Itemised
Posted by: lucie
Has anyone noticed I've been missing for a little while? It's the boy. I know, I know, the same boy I was swearing off for being too cool and not considerate enough and immature and all kinds of other things, and I guess the ladies who commented that maybe he just liked me and didn't know how to act might have been right. I don't know. The one time you get ready to put your foot down and demand to be treated better, that turns out to be the day no one really wanted to hurt you. Ever since that coffee where I got all blunt about it and told him he made me feel shitty, he's not put a foot wrong. Mr Lovely. Trying really hard, doing really well, acting totally sweet and hanging in there while I battle through my 'surely you're going to freak out and/or turn into an asshole at any moment now' mentality.
The long and the short of it is that I haven't been blogging because I've been doing mushy snuggling and making out for about five hours a day... and it seems like I might have something like a boyfriend on my hands.
Before you go thinking this sounds all cute, let me point out that it scares me. Oh, it's nice, it's great, it's warm and snuggly and precious and I am enjoying it immensely. But I must confess that I can't help but remember that the last time I started down this snuggly road, I ended up on the wrong end of a 3.5 year relationship that kind of sucked. Sometimes it just happens when you aren't looking. How do you keep your head straight and enjoy the moment at the same time? It's tough. Risky.
I haven't even blognamed him yet. We need to do that, but the right name hasn't yet occurred so for now we'll just call him The Boy. He gets sweeter every day. His intelligence and depth excite me. He knows who he is. He makes me laugh my face off. He's one of the coziest, cuddliest boys I've ever known. We lay around for hours at a time. He compliments me more than any boy ever has. It might be hard to believe after that one terrible night of being blanked, but he actually makes me feel more confident and comfortable than anyone I've ever dated. Go figure. I guess everyone deserves a bit of honesty and a second chance.
There has yet to be A Talk about The State Of The Relationship, and that's just fine by me. Neither of us has seriously dated anyone in quite a while, so I think it's safe to assume we like each other a lot and will not be distracted by the next person who saunters onto the scene. The most serious chat we've had about those types of things has basically consisted of him saying, "I'm pretty much unoffendable and I don't get uptight about things; there's only one thing I really ask for. I don't care what you've done or where you've been - I just want you to be honest with me." I ask him if there's anything specific he wants to know, and there isn't. He just wants me to know honesty is important to him. I tell him I don't lie. I look up and to the left, which apparently means I'm lying. Maybe it's too broad a statement to say you don't lie. I mean, I generally don't. Anyway, there's nothing I want to lie to him about.
I like him a lot. He's a pretty unlikely boy for me. His musical taste is difficult for me to swallow, he lives on pb&j sandwiches and Coke, he wears Doc Martens and punk band hoodies most days, swears too much, says "dude" too much and he has an undergraduate degree in accounting. Nothing about him really adds up. We probably look like a weird couple to most people; I seem more conservative than I actually am and he seems more rebellious than he actually is but secretly we're pretty similar. We have great conversations, great makeout and snuggle sessions, great laughs. It's very well balanced.
We're spending way too much time together. I don't see myself as the one who should say she needs space, but I need space. My life takes some maintenance, that's all; I need time to keep it together. I need time to blog and study and email and do laundry and think. This weekend I'm going to a meditation retreat and he's going to Amsterdam. Friday to Sunday. "You're going to miiiiiiss me," I sing in a teasing voice, and he admits he might, maybe just a little bit.
Imagine being the first girl someone dates in four years. Pretty flattering.
Anyway... we'll see how we get on. It's pretty good for now. I like it.
It's only taken 30 years...
Posted by: lucie
...for me to learn to say "This is not how I want to be treated" and mean it. Pretty much. I mean, that's the lesson of the week. Because whatever you think about whatever I've said about the boy, take my word for it - he was acting like an ass on Friday. Really, he ignored me the whole night. He went from being Mr Mushy Attentive Loveyhead in my bed on Wednesday to Mr Way Too Cool To Talk To Me on Friday. I don't know whether it was because he had his boys around (they're hardly his tight boys anyway, I mean, he's said he doesn't feel he can particularly relate to anyone in the class, so it doesn't really seem worth showing off for them), or just some sad highschoolish way of showing me that he's not "caught" or just... whatever, whatever it was, it isn't how I want to be treated.
Maybe I'm even being too harsh. Maybe my standards for decent behavior are too high. But you know what? I really bet they're not. You know why I bet that? Because I generally let guys treat me less than well. Despite the Snarky McToughgirl routine I so often rock on here, I am pretty pathetic. I tend to make excuses for them, take their shit and think it's my own fault. And... that's just dumb.
So here's the thing. This boy, there are lots of excuses I could make for him. He's freaking out, it's been a long time, he doesn't know how to act, whatever. But he's a big boy. If he's freaked out or confused, he has options. One is to act too cool for me, as he did on Friday, and make me feel crappy. He doesn't have to follow me around all night or hold my hand or dote on me, but come on. Ignoring me all night? That's some ridiculous high school business. Did I mention he looks about 22? He was acting about as old as he looks.
The other option would be to pull himself together, act like a grownup and actually be honest. Like, rather than act too cool to buy me a drink, just admit he's out of cash. There's a pretty easy opportunity for practice - it's not even about feelings. You choose: look smug and mean but not broke, or admit you're out of cash and don't come off as a total jerk. The guy who would rather look mean than skint is not the kind of guy I want within arm's reach of my heart.
