The Not-So-Secret Diary of a Bad Luck Girl

Today I had a realization: it’s a crapshoot with anyone, as to whether or not a relationship will work, regardless of their past. With anyone, it takes time to find out and to give things a chance.

I tend to get ahead of myself and want answers immediately. I want the certainty right away. But there’s always a risk, always some uncertainty in the beginning.

Seems so obvious but it took me a whole day to figure that out.

First off, thanks everyone for your kind words and support. It’s nice to know there are people out there who give a rat’s ass about my well-being.

I’ve calmed down since yesterday. H. and I spoke last night and had a perfectly nice and normal conversation, and have plans for tomorrow. So now I’m somewhere between one extreme (Oh my God, He’s the One) and the other (I Have to Break Up With Him). I’m at, I’ll Enjoy This for Now but He’s Probably Not Ready for a Relationship.

As I implied in my last post, H. and I are at very different places in the recovery continuum (if there’s such a thing). It’s been two years since my separation; the 9 months or so before that were pure hell, the worst of my life. At the point of the separation, I began to recover.

There were a couple of months of grieving, then adjusting to being on my own, then dating again for the first time in forever. More grieving.

I didn’t know what I wanted then. I was curious about dating other people and thought I wanted a relationship, but mostly because I was lonely and being in a relationship was all that I had known for such a long time.

Last year, as you know, I started up with DK, again unsure of what I wanted, thinking maybe a short term thing was okay. It wasn’t.

In the six months since DK and I broke up, I’ve really learned to love being on my own, to live alone and like it, as one of my favorite books say (thanks again, Anonymous Writer!). To realize that I didn’t want to be in a relationship just to be in one, which I think makes me ready for a real full-blown relationship.

For H. this last year was pure misery, and only in the past few months has he begun to recover. A few months vs two years of recovery – quite a difference.

So I’ll give it a little more time and try to stay calm about the whole thing. Of course we will talk about all this, but in a little while.

If we broke it off, I could see us being friends, which actually gives me a happy feeling. But we’ll see.

Some of you may have noticed – I know Zerodoll has! – that I had a post on Friday that I’ve since deleted, mostly because I felt like I was getting ahead of myself.

I don’t want to get into too many personal details, so here’s the skinny:

• Two weeks of dating can be wonderful and intense.
• One year is not a very long time to get over your ex-girlfriend, ie, the Love of Your Life Who You Were Ready to Marry, leaving you.
• Three years is plenty of time to get over having been cheated on.
• Two years is plenty of time to get past a separation/divorce.
• Three years after the shit has hit the fan, one is ready for a real relationship, not just “enjoying the moment.”

Dating bites the big one.

I’ve been a little distracted lately and have been totally neglecting my little projects. For instance, running42K is right: I totally should have not only listed all the good food my mom made for the Lunar New Year, I should have taken some damned pictures. I’m kicking myself now that I didn’t.

So from memory, here was our Spring Festival dinner:

Nice and rather packed weekend.

It was Chinese New Year, the year of the Golden Pig, and so my parents had a little party. Normally they don’t do anything, but since it was a long weekend and two of my little cousins are in the area attending medical school and college, they thought it a good opportunity to get the family together.

I think everyone felt a bit weird upon seeing me, the first time since the divorce. All stiff and big smiles: “Um, hi, how are you?” Only the wife of my youngest uncle felt comfortable enough to ask me if I was dating now or what. I told her I’d met someone cool recently, she asked if he were Chinese, I said no, and then I cut off the conversation because my mother was like right there.

Sunday my parents and I went shopping. I finally got a NaNo. I planned on getting the blue but it’s brasher than the blue mini. For some reason, I really liked the red. Plus part of those proceeds go to fight AIDS in Africa. That night I had dinner with AY. We went to this Japanese place I remember liking, but actually it was terrible.

