2000-11-17 - 14:33:19
Sitting on the fence -- stupid girl

[Note: I wrote this entry last night, at home, on a word processor. Boy, have I been moody lately. I almost decided not to post it ... but hey, what's a diary for if not to capture momentary emotional truths].

I think that today I shall talk more about one of the central concerns of my life -- romance. Or, more precisely, the decided lack thereof. I've had two boyfriends. Yes, I am 22, and I have spent a total of 7 months dating. One month with my first boyfriend (call him Trisket) and six months with the second (call him Weatherman). What is wrong with me? Well, nothing. I've said it before, I was born shy, and raised "proper" ... i.e., I had no idea how to go about dealing with guys in any romantic sense. Until I got to college, I was a perfect wallflower. And after That Year (the school year I spent 7 months out of 8 in relationships) I was perfectly terrified to try it again.

And so, it is four years since my first boyfriend broke up with me; four years since I met the second. And lately, more and more often, the events of That Year run through my mind. Here's some dates I uncovered, picking through my old diaries ...

Thursday, 09/05/96 -- First "date" with Trisket
Wednesday, 09/11/96 -- Officially an "item"
Tuesday, 09/17/96 -- He gave me his class ring
Sunday, 09/29/96 -- He asked for it back

Well, that's relationship #1 in a nutshell. It's interesting, reading through old diary entries ... I barely know the person I was back then. But it's amazing what flashes back when you're tracing over words you wrote four years ago. Do you know, I definitely wasn't ready for a relationship then ... even though I was 18. My beloved Granny had just died, and I'd spent a whole month supporting my mother; I was in a turmoil already. Besides that, I had no idea what I was supposed to do with a boyfriend, even when I suddenly found that I had one. I was stunned when he broke up with me ... I felt as though I'd spent three weeks in a world of joy, and then, when a few not-so-happy days darkened the romantic landscape, he just gave up. Well, I know now that that wasn't it. But that's what I felt at the time.

Friday, 10/30/96 -- I declared myself "over" him

I said in my journal entry that night that he was talking about some other woman in CasCon, and how "Love Sucked", and it tweaked my nose. I'd kept thinking he would take the "breakup" back, and when I finally realized he wouldn't, I started distancing myself instinctively. (Why do women do that? Why do guys, for that matter, do it too? Why is ex-ness so inimical to friendship?) Even more interesting is how little recovery time I left myself after that. Stupid lonely Shell. My roommate met Nappy, and Nappy fell for her, and Nappy introduced me to HIS roommate ...

Thursday, 11/14/96 -- First "date" with Weatherman
Sunday, 11/24/96 -- He asked me out
Sunday, 01/26/97 -- He gave me an engagement ring
Wednesday, 04/09/97 -- I gave the ring back

[Sidenote: I also found that my last real snowfight was November 18, 1996. It actually snowed at the college, and I got beaned but good with several snowballs in front of "New Dorm" by Ben. Yes, the Ben belonging to kane44. The next spring ... the end of April ... was when I first came down with cold urticaria.]

I found a strange entry from November 25, the day after I started dating Weatherman... I said that I'd told him "You're supposed to go through fear, not around it!" ... What a bizarre thing for me to say, and even more bizarre that I seem to have forgotten to live by that motto in the years since. Stranger still, that entry was my LAST diary entry until April 6, three days before I broke up with Weatherman. It's as if I saw something coming all along, and didn't dare examine my life too close for fear I'd see the holes in it.

Another oddity ... he wanted an August 16, 1997 wedding from the beginning. Valentine's Day that year (only three weeks engaged) was my first big clue that Something Was Wrong. I now refer to that day as The Valentines' From Hades. I screwed up the courage to tell Glenn I thought we should put the wedding off, to make sure we were ready, and he was extremely negative, and would not let me leave his house until I agreed. Hildegaard finally had to come and rescue me. (Did I mention that I have a stubborn streak?) And then in March he started "testing the boundaries" physically, and I lost what trust I had left in him. So why did I stay with him until April? Well, for all the reasons he later accused me of avoiding: to give him a second (and third, and fourth ...) chance, to try and rediscover what I saw in him at the beginning, to examine myself closely to make sure I wasn't just being selfish and "giving up." I did love him, I think. But I was blind to what he really was for too long, and when I saw it at last, I was stupid enough to stay with him. (I'll go into the havoc he wreaked in my life, the emotional abuse, in another entry; too much for today).

I wrote a series of RANT entries in my diary in May, and listed off all the broken promises, and all the things that had pissed me off, that I had choked on in an effort to keep the peace. One of the things I held against him, that surprised me when reading it today, was that he disliked Trisket.

I kept up the diary on and off until I graduated. It's mostly depressing. The entry from August 16, 1997 is really pathetic: Jocasta and Nappy got married that day instead of Weatherman and I, and I had to be the cheerful maid of honor, when all I wanted to do was sit in my room and play "Jagged Little Pill" over and over and over again. I had a variety of roommate crises over the next few years, and a variety of crushes; several money crunches, and several hard decisions. I did lots and lots and lots of growing up.

I also got all closed up emotionally ... but I've talked about that here before. I'm doing my best now to move beyond that. And I've been thinking about the things that happened Then, and what it means to my Now. As far as Glenn's lasting effects ... I'll get into that in another entry. As far as the other ...

D'you know what it felt like, really, when I sent back that email, saying that I didn't want to give it another try? I felt like I was finally letting go of something I hadn't realized I had been holding onto. And then, abruptly, several days later, I suddenly missed him; and I hadn't missed him like that in years. It was as if all the days between October 1996 and October 2000 had compressed, and the idea of Might-Have-Been, Might-Could-Be hovered in the air.

Now I'm just conflicted. Is it me, is it hormones, is it the weather, what is it? Why does a little one-month relationship keep nagging at me now? What does it mean? So I've got the whole mess boiling in the back of my mind, and now and again I think about it some more. Maybe eventually I'll figure out whether I did the right thing, or if it was really stupid; if I'm just lonely now and cursing wasted possibilities, or if God is telling me HELLO, do you think second chances come along every day?

Time to throw a good tantrum, I guess; clear all the crap out, recalibrate my emotional compass, and make up my mind again one way or the other.

I mentioned to Jocasta that I've been upset; she got that slightly pinched look around the lips that means disapproval, and implied that I have until March to think things through; that's when Nappy's old friend (Antarctic Boy) returns from his biology research trip and might attend OHSU for grad school. This, then, she is presenting to me as a different option, an alternative to my current train of thought.

This Antarctic Boy, he is a native Californian; he's tanned, tall, wiry and strong, from a life spent mostly out-of-doors. He's also kind, gentlemanly, single, 25, and very, very Christian. The Christian doesn't bother me; I wouldn't date a guy who wasn't. (I have my reasons and my beliefs -- don't judge me.) It's the "very, very" part that gives me pause. I barely met the man. But Nappy's other friend Weatherman was "very, very" and turned out to be malignantly so. Besides all of which, he's so gentlemanly, how would I know if it's interest or not? I'm damn shy in situations involving romance, and since I'd never say anything, he probably wouldn't either. Even besides THAT, he strikes me as the type who instinctively wants a wife he can "protect", so to speak ... you know, someone adoring, caring, short, cute, feminine, and not able to compete with him in his areas of expertise. In short, I doubt it would work, even if I decided to "wait for him" and entertain the option. Don't be stupid, Shell, he was attractive, but not THAT attractive. He'd be MUCH better for Hildegaard.

*drumming fingers on desk* Anyway. Enough diary entry for one night; enough to choke any reader (sorry). In confusion I came, and in confusion (though slightly reassured) I go.