the click...or it's me not you (by marcia)

A good way to humiliate yourself is to write down some of your deepest thoughts, fears and emotions and then send it to the guy you are dating. When I told Chris (my Voice of Reason) that I was going to be a contributing writer on this blog, he recommended that I take up a less dangerous hobby…such as hang gliding.

In case anyone is curious, Clue and BH and anyone else I write about, knows about this blog. I actually send them what I write before I post it so they have a chance to dispute, correct or enhance anything. I sent the “therapy” bit to Clue before we went out on Friday and then spent a couple of days wishing I had gone hang gliding.

After I emailed “therapy” to Clue, he just replied “I’m glad you shared it with me. It will give us an opening to talk about some of those things.” Ugh. Relationship talks are not one of my strong points. In fact, one time I think I dated a guy a year before we had our first relationship talk.

So on Friday Clue picks me up and we can both sense this huge elephant in the room right away. We get in his car to go to dinner and that elephant is right there with us. I finally break the ice and blurt out, “I feel totally exposed.” He laughed and I realized he was actually enjoying this. I let him enjoy it – he deserved it after everything I’d put him through. We drove to the restaurant and talked. We sat on the patio at a Thai restaurant and talked. We came back to my place and talked. I have to say, it was one of the most honest, open, refreshing relationship talks I’ve ever had. To re-phrase, I was completely honest, completely open – more so than I’ve ever been.

First of all, it cleared up a few things. We’d had some miscommunication about schedules and availability. I thought I had told him that the only days I wasn’t available last week were Wednesday and Saturday. He had sent an email saying that he was buried with work and later in the week would work better for him – but of course he doesn’t remember that part. I believe he was used to and expected me to “give him a sliver of my time” as he put it and interpreted me and my schedule accordingly, which, based on the past few months, I can’t blame him. So when I told him that I had to take my brother to the airport and wasn’t available until 8pm on Friday, he decided to blow me off and go to Moab. So that whole thing about patience? Not true.

We also talked about where we are in this relationship and what we hoped to get out of it. I found Clue to be very sensitive and understanding. We talked about BH a bit and he totally understood not being ready to be in another serious relationship. He also asked if I’ve the chance to grieve after we broke up which I thought was interesting. One night about a month ago BH and I talked for about two hours late into the night. I hung up and cried for awhile. Not because of anything we had talked about, but because I felt totally empty after we hung up. We have this great friendship and have a great conversation and then hang up and there’s a big-fat-empty-nothing hanging over me. I couldn’t sleep so I wrote a therapeutic page or two about him. So yes, I’ve grieved. Actually, now I feel totally over BH. In past post-break-up cycles, we would stay friends but in the back of my mind was the idea that maybe he would want to marry me. I don’t have that in the back of my mind anymore.

Clue is looking for someone he enjoys spending time with and then actually spending time together – something I’ve been avoiding. I’ve enjoyed the time we have spent together, but I’ve kept fairly aloof, utilizing my work travel schedule to space things out. The travel stuff is legit, but when I’m in town, I’ve been reluctant to spend a lot of time together and I’m not sure why.

I told Clue that I like him, that there’s a lot of things I admire about him and that I’ve enjoyed getting to know him better, but I haven’t experienced that “click.” It could be the timing. It could be me. It could be him. I actually told him all that. Honest and candid conversations may be old hat to some people, but I am a graduate of the School of Cowardice and Avoidance. These baby steps are giant to me.

He asked if I wanted to keep seeing each other and I replied yes (the conversation was a bit more in depth, but this is the gist of it). At the end of the evening we just sat in silence, his arms wrapped around me and he would kiss me on my forehead once in awhile. It was nice.

So he’s making me dinner for me after church tonight. I’m sure it will be a lovely evening – just before I fly out tomorrow for another business trip.