Monday, October 21, 2013

Dear Universe, I'm Still Here

    Just struggling a lot lately. I'm not going to write now about why because I've already tried writing a few different posts about all the things going on with me right now but I haven't been able to finish and publish any because of some mental block I'm having.

I'm still here, still fighting, it's just kind of like running through chest-deep mud.











Jane


P.S. I love this picture. I'm super proud that I took it.




Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 United States License.

Thursday, October 10, 2013

Kissing Toads: It Gets Better, then Worse


 
                After Kato and I went on that really awful date (Kissing Toads: A Good Date is More Important than Cheese) I got really sympathetic and made a plan. I thought maybe Kato was distressed about the money thing so that’s why the last date was crap, and I decided to invite him over to my place to have him cook me dinner. This is something we had talked about before and he had wanted to cook for me at his place during a previous date but his roommates had left the kitchen a mess. To be fair, I saw that kitchen and it was a disaster area. There were dishes piled up well over the top rim of both sinks. I wouldn’t have wanted to cook in those conditions either.

                I invited him to mine to cook and left early from work so I could clean my apartment top to bottom, especially the kitchen. It ended up being a fantastic date. He really is a good cook and he paid for all the ingredients. He even successfully paired the meal with a bottle of wine and dessert. I was totally over the moon for him…

                We had a couple of other really great dates; sometimes staying in, sometimes going out, so I decided I wanted him to meet my friends (I had met some of his already). My friend was having a party at a bar and told me to invite Kato to come with me. I thought, ‘great idea! We could dance, have drinks, and have a great time!’ I invited him and he said yes without giving me any reason to think that this wouldn’t be a good idea. He even told me he planned to dress up and I was really excited.

                When we got to the bar the wind shifted. Kato was no longer the friendly, outgoing guy I’ve gotten to know. Kato was uptight, rigid, his face unexpressive, and he barely said two sentences to anyone. My friends all tried to engage him in conversation but he just wasn’t giving anything back. Not even when we go outside where it was quieter. 

                 I got stressed and started drinking (he had refused to get a drink – at a bar!), and the drinks were a little stronger than I was expecting. I tried to engage Kato, but he was a statue so I went off to dance with my friends for a bit. I kept going back to ask him to dance and he kept saying ‘no, I don’t dance.’ He finally ordered a drink but stayed put at that table like he was glued to it. I stayed by him for a while, but he was mostly catatonic so I went to go dance again.
                When I came back that time he was doodling chemical equations on a napkin.
                Let me say that again; he was referring to his phone, writing notes and chemical formulas on a napkin, and talking to himself quite animatedly!

                WTF?? He kept doing chemistry, insisting that he needed to get to a laboratory, and actually tried to leave. I have had experience with what guys do when they leave a bar as drunk and crazy as that so I wrapped my arm around his and physically kept him next to me. That was how I finally got him on the dance floor (by physically making him, what fun…), but he was still rigid and just standing there.  

                My friends started leaving and I realized that any fun would be leaving with them so I put Kato’s hand on the bar and told him to stay there until I got back. I settled the bill (yea, I paid for all my own drinks, he never even offered to get me one), collected Kato from where I left him and got out. I still needed to sober up so I found a bench where we could sit and wait it out.

                We talked for a good long while. I honestly don’t remember most of it. I just know that the first stuff I said to him was very loud and a little angry. I wanted to know why he wouldn’t dance with me, if he even liked me, and what was going on with him. He remained very rigid and gave truly robotic answers, saying that he has a hearing problem and loud areas physically hurt his head. He came with me that night because he likes me and I guess he had just decided to deal with it.

                So I felt bad, but not really. He had told me earlier that he was at the same bar with his friend last weekend and he hadn’t mentioned anything to me about a hearing problem or being uncomfortable at all when out with his friend.

                We talked a lot more as I sobered up and I’m really embarrassed that I don’t totally remember that conversation. I remember that I felt a little better about him afterwards and took him back to my place (although we just went to sleep). In the morning, he was very sweet and affectionate. We had sex and it was really nice (I even came, one of those spasm-y orgasms with a release but no ‘pleasure waves’). 

I was feeling pretty good about him and he was back to being the Kato I like. He took me out to lunch and we walked around the mall. He was not super talkative but not in an awkward way. I took him back to his place after that and unfortunately that was when it got weird again. We had planned to go to this festival downtown on Sunday and I asked him if he was still up for it. He said, ‘can we just see how I feel tomorrow?’ 

                So… I was pissed. And hurt. I tried to keep it under wraps, though, because it had been a really stressful night and I could understand not wanting to go out with me again. But I’m getting tired of the roller coaster he’s putting me through.


