seeing an ex

Seeing an ex at two years post-breakup is different than at six months post-breakup. Isn't it? Or is what makes it ambiguous, hopeful, mysterious, or nerve-wracking only the thoughts, hopes, expectations, or wishes that one (or both) parties bring to the meeting?

I hung out with my ex last night. A mutual friend had a birthday party. We sat next to each other practically the whole evening. I occasionally got up and danced by myself. I stayed close to him, but not so close that I was a clinging vine. He conversed with me, not much to others, but then again, he's not the most social guy in the world. When he went to leave, everyone asked "are you going too?" and seemed confused when I didn't leave with him. Mind you, these are people who have never met us as a "couple" but seemed to think we were one. I stayed on and hung out with my friend's friends, some of whom are becoming mine. A girl and I started talking about relationships. She shared some things that had been going on in her life, then she said "didn't you used to go out with him?" I said I had, and then she said "but he never speaks!"

It's interesting the observations others have of you or of people around you. It's also very interesting how one person's trash is another's treasure. I find his non-speaking ways smoldering and insanely sexy. He sits there mute and blank and I imagine his brain going at a thousand revolutions per second. I find him mysterious, pensive, internal, intense. Most people see a guy with few social skills, someone who doesn't let anyone know him, someone closed, tightly wound, and often weird. I suppose he is all these things and sometimes it's very refreshing to see him this way. It was something I couldn't do when we were together. I didn't know how to change my perspective and instead of seeing him as the Brooding Dark Prince of Intensity and Focus, I might conceive of him as Mute-y the Awkward Bore of Pomposity instead.

He's really lucky he's attractive and has a good body. Without these gifts, his non-speaking ways would be so much more crippling. But good looks and a hot bod only go so far, and eventually there has to be conversation.

I also realized he has this way of making me feeling like the most boring, dull, uninteresting person around and I finally realized why and how. He's not very responsive. Most people get engaged in a conversation. Your words ellicit facial motions, sounds of agreement or questioning or interest, body movements. Not with him, or at least very very rarely. He shows so little, it's hard to know what's going on inside. In the past, I internalized all of this. I thought it was me who was failing to stimulate him. I've since realized, in the presence of far more educated, intelligent, and successful people, that I can hold their attention and ellicit disclosure, participation, and emotion on their parts. Knowing this has helped me get back some of the self-esteem I lost in bucketfuls, and it's also helped me be more myself if I'm ever in his presence.

I've gotten back to who I knew I always was, but who I haven't been being for so long: happy, sociable, friendly, warm, affectionate. I love being this person; this is who I am. It took losing him, six months of blinding depression, and what felt like a near nervous breakdown, to begin to see what is possible and who I am. I'm only at the beginning, but I can remember myself before I came to think of myself as broken, boring, troubled, dramatic, needy, complacent, and immature.

I'll keep being me, who I'm remembering I am. And as I do, more and more people reflect back to me that who I am being and who I think I am are the same. We are who others show us to be. We can think we are a certain way, but we can't really be anyone on our own, unless we live in isolation. Then we can say, "yes, I am who I say and what I think I am." When we are in a social dynamic, who others reflect back to us, how people listen to us, the space which people grant us to be or not be, this is the context in which we are. Our social environment and the feelings of others for us are a huge factor in our self-expression. If we aren't listened to the way we want to be heard, the place we need to start is not with "them" but with ourselves.

Being Strung Along and the Blinding Effects of the Past

A conversation with a friend last night made me think about a phenomenon: why is when we're trying to be "good" and reformed of our past ways of indescretion, impulse, and shady personal dealings, we often miss the forest for the trees? We tend to see all people and situations through the hazy mist of purity and good intentions that we want to take on as a cloak over our own history of being a cad, a cur, a cheat, a hussy, and all the other things most people eventually come to regret.

Describing behaviors of my ex prior to our break up to my friend, he wouldn't come out and say "he had someone else," but basically left it open for me to decide that on my own. "Well you felt something and thought something, so deep down you had that feeling and there's a good reason for it. How often do women think their man is cheating and he's NOT?" The ex always had a plethora of escape routes for my inquisitiveness, from being offended that I would think such things of him to claims to privacy to pointing out that I was insecure and he could not be with someone who made him second guess his every move. I came to believe it was about me: I was insecure, I demanded too much, I needed too much attention, I didn't trust him and it was my fault, I didn't know how to be friends with the opposite sex. You name it and I had my own self-criticism to support his rightness and emphasize my wrongness.

