Sleepless in Seattle...

...or in my parent's house.

Okay so the last few weeks I have been having creepy recurring dreams, all of which involve one or more of the men mentioned in this blog. Example 1: Nomad is running through the airport looking for someone, and I'm running after him yelling for him not to go to Africa. I never see his face but, because it's a dream and we are all-knowing beings in our own dreams, I know it's him. He gets to the gate and I think he's going to get on, so I reach to grab his ankle but then I eat it and fall on my face. He runs onto the plane. The stewardess comes up and tells me to leave. So I'm walking away, dejected, and who taps me on the shoulder.... o ya.... you know it - Nomad. And he says, I thought you were on the plane I had to stop you.

Funnily enough this occurred the day BEFORE Thousand Oaks' native son Steve Slater slided it off the Jet Blue Airplane with a beer in hand, giving the middle finger to all involved, no longer allowing himself to be called a steward or flight attendant. Not sure what I am referring to? http://www.nypost.com/p/news/local/jetblue_attendant_flips_out_flees_EJ6RiGgCZiZxGmo2xsU2TI
There, don't say I never did anything for you.

Example 2: Only last night, this tasty dream drops in on me - I'm sitting in my old classroom with a horrible professor bla bla bla'ing and there's a knock at the door. Only I hear it and turn around, and who who whoooo is it (owl shout out for my peeps! Get it? Peeps? No? Fine). why it's Superhero Gangster, motioning for me to come out. I'm shocked to see him because he's currently two states away (I'm sad still yes) but of course I shuffle out. He just says "Hey I needed to come down so I wanted to say hi!" So he takes me to get food and then he has to leave. He gives me a hug and a kiss. He drops me back off at school and, guess what, I start booking it after the car, like a woman possessed or an antelope. I'm not sure which.

Common theme - I am RUNNING after these guys in both instances. O man, even my subconscious is in trouble.

Here's to better rest and not remembering every detail of my damn dreams.

Return of the Jedi

O hello there! It's a pleasure to be back. O wait... no it's not, because back to the blog means back to the single life. Superhero Gangster left about a month ago. He moved two states away for a new job, and didn't want to do long distance. I don't blame him. At this stage in our lives, we want to spend time with the person we're dating. Maybe once you're engaged or married you can deal with it for a while, but we dated for 6, blissful, non-dramatic months and I wound never change one thing about it. Except, him moving.

In any case, I have been dealing with the disappointment fairly normally, for me at least - I'm trying to stay busy and talk to him just once a week, text little more than that. It's hard. When you feel like you found someone who meshes so well with you, it's a bitch. And it will be for a while.

If you believe in any karmic intervention, send me some positive vibes, hopeful vibes, not so single vibes. Thank you in advance my little ones.

And we're back!

I apologize for my absence. As this is a dating blog, I haven't had much to discuss. I've been dating Superhero Gangster since January, and it's been fantastic. No drama, no hassles, nothing. He makes me laugh and smile constantly, and I have been content.

Not to say that there's nothing going on in the single world. I've been attempting to play matchmaker for several people. It's been a bit rocky. I'm not God damn Patty Stanger after all. Maybe if I keep hanging out with all the Jewish teachers I work with I'll pick up some more skills. I did have one success with Nomad. You know who you are little teacher. I will be dancing at that wedding.

One of my friends from long ago and far away emailed me the other day. She will be called... uh... o damn it I've lost my touch for nick names... let's go with Canada. Ya that's not bad, Canada it is. So Canada asked me a question I wasn't prepared for. Something along the lines of "You're always in a relationship or dating or something... why?" or "What's your secret?" I literally have no idea. I'm serial dater. I'm more comfortable when I'm in a relationship than when I'm not, and when I get out of a relationship I like to date because it helps me to get over the relationship, and that invariably leads to another relationship. And the cycle continues. I didn't want to give advice, so I just told her to allow herself to meet to people, open herself up to possibilities, and realize that when you write off people too quickly, you can miss out on a great relationship, even if it ends in friendship and not looooove.

Date on my friends!

A Year in Review

Things I will keep from 2009:

Giving someone a second, or even third chance isn't always a bad idea. You can be pleasantly surprised by the changes they make, as I was with Nomad. But I still wouldn't recommend it. After all, if someone screws you over three or four times and you go back to them, you're going to be the butt of someone's joke. In fact you may end up on this very blog!

Slow and steady may, actually, win the race. At first, I was not on board with Superhero Gangster's approach to dating. Really? You want to know me as a friend first? Nothing else? And there's no deadline on this? It could last for how many months? Sweet fancy Moses! (If you can name that reference, you get a cookie!). But it turns out that it wasn't bad at all. While Superhero Gangster was doing what he felt he needed to do, I got to hang out with him and just be myself. There was no pressure, just a little awkwardness in the beginning. I flirt with guys I like, after all, so I had to be a bit more conscious of that. But after that was over, it was smooth sailing, and lo and behold! Here he comes seven months later asking me on a date.

Go with your gut. If the guy is creepy once, he'll probably creep all over you again. So don't chance it! Same with aggression and flakiness. Ah lessons learned.... man Minor League II was creepy!

Even if you consider yourself an excellent judge of character, as I do, you can still be deceived. I never knew the demons Benny and the Jets was facing, and what the underlying reasons for his crazy behavior were. Some men just hide it really well.

Some guys are actually really straight forward and tell you exactly what's going on and what they're thinking. Ferrell was this way - he was old enough to know how he should act with a 22-year-old, so it makes sense. I appreciate the qualities so much more after being with him for 5 months. What he told me in the beginning was just what happened in the end. I should have trusted his words more.