So this whole thing has been good for me. Talking to him on Saturday and telling him he made me feel crappy, that felt good. That felt like the adult thing to do. I'm not going to play games with him, be mean back, act like I don't care, give him the silent treatment or refuse to admit I'm hurt. What's the point? I'm hurt. He goes from being mushy in my bed to being mean to me in public, it hurts. Why should I be embarrassed about admitting that? And it seems that just laying it out on the table like that should be disarming enough to make someone really think about how they've acted... if they're the thinking type. Not "you're a jerk," not "you should act in a different way," not even some guilt trip - just a simple statement: "the way you acted made me feel crappy." Take that information and decide on your own what you make of it.
Then I got to thinking about why people act this way. You know, this whole "I like you but I'm going to act like I don't" routine. What is that about? Is it some kind of power thing? I mean, do people think they hold onto some kind of power or control by keeping the other person a little bit insecure or uncertain of what's going on? And it's probably true to a certain extent, but it's not the kind of power anyone should want. It's a nasty, ugly kind of power that can only be used to manipulate people by playing on their insecurities, and it's got nothing to do with romance or love or anything nice.
Why is it that some people seem to feel they're giving something up by being nice or showing they like someone? You don't lose anything. It's not as if it's some zero sum transaction (sorry, economics talk) where your own mood or self esteem have to suffer in order to give someone else's a boost. And anyway, if you're with someone who has their head halfway together, being aloof with them is certainly not going to make them like you more. It takes confidence to treat someone warmly and show your feelings for them when you're not exactly sure where you stand, I guess. But... that's attractive. And why would you do anything else if you actually liked someone anyway?
So I don't know. I like(d) him - we had a really nice time together, there was a real intimacy and I enjoyed it a lot and don't smile at the idea of letting it go, but I... yeah, I don't want to be treated the way he was treating me on Friday. I don't think he's a bad guy, I don't necessarily even know if my standards are reasonable, but I felt really insecure and crappy around him, and who wants to be intimate with someone who makes them feel that way?
But between you and me, dear Internet, I do think he's better than this and I hold out a shred of hope that he will think it through and step up his, uh, game for lack of a better word. I don't know, but I'm hoping. In the meantime I'm giving him some space. He was nice enough today at school - came in, sat down, didn't call me dude (there's progress, maybe), put some music on my laptop, smiled and made conversation and looked me in the eye and acted decent. That was a relief; last night I sat around dreading that he'd continue to be weird and that the whole situation would feel ugly. So at least we're in the clear in that respect. So far. But there's still some residual "wtf, man" on my side, so I excused myself to go do my economics reading before class started. He looked surprised. I don't think I've ever literally walked away from him before. Two reasons: 1) I never wanted to, and 2) I don't play games. But today... I dunno. I just wasn't ready for him. Didn't have the energy. Wasn't feeling up to it.
After class I grabbed my friend Lupe, who was out with us on Friday night and got to see the absolutely flabberghasted look on my face when we both got the mistaken impression that he knowingly left without saying goodbye while I was in the bathroom. Incidentally, she'd never met him before and was sitting a good three meters away from us, across a long coffee table on another couch, and the first thing she said to me when I made my way over to her that night was, "He's acting like he's in high school." Anyway, so I was catching up with her today and he was hovering, hovering, presumably waiting for me to finish talking, as if he was planning on asking me to get lunch with him or something. And I guess maybe I acted like I didn't notice, because... I dunno, I was just talking to Lupe and didn't feel like letting myself in for any more weirdness just yet. He gave up after a while and I saw/heard him go over to his friend, who was waiting, and say, "Do you want to just go?"
Maybe tomorrow. Or maybe just... not. Maybe it soured and it's a crying shame. It's certainly eaten up a lot of my energy over the last week. No regrets, though - I've learned a lot. And I feel pretty good about deciding to walk away from someone I actually really like if he continues to make me feel insecure and confused. It's a tough balance to find - the one between being open to things and knowing when to pack it in and save your feelings - but that's the only way to live, right?
So we'll see.
Losing sleep
Posted by: lucie
Last night was one of the ones where you see the clock almost every hour, and every five minutes when it comes closer to the time to wake up. The kind of night where you set two alarms because you're so nervous you'll oversleep, then it turns out you didn't need to set either because you end up counting down the last 30 minutes, one by one. And it also turns out you actually must have had a psychological block against waking up to see the new day at all, because somehow, out of two alarm clocks, you didn't manage to effectively set even one.
All that fuss for nothing, too.
This morning I had to give a presentation - nay, just a third of a presentation - in finance class. Not such a big deal. It was 10% of our class grade, which is significant but not desperately important. Basically we had to find an article from the recent financial news, do some research on the company and industry, analyze some things, extract some financial lessons for the class - generally look like we know something about finance. My two partners and I picked an article about telecoms companies in Taiwan sitting on large stacks of cash and pissing off their shareholders, who felt they deserved some dividend payments. For my part of the 10-minute presentation, I had to introduce the article, explain some background about the Taiwanese telecom industry, present the balance sheets of the three main players, throw a few numbers around and say "look, they have millions of dollars, so you can see why the shareholders are getting a bit aggressive about not getting any," then hand over to the next guy.