Perhaps it was the effect of being in the haze of reformed wrongness, but I wanted to believe him. It had been a long time since I'd cheated or had any kind of real indescretion where I could say "yes, I lied/deceived/mislead/witheld important information" but at the time, I still felt burdened by this legacy of immature and irresponsible behavior. In hindsight, the things I did were not so different from what most people do on their climb up the ladder of human consciousness, and some never stop doing stupid things (just look at the Jerry Springer Show or the Maury Povich Show). But anyway, I clearly carried a lot of "wrongness" into this relationship and was afraid to ask for what I needed and wanted. Maybe I felt I didn't deserve it. Or perhaps I couldn't even see "it" as my concept of what was healthy and the conditions in a relationship I wanted were so distant to me.

So as I described my ex's behaviors to my friend, he said he understood that I was feeling neglected, and that could create lack of trust in a relationship. Then he said what brought it all home: When you're doing dirt, you can see all the other dirt around you. But when you're trying to pretend you didn't do bad things, you're gonna miss the bad things happening to you. Eureka! Since becoming single, I've had so little contact with the opposite sex, but I'll use one example to illustrate how this principle has thus far proven absolutely true!

A recent friend of the opposite sex and I had a flirtatious nature to our banter that was laced with sexual innuendo. One night at his house, on a purported trip to watch a movie, I cuddled close to him on the couch and from there it was on. I was just looking for a snuggle, but the flood gates opened. We didn't have sex, but fooled around, and I left later that evening feeling a little weird but capable of handling it all. After a few weeks of awkwardness and an actual conversation about what happened and the decision to just be friends, I've now gotten to know him much better. He has a stable of female friends. He still drops innuendos here and there. He's got "pull/push" techniques of attention and distancing down to a science (although I don't think he's aware of it), and is, at some level I think, a needy individual who probably enjoys the company and/or physical appearance of woman, but may be too needy and/or restless to settle into a relationship (or it would take a woman capable of wearing many masks/personas to keep him interested). Sometimes when I get his late night phone calls or he inquires about "where will you be hanging out tonight, I'm coming by?" only to not show up, what I realized about him is that he works on "path of least resistance" technique. Whatever's in his path is what he goes to. It's too much energy to go out of whatever mode he's in to come see me or any other woman if he's with a another woman. It's not about individuals, it's more about his needs. This is appearant to me now. When it's "my turn," it's either I'm in his direct path of energy or there's no one else around so he'll make a bit more effort to come to me. But it's really not about me.

Now why couldn't I see my ex with the same clarity? Late night phone calls and text messages, increasingly inconsiderate behavior, being mysterious and suspicious and when asked who was calling/texting so late at night he'd simply say "friends": had this been my Lazy Don Juan friend, I would've rolled my eyes and gone "sure sure" while poking him in the ribs at his pathetic attempt at nondisclosure.

Don't get me wrong, everyone has a right to privacy. But when it comes to a relationship, evasiveness and mystery have a corrosive effect. Had I not been so inclined to see him through my own reformed eyes, perhaps I would have been less accepting of this behavior, and like with my hookup friend, not take too much of what he says too seriously until I see any serious behavior on his part. I wanted to believe my ex was as virtuous as I was. I wanted to believe he loved me as much as I loved him. But even on the phone with my friend last night, when I said to him "but I don't think he had someone else...do you? I mean, I don't think he would do that. Do you?" all he could do is laugh and point out that if the shoe had been on the other foot, my ex wouldn't have accepted what was going on.

Because I accepted it, I got strung along. And I'm still getting strung along. It's hard for me to see him as being just like any other guy and doing the stupid, annoying, selfish things that a lot of people do. It's hard for me to see him this way because I've done them myself and I don't want to do that to anyone anymore. I don't want to do that to myself anymore. I want to come from a place of clarity, respect, honesty, and communication, even if it is just a hookup. I don't want to take anyone's feelings for granted and I don't want to leave anyone feeling that they've been taken advantage of. I don't want that weight on my soul.

I still don't know if my ex was up to anything, and I'll probably never know. All I can do is take my rose-colored glasses off the next time, but not forget that I've got the ability to see a more beautiful world, a more loving reality. But I don't have to wear my rose-colored glasses on my sleeve and be taken for a fool.

coupledom in the produce aisle

Today while perusing the aisles for the makings of a chicken soup (I've got a cold that won't go away), I saw a number of couples walking through the supermarket and I was reminded how domestic duties are made so much nicer by the inclusion of another party. Of course, for all the times it's sickly sweet and lovey-dovey fabulousness, there are plenty of times when it's pathetically awkward and uncomfortable and the last thing you want to do is be unwashed and grumpy next to someone you don't even know if you like anymore and were just thinking of breaking up with when you went out with your friends last night and stayed out too late and flirted and now you have a guilty conscience for close-dancing with that guy in the dark corner at the bar but he'll never know you have a man and your man is none the wiser...yes, it was one of those run-on sentence kind of shopping expeditions.