Lastly, fuck people who consistently suck. I have no love for that man anymore, he doesn't even deserve a nickname. He has screwed me over so many times and we haven't dated in years and years. Some people are just toxic. Cut them out. Life isn't long enough to deal with them.

No more Nomad

There were many times whilst dating Nomad that I wondered why I was doing this all over again, and maybe you wondered too. Why would I choose to be with someone who had hurt me so much in the past and had been so selfish? I'm sure there are a great number of reasons for this that I'm not considering, but I can think of three biggies: 1. I really continued to care about him; 2. I was somewhat optimistic about what our future could be; and 3. The timing was better this time than it had been in the past.

So I allowed myself to feel for Nomad again, and he absolutely did a 180 - He was caring, attentive, calm, and loving. He knew he had to make up for what he had done, and he did this very well. But every day I had doubts about whether I should trust Nomad again, and if I was as committed to this relationship as he was. I had some slack on this aspect though; why the hell should I try so hard or not be cautious when I had been so deceived over the last two years? So, I kept him at arms length in a lot of ways, and remained upfront with him about my reservations. I didn't want to be his "girlfriend", because I still had feelings for Superhero Gangster and I wasn't sure how long it would take me to forgive Nomad.

It wasn't until two back-to-back events in the last few weeks, however that I felt forced to make a decision. After speaking with my beloved therapist, I realized I hadn't gotten over what Nomad had done, especially his escapades in South America after kissing me, and various other crap. If I couldn't reconcile things like this over the past 5 months of dating, there wasn't much of a chance in me doing so in the future. This was event #1.

#2 occurred only one day later. After playing poker with Superhero Gangster and some of his friends, he made a move. Yep, after 7 months of being friends as per his request and just hanging out with nothing romantic, he wanted to go on a date, and pursue this further. Why did it take him so long and what switched? Well, wouldn't ya know, it happened in the seasonal section of Target, one of the best places on Earth. I said to him, "If I ever meet the girl who screwed you up [and made him decide to stop dating girls for a year] I'm going to punch her in the face. She ruined you for other women." I thought it was fairly innocent as my comments go, but he took it to heart. He explained to me that night after poker that he realized how much this girl was influencing him, negatively, and how it stopped him from dating me for such a long time, along with his desire to be friends first. He also told me how much he liked me, and how he was now afraid that he may have missed the boat.

So what's a girl to do? Two great guys - one with a history that kicks my ass ever day or one with a clean slate? One who is head over heals in love with me or one who knows me just as a friend? I was so terrified of breaking Nomad in half with ending things, and told him just that long ago when he really started opening up to me. But many of my friend told me that I need to be selfish about this. I couldn't just pretend that these doubts didn't exist to pacify Nomad. So ya, i did cut the cord with him, because I had to do it for myself. I had to consider my sanity and see if things with Superhero Gangster would go anywhere. I owed it to myself. And I couldn't be sorrier to do that to Nomad. People mention payback and Karma and act like he deserves it for being such an idiot in the past, but I can't view it that way. When you hurt someone so deeply, you should take it to heart.

That last of its species

So... this is how it feels to be caught between a rock and a hard place. And guess what, because I'm such a fan of metaphors, i'll expand on this.

The rock, without a doubt, is Superhero Gangster. He is solid (as a rock) and if I could build the perfect guy for me in my head, he would come very close to that. I absolutely think he and I could go the distance. There's one problem though, he doesn't want a girlfriend. So... that's kind of a big deal actually. And, I can't seduce him with my awesome make-out skills because he's such a damn gentleman that he won't do anything physical with me because he doesn't want to date anyone right now. Hmmm... so true gentleman still exist. I thought they were extinct. Maybe he's the last of his species.

So, as I'm sure you're all asking, who is the hard place. Oh, it's none other than Nomad. That kid has been back for a month and he's already so into me that it's ALMOST surprising. He's so hungry for a relationship it's fairly terrifying. And I can't, in all good consciousness, be his girlfriend. There are many reasons, and a t the top of them is the aforementioned rock. I'm not used to having one foot in the pool and one out. When I do something I do it whole-heartedly. I'm not in this with Nomad with my whole heart, and I have told him that I have massive doubts about us. That's why I have squashed him calling me his girlfriend. It ain't going that way unless I say it does. He is no longer in charge of my happiness.

This should be a shit-fest in no time, so stay tuned.

The worst thing that could ever happen happened...

…I went on a semi-blind date and I like him.

Introducing the new, the slightly awkward, Superhero Gangster. Now I must make a bit of a confession- I did not make up that nickname. This is the first time I haven’t been responsible for an original nickname, but it’s a ridiculous one so I’m okay with it. Thanks for the gem JMu.

So the story behind our meeting is a bit of a complicated one, so I will not bore all of my loyal readers, all two of you. In summary, it was a half set-up, half blind date, half disaster… or some such thing. He was great, but the circumstances were a bit odd. Nevertheless, he is the holy grail of dating – he’s tall, handsome, British, sweet, funny, smart, and we have a lot in common.

So what’s the problem? O nothing; just the guy in another continent who has ridiculously high expectations for us when he returns home… here…in a month. Siiiiigh…. Ya that guy who has been emailing me almost daily, and I’ve been doing just the same to him, and getting giddy when I get a call from a 14-digit phone number in the middle of Africa. O man…. Well all I can say is I have to let it ride. I was nervous about how to handle Ferrell and Nomad crashing into one another, and look! It worked out, it was a depressing way to have it work out but nevertheless.

And let me just say this – I feel like if you never put yourself out there, you won’t get hurt but you will never know the excitement of like and love and fireworks. I’d rather get burned by the fireworks than never know what that feeling is like.

Oh and date #2 with Superhero Gangster is tonight. Stay tuned.