The Midwest Heterosexual Meets the East Bay Pansexual Bears

So I've been trying to branch out and make more friends.  Although at 30 years old, I've begun to realize I'm more likely to drown in my own bathroom sink than develop healthy friendships with other women.  I met 2 girls at Schmeckle's last week who seemed talkative, fun and my age.  Their hair was a variety of colors and they both had on combat boots.  Now, I usually try to avoid women in mini skirts and combat boots because the ensemble is an oxymoron and I have difficulty trusting a walking contradiction, but I chose to overlook this.  We exchanged numbers and decided to have a bite to eat together.  I am trying to take more risks, in spite of my exhorting subconscious begging me to stay inside and wait for the alien infiltration to abort their mission.  I even told Hunter prior to the get together that I usually think that any woman who wants to be my friend is probably crazy or intends to murder me.  But I went.  In spite of my trepidation.

I met E.T. and Rosie O' Fuck My Life at a little Farmers Market in North Berkeley to pick out some food and have a picnic in one of Berkeley's many local parks.  They spent an hour educating me about produce and cooking as we walked through the market.  Not a bad beginning, I'm terrible when it comes to cooking and have never been very good at properly picking fruits and vegetables.  Although, after a while I found myself getting antsy and hopeful that the conversation would be a little less one-sided once we finally left the market; every word that came out of my mouth was cut off instantly by 20 minutes of unwarranted, in depth information about each or both of their personal lives.  During our shopping excursion, they asked me 3 times what kind of food I like to eat and I never once was able to dispense a full answer.  I kept reminding myself that they were helping me, that I needed to be patient and open minded, and that I owed both of them my gratitude for taking the time to teach me about California Cuisine. 

When we finally got into the checkout line they asked me what I like to do for fun, I opened my mouth and started to say that I like to write but the moment the word write shot into the air I was stuck digesting another 25 minutes of what an amazing writer E.T. is, the classes she took and how her teacher tried to get her memoir published but E.T. wasn't ready yet.  In the midst of hearing everything there is to know about E.T.'s father, the "many lives" she's lived, the places she has lived in and the wisdom and immense maturity she's developed as a result of it all, we had made our way to one of the parks nearby and had found a place to sit and eat.  For the second time they asked what I like to do and I mentioned that I enjoy the outdoors which somehow left me voiceless again as Rosie O'Fuck My Life went on for 15 minutes about their room mates. 

These are all matters I could have dealt with.  So they like to talk-who doesn't; so I can't get a word in edge wise-I probably talk to much anyways.   But then I made the biggest mistake of all by asking them how they met.  The flood gates opened, loud and unnecessary.  Except it wasn't water flowing out of them but rather a high pressure, unending out poor of multi-sexual, quasi-enlightened self-affirmations compounded with a detailed play by play of every sexual endeavor they've ever indulged in that might possibly separate them from the conventionality's of everyday life.

It was awful.  I wanted to run but my legs were paralyzed.  I was stuck watching a two-woman show wondering how 2 grown adults could be so insane and so ridiculously obtuse to the rest of the world around them.  People were every where, CHILDREN were everywhere, as they talked in loud, boisterous tones about dog collars, kink, S&M, and the extent of their Pansexual, Polygamous lifestyles.  I actually had to sit their for 30 minutes just listening to them define Pansexuality.  They even went in to the Greek definition behind it.  Why on earth does anyone think that complete strangers would be interested in those kind of details about someones life unless those strangers were writing an article on the byproducts of sexual disorientation?  When I discovered, after the longest 45 minutes of my life, that E.T. and Rosie O'Fuck My Life, were in fact not 30 years old, as I had assumed, but were actually 21 and 23, I did find that the relief was instant.   I realized that post adolescent bull shit is a hell of a lot easier to absorb than the idea of two grown women in their 30's making an absolute spectacle of themselves as they try to convince me that their extraordinary life styles are completely beyond their control. 

