It is possible that I am in love. I swear to God, after so many false alarms and let-downs since 2001, there is a part of me that never wants to hear those words come out of my mouth again. It's almost like saying them jinxes it, and I hate that. There have been so many incredibly disappointing love-like experiences, I feel scared sometimes that I don't even know what it means anymore.
This one is weird though. I don't know if anything will ever come of it. Uh, which makes it typical, I guess. But I am freaking out constantly about it in a nervous, 15 year old way. It feels a lot like when I would "fall in love" in high school, actually, before I met my first real boyfriend.
I guess it's a crush that is on the verge of MAYBE becoming real.
I know, I know, stop making such definitive statements.
I feel the need to be vague about this. I don't know why. I know he'll never find this, and even if he did, he would know it was him just by the details. I don't know. Maybe it doesn't feel good to expose everything. Even though I like to expose myself. And not in a child-molester kind of way, either.
I think some flirting that started out completely as a joke might have sort of accidentally become real in some odd way. It's bizarre how that happens. One second, he was making lewd jokes about me and him doing it. Then they were not so lewd jokes about us dating. Then there was us lying in the dark talking for real, my fingers in his hair, which is never a good thing for my will to keep something platonic. The morning after that when we woke up, I was so freaked out and also somehow embarrassed that I left without saying goodbye to anyone just so I didn't have to see him.
That was a month ago. For a few days after that I thought about him, but decided it really wouldn't be good to even entertain the possibility of anything with him. There are some factors that would be at play if something were to happen between us that are very risky. I'm not sure he's a good risk when it comes to possible bad outcomes.
And also, of course, my self-doubt/self-loathing came out from wherever it's been hiding and kicked my ass again. There was liquor involved (isn't there always?) and I convinced myself that there was no way he had an actual interest in me.
Anyway, I let it go and have been really friendly to him since then. I see him often, and since I really like him and always have, I'm happy to talk to him and see him and all that. There has been some more lewd joke-making, and references to us going out, and him asking me jokingly to be his date for things. Nothing I took seriously. In fact... my brother even told me that he didn't think this guy is good for me, and I tend to respect his opinion a lot.
Actually, that was just last week, that my brother told me that. I guess he could sense something going on between me and this guy. It shook me up a little, that he felt the need to actually say that to me. So I sort of decided to wall off my feelings for this guy and trust my head (or other people's heads, I guess, as the case may be) which... well this is hard. When my brother told me that he felt that way about me and this guy, I sort of figured that he'd been fucking with me, and that is what my brother was trying to tell me. I think I was hurt. Actually, I was definitely hurt somehow. So I was sort of cool to him, the guy, that is, after that.
Friday night we were at a party together. All three of us, actually. And Andy, that's what we'll call him, the guy, Andy, was by me the whole night. There were a lot of other places he could have been. Andy has never come right out and said he likes me, or that he wants to date me. It's always safely disguised in a joke, or followed up with a laugh, or something like that so that if pressed he could deny it.
It got really late, the party wound down, we were trashed, both of us. We went to the bar nearby with everyone, but only for a few minutes. Then Andy asked me if I wanted to sleep over at his place. Maybe he thought I had to drive home, to Chicago, or something and not five blocks to my mom's house. I don't know. But anyway, we ended up back at his house and in bed together.
I wish I still had the ability to adequately capture my feelings in words. It feels like I've lost it. I don't know how to convey how the way he acted toward me made me feel. I started to fall asleep with my clothes on, and he made me change into a pair of his flannel pajamas. When he laid down with me, he flung his arm out to the side like it was a given that I was going to put my head on his shoulder and my arm around his belly, and I did. We laid there for three hours, talking, in various positions of snuggle. We never even kissed. Everytime I moved he followed me until finally we fell asleep, me on my back and him, with his arm across my chest and his leg bent over my stomach. There was a moment in there, somewhere, maybe a second or two after the thrill of realizing he was holding me like that wore off. His breath was on my face and my hand was on his thigh and it felt so fucking good. Like the best feeling in the world. And I thought to myself, "I never want this to end." I honestly couldn't help it. There was a warm feeling that spread over me. It felt like I had been injected with something right in my solar plexus and it was making its way through my veins until it just completely enveloped me. I was so... something in that moment. I don't think happy is the right word. I just loved him in that moment and for the time being, there was no reason not to, and it felt so damn good. He kept waking up and petting my face and asking "you okay?" before he'd fall back asleep again for a few minutes, and then he'd say it again.