This scared the hell out of me. Two minutes speaking in front of about fifteen people - scared shitless. I hate presenting. I was sure I'd forget the words, stumble, repeat myself, all the rest. Typically when I have to get up and present in front of people, my hands and feet get cold, I run out of breath and have to gasp for air at awkward points in sentences, my mouth gets dry... all that crap. And that's when I actually know what I'm talking about. Finance? Forget it.
Having spent so much of this weekend being hormonal and feeling bitchy about boys, I found myself in the dark hours of Sunday evening with no energy or will to put my script together. I knew I had to do it, but no matter how deep I dug into the reserves, I came up empty. There was nothing for it but to go to bed, get up at 6 and work under caffeine-fueled pressure.
I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say it involved me pacing around the table in a meeting room talking to myself this morning, telling my team how freaked out I was about presenting and making them nervous that I was going to do a shit job. When the time came to do the presentation, guess who rocked it? No physical symptoms of nervousness, no missed words, no fumbling! It was a small miracle. After class we went up to the lecturer to ask for some feedback. "The intro was really very good," he said. "Which one of you did the intro? I forget." The boys pointed at me. "Have you done a lot of presenting before?" he asked.
"I hate presenting. It scares the living daylights out of me."
"You should do more of it."
Wahey!
It does get a bit easier every time. Someone remind me of this next time so I don't lose an entire night's sleep.
There are thoughts to share about the boy situation - the American one, that is - though they are really more thoughts about what I have realized from this whole process. Never mind what he does or doesn't do; it's my journey. I've figured some things out and have him to thank for the lessons whether he comes through and figures out how to treat me with respect or not. It looks like he's going to try, but that's not the point. The point is that I've learned things. I'll tell you about them later. For now, I'm going to take a well-deserved nap.
More where that came from
Posted by: lucie
Who are these people who try to make us feel like we're never going to meet any interesting single men once we turn 30? What a load of crap. As far as I can see, there are men all over the place. Met another one last night. After spending the day overanalyzing the American boy, I went to a house party with my flatmate. A house party full of mostly Irish people who were not MBA students or even students at all, hanging out and not talking about business or academia or their after school plans.
Anyway, I got talking to this architect. Pretty fancy, huh? I think an architect is a pretty cool thing to be. He's only a young architect, so he's not designing big fancy buildings - mostly just details on mass housing, but still, he's a creative type, right? And he was very smart and witty and funny and interesting, and he thought and spoke very creatively. Just another one of the usual lucie type, it seems: very smart, very funny, very creative and kind of awkward. Never really got around to flirting with me, per se; just talked to me all night. There was something a little bit off about him, sort of strange facial expressions and the vibe a bit askew. I couldn't tell whether it was because he was a bit drunk, or if perhaps he'd be even more askew without having a couple drinks in him. Who knows. Anyway, as the conversation progressed there was talk about him moving into a new flat he'd bought in November, and how he'd like me to see it. It takes a very sweet boy to say that he'd really like you to see his flat and avoid even the tiniest hint of sleazy intonation or implication, but he pulled it off.
As the night wound down, I realized my flatmate had pulled a girl - again (he seems to pull every time he leaves the house lately) - and said I thought I'd better be making my way home solo. He launched into some vague explanation of how he knew where my street was and was going somewhere nearby, but never quite drew a conclusion. "Are you offering to walk me home?" I asked him. He appeared relieved and said yes. We made the rounds, said our goodbyes and left. He walked awkwardly, I thought. Nervously. When we got to the end of my street I said we could part ways as he was continuing on and I was only a half a block away. I thanked him for walking me home and waited for him to ask for my number. He kind of tried but didn't quite seem to know how to pull it off.
"So, I will be having this flatwarming party in November... if... you'd like to come."
(long pause.)
me, slightly amused: "Would you like my phone number?"
him, dead relieved: "That would be nice."
There's the problem, really. Confident boys, they might suddenly start ignoring you one night. Nice boys, they don't even know how to ask you for your phone number. And whichever variety you choose, socially inept boys, which seem to be my specialty, take a lot of effort. You have to lead them through things.
Then I came home, saw Dalas's actually very kind and reassuring comment on my last post telling me not to jump too quickly to any conclusions about the American boy, and replied in a tipsy, Snarky McToughgirl fashion about how I will wait and see what he does but I just don't have time for this shit. I don't, really, but Dalas has a very fair point. And unfortunately I'm still thinking about the American boy, so... I guess there's not much for it but to wait and see what he does. It's a bit weird that he doesn't think he was acting strange. That's all at once positive and negative. Good because he wasn't trying to be a jerk or play games with me, I guess; bad because it could be an indication of what type of behavior to expect from him, and this is not the way I really wish to be treated. It sounds snobby and bratty to say that, but I do need to learn to draw those lines. What's the point of making excuses for people when ultimately you only have to decide whether you're happy when you're around them?
Big questions. For now, they do not matter; tonight, the only thing that matters is financial analysis of Taiwanese Telecomms companies. So who needs boys?
You have got to be kidding me
Posted by: lucie
That was the most-repeated line of last night. You've got to be kidding me. You have got to be kidding me. Because the boy, after spending most of the night ignoring me, left the Friday night soiree without saying goodbye. When I was in the bathroom. Yeah, the same boy who spent Wednesday night here being all mushy and sweet and all the rest. Left. Without saying goodbye. He also, at one point in the evening, came up next to me at the bar, got served before me, bought himself a drink and didn't buy me one.
