Giving Up The Ghosts

Last night, I had a dream about the first boy I ever really liked and had a mad, raging, multi-year-long crush on. It was an interesting dream, because in it, he was just as blase and indecisive as he had been in real life. Finally, driven to the end of my proverbial rope by despair and out of my wits with frustration, I wrote him a letter, outlining the fact that as long as he couldn't choose to keep a monogamous relationship either between me and him or him and my friend, I was done-- I wanted nothing to do with him. I upheld my promise pretty well-- until we survived a life-or-death situation together, caved under the pressure, had sex again, and then I got to confront my friend while helping her move from her apartment about the fact he was playing us both.

It was an emotionally-charged, fascinating dream-- possibly made more interesting by the appearance of the ex at the tail-end of it, as well as the fact that I knew that my first crush was actually the symbolical representation of my last relationship. I woke up, utterly fed up, and started thinking about the lengths that women will go through to try to keep a relationship.

I have never been a fan of the ultimatums, unlike much women. I firmly believe that if you're going to make a "if...than" statement, you should be willing to stand by it under pain of death, dismemberment, or break-up, and, as my dream obviously revealed, I've never really been great at doing that. If a woman gives a man an ultimatum-- "It's done forever and ever until the end of time when the Universe is sucked into a black hole if you ever sleep with another woman"-- and then doesn't actually have the balls to stand by what she said in earnest, it teaches both of them that A.) A woman can say things that she absolutely doesn't mean, and B.) That he can get away with it. I consider both outcomes horrible things. And I'm always quick on the draw to call a bluff. So, instead, I stick to the "Do it once, shame on you; do it twice, shame on me, I'm leaving," mentality. It works, for the most part. In real life, not only was I able to walk away from my first crush when he perpetrated events much like the ones in my dream last night, but I also repeated my feat of fortitude and strength again when the ex repeated similar events, later in my life.

And yet, I find myself still dreaming of them both. What does this say about me; about them?

Despite the fact that we grew up together and still are in casual touch, I hadn't thought about my first crush in months before last night, so I happen to think he was just a handy vehicle for my dream-self to craft the morality lesson of last night's sleep around. As for the ex...well, that's a more slippery slope, but I can explain where the specter of him came from, too. Before I went to sleep last night, I was watching a movie when the dishy main actor suddenly smiled, and in a blinding flash of realization, I realized why I was drawn to him-- he very much resembled the ex, especially when he smiled. I started flipping back through my Rolodex of Previous Relationships, trying to put famous faces to my exes who resembled them. I made the same obvious match of Aaron Eckhart to someone as I had when I'd been seeing him, but, other than him, the only other one of my ex-lovers who I could pin similar faces on was the ex, and as I kept coming up with names of people who I thought looked like him-- the guy from the movie; Emile Hirsch; Adem Ljajic-- I started wondering why, to me, he was one of my most recognized faces. It wasn't the fact that he was my longest running on-again, off-again thing; it wasn't the fact that I truly loved him-- I truly love my most recent ex, but I was fucked if I could come up with a doppelganger for him, so there goes that theory. I will admit to the fact that in his heyday, the ex was certainly one of the most striking and handsome men I have ever seen, let alone been with, so maybe that was it. We human beings can be incredibly shallow, after all.

The ex was beautiful, and he and I shared a lot of emotional history-- and hysteria-- together. But does that, and the fact that I can still catch glimpses of him in other people mean that I in any way desire him back? Oh, helllllllll noooooooo.  Let's face it, I'm a little bit of a masochist, and a little pain never really hurt anyone, but I would have to be declared clinically insane to ever go back to him. THAT much pain and turmoil he put me through just isn't worth it; no matter how attractive he was, no matter what we had in common; no matter the fact that we shared friends, professions, and a common life. I remember how miserable I could be when I was with him, and in general, I tend to believe that there is one thing human beings should never actively seek out to be, and that thing is miserable. Learning that lesson through him-- and, in some ways, the baby starter steps to it with my first crush-- was possibly one of the defining moments of my life thus far, and it has always served as a valuable lesson every time another relationship starts to turn the same way. I am more important to myself than a man will ever be, no matter how much I happen to love him. And if he makes me miserable, well-- then someone has to go, and it's sure as hell not going to be me. One of the most important things you can ever learn is how and when to go about giving up the ghost of relationships failed, past, and never to be repeated again.

XOXO

The Man, The Woman, The Legend.

Urban legends, right in time for Halloween. Not only are there scary urban legends, there are the sort of urban legends that Single Girls tell to each other to feel better-- things like "It's not you; it's him. He's obviously crazy, and he'll be begging you to come back next week, just wait and see." That, my friends, is a total myth, and one we all know is complete bullshit.

