On the other end of the phone is a guy, let's call him P, and he is wasted. P and I went on a couple of nice but totally non-committal/non-romantic movie and one dinner "dates" in February and early March. He was going through chemotherapy at the time and wasn't really available, but I had a good time and told him I liked him. For a while I was excited and thought he might be a good long-term prospect, even. We kept up sporadic correspondence but I didn't expect anything after a while.
So, he says he's calling to see if I made it home OK (we had been talking - and drinking - that evening in a large group.) Then, he launches into a tirade of often accusative and somewhat surprising questions, like "What's going on with us?" and "Are we a couple?" and "What are we doing?", to which I tried to answer as honestly as possible - nothing, nope, and I don't know, but it was like my voice didn't cut through at all, and when it did, he was so upset and angry by what he thought I was saying, he'd go off onto another tirade and then I would have to talk him away from that... it was super frustrating. I even said a few times, are you sure you want to have this conversation? and, P, I think you are going to regret this call in the morning... to which he replied, sometimes angrily, but all 3 or 4 times convincingly, "I'm not that drunk!"
Anyway. I took him for his word that he was up for the conversation, and told him a couple things I thought would be good to clear up. I told him I had realized too late after our first real date that when I had been having a bad reaction to cologne I thought was the cabbie's, I figured out later it had been his, and I apologized if I made him feel bad and explained that I have supersensitive to fragrances and I had felt horrible about it all these months. This was not understood at all, and I immediately regretted sharing this. He went on for 15 minutes about smelling, smells and me hating the cabbie. Ugh.
Then when he said things were awkward between us now and I disagreed, he asked how I could say that, esp. since we had had the "history"...and I said that since nothing had happened between us romantically, I had given up thinking about him in that way. This was a BIG MISTAKE. He was like "WHY? BECAUSE I HAVE CANCER?!?!" Oh my God. No, no, no, I told him, it was because he didn't show any interest in me - not keeping in touch, never kissing me, cancelling plans, and not making any plans to go out more, etc. I assumed he just wasn't that into me, which was fine, because a) I honestly didn't know if I was into him, and b) he had bigger fish to fry at the time, and I did too - and the bottom line is that I certainly want someone who wants to kiss me. Come on, right?
This did not get through either. He kept saying it was the cancer, but never did he say he *was* indeed attracted to me or anything of the sort. I rested my case that it was better if we were friends anyway. I also said, after he accidentally hung up on me and then called back, that I'd be happy to start over and go out with him again if he asked me, but that we shouldn't consider anything weird. He seemed to agree with that and be content. I finally said good night sometime before 3am. I was exhausted, but also couldn't really sleep. It's weird to find out someone has been thinking about you like that. My mind raced though all of my bad romantic choices and my lack of options and wondered if anyone would ever want to kiss me, and if any guy would ever call me to see if I made it home OK sober. I still can't get these thoughts out of my mind.
(Long story longer on P is that he ignored me all weekend even when he saw me two days later, ignored 2 text msgs, and then finally responded somewhat apologetically to an email I sent saying, basically, WTF.)
And now it's after 4am and my sleep pattern is STILL not back to normal. I might have to go home early from work tomorrow to nap or something. This is terrible! My dang ever-broken heart...wish it could settle down and not be drawn into these things!