You have got to be kidding me.
Anyone want to vote on him right now?
Okay, so it's actually a lot more complicated than that. As it turns out, he didn't leave without saying goodbye. Well he did, but he didn't think he did. He thought I'd left him there. His boys were pestering him to leave, he looked around and didn't see me, and they went. This came out today over coffee. A coffee date initiated by me in order to clear the air and figure out what the hell happened. I came home last night more than a bit upset and bitched to my flatmate about how the boy had turned out to be a complete asshole and done exactly what I half expected him to do after he spent the night here the first time, only delayed it a week. Idiot. Generally acted too cool and then left while I was in the bathroom.
Anyway. So I bitch and I bitch to my flatmate and say I don't know what has changed since Wednesday, I come up with all kinds of theories about what might have been wrong with him, get all kinds of angry, and in the end decide I can only really be responsible for my own actions and feelings. In this case, I figure, I have two things to tell the boy. First, if I have done anything to upset him and make him act so weird, that I am sorry and hope he would be honest about it. Second, that the way he acted made me feel shitty. It's not my place to judge how he chooses to behave or speculate about why he did what he did; that's as far as I go. Also, life is too short to sit around wondering what the hell happened and why someone acted weird, so we may as well have a chat and get it sorted out because we're going to have to see each other every weekday for the next year.
Text: "I'm at school catching up on studying. Think you might have a few minutes for coffee or a walk and a chat?"
Text back: "That's funny, I was going to ask you the same thing. Give me half an hour and I'll meet you at school."
Okay. So he's concerned, I guess, and agrees we need to talk. So he's not a complete ignoramus, quite. Or maybe he just doesn't even realize anything is wrong. Then he texts again: "Do you have your laptop with you?" This, I can safely assume, is because he wants to give me music. So... yeah, he maybe doesn't realize anything is wrong. He is a piece of work.
We meet up and walk to the coffee shop, sit down, order. Finally he says, "So what happened to you last night?"
"What happened to me? I was still there when you left!"
"I looked around and couldn't find you."
"I was in the bathroom when you left."
"Uh oh. I'm a bastard."
Yeah. I tell him I wasn't very happy with him last night, and not just for that. He was pretty much blanking me all night, I tell him. Hardly had two words for me at any point. It was so notable that I'd actually turned to him early in the evening and asked, "Are you alright? I mean, have I missed something?" and he just shrugged and said everything was fine. He wasn't acting fine. He was acting like he couldn't care less that I was in the room. But I just say I think he'd been acting weird and basically blanking me all night. He is surprised. "I talked to you," he says. "Yeah, when I talked to you first," I tell him, "But you kind of acted like you didn't really want to."
He says he was tired, that the music was too loud, that he couldn't hear what anyone was saying, that he was sick (this is true, he's getting sick), and that he didn't think he was acting weird.
Which is... you know, kind of tough to respond to, because he totally was.
Oh, and then the drink thing. I wasn't going to bring it up, but he apologizes for it and confesses that he hadn't had enough cash left to buy me a drink and was too embarrassed to say so. He could have just told me, I point out. It's not like I wouldn't have understood. He looks at me as though I am crazy to suggest that he should have humiliated himself in such a way. "I thought you were being mean," I tell him. "Don't you think it would have been better to admit you were out of money, rather than me thinking you were just being a jerk?"
Oh. Right.
"I can't believe you don't think you were acting weird. Well anyway, there were two things I was going to tell you. The first one was that if I'd done anything to upset you or -"
"No, I would tell you."
"Okay, good. And the second is, you know, the way you were acting made me feel pretty shitty."
"I'm sorry."
So there we are. He also, in the course of the conversation, realizes that he has failed to introduce me to a friend of his for the second week in a row, and again says, "I'm a bastard," which I like hearing since he has been acting like one, though it's small consolation. We hang out for an hour or so and chat about school and jobs and other odds and ends, then go our separate ways to study. I hug him goodbye. Maybe he was thinking about kissing me goodbye; it's hard to tell. I realize I've not really given him a chance to make the decision. But I don't feel much like kissing him anyway.
I don't know about him anymore. I mean, the main sticking points were misunderstandings at best (it's good that he didn't intentionally bail while I was in the bathroom), bad judgments at worst (the drink thing was awful), but he really did act completely socially inept last night. And you know what it comes down to? He made no effort. He's also about the only person who didn't bother to tell me that I looked nice (I wore a dress). Generally he seemed like he couldn't care less that I was around. It was some serious high school shit, in my opinion. If this is the way it's going to be, he's just too cool for me, man.
Here's the thing, right? A boy makes a big fuss over you and tells you he hasn't dated anyone in four years. He says he's clumsy with women and awkward because it's been a while. He tells you he's always been a bit of a loner and isn't overly comfortable in social situations. He keeps wanting to see you, and you're the first girl in four years he's wanted to see much of, so you could probably have some degree of confidence that he likes you. And you could forgive some slips and stumbles along the way. But none of this exempts him from the obligation to show that he likes you, because that's part of how romance works, not to mention just good manners. Jeez, man. Come on.
