This is fine

"This is fine," I keep telling myself. But, dear readers, everything is not fine, though maybe my mess of a life is what makes this blog worth reading.

Traced back as far as memory allows, I've had this feeling in my gut that things are not fine, that things will never be fine. One of those things that has never been fine is my relationships with women. You may want to prepare yourself for a long post.

There is an image in my mind of the kind of woman I want to love. I mean, I literally see a specific woman in my head, but the list is as such: wholesome, sweet, kind, selfless, cute (or beautiful), smart (but doesn't want me to feel like she's smarter than me), a heart for God, etc. The problem is, women like this don't exist. Okay, they're out there. But not really. They're married. They have kids, jobs. They are busy. They aren't divorced or otherwise available, putting themselves out there. They are smart, so they don't get divorced in the first place because they marry the right person. Their lives account for the rest of their time. You don't just find women like that. I can only think of one, but she is decidedly not available. 

Once I move from this place, there will be no more thoughts of relationships. I will be officially done. It simply won't be an option, as I'll be well into my 50s by the time I can think about relationships again and by that time there will be no point. This was my last brazen attempt at a relationship, unfortunately. What I wanted to happen clearly didn't happen, and I just need to accept that and move on. But moving on entails simply being done. No more thoughts of a relationship. I think it's a shame, but that's okay. I'm over the hill. I have a terrible track record with females. I keep choosing the wrong women. I can't even have a decent friendship with a woman overseas, which is ridiculous! (Do you know what is going on in Ukraine? They want out of there!). And it's expensive as hell to talk to them. 

When I move, all fantasies will cease. There are a lot of reasons I say that. I'll have to retool my life, get settled at a new job, new state, new town, new everything, and the same for my son. Well, he won't have a job yet. That takes time. By the time all of that falls into place (or just as likely, doesn't fall into place), I'll be too old and in no position to look for female companionship. 

I like to think I'd be a great partner for someone, but relationships are either hard work or they just plain old work. People think you can work hard at relationships and achieve something, like a workable dynamic. If you are of that variety, let me relay my humble opinion: you are wrong. Relationships either work right out of the box or they don't. "Making it work," is a phrase people use because they want their relationships to work but something is bad wrong and that is causing problems, entailing a lot of extra work. It's like watching a guy in a sinking boat with a bucket, bailing water as fast as he can, saying, "Hey, I'm making this work." Yeah, have fun with that, buddy. I, on the other hand, got my boat to shore and said, "Fuck that, I'm done." Okay, it wasn't like I had a choice. Someone else made that judgment, someone smarter than me. 

So let's wrap up that thread. The girl I was in love with dropped the bomb on me two years ago in July. She did so as nicely as possible, so I simply kept on believing it could happen. And, when it appeared there was actually no hope at all we would be a couple, I remained in love. So, here I am, two and a half years after she came back into my life, and she is not in my life. Here I am more than two years beyond when she pushed me out of her life, and she is still not in my life. It's safe to say on this ordinary day she is not ever coming back to me. As sad as that statement is for me to say, there has to be some sort of silver lining. I guess I'll keep looking for that. 

So, I have to make one last desperate bid for a relationship before I leave this place. That isn't much time. The odds are extremely low I will find my dream girl in that time. I won't be in love with her, but maybe she'll be in love with me. And would she want to come with me? Odds are even lower. This really leaves only international dating as an option, as I'm really fed up with American women anyway. Sadly, international dating is problematic for so many reasons, why even bother?

An article (linked to here) at medium.com, by Eric Turner, who apparently is a therapist, tries to compare real-life love to the Hollywood stuff. The movie Turner chose to beat down is the beloved romantic fairytale, The Notebook. First of all, how many moviegoers really think movies are indicative of reality? We don't go to movies to experience reality; we go to see an unreality, a fairytale, and, for that, The Notebook delivers. And, while I'm defending the movie, I should point out the movie actually makes the same fucking point as the author when Noah and Allie fight after being reunited. Noah says the same things as Turner, which makes me wonder if Turner even saw the fucking movie. I'm a man, I'm 41, (so clearly not the target demographic) and I know this movie better than you, and you're writing about it? Fuck you, Eric Turner. Next time, watch the fucking movie. Counting to ten. Breathe. Breathe.