The first couple was holding hands in the produce section! He carried the basket, she was just cute. She was one of these poster child Japanese girls we have in New York City. Bed head done to perfection, she had kewpie doll lips and some tattered t-shirt worn just so with cute striped socks that had strategic holes cut in them and worn down Converse Chuck Taylors. He was probably Puerto Rican, with corn rows, doing the Pharrell Williams take on thrift shop chic. A blazer with a popped color with a cute design-y t-shirt underneath, some clever baseball cap on top (not quite a trucker hat, because in 2005, that would've been a fashion faux pas), jeans, the perfect sneakers, if not import, then limited run. They must've been in the mid-20s at best, and that got me to thinking:

Living with a member of the opposite sex is wasted on the young.

All my cohabitation experiements were when I was in my 20s. Not only did I not know what I was getting into, but it was more like fun, like playing house, or worse yet (and all too common), for financial reasons. Rent is so high in New York, people continue living together after they've broken up! Talk about awkward. I watched this young couple, who looked like a living Diesel ad, and wondered what their lives were like. Did they go out and party? Did they have an active social life? Or like so many young people who do cohabit, have they forgotten how to young while they actually are?

Thinking back to my 20s living arrangements, I know that I was approaching the idea of relationship and love with a very laissez-faire attitude, and when my relationships ended or I did something stupid (like cheat), I wasn't really that pressed. After all, my name was on the lease.

The next couple I saw was engaged in some bizarre experiment or art project of taking close-up shots of bottles in the spice aisle with a Treo. He was zooming in on the label (I tried not to stare) while she was literally piouretting alongside him. He then turned the Treo on her and proceeded to snap away. Were they playing on the idea of "adding spice" to their relationship? Is she just a vain twit that wants her photo taken everywhere and he, the obliging castrated boyfriend, obeys? Is someone in the family named McCormick? Were they just in love and having fun?

Then I recalled my own shopping trips when under duress in a relationship, the silent plodding down flourescent-lit aisles, the passive-aggressive throwing of items in the carraige, and finally, the awkward money exchange at the end, because of course, like all things young and unplanned and without direction, we didn't have a "household budget." That would imply that we were actually, you know, committed. Or at least that there was something other than fun and playing grown up happening.

So I then concluded that living with a member of the opposite sex is totally wasted on the young. Would I ever do such a thing again, it would only be if things were really serious, like if I didn't have a ring on my finger, I damn sure knew to expect one (and after my last cohab experiment, I made myself a promise I'd never live with a man again unless he proposed to me). The sheer sponteneity of living with your mate when you are young, the coming and going, the friends crashing on the couch, the "we'll figure it out" way about the bills: in a real, adult relationship, these things would be handled with the consideration, maturity, planning, and total lack of romance that such things should be handled in.

But when you're young, the supermarket is a backdrop for a photoshoot and there's nothing sexier than walking hand-in-hand in the produce aisle. Most 30-somethings I know have been couch potatoes for enough time in their 20s that they are ravenous to persue their dreams or see what the city has to offer. With such a mentality, there's no time or room for a relationship that doesn't work, for lack of ambition, for anyone cramping your style in anyway. When you are 25, you can argue for days on end and then wipe it all away with a romp in the sack, maybe because somewhere in the back of their minds, they know it's not going to last. Get a little older and change your perspective, and the stakes get a whole lot higher. Living with someone isn't just sexy fun and games, it's real life, with all the real-life consequences that mistakes and success bring.

The "friendly" girlfriend

Twice in this last week, I have been stopped dead in my tracks (not that I was going anywhere, but had I been, I would've been stopped dead) by "the friendly" girlfriend. She has other names: "the exciting" girlfriend, "the Kill Em With Kindness" girfriend, "the I'm cooler than my man so you should crush on me instead" girlfriend, but they all have the same M.O.: to get inbetween you and their man.

