or derail his academic progress.

Brooke feels bad for him, but frankly, I don't. In a strange way, I believe that he has reaped what he has sown. It's not so much the baby in and of itself - children are a blessing. At the same time, the fact is that for once in his life, Nikolai is coping with a problem that is not simple to solve. For the past few years, he has shown himself to be someone who has no problem judging other people and criticizing them for their faults.

Nikolai used personal and sensitive information about my life to gain my trust and my interest, and then when he figured I was no longer useful to him, he wasted no time throwing me under the bus. He later decided to rub his then-new relationship in my face, and then couldn't understand why I refused to take his hurtful and insulting actions lying down. He had the nerve to criticize Brooke about her academic progress knowing that she was going through a contentious and rather nasty divorce. He made his comments about a long-time colleague who was in a marriage of convenience. He could not understand why a friend he grew up with had a difficult time moving on with life after the death of a parent. He had ready-made answers for another friend and colleague who accidentally knocked up his girlfriend in the middle of his candidacy.

He had a great deal to say about people whose lives did not turn out as planned and were not able to fix it easily. However, Nikolai himself was an only child who never truly struggled in life, and dealt with challenges through duplicity, deception and charm. He was always able to plan out his life and it would succeed as planned, and so he could not understand why other people dealt with failure.

I do not take joy in Nikolai's pain. However, I do not feel sympathy for a man who relishes in inflicting pain upon others. One cannot expect to live life almost sociopathically and not receive the energy they give out.

Suffering is part of the human condition...everyone has their turn to suffer, to struggle, to worry, to watch their dreams die. Nikolai was not immune to the trials and tribulations of life. And yet, the situation he is currently in is of his own doing. Because of his actions, everything he has worked for is in jeopardy. He is now forced to find a new direction because of a mistake he has made.

The worst - or maybe best - aspect of the situation is this: for the first time, he is forced to confront the fact that he is no better than the rest of us.

New

2007-08-18T04:04:00.000-04:00

So, basically, since I last wrote, I ended up finally standing up for myself against Nikolai. To make a long story short, Brooke planned a going-away party for me. A group of my closest Cincinnati friends were there, and Nikolai showed up...with his girlfriend. I just could not take it anymore, and I pulled him aside to tell him that what he did was inappropriate and selfish. He ended up taking the girlfriend home, and then came back briefly to wish me well.

The next day he came up to me to tell me what he really thought about the situation, which was that he felt I was unreasonably hurt, he is into someone else now, and I needed to "get over it." I explained to him that it's deeper than "you hurt me, you don't like me, poor me" or whatever is floating in his head. He broke trust with me and that has to be re-earned, and while I have forgiven, I have not forgotten, and when he does stuff that he knows will bother me, it doesn't exactly give encouragement for to trust him. Besides, how am I supposed to "get over" anything if he and I were living together? Anyway, in the end, he said that he values my friendship, he knows that Cincinnati was hard for me, and that he hopes and prays that Michigan will be better for me than Cincinnati was, and that he believes I will find myself with a man by my side.

For whatever reason, the whole Nikolai rejection thing hurts like hell, and I can't exactly say why. Maybe it's because of transference from the Alex situation. Then again, maybe it was the hope that Nikolai held out before pulling the rug out from under me. Maybe it's the fact that I thought that for once, things would be different, but in the end the outcome was all too familiar. It's hard to know, really. But in any case, there is nothing I can do about it. And maybe, just maybe, Nikolai's choice not to be with me opens doors for something better in my life.

Speaking of that, I've finally moved to Michigan. It's so weird being out of Cincinnati. I'm happy, though. It's a start of a new life. In a way, I'm sad that I don't have any expectations, because whatever expectations I had in the past when moving (Cincinnati, Columbus, etc.), seemed to go to crap. At the same time, I am back home, so it's hard to know what's going to happen when you go home. Sometimes the best things come from the unlikeliest of places. And also, maybe expecting nothing isn't a bad thing. Deep in my heart, I still yearn for a time when restoration and redemption will occur in my life. But at the same time, I know that I need to be changed to experience change. I'm going to take the time now to change the way I live and the character of who I am.

Failure

2007-08-13T11:30:00.000-04:00

"A mighty pain to love it is,

And 'tis a pain that pain to miss;

But of all pains, the greatest pain

It is to love, but love in vain." - Abraham Cowley

Last Friday was Nikolai's house party. It was partly to celebrate his 30th birthday, and partly to send off myself and another friend moving out of the area. The party itself was great, and Nikolai demonstrated he could really put one on. I enjoyed myself, for the most part, although the tail end of the night I really don't remember. It amazes me how one could shut off portions of the brain and still be functional.

So Pat showed up at the party. Brooke thinks the girl is ugly, and she thinks I was being nice by calling her "average." But really, it's kind of an insignificant point. At one point in the night, Nikolai and Pat were sitting next to each other and kind of across from me. They were hugged up, and even kissed. When they kissed, it felt like a little part of me died.

It makes me think...was I into Nikolai that much? On one hand, he has shown himself to be a liar, a hypocrite, and a sycophant. He is duplicitous and he can't seem to live life honestly at all. I know that I deserve better than Nikolai. Yet there was the fact that he inserted himself into my life during my struggle and turmoil with Alex. Nikolai seemed like a dream man...he is my type physically, he talks without pulling teeth, we are similar in a lot of ways, he is dominant without trying to make him so.

But it just didn't work.

And not only it didn't work, but it appears that it does work between Nikolai and a 21-year old average-looking girl who barely knows how to wipe her own ass.

I should have been the one hugged up on him. I should have been the one locking lips with him. But apparently, I failed miserably.

It was just so wrong.

It was the icing on top of the huge "Fuck You" cake that is Cincinnati, Ohio; it's the boot in the pants on the way out.

It'll be good to start over again. This time, it won't do me well to just forget Cincinnati, though. I have to deal with my hurt and rejected feelings concerning Nikolai and also Alex. I have to deal with the memories of what they have done and what I allowed to happen. That, on top of the loss of my father. Alex and Nikolai, on top of my lack of love life and my questionable abilities to have children in the future. I need healing, restoration, and redemption. God needs to make things right.

