I gotta tell you how many ex-somethings I've run into lately. And I'm not talking ex-somethings that I'm friends with and hang out with on a regular basis (only saw two of those this weekend). I'm talking ex-somethings like... that you don't anticipate running into... that you've prepared a big "I'm doing fabulously" speech for when you see him... because you always thought you'd run into the little son of a gun again and if you did you'd be ready.
I was not.
First, The Wee One. This is not a disparaging term, just a name he received as a result of a mentor/mentee relationship with a man named Big Phil and well, at that time, anyone looked little next to Large Roy, so, the name stuck. I was hanging out with a new friend at a restaurant when he walked in. I was startled, but we saw each other instantly so there was no where to hide. I stood up to say hello. Neither of us introduced the other people in our parties, we just exchanged how are you's and what are you doing here's and then he kind of cocked his head to the side and looked at me hard the way he used to when he was trying to peer down to the bottom of my soul and usually found it.
"Okay great, good to see you, talk to you later," I said in an unusually high pitched voice that must have been a dead give-away to my uncomfortability, and then I sat down in my chair while my friend across the table gave me a "what the hell was that?" look as he walked away.
Friday, that same friend and I gathered with my roommate to head to The Carousel to hear another friend's band play.
The Wee One again. Only it was just the back of him. So I texted him to determine if he was coming back or staying away and in a bold move, I inquired to his relationship status and suggested that if he was currently with someone it might not be the best idea to look at a woman the way he looked at me the other night. He didn't text back.
And the band sucked.
So we left to meet up with my most recent ex-something (and my roommate's good friend) at a local eastside bar. I should have known that this would probably be too much for me, but we'd worked stuff out and are "friends" and in good faith he bought my girlfriends and me each a beer and we all settled into conversation. About an hour later though, a decision was made to go dancing. Oh God. Just say no. Just say no. Just say no.
I said yes, and we all headed to The Boom Boom Room or something like that. I should have known there'd be trouble with a name like Boom Boom. And of course, up on the roof, underneath the stars, I ran into Saul. Saul, number 2. Saul who broke up with me via text message right before I left for Peru. He was the one I'd saved up the big "you're an asshole and I'm amazing" speech but instead i sputtered out some sort of "here with friends, you look nice, gotta go" number most of which I don't remember because by that point in the evening the good Lord knows I was well under the influence.
Seriously? Seriously. God, I'm an idiot.
Sunday's story was less embarrassing. Another ex-something (I know. I've dated TOO MANY PEOPLE. My therapist and I will be discussing this on Wednesday) was performing in a show I went to see starring my beautiful and talented and absolutely hilarious friend, Amy H-D. I don't actually have a nickname for this guy. Only a descriptor: the guy who on our first date took me to see Super Bad. But I'm not traumatized by this encounter and after the show we said hello and I offered congrats on a great performance. Later that night he thanked me for coming and we chatted for a while on facebook.
Oh facebook.
Because Facebook brought me to my big ex-something. Ex-boyfriend actually. I can say that flat out.
I knew it would happen, one day. But I didn't think it would be so soon.
But there he was, Friend Suggestion: David. THE David. Well, not The David, but my David. Except not my David. THE DAVID. On Facebook. "11 people are mutual friends," FB kindly informed me.
There's a lot more than that I muttered to myself. Most of whom I haven't seen since we graduated, thank God.
I knew it would happen but it's still hard to describe how I feel. I spoke with an old friend from college a couple of months ago who told me David had moved to Texas, and even that freaked me out. I used to have dreams that I would run into his family members who I knew lived here in this great State. The one he wanted to move me to to make me his little southern belle wife where we'd live happily ever after.
"I'll never live in Texas," I told him.
Sigh.
I haven't spoken to him in eight years; haven't seen him in nine. Well, that's not entirely true. He's still in my dreams.
Used to be, whenever I would meet a man that I really liked, who I thought had potential, like good-husband material, David would show up in my dreams. He became a symbol for what scared me the most about relationships and just in case I got too close to someone or someone became too good to be true, there he was back from my subconscious and I usually woke up crying.
Not because he was a bad guy. I mean, he was young, I was young, we made mistakes and quite frankly, our brains hadn't finished developing, you know? And while there was a lot of pain and self-discovery if by some of the most challenging means possible to an idyllic little girl, I regret nothing about those four years.
But you know, he was my first, he was my Billy.
I've been watching Ally McBeal reruns. Appropriate for me to discover my Billy is on Facebook while re-visiting one of my favorite sitcoms.
Now when he's in my dreams, people are always trying to get us back together. We've somehow ended up in the same PhD program or I'm visiting old friends. And I resist it but he's smiling at me, and I get sucked in by that smile (like the Wee One's eyes) and I start to think okay... okay... i guess I could do this... and then I wake up. Confused.
Kind of like I was this weekend. The weekend of ex-somethings. And then today my current something became an ex as well. So that was splendid. A weekend of exes and then I become an ex myself.
It'll give a girl a complex. Let me tell you.
And it's like men who used to like me can smell when I'm single again. Tonight I exchanged multiple texts with a guy I ran into right before I went to LA, a guy who, of course, I had been on a couple of dates with last year. "When's your wedding," I asked him that night, wondering where his fiance was. "We broke it off," he replied.
Please don't start liking me. Please don't start liking me. Please don't start liking me.
Tonight, of course, he texted me in full flirt. They can smell when you're single. Saul who broke up with me via text texted me, "It was nice to run into you Friday night." The actor wrote me on Facebook, "thanks for coming, how are you doing?"
I'M FINE. DON'T I LOOK FINE? I'M GIVING UP MEN. I'm writing a book called, "How I Gave Up Men," and it's going to be a best seller and you'll all be featured in it. I'm sorry you won't get any royalties but since most of you have a little sliver of my heart anyway, that should be compensation enough.
I mean, I've been on more dates with more men in the past two years than Marilyn Monroe probably did in her whole career and not one substantial relationship out of the lot of 'em. Not one boyfriend. Just ex-somethings.
God, you'd think I'd be an expert by now, but obviously I'm getting worse and worse. My therapist is wrong I think. I'm definitely not making much of an improvement. Cyber-dating cuts to the chase. Friends have good intentions. But none of it works. I'm living proof.
The more you date, the more you weed through men, the more you end up in the weeds.
So while I'm here, I'm gonna take an allergy pill, lie down in the grass and look for shapes in the clouds.
Cause I'm sick of lookin' for men.
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