It's disappointing. I wouldn't say it's a completely lost cause yet, but he's going to have to pull himself together. Maybe he doesn't know how; maybe he doesn't like me enough to bother. But if he's still interested, and if he has half a brain, he needs to come up with something good right about now. Like a goddamn mixtape or at least a reasonably well thought-out date offer that doesn't rely on alcohol. If not, he's going to be getting the "think you're just a bit too cool for me, let's be friends" talk by the end of the week.
How hard is this, honestly? Boys are freaking slow sometimes.
Boy stuff, school stuff
Posted by: lucie
See how boy stuff comes first in the title of this entry? That's what's been happening this week. School stuff has taken a bit of a hit, I'm afraid. Many reading assignments and tutorial exercises have slipped through the cracks. Saturday when I should have been studying all day I was recovering from a hangover and a night of little sleep because I brought a boy home on Friday; last night I left school directly after class with said boy to go see Peaches do her raunchy clubby thang, then stayed out until midnight, brought him home again and stayed up until 3. Well, what can you do? This is the fun part, right? Early days. You have to enjoy it.
We're having a good time. It's still in the slightly awkward phase where levels of intimacy have major peaks and troughs: alone in bed, pretty high - back at school the next day, crash. In fact, we hardly speak to each other at school. We never really did speak to each other at school before our extracurricular activities began, and it would seem kind of cheesey to start running around joined at the hip just because we're hanging out... But it also seems funny not to manage a conversation all day.
We might have done it today if he'd shown up at school. Too bad I coerced him into spending the night when he thought perhaps he should go home, thereby robbing him of any chance of a good night's sleep. There he was trying to be all responsible and respectful of my whole 'let's not sleep together until we know each other better and will definitely feel comfortable' kind of thing, and did I let him go? No. I insisted that he stay and snuggle and make out with me; I said we'd just go to sleep and everything would be fine, that we'd set the alarm in time for school and not miss a class. Selfish me - I had a warm boy in my bed and didn't give a damn about his impending frustration, nor the fact that he'd have to get up early to get home, shower and change before class. We set the alarm for 6.30 (for a 9am class) and he did leave on time, but apparently he made the mistake of laying down when he got back to his place. He then missed an economics tutorial, statistics class, economics lecture, accounting tutorial and 2 hour operations management lecture.
Oops.
No one ever would have guessed that I'd end up being the bad influence on him, I can guarantee you. You might be surprised, but I think I have a little bit of a reputation for being a study nerd. I definitely do, actually. Got 'em fooled.
Anyway, we had a good time. This whole 'let's not sleep together just yet' thing is kind of exciting. Not to make myself sound like a complete hussy - and will the jury please note that I have slept with just three men in the past five years - but I've never really done this waiting thing. It's a good idea. He's being very chill about it, and seems to feel the same way to a certain extent because it's been years since he got involved with anyone. Last night he was lamenting that he felt really clumsy because it had been so long. He still knows exactly what he's doing as far as I can tell (feel), but a bit of time to settle in isn't hurting him either.
That said, this can only go on for so long. It's not a reasonable thing to do to a boy. So something's probably going to have to give.
Anyway, that's boy stuff. More later, I'm sure, as it seems to be developing. There's also this other thing in my life, which takes up about five thousand hours of my week, called an MBA. It sure has been rolling along recently! This week I had to write an ethics paper about bribery of public officials in foreign countries. It was a group project, which made it especially fascinating; when you have people from developing countries in your group, you get some interesting perspectives. Most of them thought what the hell, it's just what you have to do to get by in those countries - but I'm happy to say we ended up deciding to take the moral high ground. We put forward a cheesey, idealistic Kantian argument for refusing to pay bribes, then set up and shot down arguments from perspectives of utilitarianism and ethical egoism. The five of us outlined it together, I wrote it, people made their edits and that was that. Other groups apparently had some real ego clashes, but ours was classy. Except for the one guy who just didn't turn up to either of our meetings. I'll tell you about him later.
Next up, aside from the reading with which I am inundated each and every day, not to mention the statistics assignments that have been piling up, there's a group presentation (me and two other guys) in finance on Monday morning. We have to take a story from recent finance news and do some analysis of the companies involved, point out general financial lessons and more or less sound like we know what we're talking about. Luckily one guy in my group actually does, since he works for a bank and knows his excel ninja style backwards and forwards. Basically, he's doing most of the thinking and I'm putting together the powerpoint presentation.
You know, you do the heavy lifting in some groups (ethics) and take a back seat in others (finance)... people generally seem to be pretty understanding.
I've probably never had occasion to mention here just how much I hate public speaking. I sure hate it. Even when I think I'm okay, even when my thoughts are calm and I don't think I'm emotional, I get up in front of peope to speak and my body lets me know just what it thinks. My voice gets shaky, palms sweaty, hands and feet cold - it's really very ridiculous. My finance class has only about 15 people in it, and three of us will be presenting, so I'm only facing 12 of my peers. This will not seem like a big deal to me until my body flips out on Monday morning.
Well, it's a learning experience. I need practice.
Anyway, ladies and gentlemen, that's really about all I can tell you right now. Powerpoint beckons. I can't wait for the weekend.
Margaret Atwood
Posted by: lucie
Ah, what a brilliant, refreshing hour and a half, just sitting there listening to an amazing woman read and speak and reflect on writing, women and life. Here was my favorite part:
Q: "Do you think the Handmaid's Tale could be considered, in any way, a bit prophetic?"