Mediocrity

2007-07-31T14:08:00.000-04:00

So it has been about a week since the "Tomato" incident. Since then, I have talked to Nikolai about his relationship with the 21-year-old (we'll call her "Pat"). My father said a year or so ago that "You can't take Nikolai seriously." I don't think I completely got it then, but it's more than clear now. Here are the highlights of the communications with Nikolai:

- Nikolai didn't plan for me (or anyone else apparently) to find out about his relations with Pat.
- Nikolai and Pat probably don't have much in common due to the age difference.
- He also admits he's dating her because he's bored and wants to spice up his dull life.
- He gets off on the age difference.
- He knows that Pat is average in appearance.
- However, Nikolai says he tends to look for "average" women because he isn't his lifestyle to expect and do well with more.
- He is totally clueless about the direction of his love life and what he actually wants with Pat...whether she'll be a fun fling or a ticket to US permanent residency.
- He knows that I am clearly not average.
- He says he doesn't date colleagues (one year plus after the fact so I think this tidbit is BS).
- He says we don't have "chemistry," and that I would need more than he is capable of giving.
- Apparently, I am the one woman he feels is wise enough to advise him well.
- Per above, to Nikolai, being with me would be like "f***ing the Virgin Mary."

So basically, I found out that, and everything else that the world does not need to know. But I know all I need to know, and then some. It was well worth it to play "counselor" long enough to find out what kind of human being he is. He is a sad excuse for a person who is insecure, immature, and settles for mediocrity. We are not compatible...I am somewhat of a "performer" who is not okay with mediocrity, but wants to do better, live better, and get the most out of life, a type A personality (or maybe an A-). I am not materialistic, but at the same time, I want to really be into a man, and I will accept nothing less than someone who is into me completely, and treats me like the queen I am. Although Nikolai is physically attractive, I know that he is incapable of being the man he would need to be for me, even if he tried. I want my equal, but he is less than equal to me, and he desires even less than equal to him. It's just not going to work.

I actually do care about him, and even though I do not want to be in Pat's position (a secret fling, being seen by my SO as "average"), there is a part of me that still wishes I could be with Nikolai, and it bothers me that the choice was never mine to make. I also feel that, although being a counselor was well worth it for the sake of knowledge, I will henceforth keep my boundaries up. If I continue to allow myself to be the woman that's good enough to share intimate secrets with, but not good enough to date or be with, then that will be selling myself short. Also, if I do not set boundaries, it will be repeating history. I truly cared for Alex, but over time I grew to resent him because he felt he could tell me about his love life, yet I wasn't good enough to be part of it. I do not want to feel that way about Nikolai.

Tomato

2007-07-25T22:17:00.001-04:00

So, I've been sorting out my life. Basically, I don't know how I feel. I would rather not see Nikolai, but at the same time, he lives in my building, so I can't exactly avoid it. I don't know if I can even say anything to him. I'm trying to figure out if he's a liar or a cheat. I just don't have any respect for him at all.

He called me earlier because he wanted to know the details of Brooke's birthday. Then he asked me about my life, and I asked him about his. He said he had some stuff going on and he knew I knew that, but he would tell me later. Honestly, that is not a conversation I feel like having.

In a weird way, I still have feelings for him, and I feel like when everything happened last year, there was no closure. I never had much of a say over the situation, and that was very difficult for me. I got led on, and then I got jerked around and crapped on. I was never able to be the woman I needed to be and truly stand up and give my say. I kind of regret that. And the fact that I got passed over by a very average 21-year-old girl really burns me up. A friend put it this way, "You were rejected for a downgrade."

I know that Nikolai isn't right for me, but this fact doesn't make me feel any better. I wish that who I am could've counted for something. It totally didn't, and that hurts. It is one of the many disappointments experienced in Cincinnati. I would love to move to Michigan and never look back. I've been let down so much, and it would be nice to be loved and appreciated, to get back some of the love that I give.

I don't think I can even speak to Nikolai without screaming, crying, or both. I need to leave Cincinnati. I really do.

Lolita

2007-07-24T16:50:00.000-04:00

I am leaving for Michigan in three weeks, and after four years of living here, I still have no idea my purpose for being here.

There is a saying based on the Bible that everything is worked for the good of those who love God. In other words, we have to believe that even those things that are bad, tragic, or whatnot, the Lord uses for good. There is always a silver lining.

Yesterday, I woke up almost in tears because I had a vivid dream of talking to Alex over the phone. Really, I do miss him, and if I truly wanted to I could attempt to track him down in Kentucky. But I don't need to bring him back into my life. Having Alex out of my life permanently is what needed to happen for my own sanity and well-being. It doesn't feel good, though.

I already was having kind of a bad day because of that. I was about to make myself a balanced dinner, when I go into the kitchen and see Nikolai - with a date. He met an undergrad through a buddy of his, and they were having a little dinner date and then going to play tennis. It took me a while to realize that she was his date. The girl was polite and friendly. She was also 21, with an average body (maybe size 10-12), pimply face, bug eyes, and limp mousy blonde hair.

I first thought to myself "What does she have that I don't? I'm friendly too, and more educated, and a hell of a lot hotter than her. What makes her better than me?" Just being in the kitchen with those two was an uncomfortable feeling...she pretended not to know how to cut salad items, and she laughed at everything he said. I felt like I was in the middle of a "To Catch a Predator" sting operation. I was cooking chicken, and I attempted to speed through the process on the George Foreman grill...pressing down on the chicken, praying that it would hurry up and cook all the way through so I could be out of there. And then I took my chicken and the rest of my Mediterranean salad and went upstairs. I couldn't even eat. All I could do is cry, softly. The whole day had been a validation of how I felt about my life in Cincinnati, that it was hell and everything I touched, particularly when it came to dating, turned to crap.

I talked to Brooke and to my mother, and both pretty much said the same thing. The problem is not me, it is Nikolai. It's not that I'm not as good as this average 21-year-old undergrad. It is just that Nikolai is the kind of person who is not man enough to be with someone his equal, particularly if she is somewhat headstrong. He likes to be in the position of teacher-adviser-mentor, and not just in terms of work. He likes to play that role in his relationships, particularly with women, and he has a difficult time dealing with a woman who doesn't eat up everything he says as if they are pearls of wisdom from God himself. My mother added that he has nothing to offer me that would make him superior to me. I am not some young undergrad from a small hick town in Ohio, I'm in the same program he is in, for something a little different, and while I may not be as well-traveled as he is, I have a lot of life experience outside academia that he just doesn't have. We are different, yet equal. He doesn't want a give-and-take, he wants to be in a relationship that is primarily a one-way street. It's not going to happen with a late-20's black American colleague from Detroit. Maybe it will with a 21-year old white underling from a small hick town on the American countryside - as long as the novelty remains. I am just not the one.

