Tuesday, February 20, 2007

The Aftermath

I did not finish the story of Mike sooner because after he left, my dog knocked my beverage onto the computer, frying the keyboard. So now I may have to spend over a thousand dollars to buy a new computer. I am now using my crappy old Dell, which abruptly ends programs and also cannot be moved at all or the power cord will fall out and the battery no longer has the ability to charge.

But Mike...

I did not make a move. Nor did I have the Adult Conversation. I chickened out. And I know now that I clearly need therapy. I mean, here is this perfectly nice guy. And his politics are great. (My friend Jerry jokes with me that the first thing I say about any guy is what I think of his politics. That is very important to me. I can't help it.) And I think he's cute. And I feel an electricity when I am with him--something I did not feel with P., or with just about any other guy in the past year or so.

I know that what I'm feeling for Mike is special, and yet I minimalize it to everyone, including myself. I make up a stupid excuse not to take a next step. That is what the "Waiting" post was--a stupid excuse. Rose even said so. As soon as I had gotten the words out about that bit of logic, she told me that before I spend money buying a new couch (I currently have one with a hideous print, one broken leg, and one arm torn apart that I inherited from the Grandmonster), I must spend money on the therapy I need to stop being crazy.

I'm afraid to start something because it will end one day? Why the hell be born then? We will all die one day. Everything ends. And yet--and yet that is really the crux of things with me, isn't it? Endings. I've now become so afraid of endings--at least with guys--that I will not permit myself to even start something. How pathetic is that?

After Mike left and I was left alone with my thoughts, I even began to compose an email, wherein I would give the little Adult speech I had worked out. It went something like, "I've been noticing this vibe between us lately, and I think you've noticed it too. Maybe I'm way off here, but if there is something between us, I'd like to give it a try. What do you think?" However, halfway through composing the email was when the dog broke my computer.

I sort of took that as a sign that it was better to not send that email anyhow. But now I am left to ponder what to do next. And then there is always the doubt. Perhaps I've been wrong all these years. Perhaps Mike really doesn't like me romantically after all, and it's all just been wishful thinking. Perhaps I am just setting myself up to be made a fool of.

And so I never re-composed that email. And so I sit here, pondering endings and signs and all those perhaps... (Is the plural perhapses? Or perhaps? Perhaps is more poetic than perhapses.)

Perhaps, perhaps, perhaps.

1 comment:

dan said...

Of course, the dog destroying the computer in the middle of writing the email is also the kind of cutesy story that married couples relate to their unhappy, single friends to make it all the more cute.

Hmm.

The point is neither in the ending or the beginning, but the journey between the two points. If the journey is magical, who cares where you started or where you end up. Journey's still the same.