Relief

Honestly, it is a huge relief to have fb guy out of my head. He never called me that often. He never expressed anything regarding how things were going until he called to tell me it was over. I'm now pretty sure he was never that into me. The Rules worked well to weed him out as a guy not that into me, even though I do believe he was a genuinely nice and good guy. It is wonderful not to have to think about him anymore.

But why did I put so much brainpower into him needlessly while it was going on? It was distracting and exhausting.

Pre-Rules me had few boundaries, emotional or physical. I fell fast and hard, immersing myself with abandon in my fantasies of him, drinking in as much communication and physical intimacy as I possibly could (short of sex until exclusivity was largely established). Rules me set up physical boundaries, stepping on the brakes as to literal contact. But, as I failed to realize until fb guy ended, my admirable adherence to my physical restrictions did not translate into emotional boundaries.

I have always been a strange mix of thought and emotion. Believe it or not (in fact, many of my close friends do not), my head rules my heart. It is my head, not my heart, that unbalances me every single time. This does not mean I am not emotionally sensitive - clearly, I am. But my most extreme emotional reactions occur as a result of my head's hostile invasion and ultimate conquest of my heart. On the rare occasions when I can figure out how to let go of my head and allow my heart to come to the surface, I can experience the kind of slow, healthy sadness that yields to calm acceptance.

As a child, I was a bit of an insomniac. Every little noise or thought kept me from falling asleep. Once I did, I'd often wake up in the middle of the night and feel completely out of control. One of my clearest mental images from my elementary school years is of me lying on my bed, moonlight glaring at me through the window, staring wide-eyed at the ceiling and listening to late-night soft pop on the radio in futile attempt to distract myself from the crickets and house creaks and thoughts of house fires or my parents getting a divorce or my cat wandering off or infectious diseases, which stood between me and slumber. Eventually I would not be able to stand it anymore and would stride quietly down the hall to wake my mother up. Out of tiredness and frustration at her inability to provide me any relief, she would sometimes get angry and threaten to take me to a psychiatrist. I would cry in desperation. We would argue until the flying sparks exhausted me and I returned to my room to collapse on my bed, radio still playing.

(Footnote: I have a wonderful, amazing mother whose only flaw is taking the angst of her children personally.)

Even that young, my sleeping trick was to focus on a love interest. Imagining a boy taking care of me somehow took the edge off in a way that nothing else did. By middle school, I drifted off every night to thoughts of me and him - "him" being anyone from the boy I slow danced with to someone interesting from the playground.

My insomnia was gone by high school, coinciding in part with the beginning of my long string of monogamous relationships. Dreaming about a boy who demonstrated affection for me in real life felt even safer than the abstract fantasies of pre- and early adolescence. These conscious dreams, and these boys, began as sleeping pills and gradually bled into what seemed like every minute of every day. When I sensed one man's chapter ending, I sought out another as if on auto-pilot.

Even now, it is a rare night that I do not go to sleep thinking about some man or another. It is all I know how to do. Recognition of the havoc this wreaks on my mental state has been percolating slowly for some time. It has been particularly lucid post-fb guy; I have had three consecutive man-free nights since he cut me loose. Miraculously, I increasingly possess the ability to breathe deeply and be with myself through the night.

Maybe next time my boundaries can be emotional, too.

Soundtrack: Jem, Save Me; Regina Spektor, Fidelity; Destiny's Child, Emotions; KT Tunstall, Silent Sea

Low point

As may have been foreshadowed by the previous post, I hit a low point last night.

Before I describe it, let's just be clear that I do think that what happened to me last night/is happening to me now is an inevitable, necessary, and valuable part of the six months of Rules experiment. Especially if said experiment is ultimately going to be made into a movie with me played by a combination of Mary Pierce and Uma Thurman (AO reference). I am also cutting myself some slack on my reactions to it given what's going on at work right now. So, with that context...

FB guy called me last Friday night - 5 days from the previous contact. I thought we had a good conversation, which I ended after about 15 minutes. I was all "en aire," to use a phrase my best friend from childhood and I coined in 7th grade Spanish class.