I first encountered this breed of woman at an intimate dinner party in a downtown Manhattan loft. A CD DJ war erupted between girlfriend (well, ok, wife) and her husband, who was a shameless flirt and had been dancing with all the women in the party immediately after the cheese course. He carried on while she sat at the table with a hint of exasperation on her face that read not "you cheating lothario!" but "you're such a child." Behind this subtle condescention towards her husband's revelry, I noticed a glint in Ms. Wife's eyes. The husband went from guest to guest, dancing and smiling, and Ms. Wife went to the CD player and chaffed "ok French Boy, let's listen to some real music now." She proceeded to out-do him in every single match for "best song." She was playing rare African jazz, Alice Coltrane, and funky unidentifiable music that obviously bore the mark of a music afficianado who isn't afraid to look into obscure areas for the best music. He picked mostly Jacques Brell and Giansbourg. Nothing wrong with these, but Ms. Wife picked far more muscular music than Dancing Husband, and basically had all the women swooning over her instead of him.

A job well done.

I encountered this particular type of female again at a friend's loft party in a showroom in the Garment District. Rolling solo, as I tend to do and am pretty good at it (but everyone likes a posse now and then), I showed up at the party and found some friends there. We started dancing, and as people arrived, they either joined the dancefloor or stood or sat on the sidelines watching us. At one point I was hanging out by the DJ booth and this totally hot guy walks in. Nice body, great face, super smile. He was some kind of Latino, I wasn't sure what yet, but I started wondering: Colombian, Cuban? Being that me and a few of my friends there are all from the same country of origin, soon the repartee stared flowing in Spanish. Said hottie came my way and there was some spicy eye contact. Later on I noticed him eyeing me from the sidelines of the dancefloor. Soon he joined in. The moves he had were suggestive, loose, and all the women were staring. He even did this old-school dance move where you throw your body down to the floor in a wave, sort of hands first then supporting the rest of the body on the hands, gently flow the rest of the body down. Well he did that...then pantomimed humping the floor.

Soon he came in my direction. We paced each other on the dancefloor a bit, then I stepped away. When I returned to the dancefloor, a woman I sensed was there with him started dancing with me, then talking to me. She was such a talker that even if I had been scheming on her man, I wouldn't have been able to break away from her non-stop flow of conversation. She was good. In no time, she started throwing me compliments. "Oh you are so Latin. I love your people. So warm, so sensual!

By the end of the night, she and I had exchanged business cards, she was telling me how much she looks forward to hanging out again, and telling me "don't say you'll email and then don't! Don't talk shit now!" I assured her I would write, and I knew I would. They were an interesting couple. They were totally free and open around each other, and there wasn't a hint of insecurity off either of them. I wondered if they were swingers and maybe were scoping me out for their next project. Or maybe they were just truly happy, well-adjusted, confident people.

However, any anything that might have been jumping off between me and Rico Suave was promptly and effectively diverted by "friendly and cool and totally sociable, OMG!" girlfriend. She was the human equivalent of "OMG!" too. She even apologized for being so friendly. I made a positive ID for togetherness between them later on that night as I was leaving. I made a mental note of how casually they showed their "togetherness." But they were so together and so close that they had speech in common: they had the same way of describing the people of my country, but they used the phrase at totally different points in time in the evening, and when I was conversing one-on-one with either of them.

Hey, if it keeps your man out of the other girls' drawers, power to you sister! Be as friendly as you gotta be!

So the lesson here was: when confronted with some heinous scandalous hussy, instead of giving her dagger eyes or pulling your man away, let him have his fun and be nice to her, but eventually get in between the action. Your man will appreciate it and the woman in question will never know if she's been cock-blocked or is just in the presence of a really reallly friendly woman.

It pays to know small talk

As a single girl, I'm re-evaluating my social skills and seeing what I have in my bag of tricks to not just engage another human in conversation, but actually keep them interested. Last night, at a friend's birthday get-together in a rather non-descript bar/lounge hybrid in SoHo, I realized that small talk is a fine fine art.

A handsome but not shockingly good-looking man approached me in the line for the bathroom, which happened to be within eye-shot of the table where the birthday group was seated. There was a tray of cupcakes there, miniatures with thick white icing, and said gentleman pointed them out. "What are the cupcakes for?"

A sensible enough line to open conversation. I told him it was for my friend's birthday. Then he asked me how many I'd eaten. I scrunched up my face. "Only one. It was too sweet."

"So you're not one for sweets then? More salty?"

"It depends, I enjoy sweets now and then, but those are a bit cloying," I said pointing to the cupcakes.