So, I've been thinking about him since then. Even if there weren't some pretty good reasons for us never to date, he may not ever want to date me anyway. It might all just be drunkeness/flirtation. Who knows. Even aside from the possible very bad consquences of us dating, he is probably not the best guy for me to date anyway. But the thing is I suspect that maybe there is more to him than that. I don't know. Just the fact that I am so resistant to go back to where I was a week ago, this somewhat firm resolve to just leave it alone- the fact that I am so easily swayed by this- well I guess it actually isn't that surprising. I guess it's not that telling. I guess I want to say that the fact that I am still considering this even though there are some definite obstacles, doesn't actually mean that much. I'm just sort of like that. Romance as a sport.
Last week I was all freaking out over another guy, but it's strange, I think- that seems like more of a mental construct than this does. I want to tell myself that it is the romance I perceive in this situation, that I am just attracted because this is a person who seems somewhat unattainable. You know, I want to convince myself that how I feel isn't based on anything that's real, but how can I, when my heart feels all fluttery and fucked up about this?
I remember when something about him hit me like a ton of bricks. I was with Lee actually, and it was before we had even gotten engaged, much less gone on the rocks. It was my brother's wedding, in 2000. I was sitting at a table, half-drunk, on the edge of the dance floor, taking one of few breaks when Andy walked out to the middle of the floor. No one else was there, and there was some cheesy 70s song, I think, playing, and Andy started dancing, by himself. It wasn't the dancing that impressed me, it wasn't the way he looked that impressed me. It was something about him, some statement that what he was doing made, and I remember at that moment having a sickly possessive feeling. Like wanting to possess him so badly, feeling like compared to him, I was just this little unnoticeable kid- totally unworthy of the caliber of man that he was, and hating that feeling of longing that was so fucking strong. Just for a few minutes. I had Lee.
But I mean, that moment implanted itself in me and he has taken on somewhat of a god-like status since then. Friday night, he was dancing by himself behind the bar again, in the same stupid hilarious way and my brother brought up that time at his wedding and... I don't know.
Anyway... the romantic in me can see this happening, can see me calming Andy down, can see Andy adoring me for the rest of my life, and us, being together and having a retardedly normal life in a little town outside of Chicago that I can't imagine ever living in again. It's like, him in the mixture changes everything. I have these irrational feelings of wanting to wait to see if anything happens with him, even if it takes years. My romantic side is glorifying the fact that his personality is 99.99999 percent of what I am attracted to about him. I was looking at him today and thinking, God, this is not a guy who I would ever call physically my type. I can't even type this, because to say that he isn't good looking just seems wrong- I am not sure I have ever been so attracted physically to someone. I should say, I am as physically attracted to him as I have been anyone else, but in a completely different way. It is almost euphoric knowing that this is not a physical thing. But what it is, I feel it. In my body.
So anyway. I guess I feel better writing about it. My feelings about this won't pass, but this being a possibility of anything real, probably will. I know that if it does, it will be a good thing. It would be easier on everyone if this stops being any sort of possible reality as painlessly as possible.
But mutual friends of ours, or, specifically, a friend of his told a friend of mine "I know something's going to happen with them." But fuck, he needs to grow up, and stop drinking, and stop being the kind of guy my family doesn't want to see me end up with.
Sigh.
This all scares me kind of a lot. There is a short list of people who I feel like, no matter what happened with them, I never would have fallen out of love. Very short. Andy is on there. I really don't like the company he has on that list of mine.
© beotch at
9:11 p.m.
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