Eliminations

Something unusual happened to me tonight.  I received two phone calls back to back by a private number followed by an even stranger voicemail.  To be clear, I NEVER answer private numbers or numbers I don't recognize.  In the voicemail to follow, a woman left a message for a Natalie* (I go by Niccole on here and she got my name wrong on the voicemail that states my name) saying that she was a roommate of a man I play softball with (Bear in mind --- there is ZERO sexual connection between he and I) and she saw that my number showed up quite a bit on the phone bill.  She proceeded to ask why was I sending him picture messages (It was an opinion on an outfit!) and if it was about softball no big, but if not could I call her back so we could discuss this.  End of Message

I was so flabbergasted by this voicemail I had to listen to it 5 times before I understood the situation.  Here I am thinking to myself - oh no, what did I do, I must have done something wrong, to be accosted like this - and I realized - I have done NOTHING wrong.  This is a friend of mine, I have no desire to date (trust me, there are far more men that I am interested in than him) and I didn't realize that he was not 'allowed' to get texts.  Honestly!  Its as if he WAS involved, and yet, how has it become my issue?

I've been that woman, who has experienced her boyfriend cheating on her.  I tried to approach it.  But going on my reaction - Why bother.  If a man is cheating on me....that really should be the end all, say all - and walk away.  Clearly I did not have the grace to do that with MG but being on this end...granted it is the wrong interpreted end - completely disgusts me even more!

This 'experience' just makes it clearer to me that I need to eliminate men in just about every form of a relationship out of my life.  I can't even handle a simple, misplaced accusation, because it still stems upon rejection.

I don't want other women to look at me as though I am some sort of Sexual predator.

I don't want men to see me as easy, someone who gets around the block, a booty call, someone always on the prowl.

I WANT to be seen as a classy sexy woman, who is independent within herself, who men AND women admire.

So no more fawning over men, no more desperate texting, hoping for a response.

I am independent, and stand with my chin held high, looking forward, undeterred by the men around me.

I am .... (what exactly?)

To be continued...

*Name changed

Patience and Instant Gratification

Day 16: Let's be honest, Patience - I don't have it.  Not even a little.  Maybe I did at one point, and I think that goes back to MG, where I kind of patiently waited for him to come back to Florida, and end his thing with that other girl.  I truly believed in my soul that if I was patient he would come back.  Instead the opposite happened, the more I said I could be patient, the less I got.  I DEMANDED instant gratification.  So when I didn't get it, I started to spiral, grasping for straws, air, anything to hold onto that relationship.  It was toxic.  I do see that now, and I think I saw it then.

Move on to MM - I fell in love so hard and fast, my friends compared it to being hit by a train, you just couldn't stop it.  And he fed my need for instant gratification.  He was spontaneous, showing up in my driveway, before I got home from work - and he lived 90 minutes away.  We saw each other AT LEAST 4 days a week.  We did so many things, and he gave me so much of what I think was love.  It might have been lust on his end.  It was exactly what I thought I needed.  And I CRAVED it...I NEEDED it.  So when he broke up with me out of the blue (it literally was out of the blue - I wasn't the only one who was shocked) and began distancing himself from me, I didn't know what to do.  Our whole relationship evolved around speed, and INSTANT GRATIFICATION.  I didn't need to be patient before.  He asked me to be patient, while he did his training and MAYBE when he was done (in 10 months or so) there is a possibility that we would get back together...long distance (I refuse to move to another state for the minute possibility of getting back together).  I tried, but I could not do it.  I needed something more.

Along came LJ - yeah the last disaster I mentioned in last post.  I truly tried to be patient.


Seriously...I tried...like HARD...


I timed out my texts, spaced them out.  Even set up our first date nearly a week after meeting him (in the past...er present...ummm future ::feeling sheepish::...it would have been the next day).  I was golden.  Then something happened.  I don't know what it was.  Maybe it was him calling me spontaneously, maybe it was him taking me to chuch and meeting his WHOLE family.  I'm not sure - but somewhere, I got impatient.  Its not like I cornered him and asked him where this was going...but I think I pushed him somehow.  Whether it was something I said, or over texting, or trying to hang out...i have no clue, and THAT KILLS ME.

Not knowing what I did wrong, what happened, it truly slays me with MG, MM, and LJ.  My friends try to convince me that he was my way of distracting myself from MM, but I think I really loved everything that he stood for.  A country boy, a man of God, didn't swear, had his stuff together in life, had a close relationship with his family, and the looks...mmmm.  I wish I could salvage it, and yet I know I shouldn't, because no one that just goes off the radar like that is someone I should yearn for.

Somehow, its all interconnected to my lack of Patience.  Somehow, rather than instant gratification, i think i need to change my mindset to DELAYED gratification.  I love to hard and fast and deep, so its hard.  I should let them come to me, (which I did with LJ) but i get overexcited at the possibilities, and rush...like there isn't enough time.  Life is short.

Patience is hard.  I don't have any, I don't want to have to wait.  I want it all, and I want it now.  Fast and Furious love.  I don't know how to do Patience.