After listening for another 10 minutes about how E.T. has a habit of making her partners fall in love with her and how she is anatomically female but conceptually parthenogenetic, a man with a puppy walked up to us, sat down and I watched as E.T. took her hat off, shook her hair around, and then scooted right into the guy and straddled her legs around his as she started to pet the dog.  Then she began to inspect the dogs ass and teeth claiming that she used to work with animals. 

For me, this was the end of our horrendous little girl date.  At 30 years old, I no longer have the patience or desire to sympathize with the audacious and overbearing identity crises of another.  I've been there once before.  I picked up my stuff, said I was tired and bolted the fuck out of there. 

Tackling IT in All it's Glory While Happily Ever After Takes the Guestroom

Hunter and I broke up and for over a week now he’s been sleeping in the guest room.  It’s both awful and awkward.  We have somehow maintained our sense of partnership but sit, eat and speak only as friends.  I never in my life would have thought myself capable of this kind of dynamic. 

I’ve spent the last 3 years hoping he would work the steps, face his fears and come out a stronger and more honest person.  But that never actually happened.  Honesty and courage remained a constant source of neglect on his part.  Everywhere he went and everything he said I absorbed with trepidation.  Wanting desperately to believe him and to have faith in what I thought we shared, I often kept my mouth shut and forced myself to focus on other aspects of my life outside of his challenges and the denial he seemed to carry with him through his day to day life. 

Unfortunately, no matter how happy I thought we were, I have sat in my own fears, waiting patiently for the other shoe to drop.  I often attempted to picture what that would look like and am now stuck staring it in the face.  Consequently, all I want to do is sleep.  I’m not even angry.  I wish I was because then at least it would be familiar.  This is, more or less, a cloud; thin, empty, foreboding and, seemingly, invisible to the rest of the world the closer you get to it.  It feels like I have a 5 ton anchor full of dog shit tied to both my legs.  Every step I take is overbearing. 

Living in limbo is painful and confusing.  He says he won’t give up.  That he’s going to spend this time working on himself, facing what he’s spent all these years avoiding and becoming the honest and courageous man he thinks he’s capable of being.  Maybe he will be, but what the hell do I do in the meantime?  I’m too tired to write, exercise, or even leave the house.  I go to work and am terrified that I will either kill someone or get fired, but am reassured by the fact that I’m too tired to kill anyone.  I need to disappear.  I wish I had the kind of money that would allow me to drop everything and take a vacation somewhere far away from loneliness I feel encased by.  No one warns you of the kind of chances you actually take when you choose to pack your life up and leave everything behind; in the excitement of it all it's hard to imagine what will happen to all of your hope and determination if the shit hits the fan.  I think I picture myself a far stronger person than I really am.  All I ever think about is the delusion of Happily Ever After and how each realization that nothing is that easy leaves me feeling shocked and suddenly aware that I have no one to run to.  No wonder people in their 40’s laugh at younger generations.  How many times have I stepped out of my life impulsively naive, looking in at it with the eyes of a foolish romantic thinking that this was it; that the world, in all its sadness and suffering, was powerless against whatever temporary sense of elation I was grasping on to.   I don’t even know what it is; power, success, a sense of understanding that encompasses life on a spiritual, physical and emotional level?  The only real truth I possess is that I don’t have it.  All I have is my teddy bear and a big empty bed.  Neither of which feel even remotely close to what I probably need right now.    

Truthfully I have no idea where Hunter and I will go from here.  I know I love him and I honestly believe these matters could be worked out if he did the work, which, apparently, he's been diving into diligently.  I just can't keep making the same mistakes and expecting my life to be or look like anything more than what it is.  The man I've wanted to marry is afraid of everything and lies over matters that seem ridiculous and don't make any sense to me.  And no matter how much I promised myself I would never let my life fall to pieces over a man. . . .I feel very much like my life is suddenly falling to pieces over a man.  Funny how quickly that happens and how easily these little vows and promises seem to vanish just when they're needed the most.  If this is the universes way of reminding me that nothing in life is permanent then I get it, so what the hell do I do now?