At this point in time, we'd passed over the possible innuendo of salty vs. sweet and the resulting sexual overtones such a conversation could have. I wasn't in the mood, and such pickups are really so predictible, you can see them coming a mile away. With that out of the way, the conversation became more adult and intelligent and then it was my turn to use the bathroom.

When I came out, I found that Mr. Sweet/Salty was sitting across from me with his group of friends. We chatted some more, and I saw him eyeing the cupcakes.

"Would you like one?" I asked him. He said he would, but then asked me to join him. Clever, I thought. Here he has gotten me to agree to sharing food with him, and we are engaged in an activity that is both non-threatening and vaguely sexual at the same time (aren't all things with food?). At the same time, none of this is red-flag raising, so I would have to say Mr. Sweet/Salty was an adept small-talker and picker-upper of strangers. His approach could be seen as: friendly, pleasant, sociable, somewhat disarming. Underneath may lurk a twisted and derranged lothario, but we'll never know.

Mr. Sweet/Salty continued to show his expertise in bar pick up by commenting on the traffic that was passing between our booths. "This is getting old fast." In one comment, he showed he was displeased that our conversation was being interrupted AND that he had opinions and standards that he wasn't afraid to be let known. I found that most interesting of all. It showed he had some spine (or maybe just a good bar act...ahhh jadedness). Picking up where he left off, and practicing some bar flirt of my own, I asked "would you like to join our party?" and inched over, making room for him where I was sitting. He prompty came over to my side of the aisle and we continued.

He asked me my name, said it was pretty and that was his grandmother's name (interesting coincidence). Then I mentioned my grandfather's name which happened to be his sirname. Well. At this point, I felt he was a fine guy: intelligent, good conversationalist (that small talk skill is som important, or else you'll never get to the point of learning more about a person), attractive, a good dresser, and he had a warm personality. In short, I would have been fine letting the conversation continue but then a friend of his appeared, shutting things down.

And here I discovered something else. Despite that I caught him looking my way and noticing me collecting my things to leave, he did not leave his friends. In this situation, the friends came before the cute girl. Now that is totally acceptable and probably the right way to go about things. Friends first, those unreliable "romantic attractions" later. Maybe he was just practicing too. Maybe he's just ended a relationship and was still getting over a broken heart and was trying things out. Well who knows. Who cares even.

I learned from Mr. Sweet/Salty that knowing how to open a conversation is vitally important. This will probably get you access to more than a limitless platinum card, because no one wants to be with a hairy-palmmed, toupeed weirdo with a big line of credit. You feel better, warmer, more alive in the presence of someone who makes good conversation and knows how to approach another person. So, openers are huge. But, openers are also like nets: you throw out a big one and see what comes back. Don't get too specific. I would say he approached me as thoughI were someone with 50 fewer IQ points than what I have. I suppose this is the LCD (lowest common denominator) approach. Then, showing spunk early on can't hurt either, but it has to be done so you don't come across as a psycho, but merely someone with verve. This immediately makes one think you'd be good in bed.

Finally, as a woman, it's better not to ask to stay in touch with the guy. There's enough to deal with. I thought briefly about asking him to exchange info. I'm not on a manhunt by the way. I want to make friends first, and he seemed perfectly acceptable. Picking up men for romantic interests in a bar just seems so...empty. I'm sure it happens but I'd rather start from friends. It's just easier to let them come to you, friends or otherwise. I can't keep killing braincells worrying about is he going to call, when, and what does it mean. I choose not to go there. I'm not desperate. So why pretend?

Becoming single has opened my eyes to the potential for self-growth. Not only do I, for the first time in years, have a chance to be truly alone, without any intimate input as to my personality, drive, style, weight, or any other personal matters, but my personality is emerging and I'm getting to know myself, again. Who IS this creature I call myself? I'm also intrigued at the social dynamics and psychology of cities, singledom, mating, dating, relating, and friendship, and being single has given me the opportunity to fine-tune my expression as a human being on this planet.

Each instance holds information.

Single and Blogging It

I'm female, "thirtysomething," living in New York City. About six months ago, I lost a very important love relationship, and here I am, single and blogging about it. This blog is essentially where I will document the observations I'm gathering about living (the single life) in New York City. Friendship, sex, hooking up, Craigslist, getting numbers, instant messenger, you name it, I will cover it here, so long as it captures my interest, that is.

There seem to be no rules when it comes to the web of friendship, innuendo, possibility, rejection, loyalty, decorum, and straight-forwardness that is the single girl's life in NYC. Rule number one is "There are no rules." Rule number two is "When in doubt, see rule number one." I welcome suggestions.