Until Sunday. Then my anxiety started to increase again, building steadily until last night (another 5 days from last contact), by which time I was a virtual basket case and also going through a pretty tumultuous workweek. I turned my phone on silent and went to a wine tasting with a girlfriend. When I was feeling a nice level of tipsy, I bravely looked at my phone. On it was a missed call and a text from FB guy! "Hi - give a call when you can - [first initial]."

I was out and busy and really really should not have returned the call. Seriously, why did I return the call? Thus begins the slippery and treacherous slope of Rules fails.

He didn't pick up. I didn't leave a voicemail.

I checked my phone in 5 minutes and had a missed call.

I called back immediately. He didn't pick up. By this point my hackles were up.

I monitored my phone closely until he called back a few minutes later. I picked it up on my way outside, but the background noise was audible.

The conversation is actually a bit foggy. He asked me if I was home, and I said, no, I was out with [girlfriend]. We engaged in some small talk that seemed pleasant to a fairly buzzed Rulebreaker. He then asked me what time I thought I'd be home or something to that effect, and I asked him how late he'd be up. He didn't give me an answer and told me that if it was too late we could just talk tomorrow. I cheerily said okay, and we hung up.

Almost immediately I started to feel like something was Wrong. As I walked back in all the pieces started falling together. The distant "Hi - give a call when you get a chance?" The unenthusiastic "We can talk tomorrow?" Facebook guy was calling to break up with me. I was sure of it.

At this point I started acting like a complete psycho in mixed company. I told my girlfriend that I might just leave soon to call him back. I tapped my foot impatiently. I was distracted from all conversation. My carotid artery was visibly pounding in my throat (note: this is a Criminal Procedure joke). I managed to suffer through this for a whopping half hour before I bolted to the bathroom and called him standing inside a stall.

He didn't pick up.

I returned to the table sans relief, now wound into a full-on frenzy. My slight intoxication had loosened my tear ducts. My eyes became glassy. I wiped runaway tears with my napkin, blowing my nose in a futile attempt to disguise it. I plastered a fake smile on and desperately tried to make eye contact with my dining companions, most of whom I'd never met. I whispered to my friend that I wanted to just take off, and she (probably smartly) told me I was not leaving without her and was in fact spending the night at her place. I checked my phone compulsively. Nothing.

My friend excused herself and me as quickly as reasonably possible to get us out of there, although I'm quite confident it was too late for me to be perceived as a sane person. I drove out of the parking lot while texting facebook guy "are you still up?" at 10:00 PM. I then drove twenty miles to my friend's house in the pouring rain, checking my phone, sobbing (yes, sobbing!!!!) and blasting Michael Buble's "Haven't Met You Yet" over and over.

My friend had mobilized (her word) our other friend, who arrived at the apartment shortly after we did. They laid down on either side of me in her bed and we watched the Golden Girls and I fell asleep. I had an absolutely ridiculous dream wherein (very brief synopsis) I looked at FB guy's FB profile and he had changed his relationship status to "engaged." I then defriended him, which showed up in the FB feed as "Rulebreaker has defriended FB guy because he changed his relationship status to engaged."

The next morning FB guy had not called/texted back.

Even so, I felt marginally better, went to work, and checked Jdate. After two weeks of no activity, FB guy had signed in 10 hours ago.

10 hours ago. Also known as after my 10:00 PM text message.

This of course confirmed my breakup call fears, and I flew off the handle again. I posted a somewhat abbreviated version of this post in the AO to keep myself from doing something crazy like calling/texting/emailing him (I detest false hope, so once I'm pretty certain something is bad news, I just want it to be DONE). The actuaries sensibly pointed out that I had nothing to gain from that aside from a mere 12-13 hours of relief. I managed to process this logically. My ability to process this logically made me feel better.

I did nothing, and have heard nothing.

All sorts of thoughts are now bouncing around in my head. They include the straightforward "he's just not that into me," the somewhat more self-deprecating "I pushed him away with these stupid f*cking Rules," the nervous "he went back to his ex girlfriend," the paranoid "OMG he found my blog," and the somewhat more optimistic "he found my Jdate profile."