-----

Heres the last point I will make on my impatience -

I went crazy over the fact that a man I met at work who invited me out to grab a drink at his place of work bought me a few drinks on him, and then he never texted me the next day, or the next, or the one after that.  A girlfriend said it hasn't even been a week!  Here's the thing though - I know I'm on a no dating sobriety test, but I still want to feel wanted, and its like a constant rejection.

Any suggestions on how to get past my need for instant gratification, lack of patience, and fear of constant rejection?

Word/Text Vomit

Hmmm...I'll admit.  I'm having a bit of a writers block moment.  But then again its supposed to be inspirational (?), ummm, venting (?), therapeutic (definitely)...anyways

I have a problem - it goes by the name of word vomit, or in my case, TEXT vomit.

It often rears its ugly head when boys (because I can't HONESTLY call them men yet) go awol in my life.  Of course i think that they are awol because of something I've done.  I guess that goes hand in hand with my inability to move forward.  I've tried deleting numbers, but inevitably I've already memorized the number (frack!), and I've tried to avoid places that we may have interacted in, but honestly that is stupid.  Its my place too!  But out comes the phone with what i hope is a message that provokes a response.  Sometimes it works - early on.  But later it doesn't...and I look like a fool, even though by this point they have probably blocked me themselves, and exhibited an extraordinary amount of will power (This is my POV remember?). The most recent dating debacle only FUELED my text vomit.

Ironically I met him at a concert that my ex bought tickets for he and I to see, but the concert got moved, and he moved, and broke up with me so i was left with the tickets.  I gave them to my friend (HI!) who had plans to share them with one of hers, but that fell thru, and I found myself, going to the concert that I swore I would avoid.  But I'm glad I went, I've kind of fallen in love with small concerts and little known artists. 

So this is where I met my most recent diaster of a distraction.  I guess it wasn't a full on distraction.  He inadvertently brought me back into a relationship with God, but his actions are sooooo not .... holy pure.  But I thought he was good, and what I needed.  Here's whats weird, we may have slept together once early on, but we still hung out for a few weeks before he just fell off the face of the earth.  WITH MY BIBLE IN TOW.  It took seemingly forever for me to get it back too.  I had a guy tell me that was his way of holding on to me...to contact me down the road, and have a reason too.  MAKES NO SENSE. 

Anyways, I would text him, blah blah blah, and he would never reply if it had anything to do with my bible.  If it had to do with hanging out, watching a movie, whatever, then he MIGHT reply.  It was ridiculous, because I had no idea where he was going with me, and i was OVER IT.  lol Sort of.  I wanted to provoke a definitive response about his 'intentions' so i badgered.  Eventually I got it back by being bold and just showing up, giving him an hours notice.  We ended up talking a bit and making tentative plans to hang out after work that night, but of course, nothing came to fruition.  So what did I do....I text vomited, hard, profusely, addictively. 

Its....my reaction toward rejection.  My need for trying to understand, and trying to get closure...hence the word vomit.  I NEEEEEED to know why, or how to fix it.  To make it right, at least on my terms.

Thankfully its been....a few days at least since the latest text slip. 



Day 4

This is my attempt to make a change...

Day 1:

In four years I've been in two very serious relationships.  The first lasted nearly 3 years, and was the first real relationship that lasted longer than 3 months.  That ended with him leaving me in the middle of the night, for a woman he had been cheating on me with for over half of our relationship - information i found out from 'mutual friends'.   For a year, i knew about this girl, and he worked to convince me that he was with her financially only.  A month before we were supposed to move in together he changed his phone number, and disappeared from my life all together.  That was last July.  This month would have been 4 years.  I was devastated, and it's taken its toll.

My next serious relationship started a few months later.  We dated for 2 1/2 months and it became serious very quickly.  Gone like a freight train in love i was, and to make matters worse, he was the first man my dad actually gave his blessing too.  He talked ring shopping, and asked me to move in with him in NC after his army training (LT) next November.  2 weeks before he left for ibolc he broke up with me, saying he just wanted to be friends.  I couldn't do that.  I was in too deep, and i WOULDN'T do that.  I kept a strong grip on my love to (with?, in?) him, hoping he would change his mind back.  Recently he asked my best friend to come visit him when he gets a break in his training...and they weren't that close.  Double devastated.

2 big loves, 2 big desertions.

HEART BROKEN.

I've been told I am a strong woman...strong sexually, strong will, strong drive, and a strong sense of humor.  But when it comes to love, and men, and relationships I have a very weak sense of self, it is hard to see myself as worthy sometimes.  I am weak, because mentally, I just had the shit kicked out of me.  And you know what?  I need time, lots of it, to recuperate, and that doesn't make me weak.  It makes me human. 

Hence the 6 month time-out.  I know I'm grasping at straws.  anxious to find my match, and have my Cinderella story.  I need to find me, NOT date, or become involved with a man.  And i have no freaking idea how to do that.  So this is my experiment.  Come into myself, develop a strong sense of self.  and QUIT being such a disaster.

So feel free to leave CONSTRUCTIVE CRITICISM as i explore.