Speaking of novelty...in talking to Brooke, I thought also of something else. It might even be that for the girl, she is looking for novelty, and of course with a 30-year-old PhD candidate in social sciences from an exotic country, it's the ultimate novelty for her. But I'm 26, and way past novelty. Sure, I thought it was neat getting to know someone from country I only knew previously for its soccer team and Russian-ish names. But I never felt that he was better than me, or that he didn't eat, drink, sleep, and use the bathroom just like everyone else. Besides, I grew up with foreigners, and I couldn't have cared less if he came from the moon. I did the novelty thing when I was 17. It wasn't a foreign thing, it was a "Westside Story" thing (wrong side of the tracks)...he was from a rich Grosse Pointe family and I was from a working-class family in the city of Detroit. It was neat at first, but quickly the novelty wore off and we had little in common. After you do it once, you recognize it for what it is, and you learn that novelty doesn't make a relationship.

Although Nikolai complains about people thinking he's the type who is out to screw his young students, apparently he wouldn't be above that. Bottom line is that as it is, basically Nikolai is playing the role of the exotic 30-year-old teacher who is giving an adult education to a 21-year-old innocent. He is too much of a boy and not enough of a man to deal with a woman who is at or near his stage in life. It goes to show that I am more quality than Nikolai could ever hope to have.

360

2007-07-07T14:02:00.000-04:00

So, it's been eight years, one month, since graduating high school, four years, one month since graduating college, three years and ten months since first moving to cincinnati, one year, one month since passing exams and moving towards candidacy, and eight months, seven days since losing my father. All I can do is shrug.

I think Alex moved to Kentucky for his residency, but I'm not sure, and I try not to really care. Nikolai is now my housemate, but only until I move back to Michigan. I have a job waiting for me, although I think I'm going to need one more to really make it. Since the job is teaching one 3-cr course down in Toledo, I don't think that trying to find one more small thing will be a problem. I am looking forward to being closer to my family, and I'll feel better being where I can help my mom out, but at the same time, the whole idea of moving back home doesn't do much for my pride.

In any case, I can't help but have the feeling that I just don't belong. I don't belong here. I also feel like living in Cincinnati has been a waste of the past four years. I wish that something could happen between now and then that will show me that the time I spent here was not for nothing.

October

2007-03-01T13:46:00.000-05:00

So much has happened since I last wrote. So much. My father passed away back at the end of October, sort of unexpectedly. I talked to him one night, and by morning he was dead. Apparently, it was a heart attack, although what triggered it is an unknown. It was the strangest thing.

And I knew at that point that I would never be the same.

I think about my dad every day. I dream about him almost all the time. It reminds me a lot of what he used to say about how much he missed his mother. I miss him, and I would give anything to have him back. But at the same time, I have come into my own as an adult. I feel a weird kind of freedom. I don't have to worry about worrying my dad anymore with the decisions I make. My mom thinks about me, to be sure. But at the same time, she was an independent woman before she met my dad, and so she accepts the fact that I'm going to live my life. So I feel like a real-life adult for the first time in my life - and I feel a confidence I've never felt before.

My mom and brother are moving to the suburbs this month, and at the end of August, I'll probably be joining them, at least long enough to finish my dissertation. Then I'll be looking for jobs, preferably outside the Midwest, and optimally outside the US. Well, at least that's the plan.

I started dating again. I went on a couple of dates, breaking my dateless streak of exactly seven years. The guy was really nice, but we related as buddies, not as potential romantic partners. It just wasn't going to work. But at least I'm out there.

Things are normalized between myself and Nikolai. The "like" was a passing thing...I guess I'm sexually attracted to werewolves. So these days, I feel nothing. As far as my friendship with him goes, it's back to an associateship of sorts. Have I forgotten what he did? No. But at the same time, I chalk it up to the kind of person he is. He's egotistical, a sycophant and an ultra-conformist. I'm not saying it's a good or bad thing...it is what it is. I can talk to him on a somewhat surfacy level, and we're more than willing to help each other out when need be. But that's as far as it goes. And that is fine with the both of us.

But Alex and I are a completely different story.

I thought that everything was perfect between he and I. And then my dad died. Alex was there to listen to me, and he was helpful through that situation. But then, he started to go on a dating website, and met someone he was really into for no other reason but the striking nature of her eyes. And that did bother me on a deep level. Going on a dating website is something a person does when they have a hard time meeting people in real life. I had been in Alex's life for seven years, but I didn't exist as a woman. And that was hard. Then, a month and a half ago, he and I went out for drinks, and then got into a conversation. In the course of the conversation, he said something really offensive about me, something I hadn't heard since Mark. And to make it worse, he said that my standards were too high and I should settle because of my weight.

At that point, I was through. He would later claim that what he said was purely philosophical. No, it was personal. It came down to one fact - after over seven years of us knowing each other, he only cared about my appearance, and he could not accept me for who I was. I said this to him, and all he could say was "okay." My investment in the friendship was a waste of time. And I could not afford to waste any more time. It took me two weeks to tell him that I did not want to be his friend anymore. But I did it.

You know, I'm not sure if he believed me. But I can't worry about that. Life's too short for bullshit. I have to believe that God has better in store for me, and I have to take hold of that.

Disillusionment

2006-07-18T12:22:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-23T13:03:00.000-04:00

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

2006-06-16T00:05:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-28T23:59:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-26T15:45:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-10T17:49:00.000-04:00

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

2006-05-04T21:01:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-29T13:03:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-25T10:46:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-17T12:40:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-15T16:20:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-05T17:26:00.000-04:00

"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

2006-04-03T02:10:00.000-04:00

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

2006-04-02T15:05:00.000-04:00

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

2006-03-29T00:16:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-14T02:40:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-11T12:41:00.000-05:00

"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

2006-03-10T10:28:00.000-05:00

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

2006-03-05T21:34:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-27T22:10:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-22T13:21:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-15T12:14:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-14T01:04:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-11T02:04:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-08T22:44:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-07T16:57:00.000-05:00

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

2006-02-03T18:14:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-23T12:32:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-15T21:18:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-09T03:05:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-08T20:54:00.000-05:00

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

2006-01-03T18:04:00.000-05:00

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.

Noticed

2005-12-10T03:02:00.000-05:00

It's been a good while since I last wrote. It is just about winter break, I gained some weight, and then lost again. Since April I've lost a little over 20 pounds, which is definitely a good thing. I want that to keep going. I also presented at a conference in Chicago, and I might be taking another conference trip (more like a fun trip) to California for spring break.

