Illegitimate

But I hope, legitimate.
I refer to my current state of emotion with Valentine's Day Girl. I swear, God is having a good time with this comedy/drama series called "Alan". The fall lineup's got nothin'. on. ME!

Two years ago, my friend got married to his jump-off. I can't put it any kinder than that. My friend is/was a serial datist. He's had more sex than all my blogging links combined. Well he and his then-fiancee chatted up this girl about me, and how great I alledgedly was. Then they chatted me up about her, but not an eighth as much as they did to her. So I was interested but that was about it. I contacted her before my friend's wedding and we started talking. She lived in Brooklyn and I in Trenton. We met at my friend's wedding. It was a sleepover affair so we had lots of talking (in the hotel stairwell. Then she went back to her room and I to mine). I drove her back to Brooklyn in the morning. We chatted phone/instant messenger-ed for about a month and a half more. She said she had fallen in love with me. I bolted. It took a little bit to get her to totally disconnect conversation with me, but I managed it.

Fast-foward to February 14th, 2004. She called me. I blogged about it. I've been interested since. So I called her some weeks ago. I need to attend church more frequently (or at all) so I used that as a bridge to re-open dialogue. It worked. I met her that first morning. It was very perfunctory. Handshake, sat next to each other, she rushed off. I went to Brooklyn Tab the following week as well. (It would have been three weeks in a row, but last week the hot water wasn't performing at expected levels and I had dragged my butt until the last second before the shower, and I forfieted the opportunity). She had stalled in communication over that first week until this past Thursday when she confronted me.

By her accounts, she had let our conversations/communications from two years ago change her life. She held me accountable for some awful things I had written her. She said that Because Of Me, she had decided never to open up to another person again. She quoted me as calling her a terrible mother, and so that day we re-met at the Brooklyn Tab three weeks ago, she rushed away from me because she didn't want me to meet her kids. She said I didn't deserve it. All I could do was apologize because I didn't remember being that harsh. I do remember that two years ago, I twisted my way out of our conversations by any means neccesary.

Here's the thing. I might have gone a little psycho two years ago (trust me though, I don't have the impression that I went THAT psycho. I HAVE gone that psycho before, so it's not totally impossible, but I have clear impressions of THOSE times, and Valentine's Day Girl was not one of those times). But again, that's the thing. She called me on Valentine's Day.

SHE called ME. On VALENTINE'S DAY. That wasn't a coincidence, right? So, if I had been so awful two years ago, why did she call me?

Well, after she held my feet to the fire for two years ago, now she's proceeding on with the new telephone calls 'just to say hello'. I mean, I think she may have gotten it out of her system now, and is ready to try again.

This is where it gets funky.

Do I want to try again with a woman who went on lockdown for TWO YEARS because of ME?? This is the crazy stuff that I run screaming from!! Am I being too gynophobic or are all women just effing nuts??

My rational "male" mind is telling me that this girl is immature. That whatever I wrote in those emails two years ago were not cruel enough to make a girl swear herself to the nunnery. That her emotional reaction was/is extreme, and she'll make my life a living hell of undying, unneccesary drama.

It is also telling me that these are the women that turn me on, and there is no remedy for it. My life is destined to be full of drama, because that's how I was raised, and it is my (for lack of better term) comfort zone.

By the way, I will cop to saying to her, two years ago, that her emotional extremes worried me. I told her that she fell in love with me too quickly, and it concerned me. I told her that I was worried about how those emotional extremes affected her parenting skills. I guess at that point I compared her to my mother, which is why I thought at the time that it were better off if we didn't pursue anything. Yeah, I guess I did say some awful things. I was trying to prevent her from instant-messaging me every time she saw me online, which was daily. I was feeling trapped by hours-long texting--afraid to turn my computer on.

Saidy, this experience was why I am reluctant to join Friendster. It's all coming back to me now.

So why did she call me on Valentine's Day? Did she want some kind of closure? Put me behind her? Yet a few months later, she sent me an invite to a little get- together at her house, with her phone numbers in it. I also gave her my e-mail address in the conversation on Valentine's Day so we could start talking again. She took it.

Hmm. So I'm unfinished business.

What I'm going to do is continue with the woman and see what happens. I'm going to apologize out the wazoo. I'm going to admit to using some harsh language in order to sever from her two years ago. I'm going to try to accept it if she's immature. After all, I'M immature too. Socially and emotionally immature. It's time I grew up and took responsibilty for myself. Maybe me and Valentine's Day Girl can learn to do it together? After all, I had let my relationship-before-the-last-one knock me out the box for close to two years. And I was going to let my last relationship knock me out of the box for the rest of my life. So I can't really persecute this girl for her reactions to me. We're probably more alike than I care to admit.

If I learn to deal with me, then maybe I can deal with her.

Me at 9/23/2004 10:26:00 AM

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