…And I’m Back!

Good news. I think I got my sex drive back. I masturbated for the first time in weeks and came. Twice. I’m actually really excited about this because I think I’ve been without it for quite some time, perhaps since August when everything with Spencer was officially falling apart. I think I was really unmotivated and depressed, and even when I was seeing Dylan, I don’t think I had it back fully. That could explain why I thought the sex was terrible (that, or because he lasted about 5 minutes, both times, go figure). Regardless, I am really happy to have it back because I’m a pretty sexual person, meaning on a normal day when I’m happy and conflict-less, I think about sex A LOT. And if I had a steady boyfriend, I would expect to have sex at least every other night, but I would love it every night. This seemed to cause a lot of problems between Spencer and me, especially over the summer. And now looking back, I can see why it did… However, what really angers me is that he purposely used sex against me. Imagine. A guy using sex against a girl. He knew that sex was important to me and that I enjoyed it a lot with him, so I think he often withheld it from me to frustrate me and to attach myself more to him. Even while this was happening, I remember thinking that he was using sex against me. And yet, I did nothing. This is another reminder that I need to trust my instincts more.

As for sex, I think I’m not going to be getting any anytime soon. By choice. I think things definitely moved too fast with Dylan, and sex ruined a lot of it. It was so awkward and not enjoyable at all. I think it might have been a good idea to have spent a little more time with each other before diving into sex. And with Spencer, it started out as some casual fun before Europe and then in the end it became almost like a drug. I have to find a happy medium between being satisfied with sex and being obsessed with it. Even with Ethan I remember being very enthusiastic about sex, averaging about 3x per night some weeks. Maybe this is part of the growing up process — to understand that sex is not an end in itself. I have to take it slow and really learn to savor and value sex. This is probably a good time to start this mentality considering I don’t want to make anymore stupid mistakes or have anymore regretful sex. I really just want to make sure that the next time I have sex, it’s because I’m really looking forward to it and I really care about that person. That sounds like such a common sense thing, but for some reason it’s taken me this long to realize it. I guess before I just viewed sex as an adventure, but now I’m starting to understand the importance of it from an emotional aspect.

Of Planes and iPods

Whew. This is gonna be a long one, I can feel it. That’s what happens when you spend 6 hours on an airplane (2 additional hours in the airport beforehand) with nothing but an iPod. The mind wanders when you’re listening to music and have nothing else to do.

So of course the first thing I notice after the chaotic security lines is a very cute guy standing in front of me in line at a restaurant. The first thing I look for is a wedding ring. Why? No idea, but I seem to have developed this habit of looking at ring fingers lately. I contemplate for about 5 seconds if I should talk to him. But then I figured it would be really un-sexy to hit on someone in the airport. I mean, the airport is such a dump. Everyone is tired and annoyed, and everyone’s in limbo before they have to get to their gates. Nobody’s in the mood to get hit on. So I opted out. But I found a seat near him to eat, which I figured would be as far as I would go to being a stalker for the night. He wasn’t within earshot, so I phoned Single Friend #1, Vicky. (Single Friend #2 is coming pretty close to being no longer single, which makes Vicky my last single friend.) We have a few laughs about what it would really be like to hit on someone in the airport and both agreed that admiring from afar would be the best choice. I hang up the phone with her and think about all the things I’ve done with Vicky in the past year, from hanging out together in Europe to all the bar-hopping we’ve done in the last month. Vicky is getting over a pretty ugly break up from almost a year ago. Her ex is also older than her, but he has some pretty weird stalker tendencies (he shows up at random places, calls her sisters randomly, etc.). I don’t think he would ever hurt her, but he’s definitely becoming a menace in her life. Anyway, all of this drama with her ex has screwed with Vicky’s head a fair amount. I think she tries to play it off like she loves being a single girl who breaks hearts all over the city and she never wants to be tied down to another guy ever again. But I think, in reality, she’s just like me. I think this is just her way of coping with the relationship and with guys in general. But there’s something kind of amusing about the dynamic we create. Being single also means being competitive, not just with rival girls, but with your friends too. I always get the sense that we’re competing on who can get more attention from guys or who can be more care-free and even commitment-phobic. It’s really kind of funny, but sometimes I feel like I have to pull Vicky back down to earth when it gets out of control. We’ve had some brief conversations (mostly when we’re drunk, which is why I say “brief” because I can’t really remember much about them), and Vicky has definitely admitted to still getting over the break up and still trying to figure out what it is she’s been doing as a single girl. I think my goal now is to not let things get out of control in terms of this silly “competition” because I’ve come to realize that what Vicky’s going through is not really healthy and she needs someone to make sure that she doesn’t veer off into the wrong direction, either hurting herself or hurting someone else down the road.