I still have not talked to Alex. He has sent me messages on my other weblog twice, the last being a couple of days ago. I have no desire to deal with him...at...all. If just cutting him off wasn't good enough, two things have sealed the deal. The first is that he posted a really nasty post on his weblog, where he said some really racist and bigoted things. Not about my race or religion, but still disgusting nevertheless. I never knew he had it in him, but apparently the apple doesn't fall far from the tree after all.

The second has absolutely nothing to do with Alex, but it sealed his fate nevertheless. To make a long story short, last weekend a bunch of us, including Brooke, a friend I will call Nikolai, as well as Brooke's boyfriend and another friend, went out to the bars to party since another friend of ours had come to town from Chicago. To make a long story ridiculously short, apparently my night went differently than everyone else's. At some point in the night, Nikolai, with his arm around me, started talking about how Alex didn't know what he was missing, how wonderful I was, and how I was so great, and that it wasn't just a physical attraction thing, but that he liked who I was as a person. Furthermore, he said he really felt this, and that it wasn't because he had been drinking, and we should talk about it when he was sober. And then he kissed me on the cheek.

Background story...Nikolai, like Brooke, is in my grad school program, and we had come to Cincy at the same time. While he and I are in the same major, we research different types of subjects. He's in his late 20's (I think he's 28), from Eastern Europe and so he can speak at least three languages fluently. In addition, he believes in the Lord, although he is not a card-carrying member of the Religious Right. We kind of dealt with each other in passing up until last year, when we took a couple of classes together. Then this school year, since he is in his dissertation phase and has calmed down infinitely, I see him a lot more. The truth is, the past year or so, I would have flashes of attraction to him, not so much because of his appearance (he is kind of cute in a nerdy sort of way), but because of his kindness and intellect. He's a gentleman and just a really cool guy. But I left it alone because I thought he liked someone else, and I couldn't see him being remotely interested in me, of all people.

So when Nikolai said what he said over the weekend, my first reaction was almost shock. Then over the next few days, I started thinking that I needed to make sure I was clear on what he actually meant. From talking to him later on, apparently he is not as forward sober as he is while he's drinking. But at the same time, it is pretty clear that a host of possibilities exist. He is truly a great guy, and he would make a great friend. Or some other things could happen. Who knows?

But if nothing else, a man of quality finally noticed me and appreciated me for who I was. Nikolai has known of me for a little over two years, and we've only been friends for maybe one of those, if that, yet he likes me for who I am. Alex knew me for six years, yet at the end of the day he didn't know me at all, and he surely had no appreciation for me as a person. I could end up with Nikolai, or I could be with someone else. The point is that Alex is not the be-all, end-all of men, and who I am as a person is truly enough. I cut off Alex a few months ago, thinking that it would be very difficult to let him go. At first it was, but over time it has become infinitely easier.

Need

2005-09-24T18:57:00.000-04:00

Sometimes there is a big difference between what we want and what we need.

Since I decided not to be friends with Alex anymore, I've had an up-and-down time of it. Especially since arriving back in Cincinnati about a week ago, I've had good days and bad days. People I know here in Cincy seem to think I look better, happier even. Maybe, in a sense. Removing Alex from my life is probably the best thing I've done for myself in a long time. And sometimes it can be hard to see the effect someone has on you until he's out of your life. It's what I needed.

But I'm not sure if it was what I really wanted. What I really wanted was for him to care about me the way I cared about him. I wanted for him to accept me for who I was. But that's not what happened. As a matter of fact, quite the opposite happened. In the end, I was his last resort, the one that was there when no one else was. It was a place that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy. It would've been better for him to just say he didn't want to be friends with me, but instead he took advantage of me and took my kindness for weakness. After six years, that was all I meant to him. Some girl who liked him once upon a time. That hurts like hell.

I was hanging out with Brooke last night. One of the things she said is that one of the hardest things about ending a destructive relationship is the wondering...wondering whether or not he ever thinks about what he has done, whether he realizes what he did was wrong, and that you were a human being who didn't deserve what he threw your way. I wonder if Alex really has a heart...a conscience, even. And if he does, does he pay attention to it?

From what I knew of Alex, he was the kind of person who was self-absorbed, yet cared more about what other people thought of him than what he thought of himself. In a way, I feel kind of bad for him. I really believe that one day, maybe after he has gone through school, settled down with a wife and children, in his white picket-fence house, he will look in the mirror, and he won't like what he sees. It will dawn on him..."what have I done?"

Maybe at some point, he will know what he has done, and maybe he might apologize for what he has done...sincerely, and not in a self-absorbed way. Maybe he will show me once and for all that he does care after all, that he does have a conscience, that he isn't the selfish, soulless bastard I perceive him to be.

But I can't hold my breath. I can't live for a day I don't know will ever come. I think that is the hardest thing about it. Forgiving someone who doesn't even think that what he did was wrong. But I need to move on, I might not want to move on without that kind of closure, but I need to move on. Now. I have to be able to move on with my life, forgiving Alex...even if he is never sorry.

Over

2005-09-08T13:42:00.000-04:00

I can't believe I actually did it.

I decided that I no longer wanted to be friends with Alex, and for once in my life, I followed through on that. Last week, I wrote him a letter in which I told him the truth about how I felt, and that it wasn't working out for me. And today, I got a short email with him telling me he got the letter, and while he doesn't completely understand everything I had to say, he understands that I don't want to be friends with him anymore.

So it's really over.

For some reason, I shed tears. It is probably because as tumultuous as the friendship has been these past almost six years, I really did care about Alex, and still do. Or that I'm so used to him being in my life that I don't know what my life will look like without him.

But even if I shed tears now, I know that the pain I feel now is nothing compared to the pain I will continue to feel and will only increase if I continue to allow this relationship to stall my life. I have to keep telling myself that this is only a small price to pay for the peace I will have from now on, being devoted to Christ and not having anything or anyone else compete.

And holding out for God's best.

Selfishness

2005-06-24T15:06:00.000-04:00

So I'm back in my hometown for the summer. My main goals are to relax and get myself together...mind, body, and spirit. I'm really driven to lose weight at this point. Since I found out about my potential and real health problems back in April, I've lost 16 pounds, much of it since last month. I'm feeling positive about that, and I can't wait to lose more. Once I lose about 12-13 more, I should be out of the diabetes danger zone, although I still want to lose even more. Of course, losing weight will come with its own side issues, such as how to deal with men who only desire me b/c of my lower weight. But I think that for the first time in my life, I really feel like I am capable of actually losing weight. It's not for anyone else but me, myself, and I.

