Change of Plans

Let’s be honest. I have no idea what I want. I want to have meaningful sex, but I don’t want a relationship. I’m lonely, but commitment scares me. I want stability, but the idea of routines scares me. I want excitement, but I’m painfully risk-averse. I want spontaneity, but stability provides a sense of security. I want love, but I can’t commit. I want to commit, but the idea stifles me and makes me claustrophobic. I don’t know what the hell I want.

This leaves me with a handful of very odd choices that I continue to make, even though I know they’re terrible for me. On the one hand, Jason is kind, though a little too awkward for my liking. And I don’t think I find him physically attractive. On the other hand, I am dying for butterflies in my stomach, or at least some spunk in my love/lust life. I haven’t felt butterflies for anyone in a really long time. The last person, I believe, whom I felt excitement for was Dylan. And that turned out horribly. Maybe my desire for excitement in my life leads me to these ridiculous Craig’s List adventures. I don’t know if I ever mentioned that I met Ethan on Craig’s List, but I did. I also met Adam on Craig’s List, as well as a few others under more sketchy circumstances. Last Friday I was so overwhelmed with negative emotions from work and just needed to do something reckless, so I posted an ad on Craig’s List under “casual encounters.” Of all the answers I received (and there were a lot!), one guy stood out and he lived relatively close by. I was thisclose to inviting him over to my apartment, or even going to his, but at the last minute, I decided not to. First of all, I was exhausted from weeks of tortuous work. Second of all, I was already drunk off my ass, and anything I did then, I knew would inevitably lead to regret. So I backed out. He’s been contacting me since, and I don’t really know if I should go through with it. Funnily enough, I’ve had dreams of going through with it in the last few days, either texting him back or actually having sex with him. Even though things are progressing with Jason, albeit very slowly, I’m not sure if this would qualify as infidelity. We haven’t established anything officially, and I’m not even sure if I want to establish anything. I kind of want to see what this guy from Craig’s List has to offer. I made it clear that I didn’t want a relationship, so he knows this is sex only. It might actually add some excitement to my life to have some satisfying sex after a long day of CPB’s abuse.

This is the type of dilemma that leads to me make choices that I later regret. But there are always parts of me that wonder, “Well, what is there to lose?” I’m just so hungry for excitement and endorphine injections of any kind right now. CPB and work have drained me so much that I feel like a mindless, soulless drone most of the time. And you know, this is precisely what drives me insane. Here I was thinking that the last thing I needed to worry about for the next couple of years was my job. That I was working at a great firm with great people, and was earning a decent income that would allow me to quit with more than enough money to go traveling afterward. Now I’m contemplating quitting even before my year is up! And it all leads back to CPB, who I hate with a passion and wish with all the molecules in my being that something in this situation could change. Now I’m searching for a new job and hoping that something will come up in time so that I can quit in June, instead of August. Now I’m wondering if I should even get another apartment after my lease expires in August because I might not even be here anymore! CPB, unfortunately, has changed my entire 2-year plan in just three short months. Bravo, CPB, bravo. Fucking wench.

Emotional P.O.W.

I am the emotional P.O.W. of the woman I work for. Let’s just call her “CPB,” which stands for “Crazy Psycho Bitch.”  I cannot stand working for her anymore. I cannot stand this job anymore. I must plan my exit. It has been five weeks since I last discussed my job, and no, things have not improved.  If anything, they have worsened.  Conditions are so inhospitable and hostile that I’m afraid I might quit even before my time is up. She terrorizes me and my co-worker to the point where we are so demoralized and so beaten up emotionally that we have nothing left in ourselves. There is no more fire. There is no more silver lining. There is just pure hate. We cannot stand her, and we cannot endure working for her for much longer. And nobody in the office knows of this dynamic except for us. She is so abusive and manipulative that I just can’t see how any of this can possibly go unnoticed. She picks on every little thing we do wrong, and she goes ballistic on things she doesn’t even understand. And she takes out the frustrations she feels from the partner out on us. She’ll yell at us about not understanding her instructions and then realize that she was wrong in the first place. But never will she think that maybe her instructions aren’t clear enough or that she changed her mind. No, it’s always our fault. She might apologize later for going ballistic on us for no good reason, but what good does that do when she keeps acting like this? It’s simply abusive and intolerable. She has so deeply affected me that even 3 days into my week-long vacation, I was still reeling from the anger and frustration that I felt the afternoon after I left the office. That is how deeply she has affected me.