A: "Well, what is prophecy but an analysis of the present? No one can predict the future; no one has done it yet. One thing I was very deliberate about that book was that I didn't put anything in it that hadn't been done by human beings in the past."
There were also mentions of shoes, though none quite as witty as the comment Ritchey and La Foi mentioned. Still, shoe talk.
Life is dense and moves quickly these days; in 30 minutes I shall attend a marketing lecture, and after that I'm off to the train station with the boy. We'll be spending several hours together so we'd better come up with something to talk about. We awkwardly avoid each other at school. I guess that still falls within the realm of cute, nervous, like each other, but I'm looking forward to breaking through to a new comfort level.
Get closer
Posted by: lucie
Okay, we can talk about him now. We're in the clear; very low readings on the freakometer. No freaking at all, in fact - just normal and actually rather cute early-stages-of-mutual-attraction nervousness. Good for him. Standup guy. Knows what he thinks. Fair enough - I guess I should have given him more credit. I asked if he might freak out in the morning when he was here and he said "Come on, I'm an old dude, I know what I'm doing even when I've been drinking. It'll be cool."
In fairness, though, a lot of guys would say that and then proceed to freak right out. We've all seen it before, have we not, ladies?
Anyway, he showed up at school a bit early for class today, possibly even to get a chance to see me and make sure everything was cool - a bit of chatty "how was your weekend" was quickly followed up by him leaning in and saying in a low voice (which is funny given how forward he was being on Friday night, sitting there with his hand on my knee and saying he "didn't give a fuck" what anyone thought - have I mentioned how much he swears? Except it's somehow funny.), "You know what, I'm a complete dick - I didn't even get your phone number. I was going to call you for coffee."
Which would have been the perfect thing to do. And it's the thought, right? So everything was cool. I mean, not entirely comfortable, familiar cool, because I think we both felt like we might have skipped too quickly to a certain level of intimacy, but we also had the comfort of knowing we agreed on that count. So we were cool, neither of us overly presumptuous, both polite and warm and interested and slightly nervous, and that went on for a few minutes of casual chat before we were hit with hours of classes. At the end of the day I invited him for a coffee.
Oh, the coffee was silly. We had a totally lame conversation about school, pretty much, and it went nowhere. We were completely boring. It was awkward, but in a cute way, I guess. I mean, in that sort of painful early-stages-of-intimacy between people who hardly know each other and don't know exactly how to act kind of way, which is really kind of sweet because it means you like each other. We were both worn out from school so it was a quick coffee, and when we parted ways I kissed him on the cheek. Kind of funny to kiss someone on the cheek when you've spent hours in bed with them, but life isn't always straightforward, I suppose.
It's been a long time since I had chemistry with a nice single boy who actually lived in the same city as me. It's been a VERY long time since I snuggled up with a boy and just enjoyed the warmth and closeness and made out for hours and laughed and joked. And I don't think I've ever been with someone who wrapped his arms around me, pulled me as close to him as he possible could and then said, passionately but sweetly, "Get closer. Just... get closer."
That felt pretty good.
Oh gosh, a boy spent the night
Posted by: lucie
Goodness gracious, yes, there was a boy here last night. The American boy - the one who asked me out.
Hm.
Hmmmm.
I think I like him.
I didn't mean for him to spend the night. There was alcohol involved - long night out last night. We didn't sleep together. Oh, and guess what? He's 28! This was a great relief, given that he looks about 22.
Okay, my thoughts are a little scattered right now.
It all felt very incredibly comfortable, but he left rather quickly this morning. I'm slightly concerned that he might have been a bit freaked out. Turns out this guy hasn't had anything to do with women for years. Something like three or four years. I do know how to pick them, don't I? Had a girlfriend for a long time, broke up, went through a rampant single phase and decided he was not taking it as seriously as he should have; had a reality check when he hurt someone and decided it was time to step back completely. So he did... for a few years. Apparently he decided about a year ago that there's no sense avoiding something completely, that it doesn't mean you're in control if you do, but still nothing happened until, I guess, uh, me.
And he did ask me out, so it's not like this just suddenly happened last night... and we did talk at length about things last night and took great pains to move slowly (it got difficult); neither one of us was even entirely comfortable with the idea of him spending the night at first. We were just going to sleep. Well, of course there ended up being a lot of making out, because hey, we're only human. But it wasn't uncomfortable. I think we both enjoyed ourselves. A lot. We certainly sobered up along the way, so he shouldn't have been shocked to wake up in my bed. And we even asked each other last night whether either of us would freak out in the morning, and both of us said we wouldn't.
Still, I think he freaked out a little. We finally got to sleep at about 6. Not quality sleep, really - you know how these things go. At 8 we woke up and he said very suddenly that he had to go - go home, take a shower, get some sleep, meet someone from the course at 10 to work on an ethics assignment. And he commented about how drunk he'd been last night. And he was out the door within about five minutes. He left fast. So I don't know. We seem to have hit a glitch. Or maybe it's a non-starter. Who knows.
We don't have each other's phone numbers. We see each other every weekday, so... yeah. I would have at least sent him a text or something, but it looks like we just won't be seeing each other until Monday - by which time the gossip will have got around (people saw us leave together and weren't shy about commenting) and... yeah, could be awkward.