The teriyaki chicken wasn’t like teriyaki chicken at all, just fried pieces of meat. The shumai weren’t light but heavy like dumplings. Plus the service was bad. We were seated next to some “VIPs” whom the owner kept chatting up, and we kept getting ignored. But it was fun to catch up with AY.

Meanwhile, things continue to go well with H. We hung out Friday night, spoke Sunday night, and hung out last night. He’s sick, poor thing. Hopefully I won’t catch it though that would only be by some miracle. However, there’s a chance I was a wee bit sick last weekend and gave it to him. This would be the second tiny cold I’ve gotten over quickly but managed to give to someone else who got out and out sick (the other was my dad).

Thursday night one of his friends is having a birthday party and he asked if I wanted to go. Wow: someone who actually wants me to interact with their friends.

I remember a couple of weeks after I started dating C., I asked if he wanted to go to this improv show my friend was in. He basically freaked out, then felt guilty about it and agreed to go. I was like, Dude, don’t do me any favors, though at the same time, What’s the big deal? He wouldn’t admit though that his freakout had to do with meeting with the friends.

Towards the end of our little fling, which was about 2 months, it was his birthday and he had a party. But did he invite me? Nope. Of course that was the end of that.

I never met any of DK’s friends either. By then I was a lot more careful and didn’t assume that we’d be venturing into that territory. He didn’t let me into his life, like he’d get a voicemail while we were together, check it, and not comment on it.

Not that I need to know all the details, but if it were me I’d say, “Oh, that was my friend, he/she wanted to know. . .” Once I dreamed that DK and I were riding an elevator together, and when he checked his cell phone, he covered it and turned his back to me.

H. has been the opposite of this. I keep feeling like, “Oh, so this is how it should be.”

1) It’s Friday and the start of a three-day weekend.

2) My writing class went very well last night. Everyone liked my piece, which is always encouraging, but what’s more useful is the constructive feedback, ie, what parts are confusing, what information is missing, what information I don’t need.

But, most importantly at least to me, the teacher, a real writer, liked my work a lot, telling me during the break even before we began workshopping, and then after class as we walked out. Extremely promising. I’m excited to get cracking at the next section.

3) I was talking to ES recently about what I want in a relationship. I told her how I made a list based on my past experiences of what I do and don’t want. For instance, I do want a lot of affection while I don’t want someone with a bad temper.

One sort of trivial thing I want is someone to go to museums with – not just that: someone who wants to go to museums with me. Neither C. nor DK ever did, and I’d mention it all the time: “We should go to the Met sometime,” or the Whitney or whatever. Once DK and I walked past the American Museum of Natural History, and he said, “I haven’t been there in years. I should check it out again,” but didn’t ask me to join him. Hello? I’m standing right here!

The other night H. mentioned a exhibit he wants to see at the MoMA, and then asked me if I wanted to go with him. Not in a casual way, like, “Since I’m going there anyway,” but as though he wanted to go with me. I’d just about died of happiness. It’s quite strange too since ES and I had just been talking about it, probably two days before.

Makes me wonder: have I been treated like dirt all this time?

He has beautiful manners. At coffee the other night, whenever I jumped up to get something – napkins or whatever – he’d stand. At first I had no idea what the heck he was doing. Later I needed something from the drugstore, and it was late and cold and snowy. I assumed we’d go together but he went out on his own and brought back what I needed.

We’re hanging out tonight as well.

Lovely. Lovely lovely lovely.

No kissing and telling though, I’m afraid, except to say –

One foot halfway off the ground.

Yes, already.

He called yesterday afternoon to see if I wanted to grab a coffee (he had a class to teach later on that night). I immediately said yes, though afterwards I wondered if I were being too eager and should have been playing harder to get. Then I thought, Screw it, I just want to see him and that’s that.

So we had coffee – cocoa for me – and talked and walked. He told me he was worried that he was being too pushy, calling me for another date so soon, and I told him the above, and we were happy to see we feel the same way about the suckitude of games.

I feel like I’ve known him a long time. It’s very very very weird.