A Just Us Friends Thing

No post from me yesterday. Sorry about that. I was just at a loss for what to write. I had a lot I wanted to say but wasn’t quite sure how to say it. I guess I’ll take a stab at it today and see what happens…. So Wednesday night I skipped out on “Star Wars” at the Arclight to go have dinner at my friend Michael’s place. He and I have gone through some bad things recently and all of our “discussions” have been over the phone, so we really needed to sit down and talk in person. Now Michael is a fun guy; seriously one of the funniest people I have ever been around. He is also one of the nicest, most down-to-earth people you could ever meet. He is just an all-around good guy. He is also sometimes brutally honest. He does not like to dance around issues or play games. He comes right out and says what he thinks or feels. That’s both good and bad. Good because I think people should be honest with each other. Bad because sometimes the truth is the last thing you really want to hear. I’m great at listening to other people’s problems; mainly because that keeps me from having to deal with my own. I knew before going over there that Michael and I were going to talk about everything that’s been going on the last few weeks, but honestly I figured he’d talk and I’d just listen and nod in the right places. Apparently not… So lemme back up a little to earlier that day. Michael and I had not spoken since Sunday and we had sort of left things open-ended and had no real plans to talk again or see each other or whatever. So when he called me on Wednesday afternoon (fortunately I was in a cell zone at the time) and asked me to come over for dinner, I was kinda surprised. So I fixed my hair and actually put on some makeup and went over to his place, honestly not knowing what to expect. The evening could have turned into anything from a knock-down-drag-out-call-the-cops kinda fight, to kinky sex on his back patio, to just nice quiet conversation, to playing video games in his basement, to me licking melted chocolate off his bare chest at 4 o’clock in the morning. It turned out to be none of those things. (Although the chocolate thing definitely would have gotten my vote ;) Ummm… so anyway…dinner was amazing. He is a hell of a cook and he made me some of the best gnocchi I’ve ever had. We had some great wine. (Somebody please tell me when I turned into a wine drinker. I never used to touch this stuff.) He was kind of quiet all through dinner, which was odd because normally you can’t pay him to stop talking. I’m the quiet one, not him. Still, we had a nice conversation about my move to LA and his recent trip to New York and just generic stuff like that. After dinner, the conversation got much more serious. His roommate was out of town so we had the place to ourselves which again was good and bad. Good because we could actually talk and say what needed to be said without anyone else getting involved, and bad because this was not a conversation I wanted to have. I’ve mentioned in previous posts how much I like this guy. We have a lot in common and just relate to each on so many levels. It feels like I’ve known him forever and I’ve never been shy around him which is usually a big problem for me. That’s partially why the last few weeks have been so hard on me. Aside from the stress of moving across the country, leaving behind my friends and family in Atlanta, not having my horse around, etc, I’ve also been really upset that Michael and I were in such a bad place. I’ve missed having him to talk to. He was definitely one of the added bonuses of my move to LA. We were actually going to get to finally spend some time together, and then shortly before I left, it all started to unravel. It was a series of things that led to the problems. I’m not going to get into exactly what happened. That’s between Michael and me, but some of it was his fault and some of it was mine. Mostly it was me. I know that. I don’t like to burden other people with my problems and so I just don’t talk about them, even when I probably should. That’s sort of what happened here. I didn’t talk to him about something and he translated that into thinking I had lied to him. It led to some ugly arguments. Wednesday night could have been more of the same, but actually it ended up being worse. I would have preferred to fight with him. I can hold my own in an argument. Instead he wanted to have a serious discussion about relationships, and finding your soul mate, and casual sex, and having children, and those kinds of things. He asked me a lot of questions about what I saw in my future as far as career and family and I hate those kinds of questions. My answers tend to sound very selfish, especially these days. I’m still adjusting to my new life out here. I’m not looking past the next few months right now and that’s what he wanted me to do. He also asked a bunch of those “what if” questions that I loathe. A lot of them had to do with kids. He wants a whole herd of them. I don’t. Anyone who knows me knows that I’ve always been pretty adamant about not having kids. My concession has always been, “Maybe I’ll have one.” Having a child is not something I absolutely have to do with my life to make me feel complete. If it happens, I’m ok with it. If not, then I accept that it’s not something I’m supposed to do. I’m 34 now, so saying I only want one seems a more reasonable answer these days. And there’s no question that if I’m going to have a kid, it needs to happen in the next few years. I don’t see myself as one of those 40 year old women with a newborn. I’m definitely more likely to end up with a kid than a husband though. I can’t imagine some guy optionally putting up with neurotic me for the rest of his life. A kid wouldn’t have a choice though. Generally speaking you’re sorta stuck with your mom for life :) However, I don’t know that either is in the cards for me. I can barely take care of myself sometimes so I just don’t think of myself as being a good a wife or mother. Maybe I’m wrong and I’d be great at both. Who knows? Still, I’m like everyone else; of course I think about it from time to time. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t, but at dinner on Wednesday night it was not something I wanted to think about and it was certainly not something I wanted to talk about. What it finally came down to is that Michael has been doing a lot of that kind of thinking lately. He’s at a point in his life where he’s ready to settle down at least a little. He may not be ready to get married yet, but he wants a girlfriend that he can come home to every night. He wants someone that he can love with all his heart and all his soul and give the world to, and someone who will do the same in return. I wish I could be that girl, but we all know I’m not that girl. Not for him anyway. He said so and sadly, I agree with him. It still hurt to hear him say it. How fucking irrational is that? I like Michael. A lot. But I am finally doing something with my life for myself. I’m not ready to play “the girlfriend” role that he’s looking to cast. He travels a lot, and does not want to do the long-distance thing, and so to give him the kind of relationship he wants would mean giving up my identity and what I want in order to support him and be with him. I can’t do that, and he knows me better than most, so he said he knew better than to even ask. As much as I like him, I know that he’s not the person I’m destined to live “happily ever after” with, and that’s what he’s looking for. So we’re back to just being friends and that’s it. It won’t even be a “friends with benefits” kind of thing. He can’t be fucking me while he’s out searching for his soul mate and that’s fine. I get that. I like being friends with him and don’t want to make things more complicated than they already are. The sex was great, but it really did just complicate things in this case. There are some people you can have that kind of relationship with and everything works out just fine. There are others you can’t. It really depends on the personalities of the people involved. This was a situation where it wouldn’t have worked. It would have just led to further ugliness and ultimately would have destroyed our friendship. It’s weird. It sorta feels like breaking up even though we’ll still be friends, and we were never really dating in the first place, so I know it shouldn’t feel like that. Well, no one ever said relationships of any kind (especially with me) were easy. Even the good ones tend to get warped and twisted somehow. I swear I don’t do this shit on purpose. It does make things interesting, but interesting doesn’t always mean fun…

“You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.” – Dr Seuss