Speaking of me, myself, and I, it is for that reason that I refuse to bother with Alex anymore. I'm just through. I realized it one day last month when we went out. The night was absolutely awful for many reasons. Unlike how it normally goes, where I'm feeling wonderful when we're out and miserable afterwards, I felt terrible during the outing as well as after. At first, I felt heartbroken, because it was clear to me that Alex couldn't accept me for who I was. But then I began to really consider things. When I first met Alex about 5 or 6 years ago, he was selfish, shallow, insecure, and immature. As much as he has changed in other ways since he was 19, at 25 he is still selfish, shallow, insecure, and immature. After 5 or so years of friendship, I found myself being overly focused on someone who didn't truly care for me. I cared for him, and he cared for himself. For example, I knew when Alex's Step 1 licensing exam was coming up, to the day. But when I spoke to him about a week after the outing from hell, he had no idea I even had final exams/papers coming up in two weeks. He even assumed he had to devote more time to studying than I do, even though I have never told him how often I study.

But I've gotten to the point where I need to care for myself...or at least I realize that I need to. I don't really believe that Alex is capable of concern for anyone, unless it's for himself. Even in being apologetic, he still cannot take the focus off of himself. When he called me a week or so after the outing to apologize (for what??), he said, "I'm sorry that I took advantage of the fact that you were infatuated with me." If that's not self-absorption and narcissism, I don't know what is. I just got to the point where I got tired enough to be finished. I didn't even tell him I left Cincinnati (not that he even cares, but whatever). I just cannot be bothered with someone like that. It's not to say that I don't have feelings for him anymore...I do. It's not to say that I don't occasionally feel tempted to call him or write him. But I know that for the sake of self-respect, I just can't do it.

Fat

2005-05-10T17:47:00.000-04:00

The past couple of months haven't gotten much easier. Just more little things. I find out that I have borderline blood pressure, I'm pre-diabetic and insulin resistant, but it can be reversed with losing weight. However, I find out that the reason why I have gained weight and become pre-diabetic, etc., is not just because of an unhealthy lifestyle, but because of a hormonal disorder. This same hormonal disorder may also make it very difficult for me to have children. That doesn't matter so much now, but it might matter a lot later. So I'm on medication now to help me get the weight off and treat the other problems.

The whole situation, though, has made me face things I didn't want to face. I tend to worry more about my weight than about any other physical characteristic I have, even race. It has probably caused me more pain than anything else, and my experiences due to my weight make me not have faith in people, especially men. I don't trust them because they have not given me a reason to...every single one of them (save the men I'm related to) it seems like can't accept me for who I am, and don't even take the time to find out about me to know if we're even compatible. I'm just sick of them.

But what I really fear is that if I lose weight, then they will pay attention to me. I think that it will make me more cynical and distrusting than I already am. I'm just like most people...I desire true love and devotion, I want to be accepted for who I am. Being fat doesn't make me any less human. Yet if someone can only accept me thin, then it means that in all reality they don't accept me at all.

I wish that I could meet someone...no, not anyone, but a wonderful man with ambition and loves God, and that will accept me right now as I am, so that once I lose weight, I will know that even if there are many men who are shallow and won't accept me, it's not true for all of them. I'm okay enough to be accepted as I am. I don't want to have anxiety about losing weight as I'm doing it because to be honest this concern has been the one thing that has kept me from fighting more fiercely to get the weight off. If I don't have to worry about this, then I can more fully focus on my health, and I won't feel like I'm losing it just to fit the standards of men I can't trust.

Grandma

2005-03-08T00:48:00.000-05:00

So a lot has been going on, but I can't put it all in print. Basically, my friend has been going through some issues, much of it is really shocking and incredible, and I wouldn't believe it myself if I didn't observe it with my own eyes. On top of that, I have my own issues. My grandmother passed away over the weekend. I care about it, and it's sad, even though she was elderly (85 years old) and has been ill a long time. I don't deal with death very well, or maybe I deal with it too well. I don't know how to express grief or sorrow properly. If someone near me got killed, God forbid, the cops might think I did it because I tend not to express myself the way someone grieving "should."

It'll be so different going up to my mom's hometown and my grandma not being there. I don't know. I wasn't super close to my grandmother, but she's been my only real grandparent for most of my life. I know it sounds bad, but when my grandfather on my father's side died a few months ago it really didn't matter to me. I hadn't seen him in a number of years, and he and my father didn't have a relationship (long story). I didn't go to the funeral and neither did my dad. I had more grief over my brother's first dog dying than for my grandfather.

But it's different with my grandmother. I spent some time up in my mom's hometown when I was younger, and a lot of my relatives still live up there. To be truthful there was good and bad with being up there because as much as I love my relatives, a lot of them are strange and I don't click well with many of them. But seeing Grandma was a good thing...one thing I do miss about her is her awesome cooking. Before she developed dementia, she was the best cook and baker...she could make baked goods like snickerdoodles and chocolate chip cookies from scratch, she made some awesome greens. She used to cultivate her own vegetable garden as well, and at one point she was a pretty independent woman. She was also a God-fearing woman. She was a relatively strict, traditional Baptist who was very, very involved in her church. My mother kind of deviated from the rest of her clan because she decided to go Pentecostal (and I'm relatively like my mom in this way), but I'm sure that some of my mom's faithfulness she received from Grandma.

I remember when Grandma took care of my sister and I when my mom gave birth to my brother and almost died from complications. I don't remember where my dad was at the time, he was probably staying with her. I remember the rules being different...she believed in making sure we were in bed early, I think 9pm. I didn't like it because I was a nightowl, but it was good having her there, nevertheless. It's funny how sometimes you don't appreciate the ones you love until they're gone.

So I don't know how I'll feel going to the funeral this weekend. I am really worried about my mother, because as much as she figured she'd take the impending death well, once it happened it didn't seem that way. It's hard to predict how to react to these things. Even as I'm writing this, I'm realizing more what not having Grandma around will really mean. And then it also makes me think of my parents' mortality as well. I get concerned about them a lot anyway, but this kind of stuff makes me think about it a little more. Even though I've become more aware of the fact that they won't be around forever, I don't know what I would do without them.

