Damnation's Flame

Let's take a look at the ugly side of me for a bit, all right? This blog was never meant to be puppy dogs and kittens, but I've shied away from this for a couple days and I should just deal with it and be done. So I'm going to do that.

So of course Friday night's plans were scrapped, which was disappointing enough. It's one thing to have a girlfriend; it's another thing to barely get any time in with her. I kind of have a theory that goes along with this, but I'll save that for further down. But yeah, the plans she and I cooked up on Wednesday for Friday got scrubbed ... because she forgot she'd already made tentative plans to meet up with an old friend of hers. There's more to that, and don't worry, I'll get to it. I hadn't forgotten she mentioned those plans to me earlier, even when we were making our plans, but I didn't bring them up thinking that either a) she wasn't going through with them, or b) she forgot and would continue to forget.

But she remembered. These plans were to meet up with someone she used to be involved with, and in fact was *the one* who came before me, although some time had passed since they'd been involved (I'm not sure that's even the right word, but it's the best I have) or even seen each other. And even though she assured me with all the assurance she could muster that I had nothing to worry about, he's hitting kind of a sore spot on me. I trust her, that isn't the problem. For whatever reason he brings out the Green Eyed Monster in me that's only popped its ugly head out a few times before. Usually I don't have a real problem with jealousy and such, but a nerve was hit that kind of reminds me of the thing I had with Donald back when Jude and I got together. I can't remember the Monster ever being as bad as it was during those months in Turners Falls, and thankfully it isn't as bad as that right now.

Still a sore spot, however, and she knows it. But I'm not going to be a dick about it or the kind of guy who's going to make an issue out of anytime she wants to hang out with another guy. I refuse to be that kind of person under any circumstances. And to tell the truth, I think it's really just this one guy anyway. I just don't like him. I just don't. Can't help it. Don't care.

So I was just going to ignore it during the rest of work Friday and go on about filling my free time with something else ... until she poked me in my Frustrated Spot. She swears she didn't intend to do that, and maybe not, but this is the sort of thing she always does to me. "It's going to be a really long night." That was ostensibly said to herself, but out loud, while she was in the back of the press while I was helping her. It's at this point she says I got 'a little weird'.

"Yeah. Don't rub it in," I said. Later on, she tried to deny knowing how she'd supposedly poked me, but then was able to come up with the exact thing she said, which is what she does sometimes: tries to play stupid even though she knows exactly what's going on. And I always call her on it. She's been doing it since March. This exact thing led to a spirited debate on the subject with Stacy playing referee/instigator in the backroom (after I returned from my meeting with Bob), which didn't get hostile or anything, but I was obviously pretty frustrated.

On the way out the door, because she also wanted to know the details about my private meeting, she wanted me to call her. "When." Tonight. Sometime tonight. "Give me a time." Sometime tonight. "I'm not the busy one. Tell me when." Then she decided she'd call me.

Of course, I had no idea when that call was going to come, *IF* she even remembered to call or had the time. So I ended up sitting around here for a while in case she called, which makes me more than a little pathetic (I know, I know!), until I decided not to wait around anymore and went into town. But first I left a message on her voice mail that .... I suppose it could have been taken for snippy, but that wasn't how I meant it. My bad.

I didn't stay in town all that long, and when I returned she'd left me a message. So I called her back, and she got me with a kind of "What do you want?" kind of thing, which took any air out of my sails, which resulted in something of an awkward and slightly ugly conversation. Then she went and cancelled her plans and called me back. That wasn't what I wanted, so then I tried to convince her to pick her plans back up, but she wouldn't because it was bothering me. I suppose in all of this that's kind of a good sign, but whatever. We ended up talking for another two hours, not just about that, and it all seemed to go well ... although I felt like a complete asshole.

Yeah, I did. Enough so that I decided on my own that I wasn't going to call her Saturday, just so she could do whatever she wanted without having to put up with me. Maybe I needed a breather myself, too. I wasn't expecting to hear from her at all, so when she called me Saturday night it was a nice surprise. It turns out that she'd called him back after we got off the phone (which I knew she was going to do), and they'd met somewhere in the middle of where they'd planned to meet and hung out for a bit, which made me feel like a lot less of an asshole.

She said she called to find out if I was in a better mood, which I was, and we talked for about an hour or so. We left things as reasonably fine as far as I could tell.

She called me again today, too. I wasn't going to call. I'm giving my approach to this some thought.

It seems to me that this all was going a little better when I was being more stand-offish, when she had to pursue me. Maybe instead of throwing myself against the rocks I'm going to back off a little bit and see what happens.

I'll let you know how that comes out.