But I’m a little more concerned about myself. In the last year, I’ve made a lot of poor choices and done some pretty stupid things, and I have to wonder… “What the fuck is happening?” I mean, just in this year alone I’ve had sex with 3 different men, one of which was a one night stand in Europe and another was a 3-week nothing with Dylan (and um, with no protection, which was fucking dumb). I felt awful when I had that one night stand, not only because I had cheated on Spencer (ha), but also because I was ashamed of what that revealed about my character (especially under drunk circumstances). I told Dylan I still wanted to be friends a few weeks ago, and I messaged him on Facebook, which he kindly replied and gave me a little update on his life. I mentioned the Halloween parade downtown and said he was more than welcome to join us, but he never replied. I wouldn’t be surprised if that’s the last time I have contact with him. That’s too bad because I really did want to be friends with him. I’ve also been acting pretty stupidly while out at bars with Vicky, kissing random people and giving them my phone number then not picking up the next day. I mean, these guys are sleazy, and I knew that when I kissed them and gave them my number, but I don’t know why I get such a rush out of it. I would never let it go beyond kissing though, because God knows that that incident in Europe scarred me for life. In any case, I’m not too proud of the way I’ve behaved in the last year, and I’m hoping that I can get through the next two months without fucking up too much. Then it will be January and I can look forward to a new year. Not that there’s no risk of fucking up in 2008, but at least I can hope that I don’t as much in a new year. I mean, I’d like to think that I won’t make as many stupid mistakes and poor choices, at least not as stupid as the ones I made in the last year, with the one night stand and not seeing Spencer for who he really was. There’s no way to tell how I can do this until I bring myself to that situation, but I’d like to think that I can think things over a little more before I make stupid decisions. I dunno.

I want to start trusting my gut instincts a little more too. I think my instincts had been telling me a lot of things that I chose to ignore when it came to Spencer, and even Ethan. And in the end, I got hurt. I think I’d always mistaken my instincts as some form of paranoia, but now that I look back, my instincts had been right 100% of the time. I have to trust my instincts from now on and not doubt myself. I always gave them the benefit of the doubt and rationalized like crazy, but now I see that I’d been right all along. And maybe trusting my instincts will also help with lessening my fair share of mistakes. Let’s hope so.

I’ve given it a little more thought, and I’m beginning to believe more and more that Spencer is still with her. But I don’t really care anymore. I’m tired of caring. I could’ve chosen not to reveal any of this to her, but I did because I didn’t want her to get hurt. However, I didn’t expect her to stop talking to me and to stop responding to my help, so I think this good deed eventually turned into a psycho revenge thing because I wasn’t getting out of it what I thought I should’ve been getting. I didn’t expect a liar and a cheat to still be getting pussy at the end of the nigh. But who knows. Maybe they’re not together anymore. Maybe they are. If they are, then I feel bad for her. If after everything I told her and showed her, she still couldn’t see the light, then maybe that’s what she deserves. All I know is, I got the hell out of there as soon as I could’ve, and I tried to help her, but you can’t help anyone who doesn’t want to be helped. And a relationship whose trust has been grossly betrayed can’t last for long. She’ll come around one of these days. Meanwhile, I’ll occasionally check her myspace to see if she’s ever logged in since September to change her relationship status…

I fear that there’s a little part of me that will never get over this betrayal by Spencer. Randomly during the day, I get flashbacks of the things Spencer did or said and feel a sick sense of betrayal. Like when he flew across the country to visit me, and I was picking him up from the airport, he said, “That flight was rough, but you know what I thought? _____ must be really special, especially since I’m afraid of flying.” Ugh. All the rationalizations and all the benefits of the doubt… All of these things I’ll never know if I can get over. And I fear that this will be so unfair to the next guy who is genuine and who is nothing like Spencer. How can I completely open my heart again? I just don’t know how I could ever move past this.

Oh, and by the way, the cute guy at the airport ended up sitting right in front of me on the airplane, but I didn’t even realize until the cabin lights turned on and we deplaned. Go figure. I didn’t even think we were on the same flight.