Anyway, the article points out that relationships are supposed to be hard and it's all drudgery and why do people even try? Well, Mr. Turner, you're full of shit. Relationships are not supposed to be hard and drudgery. People make them that way because people are shitty. Shitty people make for shitty relationships, period. Maybe you should question who you are or who your partner is before you blame relationships — all of them — instead of the people in them. 

Let me illustrate my point. I shoot guns. Some bullets shoot better than others. I don't blame my gun if one box of bullets has fliers, is inaccurate or inconsistent. I've taken the time to sight in the rifle. I know how to shoot it. I also know that a box of ammunition from a different manufacturer may work better, and remarkably, I am right most of the time. You may not want to pay $35 for 20 bullets for better performance, but those $18/box bullets clearly aren't working. Stop shooting them. And stop blaming the gun. Too often people blame relationships and say they're hard because of poor experiences. Maybe you're shooting the wrong bullets. That may be a poor analogy, but that's good preachin'. 

I should probably point out how scandalously the characters in The Notebook behaved. I mean, they were cheating on their significant others (he with his booty-call girlfriend and she with her fiance). I'm sorry, but being in love does not give you the go-ahead to trample on the people you are with to be with someone else. It was a moral low point of the film. Everyone glosses over this. Of all the things to complain about in this film, you missed that, Eric Turner? How about we don't glamorize cheating, Hollywood (and Nicholas Sparks)? Maybe Mr. Turner was happy with this part of the film because it is, in fact, realistic, and we wouldn't want our movie to be unrealistic.


Eric Turner wants us all to feel bad because, apparently, he feels bad. I sense a bitterness in his writing, as in, my shit fell apart and I want to see someone portray that because that's real, man!  Mr. Turner, people do not want to watch sad lives. They want the fairytale. People want the fantasy. What Mr. Turner gets right comes at the end where he says that love is a choice. These were the words I said to my ex-wife when she was having an emotional affair with a coworker (one of many, actually, but one of the bigger affairs). Love is a choice. You choose it every day if you want it every day. The minute you stop choosing it, love begins to die. The person you come home to every day is your choice. Love is that simple. See, Mr. Turner, it's not so hard. Just a simple, everyday choice. You pick out your underwear every day, don't you? That's a choice. Same thing. Except cuddling up to your underwear at night is weird, unlike cuddling up to your lover, which is nice. 

My beleaguered point is that relationships don't have to be hard. Love is a choice. Don't make it harder than it is. For me, I've seen the character flaws that destroyed my marriage; I've realized I'm a shitty person. I was the reason my marriage and other relationships didn't work. I should not blame all relationships for my failures. In The Great Gatsby, there's a scene that comes toward the end with Jordan and Nick, and I think that probably explains all of this better than I can. It's a simple metaphor for relationships.

Jordan was a "bad driver," meaning she was bad at relationships. She was trying to be with Nick, and their relationship was okay for the most part until Nick became a "bad driver" too. Accidents happen between two bad drivers. If one is attentive, they can avoid an accident, but if both are inattentive, then accidents happen. In my marriage, I was the good driver. My ex-wife, who was "careless" by her own admission, was the bad driver. When I became a bad driver as well, that's when our marriage ended. 

 
Let me get to the point of this post. I know, it's taken me a while. It's been unfair of me to keep important information from my readers about probably the only thing keeping them reading — the girl I'm in love with. I mean, no one really cares about my barbershop experiences. So, what the hell happened? I wish I had a tidy answer to that question. There are so many unanswered questions in my head, I don't even know where to begin. All I know is she ended it in February when we had one of our last conversations. I remember I was watching the Lily Collins movie Love, Rosie, which is about a pair of star-crossed lovers who through many years of misses, finally get together. It's a touching movie, and I could see the obvious parallels with the girl I'm in love with. While watching this sweet romantic movie, she ended all illusions I had of possibly being with her in the future. Like a fucking ninja.

