Not My Proudest Moment

Confession time. The Ex and I have been seeing each other pretty regularly since about Thanksgiving. It was purely physical. For a while. And then I found that I wasn't that excited for a possible date. And then I found that I was looking around at a lot of good looking straight men, and I wasn't interested. Never mind that it's not really right for me to be dating guys while I'm still hooking up with my ex. So we decided to cut it off. But the closure that I needed was to hear that there was no chance for us again. Even though I didn't necessarily think it was a good idea, there's this thing in me, this need to keep trying until I know I can't. This inability to move on. This problem of living in the past. Sometimes, I think that if my college ex showed up in my life somehow, I'd get back together with him, too.

No, he said, there's no chance. I'm not ready to be in a relationship again. And we fight. I'm easygoing and carefree, he said, and we fight. We fought more than I did with my other exes. And I didn't feel like I was in love with you after 4 or 5 months. And if that doesn't happen, I don't think it's worth it.

I met up with his ex who's my new bff, and she said, when we were talking when you guys first broke up, he seemed kinda sad that he couldn't love you. That you were worth loving, but he couldn't do it.

After he left, I was ok. I wasn't sad, I didn't cry. But I guess it's getting late and the day has worn on me, and now I'm sad and maybe crying a little as I'm writing this. Of course he didn't love me. He didn't know me, and seemed to have no desire to know me. And, I said, you seemed to have this thing where you thought you needed to change so much just to be in a relationship, and I wish you knew that you didn't need to, don't need to. I liked you for who you were, not for who you were trying to be. OK, he said, if you say so. And he wasn't carefree. He was emotional and moody and unable to deal with his feelings.

I just watched Cashmere Mafia, this new show on ABC. It's basically about four very powerful women in NYC. Powerful b/c of what they've achieved in their careers. And about the men who are basically second to them in money and power and, oftentimes, importance. One of the characters, we find out, knows her husband is having an affair and has had affairs in the past. And she lets it happen basically because she knows he's emasculated.

Even though I am by far not the model of worldly success, sometimes I think I emasculated him. And he couldn't handle it.

The thing is, IT REALLY DOESN'T MATTER. And that's really what I'm understanding right now.

On with the dating. :-/