So which do you think is more unbelievable, the ones we choose to re-tell, hope attached, or the ones told to give us goosebumps of the un-delicious kind? The stories of the friend-of-a-friend-of-a-cousin whose fiancée cheated on her, and then repented to become the best husband and father there ever was, or the one about the girl who came home late one night to her dorm room, drunk, and fell right into bed, only to wake up in the morning to find her roommate brutally murdered, and the words "Aren't you glad you didn't turn on the lights?" written in her blood on their wall? Appalachia's Tailypo story scared the shit out of me when I was a kid, but the legend about how it's women who least expect it find the perfect guy is supposed to give us hope? How do we least expect it, if we're all frantically looking for it? Sure it happens, but never in the way we're least expecting it to.

And what about Hook Man? Maybe at one time, he had showed up under a girl's window with a boombox and won her over. And alligators in New York City's sewers. Oh, wait-- that one's true. Do you know what other Single Girl urban legend is sometimes true? The girl who had a one-night-stand that turned into a relationship.

Once upon a time, I had a one-night-stand. I had met the guy a week previously. We spent about 2 hours talking, on a kind of set-up, and that's all it took to convince me he was attractive, convince him I was cute, and convince both of us that we should end our respective dry-spells. We slept together for one night, and then never again. I ran out of my apartment the next morning at 8 AM, leaving him eating breakfast in my living room.

Once upon another time, I had another one-night-stand. This time, I had no disillusions about it being anything but-- we both knew it. He asked me to spend the night; I had brought my overnight bag with me. He kissed me goodbye the next morning; I was confused, yet triumphant. It was like big-game safari hunting, campus edition. 5 days later, he called. He wanted into a relationship. Thus started a 330+ day on-again, off-again unholy partnership of egos, lengths of silence punctuated by periods of too much talking, the exchanging of books and saliva and lots and lots of stories, and just enough occasional sweetness to make it actually seem like an ok idea when barely lucid. The fling was flung. Man, myth, legend.

Like how my mom used to chop all my Halloween stash candy bars in half because of that urban parenthood legend about psychopaths shoving needles and razor blades into trick-or-treating candy, proceed with caution when it comes to these stories, and like with all urban Single Girls legends and gossip, take it with a grain of salt. Someone else's sort-of-optimistically-Unhappy-Ever-After may be just what you're looking for, or it may be the sort of thing you told around campfires to hear other people's screams. Moral of the legend? Promiscuous sex rarely leads to relationships-- it tends to lead more to things like venereal diseases, people saying "I'll call you" and then never doing so or never returning your calls, and terse mornings spent hovering over the toilet bowl making all sorts of strange promises to different gods re: your fertility-- but sometimes, when all the planets align, and the air smells right, and when you least expect it, sometimes, it will at least lead to a second night. Or a whole bunch of second nights. Boo. Scary, ain't it?

XOXO

The Tell-Tale Heart

I know Facebook has ruined us. Do you want to know how Facebook has ruined us? Because for what was probably the past three hours of my sleeping life, I grappled with a dream which started out pleasant and involved two loves of my life: men, and pie, and yet progressed into something that made my heart-- literally, I felt my heart-- plunge to somewhere in the vicinity of my toes when in my dream, I saw It. That thing that all girls secretly dread. The terror of the internet. The scourge of Facebook. "_______ is in a relationship with _______." That little pink heart has never been more ominous.

When I woke up, I promptly lunged for my laptop, just to make sure it wasn't true and I hadn't been sleep-web-surfing like how I sometimes have to wake up and grab for my phone to see if I really was sleep-texting or so-fucked-up-you-might-as-well-be-asleep-because-you're-not-gong-to-remember-doing-it-in-the-morning texting. The rest of the dream I could brush off as kinda ridiculous-- running down the road, looking in houses for someone you have no idea how to find (oh, that's telling!) and who remains, decidedly, not a character in the rest of this dream, but instead, a blue and white profile with a new pink heart on it; an 18 year old, baby-faced, cowboy hat-wearing new girlfriend who kinda looked like Bret Michaels had actually succeeded in fathering a child with one of his Rock of Love floozies, having a traumatic breakdown on my shoulder while the only decent thing to do was hold a tissue for her to blow her nose while consoling her because, "I know how he can be, sweetie." It rang so true I couldn't even get mad when she blew snot all over my toes and her parents told me how perfect they were together over what seemed to be a feast straight from Henry the VIII's table. I mean, there was a woman ladling split-pea soup straight into her mouth, for chrissake. How am I supposed to take a dream like this seriously?

The point is, I did. The point is, I woke up with a start, gasping and bolting upright, and then scrambled down to the foot of my bed and grabbed my laptop to check-- just because. Just because it felt so real. Just because I am that terrified. Just because it brought to my attention that any day, that could be a real possibility, and I am, as evidenced, nowhere near prepared for that. I guess what they say about dreams bringing out your subconscious fears and desires is true-- in which case, I am a mess. Facebook, you've finally fucked me over.

XOXO

P.S-- In other news, you have 5 days to become my 48th, 49th, or 50th follower. (Which is a great birthday present to me.) And there's $1.14 that stands between me and a check from Google, which would really be appreciated as I am currently investigating the laws of prostitution for some gray area and not quite the same severity as a sentence for robbery/forgery/extortion/embezzlement, as those are my 5 options at the moment to afford summer rent.