Over the past two-plus years, she has told me at least 20 different reasons we cannot be together, ranging from "I get home late and sometimes have to pick up drive-through food for dinner," to how her daughter feels about me (she hates me, even though she's never met me, but this is a legitimate deal-breaker, as I'm not interested in upsetting her children) to ... well, what she told me in February (which I will hold back here for the sake of privacy, haha) which is what I would call the final nail in the coffin. What she said in February, even though it brought up a lot of questions, was really the closure I needed. For that, I was grateful. She said there would be no "third chance" for us. For her to be that blunt with me was out of character because she lets everyone else make decisions instead of herself. I don't know how a human being can function like that, but she seems to be doing fine.

Yes, I did have a conversation with her maybe a month after that when she gave me a "maybe," but a maybe from a girl who can't say no is just ... a kinder no. My heart swells with love for her because she was humane enough to not give me another chance. If we had tried to be together, it would have been yet another disaster for me. And she knew that. Her saying no was about the kindest thing anyone has ever done for me. Even in a difficult moment such as that, she was kind and gracious. I have so much admiration for her.

So that was that. She closed the door and it was ... anticlimactic. So, the question is, how long will I continue to love her? I think I've answered that question here. Will I continue to write about her? Yes, I'm sure I will, as I'm still in love with her.


I could be angry with her. I think that is an appropriate response. I mean, she started something and then backed out of it, leaving me feeling betrayed and hurt. There was at least one conversation where it seemed she wanted to hurt me, saying things I would never say to my worst enemy. All of the loveliest things she said about a man were about her ex, in fact. She seemed to be more critical of me than anything else. But, I have talked with God about it many times and every time, He tells me I have no right to be angry with her. I've had a few experiences with ladies lately (because what can get me over a woman – I mean, c'mon, it's been two-plus years – faster than another woman?) that have informed me of what I imagine she was feeling when I was trying to have a relationship with her. I felt the same feelings — the terror, the bewilderment, the wounded sort of get-me-outta-here reaction. I have even used the same words, the same phrases she used with me, being nice but definitely pushing back. It's humbling to realize how she was feeling during such a critical moment when I was trying to race ahead and have a relationship with her. I feel so mad at myself over of that.

So, I missed out on that girl AGAIN. FUCK ME. I have nothing but respect for her. She's wonderful. When I think about it in a detached way, she really did me a huge favor. There wouldn't have been anything more demoralizing or destructive to me than to crash and burn a third time with her. And that's what would have happened. The same reasons why we couldn't do it the two times before still exist. She will always be WAY out of my league, so far removed from my plane of existence, I mean, we would have no understanding of each other's worlds. My childhood wounds are so deep and festering that I will always be fucked up. There's no way to get to her. She's Everest. But harder. She's like Olympus Mons. How dare I even imagine being with her. I shake my head now. I was certifiably insane to think I could have been with her. I'd laugh but it hurts too much. 

Then there's the fact that her returning to her husband in her heart was exactly the kind of hurt I sought to escape in my marriage, the hurt of my woman loving another man. There is no more insurmountable obstacle than that, and it is exactly what I do not want in a relationship. To spend the rest of my life with a woman who is in love with her ex (who cheated on her right and left, as well as physically, mentally and emotionally abused her, no less) would have been an unimaginably torturous experience. Add to that the fact that she hurt me more in a short amount of time than my ex ever did, and I think it's fine if there's no third chance. The fact that she hurt me that much wasn't so much her fault as it was mine. I mean, I'm the one who made myself vulnerable to her more than any other woman. I opened up places I never shared with anyone, in fact. All I can say is I'm thankful she put on the fucking brakes. Some things just aren't meant to be.

You know, when a girl pushes back on you for TWO-PLUS YEARS, maybe you should leave her alone, ya think? Oh, no, not me. I sent her flowers and chocolates on her birthday, even made a card for her. I again made her a card and sent her stuff for Valentine's Day. And, you know what, I felt awful because I ordered it before she told me she couldn't be with me. Here I was looking like a dick again. Not only that, but the company delivered to her a second time without my permission! I felt terrible, and I'm pretty sure one should not feel terrible for trying to make a woman happy on a special day. What the fuck, dude? I hate myself. Should a man hate himself for trying to make a woman feel special? Yes, when that man is me!

So, everything is fine. What happened is fine. My future is fine. Everyone did what they were going to do, and everyone will do what they are going to do, and that's fine too. When I say my life is over, that's hard to explain. Instead, I'll just say I'm fine. 

Thanks for reading.