And yet, I cannot quit. Not yet. Maybe not even in June or even August of next year. With the eonomy the way it is, and my dreams of traveling costing so much, I may have to bite the bullet and endure this abuse until at least Spring 2010. Sometimes I honestly don’t know if I will make it that long, and sometimes I want to quit on the spot. If the urge continues, there’s no telling what might happen. My only hope now is to see what kind of jobs are out there and try to apply now to see if I can find anything. I want to maybe work for the government in a similar position. Maybe then the work will be more rewarding. I just know that I am not strong enough to endure this kind of abuse for long. It is simply too tempting to leave, if the opportunity presents itself to me. I hope it does.

No LTRs, please.

I think it may be safe to put any notion of romance on the back burner until 2009.  I am not ready to be in a relationship, no matter how much I think I am. And it’s not because of Spencer or anyone else, really, that has made me come to this decision. It is, honestly, my life and the conditions under which I live that I cannot fully commit myself to anybody or anything right now. I am at a transient place in my life, where I don’t even know if I will stay at my current job after I’ve commited a year. What will I do after this year? No idea. Even though most likely I will stay at this job for another year, I want to leave the option open to pursue other things, and that may very well be outside of the city. I may have to relocate, in which case it would be much easier to pursue this job if I were single. Not that I am afraid to commit because I might relocate. I think the reason is more that I haven’t met anybody whom I would be comfortable committing to knowing that there is a possibility that I might relocate. 

Honestly, I am just not in a place emotionally to give someone my entire heart and all of my time and energy. I am still trying to figure out what I want and who I want. The best scenario is if I could just meet someone to hang out with, to go to concerts with, to eat dinner with, to sleep with, etc. and nothing more would be expected.  I wouldn’t be expected to clear my weekend schedule for this person, and he wouldn’t expect me to do the same either. We would see each other when the occasion arises, and when we do, it would be loads of fun and memories. That is all I want right now. I am simply in no mood for a relationship. Is it really that hard to understand??

Forgettable Affairs

As it has probably been obvious in the last year or so, I’ve had more forgettable affairs than I care to think about. Some have lasted a little longer than a month, others lasted a few days, or even a few hours. My love life has gathered more cobwebs than I care to count. There’s a part of me that wishes I had someone to share my life with, and then there’s a part of me that doesn’t know what I want — a relationship or not? Maybe it’s one of those things where you don’t know what you want until you’ve found it. I can’t even articulate what I want.

I thought I wanted to be with someone, but in the last month or so, the two people I’ve dated just seemed so… meh. Adam was a kind and considerate person, but he was too self-involved and didn’t seem to understand that a conversation is a two-way street. Nobody likes monologues on a date. He constantly interrupted me, and then proceeded to ask questions like, “Why don’t you ever talk about yourself?” Cue the eye-rolling. Plus, he refused to let me pay, and put up a real fight when I insisted. It was intense, and it’s a threat to my femininity. I stopped replying to his text messages and e-mails.  I think he gets the message. I thought about ending it in a “mature” way, but then I realized that I’d only gone on three dates with the guy, so I don’t think it’s that big of a deal.

Then there’s Jason, who I met through a friend. He’s also… nice. Quiet and shy, and a little more awkward than I like. I like awkward guys sometimes, but not when they are too awkward. I’m not sure whether he likes me or not, but I don’t think I’m attracted to him. There’s just no spark, and I don’t really think we have that much in common besides the fact that we are both interested in the legal profession. I think he’s a really great guy, and I’d love to be friends with him, but everyone knows men and women can never be friends. I guess we’ll just see.

I want to meet someone who…

• makes me excited for the day when I wake up.  
• understands my dry sense of humor and can dish back exactly what I dish to him. 
• makes me laugh until my stomach hurts and milk is coming out of my nose. 
• shares my passion for good food, good beer, and good music. 
• loves to cook, travel, watch TV, and play video games just as much as he loves to explore new music, new bars, and new restaurants in the city. 
• is not afraid to pay the cover or the ticket price to get into a concert for a band he’s never heard of. 
• wants to be spontaneous for a date, because he knows that it’s not about what you do but who you’re with that makes a night fun. 
• can teach me something new.
• makes me want to be the best person I can be every single day.

But at the end of the day, and after all these criteria, I really just want… spark.  Why is it so hard to find someone with whom you have chemistry and a connection?