Necessary

2005-02-21T02:19:00.000-05:00

Valentine's Day was good. No man, but I spent it with friends - Brooke and her husband Jack's place, with Rosa and Brian. We ate dinner, talked and stuff, it was a lot of fun.

Since the epiphany, some things have happened. This past week, I spent some time trying to figure things out. Not so much the truth of the relationship, but trying to figure out what to do next. It's kind of like, "Yeah, now I know, but now what?"

I decided that I would email Alex and tell him how I felt and that I couldn't be a part of the relationship in its present form. So I wrote it on Thursday and sent it off Friday. I thought that would be it. I should've known better.

Alex wanted to talk. I don't know if I did, but I felt that I would need to verbalize to make it all more clear. So we spent both Saturday and Sunday (earlier/yesterday) going over things. Saturday with me explaining how I felt and him trying to clarify his true feelings. And I found out that he broke up with his girlfriend (tried to make sure I didn't look like I was happy or something :-P - yeah I know it wasn't right).

Sunday we put everything out on the table. Everything. We were both probably the most honest about what pisses us off about each other than we ever been in the entire friendship. He got out his problems, and I got out mine. All of them. It was a good thing, I think.

What's so weird, though, is that for both of us this particular friendship is the only one that causes this much tension, stress and drama. I don't know what that means, I don't think he does either, at least not completely. It might be that our personalities conflict. We communicate well on most things - school, life, etc. But not when it comes to each other. I think it's where our communication styles and thought processes cause problems. Typical male/female differences - Alex is more rational, and he's not into "feelings," while I am more emotional, and while I care about being rational, I am also quite passionate, and a lot of times my passion overrides my rationality. Another thing. I am the kind of person who is both outspoken and indecisive. I will tell you in a minute how I feel about something but I am not good at being able to communicate what someone should do about it, or even what I should do about it. I don't like making that call. At the same time, Alex is sort of passive and just internalizes stuff until he is really forced to say something, or feels that he can't get away with not saying anything. And both of us are good at remembering what the other one did, or what we think s/he did, and then bringing it up much later. So that combination of similarities and differences, plus five years worth of misunderstandings, misinterpretation, and misstatements, makes for plenty of tense sotrs/dtrs*.

I think the talk was worth it. I don't know what's going to happen now. But I have too much on my plate right now to deal with it, in terms of school, etc. I don't think that, at least between myself and Alex, that there is anything more to deal with. I think that whatever else there may be is internal. I think that in some ways, I'm too emotionally involved, too emotionally attached to Alex. How one gets attached to someone who is emotionally distant, I'm not sure. But that needs to get untangled. Seriously. Good news is that I won't be hearing from him for a few months, since he has comprehensive exams coming up. I was going to at least give myself space from him, if not cut him off completely. I do think he cares about me to some extent, but I cannot be content with just whatever I get, either. I still do deserve better.

*state of the relationship/define the relationship talks

Epiphany

2005-02-11T14:30:00.000-05:00

A couple of nights ago, I had what my friend Brooke calls an "epiphany."

I was driving home late at night from seeing a movie with friends. My head was actually pretty empty. I wasn't doing much in the way of thinking. And it dawned on me.

I haven't been able to get over Alex because I haven't been completely honest. Alex is a crappy friend that I don't need to associate with. He treats me the way he does because I let him, plain and simple.

The reason why this relationship has been so full of tension this past five years is because Alex could not get over himself. Every problem that he and I have had has centered around whether or not I'm still interested in him. When I moved to Cincinnati, Alex did not care if I was settling into the city okay, or if I was adjusting well. All he cared about was the idea that I moved to the city because of him.

He has also taken my realness for weakness. The very fact that he knows I have a past and that I have problems with men makes him believe that I'm "fragile," somehow weaker than other women we know, i.e. Bunny.

My "crisis" of future really made things clear. The friends I have made here have made it clear that they want me to stay. My best friends up north want me to move there and be with them. By contrast, Alex never wanted me to move here to begin with, and when I told him that I might be moving, he seemed a little too happy. He wanted to ship me off to DC.

And the last thing...my friends appreciate me. I love my friends and my acquaintances. They have told me, or at least treated me, as if I matter. They see something good in me. By contrast, Alex has said that being my friend after he rejected me is "the right thing to do." At the time, I didn't catch that totally, or really think about what it meant. But I've realized recently that it basically means that he thinks that he's doing me a favor, that he feels like he's my friend because he has to, not because he wants to. He sees nothing in me worth being treasured, he's taking pity on me. In other words, being my friend is not about me, it's about him.

When I was talking to Brooke, she said something to me that makes sense. In a friendship, it is okay to focus on their well-being more than your own. But if the other person doesn't do the same, there will come a time when you will begin to resent the imbalance and you will cease to care. I don't care anymore. If Alex doesn't care, why should I?

Hate

2005-02-08T00:21:00.000-05:00

So most likely I won't leave Cincinnati. I don't think that God is finished with me yet.

Part of the reason why I've wanted to leave is Alex. I'm just now starting to be honest with myself and allow myself to feel the pain. So much of the city reminds me of him - somewhere we've gone, something he said. Five years wasted. I would give almost anything to forget that this chapter of my life ever happened, to leave this place and never look back. But at the same time I need to face my demons. As I have learned from previous experience, I can't run away from my problems.

With each passing day I hate Alex more and more. I know that's not healthy. But it's the truth. Hate is not the opposite of love, it's just love twisted. Because when you hate someone, you actually care. I hate how he's treated me, I hate how he seems to think that he's doing me a favor, "the right thing," by being my friend. I don't think he values me, really, except as an ego booster. I really resent that a lot. Five years of friendship and he sees in me nothing of beauty, value, or appreciation. Nothing. That is really what hurts the most. Although I value the friendship, I feel that it has come at too high a cost.

Changes

2005-01-24T17:42:00.000-05:00

My life has been kind of tumultuous...major changes, maybe. It looks like I may be leaving Cincinnati sooner than I thought. I've been praying about it, and I feel at peace about making this decision, oddly enough. If I do leave, then I will probably move back to my hometown by the summer. When I think of my experiences with going back home, I get almost a "Jesus going back to Nazareth" feeling. No, I don't think I'm God, I'm no Jesus by a long shot. But I can relate to the feeling of going back home and the people in His hometown, having known Him growing up, being so closed-minded to what He was about that He couldn't do much there.

