Hey there, I'm Anonymous Single Lady 2, but you can call me Casey. I've been friends with ASL for a while now, and we've shared many stories of love and broken hearts, and she's invited me (OK, I invited myself) to guest post from time to time on this here blog. I have a few stories already queued up, but thought I'd introduce myself.
I'm a professional in my mid-30's, I've had one moderately successful open marriage (until we stopped loving one another, that is), and couple of pretty badly broken hearts since. I may detail these things later, but let's just say that I plan on avoiding Oklahoma City from now until the end of time.
I'm sort of to the point where I'd really rather learn from my past mistakes, instead of finding new ones to make. Most of all, I'd really just like to stop running into walls, because that shit hurts. Anyways, I have a few historical posts that I'll copy here, but why don't we jump right in with my latest drama (copied for now from my private blog, regarding the weekend before last):
I was really disappointed by this weekend. I guess what I am destined to learn next is that I should shelve all expectations. Dates showing up on time? Whoa, girl – don’t be unrealistic. Dates showing up at all? Probably setting your sights too high.
A little history. The thing with the guy I was crushing on didn’t work out (huge surprise there), fizzled before it even began. So, on a whim, I joined OKCupid. I won’t go through the entire roll now, but there have been several viable prospects, and two in particular (we'll call them M and J). Both have shown proactive interest in me – texting, emailing, video chat, etc. I should know better than to get my hopes up, but I guess I’m stupid. I assume that when a guy says he wants to see me, he’s telling the truth. Come time for the date, I further assume that he’s made plans to be on time, or absent that, at least fucking show up.
My travel schedule has been difficult, and I make it known that my schedule is tight. I make sure that people know this up front, and explain that I need specific dates and times so that I can fit everything in. No one has ever had a problem with this in theory; execution, on the other hand, is a different matter entirely.
That brings us to this weekend. I had 3 dates scheduled between Saturday and Sunday, plus a housewarming party with friends. Ambitious, yes, but I’d planned it pretty well and gotten enthusiastic confirmations from all three parties that all plans were a go. All I'm going to say about Saturday night’s date is that he was 30 minutes late, and while I half-heartedly agreed to another date, I anticipate that I will develop some crippling life situation which will make dating impossible. Here’s hoping for shingles.
Honestly though, I was really looking forward to Sunday. I’d seen M several times, and was seriously considering dating him exclusively. I’d seen J once, but he was incredibly charming, and did a very good job of making my dating choices difficult ones.
So, Sunday rolls around, and I'm anticipating a fun, full day ahead of me. I text M to see where he wants to meet for brunch, but didn't receive a response until 1:30 (when we were actually supposed to meet). Turns out, he was still in bed, hungover from partying all night long. He didn’t seem particularly apologetic, and more than that, didn’t seem overly anxious about rescheduling. Not a great feeling to see so many “maybe”s on the texts coming back my way, if I’m telling the truth.
Still, I had a fun housewarming to look forward to, and I text J to firm up our dinner plans. He gets back to me around 2:45, says that some stuff changed in his schedule and wants to know if we can meet at 3:00. He knew that I was at a friend's house across town, so I'm curious if he thought that I was going to drop everything and meet him. I decline his generous 15-minute window, and he says he'd call back later so that we could do something for dinner. I didn’t hear back from him until 8:00 pm, when he said he could meet me in half an hour. Seriously?
It’s at this time that I have to admit – I don’t know what to do in a situation like that. Does being flaky with the scheduling mean he doesn’t respect me, or that he just had some shit come up? Does me being understanding with all the schedule changes make me a fool, or a sweetheart? I was definitely frustrated and feeling more than a bit chaffed by the double date elimination. So I played the ignoring game. I played the defer response game. I played the games that supposedly say, “Hey there, buddy – take me and my time seriously!”. And I still feel like a fool, and a disingenuous one at that.
Every move I make at this point feels foolish, wrong, or contrary to my nature. And I’m not winning it, from either angle. I don’t like games, I like honesty. I don’t like coyness, I like directness. And this whole situation is starting to feel like an itchy wool coat, and it feels like my goals for love and togetherness are slipping to a dot on the horizon, barely registering on the visual scale. Who knows, maybe some sleep will give me perspective.
ETA: This post was imported to my own blog, along with several other historical posts.
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