The Entire Spencer Story

After all these months, I finally got to the bottom of the story behind Spencer’s erratic behavior throughout our relationship… He had been seeing another girl simultaneously while dating me. He’d actually already been dating her when he started seeing me. So yes, in the last year or so, he was able to keep up two serious relationships by dividing his time and energy between two girls so well that neither suspected anything was wrong. It’s a long story to go into detail as to how I discovered this truth, but I eventually revealed this sad, sick truth to his other girlfriend, who is still seeing him. She seemed shocked and hurt and I haven’t heard from her, but I hope she made the right decision and left him in the dust. This whole story is just sick, but I’m glad that I finally know the truth. I had been so confused and hurt for so long and now I just feel relieved. It will be a while before I get myself into another relationship and can fully trust another person again, but I know I can still love… It will just take some time. I told Dylan I needed some time alone, and he was very understanding.

So, in the end, Spencer was the greatest deceit of my life, and yes, he won. He won by a lot. He played with the hearts of two innocent girls, and he walked away knowing he was able to do it for an entire year. He is sick. Very mentally ill. And I feel bad for the other girls down the road, but at least I was able to save one. I hope she’s surviving ok… I wish I knew what was going on. I wish I was able to warn her more about his emotional manipulation and how well he could lie. I tried to warn her, but I will never know if I did enough. She probably hates me now too. Probably thinks I was part of the whole thing somehow, even though I told her I was a victim too. I don’t know. I just know that I have so much sympathy for her right now. I know how she feels, definitely, and I hope she’s strong enough to endure it. I really do…

Plan B

So Dylan and I slept together — twice. Both times without protection, which was a really stupid thing. During the act this morning, I told him that I wasn’t on birth control, and he misheard and came inside of me. We rushed out to the pharmacy and got Plan B.

I am now very confused about whatever the hell I’ve been doing since the break up with Spencer. I didn’t think the sex with Dylan was anything amazing. In fact, it was extremely short and he’s actually a little too well endowed for me. I don’t know if it’s because he hadn’t done it in a while and he was just super excited or if this is normal routine for him. It didn’t seem to bother him that I didn’t come once. The whole thing just depressed me because I was reminded of how satisfying the sex was with Spencer. He always waited for me to finish before he did. He was so considerate in bed. And at the same time, after Dylan came inside of me, I immediately felt a sense of guilt, like I had betrayed Spencer. We had always talked about being excited for getting me on birth control, so that he could finally finish inside of me, which meant a lot to the both of us. We never got the chance to do that.

I still feel such an incredible sense of love towards Spencer, and it pains me to think that I will never be with him again. Not because I don’t want to but because I know we could never work. Not with his issues and not with my issues. But the love we felt and still feel for each other is there. I know it is. We may not be in love with one another, but we still care about one another. After feeling like crap in the morning, I text messaged him and asked if he ever thought about the happier times we shared. He said he did all the time. We might be having lunch together next weekend. We’ll see. He said he was going to call when he got back from DC. I would just like to see him and apologize in person for being the person I was in the last 4 months. I don’t think I will be able to overcome this guilt until I tell him how I feel in person. I don’t expect anything from him, but I need to move on emotionally, and in order to do so, I have to get this load off my chest.

Now I’m just thinking a lot about whether I should keep going with this relationship. I may just need some time to myself and get myself sorted out because I am in no mood to pursue a serious relationship. Dylan doesn’t seem too keen on a relationship either, or at least he hasn’t given that impression. It’s hard to tell since I don’t know him and I don’t talk to him often. I’m starting to regret pursuing anything with him. sigh. We’ll see.

Still More Afterthoughts

Sometimes I think of Spencer and all I wish is for him to suddenly appear in front of me so that I can yell, kick, and scream at him and tell him everything negative that I think of him.

Other times I think of Spencer and all I wish is for him to suddenly appear in front of me so that I can give him the love that I’ve been yearning to give him all these months. And for him to give me the love that I remember receiving from him.

Sometimes I wonder how much of Spencer is a culmination of my imagination in the last year and in the last month. I wonder how much of Spencer is an idea and how much of what I think is the reality.

I am frequently reminded of the things we used to share together. The happiness and the laughter. You know, before it all went down the drain. I think about how much we both enjoyed eating different kinds of food, watching TV, and just mindlessly sitting around. Somehow I get the feeling that I won’t be doing the same with Dylan. For one, he has already revealed a restricted diet — strictly seafood, no meat, not even chicken. This makes for a difficult selection of meals and restaurants. Food is so important to me. That was one thing I shared with both Spencer and Ethan. We all liked good food, and we would all do anything to get it.

I know food is such a small aspect of the bigger picture, but it’s things like these that make me yearn for the better days with Spencer. Sometimes I want to bite his head off, and other times I just want to be happy with him. Today is the latter.