Pay Attention to ME!!!

YOU KNOW WHEN YOU’RE IN A NEW RELATIONSHIP AND YOU’RE ALL
EXCITED AND YOU CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF EACH OTHER.... I’m there. Handyman is skiing. I’m driving him f*cking nuts I am sure. 

I always laugh at myself because I give the best advice while dating. If you give me a scenario, I can read both sides and tell you with some pretty impressive accuracy what you should do to achieve your desired outcome of NOT making this man want to run for this hills. BUT in my own relationships. Not so much. 

Here is the problem. I do really well when I am just not that into a man. If I’m swiping right and talking to one or a few, I can usually gain the attention of who I’m most interested in by not paying enough attention to him. 

Seriously. This is the messed up way men and women work... a man likes this elusive creature unlike any other. The chase. The game. The not too easy, not unattainable either. The balance of being interested but not too interested. Women basically have to talk to someone else to keep from getting too excited and attached to the man they actually like so they play this elusive creature role perfectly with detachment. 

For example... last spring I was dating this guy for a couple months. He was a tumultuous liar with an amazing knack for drawing me back in every time I shut him down. Let’s call him AirFirceOne. So AF1 was charming and brilliant, charismatic and successful. He was also manipulative and controlling, a gaslighting narcissist with borderline personality disorder and an entirely false reality in which he pretended to live AND his ass was married. 

Married?!? Yes. MARRIED. How did I miss this you might ask? Wellllllll in hindsight, I probably knew. I joked about his schedule and how he would make plans and break them. Always had an excuse for everything. I literally said at one point, this sounds a lot more like you have a wife at home than a work emergency. A kid emergency. A whatever else came up... I say he was brilliant because not many men can lie and maintain the stories he did. He was a literal sociopath and i experienced some of the most insane gaslighting and manipulative behavior I have ever seen. 

Now the fucked up part is I saw it happening and I participated. Like the movie was playing out in front of me and I watched myself play my roll. It was almost a battle of wits. I was proving myself right. I was proving he wasn’t what he claimed to be and he was a lying cheating married man. I went back and forth and I took from him. He took from me and I took from him. He played on my compassion and empathy and any time I was done with the game, and I called it a game, he had some medical emergency. He was near death or dying or something insanely tragic was happening which took over the narrative and drew me back in. 

It all culminated one night I told him I was done with his game and I didn’t care anymore what happened. That he had emotionally bruised me and used me enough like a puppet and I was over it. I said you win. The game is over and you won. I’m done. 

That night he had an utter meltdown and the following weeks it continued. He went so far as to call me from 8 different numbers and leave his fake suicide on my voicemail. Yes. The man shot a gun and acted like he killed himself because of me. You want to talk about some violent terrifying mental problems this guy had them. 

But before all that...
Somewhere in the middle of this few months of hell when I had ended things and he was still trying to hold my attention: I started dating again. I met this tall, successful, super fun man. Our first date was a blast. We will call him Joe, Average Joe. 

Joe was reckless and spontaneous but still stable and controlled. Our first date started a joke about running off to Vegas and about a month in he was telling me he loved me. I like joe. I bet I could have fallen for joe. The reason he fell for me was because I was available but not overly available. I was busy. I was raising my kid, taking vacations, and texting him when I had a second. He spent the first several weeks not even hearing from me daily. Then he’d have these like sad little moments where he’d back off and I’d draw him back in... he liked the chase. I could read that in after about a month I let him catch me. 

All was well and good but I still had this psycho in my phone nonstop trying to get me to see him to talk to him to give him anything and I don’t know what was wrong with me but I kept answering. Now AF1 was an astute reader of people. He knew I was seeing someone and I was slipping away. So he developed a new kind of crazy. 

I don’t know how he even figured out who I was seeing but he got enough entail on him to create a believable narrative that I needed to protect my daughter from this man. That he was a sexual predator with a pension for teenage girls. That he would be grooming my Impressionable teenage girl. This worked for two reasons: one, plant that seed of doubt and I can’t ever feel safe and secure and not wonder, and should something ever happen and it be a real concern - I would never forgive myself. And the second reason, old joe was a little different in the bedroom. 

He was hot and knew what he was doing but he had confessed a past history in an unhealthy relationship where they were basically swingers. Sought out threesomes and what not. Which makes me insanely uncomfortable. The other thing is hours and hours of foreplay and sex and this guy never ever finished. So before this horrific terrifying seed of doubt was planted I already had this suspicion something wasn’t quite right with him sexually. 

Date a sex addict for 3 years and you will learn a lot about how men rewire the pleasure centers in their brains. That finding fulfillment in porn and casual sex with a stranger or hookers, or whatever it is. They can change how they are neurobiologically wired to feel pleasure and understand intimacy. A man who can’t finish in sex with a women they are emotionally bonded to - well they aren’t really that bonded because the orgasmic neurological response isn’t happening that releases the hormones that are literally referred to as “bonding chemicals”. But also something isn’t right. Might be a health issue. It’s usually a brain issue... don’t even get me started on the dangers of porn for adolescent boys.

So this crazy ass saying, you need to watch the man you are seeing around your daughter was enough for me to pull back. Granted I didn’t really believe it but he told a good story and there was enough in play to make me worry. But two months later he tries to kill himself on my voicemail and his wife calls me - so I can safely say old Joe. Not a pedophile but still not my person. 

Alright.... before we bring this all back to the present can we all take a second to acknowledge that dating in 2019 was fucking nuts. Like I mean that shit played out like a law and order svu episode. It was insane. I should really be a lifetime movie writer. But I digress. 

Back to the handyman... I am having to consciously slow my ever loving roll. I am not playing it cool AT ALL. There is no elusiveness. I want to blow him up and know what he is doing all the time. It’s not a control or fear thing it’s an attachment thing. I’m like so interested in his happiness and what he’s doing. I’m like hey. I love you. Hey. Whatcha doin? Hey. How are the slopes. Hey. How’s skiing with dad. Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. Ohhhh look what I read. I thought of you. Here is the depth of my overly analytical mind for you to enjoy when you have time... ok call me later. 

And saying all this makes me laugh but it’s so damn accurate of what the last two days have been like. I have zero chill. This man is going to be like babe. I love you. You need a hobby. 

I’m not usually like this. It’s the excitement and the giddiness and the newness all at once. It’s our intimate connection and the deep vulnerability we have created. It’s just me. So today. New Year’s Day. He’s skiing with his dad and I’m going to focus on my individual 2020 goals and organize my bathroom. 

I promised myself this house would be spotless by the time he got home because I’m sick of living like a sorority girl with my teenage daughter. Plus him gone is a good time to declutter my life. Happy New Year! Don’t go driving the people you love crazy today by smothering them with all your joy and emotions! Cheers!