Some silver linings - Although I did develop real feelings for him and am consequently suffering some amount of heartbreak, I can still view him as a character in my blog. This provides some comfort to me even as I am alarmed at my unhinged reaction. Also, I now have inspiration for singing my solo in my a cappella group. Sorry, can't tell you what song it is, but that should at least amuse my readers who do know. Most significantly, it is always pleasant to be reminded that I have truly amazing friends.

RIP Rulebreaker + FB guy. Not technically flatlined yet, but probably a vegetable whose plug will be pulled sometime later today.

Loca

Dear facebook guy,

Thanks for reminding me how I'm still really impatient and insecure and obsessive and crazy. I really appreciate that, because I was starting to feel like I had actually made some progress in the independence and self-confidence arenas. Anyhow, due to the crazy, I decided to distract myself from you by joining Jdate again. When I did, I was surprised to see that in fact I had never fully taken my Jdate profile down and I had about 50 messages in my inbox.

Two of them were from you. One from November 2008 (a week before I got back together with my ex) and one was from August 2007 (a week before I went exclusive with my ex the first time).

Um, not fair, I just paid $80 to STOP thinking about you -- for at least four months with a $39.99 monthly renewal rate -- not to discover little cute things that push my thoughts ominously in the direction of "we barely missed each other twice before and are now finally coming around to our ultimate destiny in the universe."

Reading back over old e-mails with texting guy - yes, I actually almost went out with texting guy in 2007 as well - was fun and somewhat educational. The percentage of guys I recognize on the site is refreshingly lower than I feared (now that I've gotten pretty involved in Jewish activities, etc.). There are even some decent ones, although I really am not going to get into the business of browsing profile pictures due to the Rules. Yeah, I'm still trying to salvage those for the next exactly two months from today.

But the approximately eight times I have signed on to Jdate between paying for it last night in a huff of frustration at not having heard from you for four days and writing you this message that you'll never see, the first thing I do is check your profile to make sure you haven't signed onto Jdate since I last did. So far you haven't. You last signed in nine days ago, or last Wednesday, the day you called me before our Friday date. I mean, why would you need to sign into Jdate right before we went out on our fourth date? What the hell?

Also, I'm guessing you haven't figured out that [Rulebreakerjdatescreenname] and I are the same person. Would you have told me if you had? I'm honestly not sure about that one, but since your second Jdate message to me did not seem to acknowledge the first - and was after I had changed my profile picture - I'm assuming you just don't know.

Well, next time you sign on, you will most likely see me if you perform a search. Jdate tends to inform you if a girl in your search criteria has updated her profile. But facebook guy, what could you possibly be searching for? Are you just not that into me?


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Gosh, look at the time. I've got a really early day, lots to do, so I must be going now!

<3
Rulebreaker

Rules quote of the day

"We can't control cancer or drunk drivers, but we can restrain ourselves from dialing his number."

--Rule #5, Don't Call Him and Rarely Return His Calls

Security does not exist in absolute form

It is useful information to me to know that I still tend to be really anxious about not knowing when I'll next see or hear from someone I like. And then when I get anxious, I start to get anxious that I really like the person. And then that makes me more anxious.

Of course, this makes no logical sense. As a divorced person (thankfully I didn't end up having to put *this* on my mortgage paperwork), I more than many others my age know that the proposition of knowing you will be with someone forever is inherently false. Someone can stop loving you after making that commitment. Or they can get hit by a bus. One cannot live life trying to derive personal security from external sources that circumstances can always take away. The only place to find that is within.

Suffice to say, panicking that I don't know when a guy is going to call me for a fifth date--at 3:15 AM twenty minutes after the fourth date ended in making out against the door of my front coat closet--is among the most absurd reactions I've had recently. But I'm sort of glad I documented it.

On a totally and completely unrelated note, what does a Rules Girl do with a guy who leaves the toilet seat up in his house and my house? I have actually never dated a toilet-seat-leaver-upper before. My tentative answer: say nothing until you're in a relationship, then only if you care about it a lot.