new year, old dicks

it's pretty rare for me to stay friends with an ex.. or barely an ex.

i'm always really confused when other people in my life seem to do it easily. but then again, i'm just as confused when people break up and continue to fool around with that person. i mean, because, you broke up for a reason, right? it wasn't working? then you probably shouldn't be fucking each other.

yes, there's maybe a handful of dudes i've fooled around with in the past that i'm still friends with. but that was always after a very long time of not seeing them once things ended. the longer i hold off on seeing someone, the easier it is to forget the feelings i may have once had. sometimes, it actually doesn't take very long when i realize that i didn't have any feelings at all and want to continue to be that dude's friend. but again, it's rare. i can count two in the last seven years. both of which it didn't take too long for me to know we're better off as friends than anything more. and i know they feel the same.

i suppose things get much worse when you're living with the person you broke up with. and then i wonder why people get into relationships and commitment as quick as they do before they realize the crushing disappointment that will eventually come with it, sooner or later.

that's something i could never do for him. and it's what he wanted. he wanted a live-in girlfriend. someone who would be there when he came home from work. someone who would make him dinner. someone who would always be around. but i made it clear to him in the very beginning that wasn't who i was and it would never be. i was not going to be his mother. but that's what he wanted and he found someone else willing to be his mother. willing to move in with him. willing to tell him that she loved him. willing to take countless pictures of the two of them together pretending to be happy, frame them, and put them up around the small, half-room they now shared. someone who was willing to change him into, what is supposedly, a better person. someone who would spend the money it costs to buy him a PS4, only to break up days later.

but you don't ever take an eye off of the one who kind of meant something to you once even though you weren't exactly officially dating. as much as i tried to remove him from my life entirely. and every time i saw something, it irked me just a little bit. until i finally stopped caring and knew getting out of it when i did was the best for me at the time, because he was willing to settle for less, then come crawling back days later once she rejected him the first time. and when i rejected him after listening to what he had to say to me to get me back (and me pretty much laughing at him for thinking we'd ever get back together), he went back to her and apparently she was also ready to settle.

and just over a year later, i get what seems to be the inevitable - a message from him on the same dating website where we met. where he has the nerve to ask me to get a drink. fuck that. fuck you. i remember telling him that at one point we might be able to be friends and i knew i was lying. for some reason, he thought we could someday. no. no we can't. please stay the fuck out of my life.

and days after that, i see another bizarre sighting on the same website. this time, it's the dude who picked me up from sneaky dee's that one night in october. where we lasted a few weeks and he continuously told me he wanted me to be his girlfriend. and i kept telling him that wasn't what i wanted. but he seemed to know what he wanted and without warning, disappeared. legitimately.

i had almost forgotten about this one since it had just been this strange little blip in my dating history until i recently came across a blogTO article where he was featured and i recognized his name. well, at least he was having success in doing something he loved. and unfortunately, i made the mistake and made the message move. in which, i received a quick reply of him saying he wanted to message me but thought it would be weird. well, fuck. yes, it's fucking weird. then i made the even worse mistake of saying maybe to meeting up after he told me that he just ended a year long relationship.

uh, wait a minute - a year ago - uhhhhh A YEAR AGO THAT WAS US.

he disappeared on me for someone else. he then had the nerve to ask me if i was interested in hooking up. thankfully, i told him that wasn't the case and the texts have stopped. 

2014: the year i stop dating and keep the past in the past.

but then, i don't know what the fuck i'd write about.

i couldn't lie to you if i tried

i recently stopped seeing someone.

and by recently, i mean that i haven't talked to him in like a month. but i mean, "seeing" someone is kind of a two-way street, yeah? i'm only going to get fed up when i text someone and never hear back anything -- so i just stop. and last night, after coming to this realization, i did the only humane thing: delete him from life. yep, outta my phone & outta my facebook. it was quick and painless.

i guess i didn't really invest anything into what we were doing. i rarely saw him. i wasn't thinking about him all the time. actually, it was hardly ever. friends would ask me about him and  i'd shrug... "i dunno, he's probably working." and, he probably was. he worked a lot. we never had endless text message conversations, and when we did, it was very out of character for him. or he'd stop abruptly and i wouldn't hear from him again for days.

he had a habit of bailing on me for.. uhm.. "legitimate" reasons. like work. or double booking. or being tired. or uh, nope.. i guess that was basically it. but you'd think that if he was going to a friend's birthday or something and that's the reason we can't hang out because he forgot, the reasonable thing would be to invite me along. i'd probably decline, but it's the invitation i wanted. that never happened.

i understand that we never saw each other enough to really know what we were doing. and it wasn't like i was looking for him to commit to me or anything. that didn't seem like anything either of us wanted. we got along. we went out a few times on dates and they were pretty great. the rest of the times were spent in, playing video games. and i wasn't opposed to that either. he was actually a world of firsts for me. things were always comfortable, sexual or not. we went out to movies and out for dinner -- 2 things i never really do unless i've been seeing the dude for quite some time. don't ask why. i don't have a reason. it's just how my dating patterns have turned out to be.

he wasn't afraid to hold my hand in public yet, i only met one person in his life. and that was because i met him at his work as he closed and the other employee was still there. and it seemed like this other employee knew a lot about me already, so he must have been talking about me to his coworker. he met my roommate and one other friend. but, like i said, he was always busy. if he wasn't working, or doing music stuff, or hanging out with friends (usually music & friends went together), he was with me. but i was so far down on his priority list that i was lucky to see him maybe 3-4 times a month. yet, when he walked me to a show one night and saw some of the dudes hanging around the entrance checking me out, he kissed me in front of them. they immediately understood.

it's like he had all the right intentions sometimes. and other times, not so much. so, with this being one of the strangest encounters i've had in awhile, it was easy to let it go. i knew i wasn't invested in it when i deleted him from life and wasn't upset about it. i was actually more upset at the fact that i could do something so heartless and not feel anything. but whatever. maybe i'm just growing up in the dating world.

prior to this dude was in october. oh god. yeah. that october dude was totally crazy. and i almost lost a friend over it. it ended sometime in november and then i never saw anyone until march -- the dude i just stopped seeing. it was... a long winter.

i've had about a year's worth of ridiculous encounters and dudes i'll never see again. and it's for the better. i'm being optimistic in that my next dude will be something i can actually enjoy for a significant period of time. and is someone i can see more than 3-4 times a month.

i'm not holding my breath.