 Any thoughts?







Thursday, October 3, 2013

Kissing Toads: A Good Date is More Important than Cheese

                I don’t even know what’s going on with this guy. Seriously, I’m going out of my mind. I don’t even know where to start with this post so I guess I’ll just review my Boxers or Briefs post and try to describe what’s happened since then…

                We’ve been dating a little over a month now and we talked online through Match for about a month before that. Mostly it’s been great but there’s been a little bit of weirdness and drama. Things were going really well for the first 4 or 5 dates; we definitely had chemistry, it looked like we had a TON of stuff in common, we even have about the same eyeglass prescription. It was fantastic to be having sex again, to have a guy be interested in me, taking me out and wanting to see me again. Then it got weird around date 6.

                I showed up at his place and he was doing laundry; which was fine. I really didn’t care, I just sat on his bed and we talked for a while. But it was mostly just him complaining about money and how it’s so hot out right now. It had been ridiculously hot for our region and the time of year, so I agreed with him. Where I stopped agreeing and started getting a little freaked was when I asked him why he doesn’t get a fan in his room and he told me ‘the spinning freaks him out.’ He ‘can’t sleep with the spinning and the noise.’ So I was thinking…’WTF is this guy’s problem? It’s too hot but he can’t get a fan because FANS FREAK HIM OUT? WHAT?’ As he kept complaining it became obvious that there were no actual solutions to this guy’s problems; he’s got a reason against every rational thing he could do to help himself. Red flag?

                But my therapist suggested he might have just wanted to complain. I get that. I complain a ton and there are times I just want to vent. In the moment, nobody can solve my problems either, so I thought I could let this go.

                Then I suggested we go out for dinner (which since I came there for a date, I thought dinner was a given). He started complaining about his finances again but he saw I was getting annoyed and planning to leave early so I could eat, so he suggested this bar where they sell tacos on the cheap. I agreed and we went out. When we arrived at the restaurant it had been totally shut down. Closed forever (I’m thinking – health concerns on those tacos…?). So he’s annoyed but I know a place nearby where I believe the food is tasty and reasonably priced ($4-10 a meal). Alright, problem solved! 

                We got to the restaurant and everything was good until we sat down and suddenly Kato lost the ability to converse. We sat there looking at the menu and I was excited to get some pancakes (I had been craving the pancakes at this place for some time) but he can’t seem to find anything he wants. The waitress came over and I ordered my pancakes ($5) and then he asked if the cheese is melted on the Philly cheesesteaks. She said, ‘no,’ and he had a little flip out, ‘well, it’s just wrong, that’s just not the right way to make a Philly cheesesteak!’ 

                The waitress looked at me, and we exchanged some confused looks. Mine was a little apologetic. I asked him, ‘so you don’t want anything?’ Mind you, the menu at this restaurant is huge and has just about every kind of American food you could want (from pancakes to Philly cheesesteaks!).

                He said, ‘no, nothing really looks good to me.’ The waitress left and I was a little bit flabbergasted. WTF is wrong with this guy that he’s so picky that he would rather not eat at all than just order something other than the Philly cheesesteak? I felt a little insulted because I really like this restaurant. Yes, the food is cheap but the portions are big and the food is actually really good! So I’m thinking back to our first date when he said he always orders the same thing at that restaurant. And I thought it was strange that he had never tried their signature dish so I ordered it for myself and had him taste it. He was so excited by how delicious it was! He said, ‘thank you! Now I have another dish I can order here!’ Apparently, he cannot leave his comfort zone. He’d rather go hungry. 

                So the date went downhill from there. He was uncharacteristically quiet (compared to our previous dates), and it was so awkward and weird. He did pay for my meal, though, and I thought maybe the actual reason he didn’t order anything was because he just didn’t have enough money for two. And, I can understand that kind of thing but it doesn’t make up for him being rude to the waitress. 

On the car-ride back I tried to talk to him. I told him I wish this date was going better and I was not sure what to do to make it right. He replied, ‘oh, well, if you worry about that kind of thing you’ll go crazy.’ 

So that pissed me off. Um, I was just trying to gently tell you I’m not having fun and try to get you to give me some kind of solution or explanation for what’s happening. I KNOW this is not my fault, it’s yours. I’m doing everything I can; YOU’RE the one acting strange. So I dropped him off at his place and left, pretty sure that I wasn’t going to see him again. At least, not if he doesn’t specifically ask me out for dinner. 

But I did go out with him again. This post is super long so I think I’ll continue it later. Stay tuned.