A lot of people in my hometown like to place me in a box. I'm the goody-two shoes, the one that people figure would be successful but are so upset about getting "too big for her britches" that they wish I fell flat on my face. Also, I'm sure that Alex is elated that I'm leaving, since I was supposedly following him to the ends of the earth. Bastard. So going back to my hometown is not ideal in my eyes. But I need to do what's best for me, in terms of my sanity and finances, especially my sanity. So the plan is, I think, that I will move back home, finish my thesis, and do the PhD somewhere either closer to home or a place w/more support.

In other news, I'm praying for a measure of redemption for Valentine's Day. It sounds kind of strange, I know. But days such as Valentine's Day and Sweetest Day (a Hallmark holiday from the pits of hottest hell) tend to put me in a bit of depression. Those days tend to be major reminders not only of my singleness, but the hurtful feelings I've had due to rejection, embarrassment, etc. I don't think I've ever had a positive Valentine's Day. But I have seen situations when God does redeem certain days, like birthdays, etc., for people I know. Days that have always been a source of grief rather than a source of celebration. Valentine's Day should be a day of celebration, but I've never felt like celebrating.

I need to extend some faith. I figure that I'll move from the small things to the larger things. I want ultimately to be in a relationship w/someone who truly loves me in a special way. But how can I believe that God will change bigger stuff and not the smaller stuff? I need to trust Him for the smaller stuff, too. So I'm believing that Valentine's Day 2005 will indeed be different, and in an awesome way. I pray that the Lord will honor my faith.

Agreements

2005-01-16T15:31:00.000-05:00

Lately a lot of things have been going on with my life. A few things have occurred relevant to this blog.

First of all, about a week and a half ago, I realized something. I've been settling. A friend of mine basically said that the kind of man I should want is one who sees me as so valuable and precious that he cannot pass me up. The kind of man I should desire is one who first of all, loves God, and secondly, has the will to pursue me with zeal. A man's love for me should point to God's even greater love for me. Anything less is in fact settling.

Then last week Sunday, the pastor spoke about making agreements with Satan. A lot of times we get a bad feeling about ourselves, or someone treats us badly, and negative things pop into our heads, such as "you're not attractive enough," or "no man will ever love you." And we agree with it, like thinking that "oh, that must be true about me." We exchange the truth for a lie.

I've done that for most of my life, as long as I can remember. And I realized that I have bought into the lie that my weight and my unusual appearance makes me, makes me unattractive, unworthy for a mate. That I should go for what I can get rather than go for what is the best. I am a child of God, made in His image. I look like Him. Much like I look like my earthly father, I look like my Heavenly Father too. Since my Heavenly Father is a perfect father who loves to give good gifts to His children, than why should I put up with scraps?

Ich bin eine Prinzessin.

That opened my eyes. It really did. Yeah, Alex has great attributes. But what is even more important is how he treats me. He doesn't see me or appreciate me for who I am, he doesn't value me the way I should be valued. He bothers me when it's convenient. He chooses to date another woman, to show off another woman, while still not wanting to leave me...quite...alone. Why should I be so happy when he calls, to get whatever little pieces of himself he wants to give? Why should I be second-best? I'm not second-best because God didn't make me second-best. So why should I accept that from Alex? Either he's in or he's out. He can't have it both ways.

My parents asked me about Alex a few days ago. So did one of my good friends. I hadn't heard from him since mid-December. Did I care? No. I wasn't going to chase after him. I felt that if he was going to be with another woman, he had no use for me. And if he was so willing to pass me up, then I had no use for him either. I hadn't heard from him since before the new year, and I wasn't going to make the effort anymore.

So late last night my phone rings, and lo and behold it's Alex. Alex and I talk for a little while. I ask him about his girlfriend. She's fine. They went to all the functions together, including New Year's. Do I ever hear about how wonderful his girlfriend is? Never. It's just about what they do. I feel like it's a flashback of his past. I'm not going to put his business out on the street. But basically, it has the appearance of shadiness if you're initiating contact with a friend of the opposite sex in which there has been a history of romantic feelings or sexual tension while you're with someone else. I really don't think his girlfriend knows, but if she did there might be problems, and I don't need to be in the middle of someone else's problems. In any case, I do not want to feel like I'm anything less than special and worth a man's devotion. Alex treats me like less, and I no longer want to allow myself to accept it.

2005

2005-01-05T13:29:00.000-05:00

2005 seems to have started out somewhat like 2004. Friends from undergrad are getting engaged. Not too long ago, a friend from undergrad, "Bunny," started a romantic relationship with this guy she's been into a long time, a guy named "Dirk." Dirk is one of Alex's friends. On one hand I was happy for them. I knew that Bunny really liked Dirk and had been into him for a long time. On the other hand, it was just another reminder of how things are working out in the love department of others but not myself. In any case, though, recently I had a dream that Bunny and I were talking, and she was telling me that she was getting married. I told her I was happy for her, but I remember feeling a deep sense of sadness.

The other day, I was able to surf the web uninhibited for the first time in about two weeks. I looked on the recent blogs and found that Bunny's best friend "Mary" was getting married to another guy we knew from undergrad. That's wonderful. But at the same time, I was fighting against that sense of sadness that threatened to take hold of me. Both Mary and her fiance are younger than me. Sometimes I wonder what I'm doing wrong. I don't really ask for a whole lot in life. I don't care about being rich or powerful, or attaining fame, I care about my work but I don't care if I become well known in my field either. I just want to love and to be loved, to have companionship and support, to have a family of my own, and at times I feel as if it's too much to ask.

I decided over the break to go into counseling/therapy, mainly to get over Alex. Yeah, it's weird, but I am willing to do whatever it takes to get over him so I can move on with my life in a fuller way. I've got to.

Perfect

2005-01-05T01:45:00.000-05:00

"...one of the worst hurts to ever feel is when you find someone who is perfect for you but you're not perfect for them." - from my general weblog

I've been dealing with this for the past few years, but it has only been recently that I could put this into words.

2004 found me contemplating my life and the choices I made. One of the harder things I did was to tell my friend "Alex" that I needed space from him.

Alex and I met in college, I was a first year and he was a second year. We met through a mutual friend (who later became one of my best friends), and they met through a campus ministry group not too long before. It was not love, or even like, at first sight. I thought he looked dorky. But there was something that kind of attracted me to him. As I got to know him better, I noticed that he was smart and fun to hang out with. It also impressed me to see that he, as a white man, could be in a group with all black people and not get uncomfortable or feel he had to "act black" or be "down." When we first met, we both were in interracial relationships, his with a black woman, mine with a white man. I also felt a level of comfort with him that was different than what I had experienced before.