So anyway, I'm not going to tell you anything great about him just yet; I'm not going to get excited about him just yet. We'll stay out of that territory until we figure out whether the freakout is temporary or he actually woke up and thought better of the whole thing. And I guess it could be a few days before we have an answer on that. So... yeah.
Hmm.
It's raining men
Posted by: lucie
There seems to be a lot going on with me and men these days. I'm not quite sure why it's shaking out this way, or what vibes I'm putting out to bring all these man situations into my world, or whether perhaps it's actually, in this case, more situational than anything, but there it is. There are men all over the place. Smarmy men, nice men, married men, men I live with, men I've gone off of, younger men I wish were older, and still the man far, far away, up on a pedestal of soft-focus perfection. 32 flavors when you add them up, but only a couple worth more than a taste.
Part of it is just the proportion of men to women on the course, I think; it brings out a certain level of machismo. Fine example: I became good friends with a married guy - a long-term, happily married guy, I'm led to believe - quite early in the course. He's funny and we fell into an entertaining, flirty banter fairly quickly, but it seemed innocent. I met his wife. I even clarified one night that I only flirted with him because he was married, and therefore safe, and that I meant no disrespect to his wife. He said he understood, that she trusted him, that he was happily married and respectable and we would have no misunderstandings or awkwardness. And so it continued for a week, maybe two weeks, but now it's weird. We used to make a witty, quick, charming little team but these days it's more about me toeing the line of appropriateness and him trying and trying to cross it. Yesterday he actually asked whether I'd date him if he were single. Haven't thought about it, I told him. So think about it, he said. I said it was an inappropriate question and I didn't like him asking it. He agreed and looked a bit ashamed, but only a bit. Moral of the story: don't flirt with married men. There's no such thing as "safe." Lesson learned - I never should have gone there in the first place. Now it's uncomfortable, feels somehow disrespectful both to me and to his wife, and it's my own fault. The next time he says something dodgy I'm sitting him right down for A Talk.
Anyway, we should have something a bit sweet to follow that, right? So here we go: I have a guy friend from India who isn't really used to having female friends at all. Cultural differences - grand, aren't they? He's constantly putting his foot in his mouth and getting all jumpy and nervous around me because he's just not accustomed to kicking it with girls. Yesterday he confessed to me that I was the first female friend he'd ever had. "The first woman, I married," he said. "Then, you know, that's it. So you are my first friend who is a girl." He's still feeling around in the dark for appropriate behaviors, but of course you forgive the missteps. He caught up with me in the hallway today on the way to a class. "Do you - can I - compliment, would you like a compliment?" he asked. I thought about this for a moment, weighed the possibilities of whether it would be dodgy or not, figured it would be alright and said sure. "You look very beautiful today," he said with a grin.
Just pray we stay in sweet territory on that one and avoid the move into dodgy married man territory.
Finally, ladies and gentleman, for a refreshing bit of totally normal news, I kind of have a date. Yes, the kind where you actually go and partake in some kind of social activity with one person who is actually single and actually had the balls to ask you. I'm taking a train to another city next week to see a certain electro-sleaze rap queen from the US by way of Berlin with an American boy who is probably too young for me. I don't know how old he is, exactly, but I'm guessing I'd be lucky if he added up to 28. Spies have been instructed to subtly extract this information. I don't know, I don't know, he might be a baby but there's something about him I really like. He's an individual. He's the only other person in my class who has expressed an interest in working for the not-for-profit sector and giving something back to society, which is cool. He does his own thing, dresses his own way, seems very relaxed but is clearly sharp... And he gazed at me with a look of wonder the other day when I schooled the study group boys on economics. I found it very cute that he found it attractive that a girl could school a bunch of boys on economics. Anyway, we'd talked about the show before the study group kicked off. He already had his ticket and didn't invite me to come along at the time, but a couple of days later he made some small talk in the lobby and came out with it rather suddenly. Do you want to come see that show with me? Before I knew it I'd accepted, and it seemed a lot like a date. Oh, it's vague enough that if it turned out to be awkward we could both pretend it was never really a date, but it's a date. He wouldn't take any money for the ticket.
We'll have an hour-long train ride each way, so I hope we get on well. Truth be told, I've spent a total of maybe 15 minutes talking to the guy. He says "dude" and "sweet" a lot and I have to admit to having dismissed him fairly quickly when I first met him - American boys do sound a bit funny when you haven't been around them for a while. You know, we probably won't get married, but... what the hell. He's sweet and smart and actually tall and pretty adorable, if in a 21-year-old-looking way, and - most importantly, he asked, which is incredibly refreshing. I mean, sheesh.
Oh, and my flatmate? That is totally calming down. He's still a bit high maintenance, but my God, women are swarming all over him. Seriously, three different girls have thrown themselves at him this week, and another one is coming to stay for the weekend! Serious delirium. Don't ask me. He still texted me twice over the weekend, said he'd missed me when I got home, and texted me tonight after my meditation group to ask when I was going to get a drink with him even though I've told him a million times that I hardly drink and don't particularly want to 'go drinking' with him, but... well, it's better, anyway. The puppy dog face is pretty much gone. Things are looking up.
By the way...