Those things alone let me know I settled in my relationship with my high school sweetheart, "Matt," and there was something better out there than what I had chosen to deal with. So in January of my first year, I cut him off. Not just because of Alex, but meeting him did renew my standards. Matt had to go. And as Matt went, so did Alex's girlfriend.

So I felt that way about Alex, but by the end of my first year, I found out that he didn't feel the same way because, of all things, my physical appearance. I was fat. He didn't exactly come correct about it, and it almost killed the friendship before it even began. The funny thing is, though, he was the only person that said he wanted to be friends and actually meant it.

Alex and I, throughout the next couple of years, had a strange relationship. We were friends, we could hang out, we could talk, etc. But the same thing kept coming up...do I still like him?

Yet, through that time, I learned more about him. We grew up somewhat similarly...two parents, middle class, conservative values. He was pre-med, which has a special place in my heart because my father went to medical school when I was really young (though he didn't finish), and in those days I used to pick up his medical textbooks and read them (I was a strange kid). Alex was pretty cosmopolitan, as am I. He also had an interest in politics and history, which I also have. He could challenge me on my beliefs and opinions and could make reasoned arguments. At the same time, I knew that he respected my mind. He was encouraging and showed faith in me when I pursued my goals. And he would occasionally tell me about myself...doesn't always feel good, but at those times I needed it. We were not carbon copies of each other. We were also quite different. But it was right...enough similarity to be able to relate to each other, enough difference to learn from each other.

I learned through the years that Alex was perfect. Not perfect in the sense that he can do no wrong or he has no flaws. Not perfect, but perfect for me. I could not go back.

____________________

But as I learned, just because someone is perfect for you doesn't mean that you're perfect for them.

About three years after we met, Alex moved back to his hometown of Cincinnati. We kept in touch while I was finishing up my undergraduate studies and he was taking a year off from school. During that time, I decided to move to Cincinnati to attend graduate school. It was primarily not because of him...it was because the program at the school in question had the expertise in a particular area of interest, it would be a change that would still allow me to see my friends in the town I attended undergrad in, and most importantly, I felt that God was directing me there. I did not make the decision because of Alex, but of course in the back of my mind I was thinking that maybe, just maybe, Alex would finally be able to see me.

But all he could "see" is that I was following him.

For our relationship, it would've been better, in a sense, if we lived in different cities. My first year in Cincinnati saw a lot of difficulty. Alex was dealing with his first year of medical school, while I was dealing with adjustment to a new city where I knew no one but him, coping with leaving my friends and the college life I loved so much, as well as adjusting to the rigors of graduate study and working as a graduate assistant. I tried to understand him, he tried to understand me. But at the root of our conflict, though, was Alex's contention that I wasn't over him. It upset me that after five years we still were dealing with this. Besides, what did it matter if I liked him if it was apparent that he didn't like me back?

The realization that the past five years didn't mean a whole lot to him in terms of how he saw me hurt me to the core. Really broke my heart. Enough that by the end of the summer I told him I needed space from him. Did he give me the space? Not really. About a month later he contacted me. We talked off and on. Even went out once before I went out of town for the holidays. It was a lot of fun, I really enjoyed myself...it was the best time we had together in a long time. But it was still too soon. Since the summer he has found himself a woman from his program to date. I don't know how serious they are. But for someone who claimed not to be thinking about dating or anything only a few months back - well, what can I say? Liar. I only hate two kinds of ppl...liars and the willfully ignorant.

A lot of what I'm dealing with at this point is internal. Matt and I knew each other for a year and a half, and were together for most of it. But when I finally let him go, it didn't take me long to get over it. With Alex, we were never together, yet we've known each other for over five years. While Matt was my high school sweetheart, Alex really had my heart. I loved Matt, but I loved -and- was in love with Alex. He is the one man who had my heart, and he broke it. Stuff happens, I guess.

So at this point, I just don't know. I know I need to get over Alex, quick. Five years is too long to be into one man this much. Knowing him has been a mixture of joy and regret. Joy to know someone so perfect. But I don't need the regret. But at the same time, I do not want to settle for just anyone. I want someone, well, like Alex, except that I want the person to see I'm too good to pass up. I cannot settle...I would be absolutely miserable. I'd rather be by myself. I pray that God will make things right, some kind of way. I really pray He does.

Blog

2005-01-04T23:14:00.000-05:00

I've finally figured out what I will do with this blog. I've decided to use it to chronicle my love life.

When I say my "love life," I'm not talking about sex. It's really a mixture of a few things: dating, relationships with men, mixed in with my self-image. My dating life has been a shower of disappointment. Lots of rejection, etc. I have been in a serious relationship once, and the nature of it was emotionally abusive. I kept having to straddle the line between holding onto hope and being "realistic"...no one would be genuinely attracted to an obese black girl with red hair and freckles. Throughout my life I've felt that my love life is in fact dead.

As I've gotten older, I've been able to experience Christ (I became a Christian a little over five years ago). Through that I've been able to see the beauty that God has put in me. There is no one like me, there never was anyone like me, and there will never be anyone like me. He made me different for a reason. I've been able to come to terms with my appearance. At the same time, though, I've begun to have dreams of being married, of having a family of my own including a husband and children. My recognition of my God-given uniqueness isn't the same as having a man, and a good man at that, recognize this uniqueness.

This blog is about the journey to faith...learning to truly accept myself and to keep fire glowing on the belief that one day this part of my life will not only be different, but will see a measure of redemption.

Lieben

2004-02-25T01:10:00.000-05:00

ich kann deutsch sprechen ein bisschen, aber nicht so gut...

ich weiss nicht, nie ich weiss. ich bin frustriert. ich bin verlieben. ich liebe ihn, aber weiss ich, ob er mich mag. jeden tag, ich bete, aber wache ich auf und alles ist das gleiche. liebe verletzt.

die liede auf dem tag:
"you will be my ain true love" - alison krauss ft. sting
"until the day i die" - story of the year

Extra

2004-02-15T14:41:00.000-05:00

this is a new and extra blog...i'm not sure what i will use this for yet, but we shall see. i may use this for even more deeper, personal topics, maybe more about my journey to self-acceptance and the real heart knowledge of God's acceptance of me. i might even write some things in german. i'm not the best at the language but i can always use it for practice. we'll see.