Posted by: lucie
Yeah, for the record, that last post was totally melodramatic. I mean, big deal. I just went off him. So what, right? This happens when your attractions are based on such fickle dimensions as, well, lust and drunken conversation. What, you expect it to be intact a year later? That's not how life works. It's not as though this means I'm suddenly too spiritual to have sex in a hotel room. Right? Right.
Okay, maybe slightly less able to enjoy shallow sex in hotel rooms, but maybe that's more a function of being thirty.
I schooled my study group compadres on economics tonight. It was fun. After about a half an hour of listening to them yelling made-up theories across the table in an attempt to answer tutorial questions when they hadn't really understood the reading, I just got up and started drawing graphs and writing out equations on the whiteboard and explaining what they were missing. Naturally I am totally full of myself now, not half because they're supposed to be the educated ones and were looking at me with these goofy 'wow, the girl is rocking us' smiles on their faces. It's cool, but I keep forgetting about humility.
So, the M conference was very fascinating. It's funny to think that the original idea, if the rumors I'm given are accurate, was that the great and the good would get together and figure out how to save the world, because these days it's more like an excuse for smart people to get together and drink a lot (and try to get into each other's beds. Someone usually thinks to set off the fire alarm at 2am to see who comes out of whose hotel room). Sounds so snobby, but I couldn't help feeling like being a kid in a candy shop this past weekend. Half of the time, anyway. You'll probably not be surprised to know that the top 2% of the population, as judged by IQ tests, do not necessarily fall in the top 2% (or 50%) when it comes to social skills. So one minute you're on cloud nine having amazing conversations, and the next you're cornered by some loony tunes conspiracy theorist who just hasn't learned to deal with the RPMs of his own mind. Which of course isn't that hard to sympathize with.
I can't help but find it somehow precious and endearing. At the risk of sounding arrogant or overly confident or whatever a person ends up sounding like when they speak about people with high IQs and implicitly include themselves in that population, there is something really comforting about being in the presence of people who were always a little bit too sharp, and always thought a bit too hard, to quite fit in. And there's something sweet about an environment where everyone makes a bit more of an allowance for eccentricity, and everyone looks out for each other because there's always a high chance you'll need to be rescued from some guy who backs you into a corner and talks at you for half an hour about electric cars or the CIA or god knows what. It's a gratifying peek at a truth that is easy to forget, which is basically that... You know, if your brain is fast you can get yourself into a lot of trouble and end up living in a little bubble of your own and looking really crazy to most people. To avoid that is a challenge and an accomplishment. You also realize that having a high IQ is not the same thing as being able to think, and even being able to think isn't the same thing as being able to think constructively... and there's a ridiculous range of people from one end of the spectrum to the other. High odds, and some real gems, but no guarantees. It's fascinating and exhilarating to be surrounded by so many Aspergers types who are so exceptionally sharp and logical that they leave you wondering where emotion fits into life at all, and why we give it so much credence anyway.
They don't have many events going on in my city, and it's a shame- really, they're a good crowd. It would be nice.
Flung
Posted by: lucie
It's Saturday night as I write this, though it probably won't be posted until later, and I'm feeling kind of lonely and empty, which is not what I was expecting to be feeling this weekend. It was supposed to be hot. It was supposed to be kind of gratifying in a compartmentalized, purely sexual way. It was supposed to take care of all of those needs so I could get on with life without them getting in the way. Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to work like that anymore. I don't seem to work like that anymore. To hell with deep thinking, meditation and true understanding of the angles. It makes life a pain in the ass.
You know how the more you get into music of a particular genre, the more you learn to recognize skilled songwriting or production or musicianship, the harder it is to just go out to a club or show and dance or listen and have a good time? You end up with two extremes: deep appreciation or deep disappointment. I'm getting to be that way with people. I'm so bloody picky I don't know what to do with myself. All I was supposed to do this weekend was have a few drinks, have some good chats with M people and basically get my hedonistic kicks out of Matt. That's what Matt is good for. Or he was, anyway. Unfortunately my heart is so conspicuously not in it that I couldn't enjoy myself. It felt like going through the motions. It felt awful, in fact. It felt sad.
The same man who completely rocked my world last year, totally turned my universe upside down and changed my conception of what good sex actually meant, the same man with the same skills, I couldn't wait to be rid of him last night. This morning I pretended to be asleep for as long as I could, and when my body language finally betrayed my awakened state and he pounced on me I just had to tell him I wasn't comfortable with the whole thing anymore. "You didn't seem too uncomfortable last night," he said, which was awkward since I had in fact been entirely uncomfortable - just putting up a good front for his sake. It had felt empty. "Listen, it's not you at all. The best sex I've ever had in my life has been with you," I told him. "So don't take it personally. Things have just changed with me and I'm not comfortable with this anymore."
Suddenly he wants to hear all about these retreats and what I've been doing with myself for the past year. He never cared that much before, but that's the sex-driven type for you; put it in this context and even spirituality becomes interesting. If it can stop a girl wanting to sleep with you anymore, there must be something to it. Of course I can't try to explain any of it to him because these are just not things he thinks about.
I think I might simply be over sex with people I don't love at least a little bit. This could prove to be a big hurdle because I don't see myself falling in love with anyone any time soon. I can't even begin to imagine it happening. I don't even hang out with any single men. Maybe that's something I should work on changing. Anyone want to take bets on whether I will or not? Three words as hints: finance, statistics, accounting.
