Perfect Emo Night With The King of Carrot Flowers, Part Two

 

We went to Favorite Diner (As opposed to Neutral First Date Diner) to catch our breath and make this extraordinary moment a little more down to earth. It helped that he was in a work text chain putting out work fires as we sat down- somehow that took the pressure off. In between fielding texts, we didn't so much catch up as immediately launch into 20-year-old inside jokes, mostly Simpsons related. Between that an an exceptional turkey club, life was a perfect dream.

I don't think it's giving away the city by saying the sky was full of ashes that night. Sorry to be glib about disaster, but the fire sky really added to the overall emo of the situation. We brought out the KN-95s, with all their attendant grief. Our eyes stung and the coral/pink sun was world-endy, but my heart was full of joy and grace anyway. I don't know what's better in this world than parking on grass and moseying toward the gates with strangers of at least three generations, probably four.

BFF Formerly Sweetie walked slow with her walking stick and this was the first time we had to rent chairs instead of sitting our old butts on the grass, but other than those things, the three of us were the three of us again. We picked up our chairs, cocktails to go with the gummies in our tummies, and three matching T-shirts. (Which we did NOT put on! My symmetry brain really wishes I'd made that photo op happen!) KOCF got the new album on vinyl and I got it on CD- I should put it in the car and let it play all fall.

The opening band was Japanese Breakfast! They were dreamy and vibe-y and I liked how their gong was outlined in blue lights.

One of the first songs Death Cab played was This Is the New Year, which made me sob so openly and productively. Partly because I associate it with The Guy Next Door, but mostly because yes, YES! It's not the past. KOCF isn't lost anymore, and long-suffering Sweetie is now relievedly BFF. And we were at a concert, the home-est home you can get while surrounded by strangers. (Oh, boy, do I love strangers sharing a thing. Collective effervescence!!!!)

I promise I wasn't super intoxicated, except maybe by friend love, when my favorite part happened. They were playing Different Names for the Same Thing, and I looked around and saw it- there wasn't really any separation between any of us. Not between us or the chairs or Ben Gibbard or Japanese Breakfast's gong. OMG the Unified Field braving the smoky sky to visit my head this beautiful night. Everything, even the obscured skyline, even all my bitchy mistakes over the years, became unseparated for a little while. Ahh.

When KOCF came to my place to spend the night, I felt a deep carefulness. I want to never not be friends again, want to make sure I don't slip into stupid limerence any more times. I never want him to be not in my life again. The next day, we did ordinary things like go to my neighborhood cafe. I loved having him here. The cats loved having him here. BFF Formerly Sweetie loved having him here. I would please like this friendship to last and last and last: It might just be the best kind of love.

His Name Is Off the Mailbox

 

Thanks, Mountain Goats!

The Guy Next Door is gone. I finally had the courage the other day to retrieve my flower pots that had wandered into his yard. On my side of the border between our places, he left his beleaguered monstera-y plant, with crinkled-up leaves and bent stems. I'm not a healer of plants or men, so I put the plant at the curb for someone the plant has less baggage with to rescue.

It's lonely without him. (The man, not the poor plant.) Even after we stopped talking, he was kind of an imaginary friend. I liked knowing when his car was home, the state slogan on his license plate felt like a comforting/vexing chime in my head. Whoever moves in next won't be like this, I hope, won't get all tangled up--I'll probably only notice them if they're having a particularly loud conversation or smoking on the patio, or if they have a cute pet.

This guy, I was insane about him and insane with him, but the connection still meant something to me. The door that opened between us, that let two messed up minds find comfort in each other, I still think it's a miracle.

In the cold cold depths of winter, when I was still learning not to go to his door, I lit candles for myself in the window, both to ward off the pain and to show myself love. (Also there was an Indivisible directive about window-candles. Mine can't be seen from the street, but they still count.) I hoped the light gave him comfort too, snowday after snowday, but that really wasn't my business.

I'm still figuring out how to thaw. I'm DEEP in my step work and leveling up my family estrangement, trying how to figure out how to treat myself if I am, as I'm beginning to see, worthy of kindness and care. I took a dating break until at least June, but I'm starting to wish and hanker.

When The Guy Next Door showed up last summer with his red cups of hibiscus tea, I was jagged and at sea from last summer's trauma work, from a lifetime of trauma work. He gave me such a pretty spark and distraction, a (kind of fucked up) way to care for myself until I was ready for the next phase of growth and healing.

I imagine him out and about in some beautiful sex-positive frenzy, having all the fun my codependent ass isn't ready for. I imagine him going home to Think About What He's Done. I imagine him joining the life of some more copacetic and traditionally-shaped girl and hitchhiking that life wherever that takes him.

I'll probably never know. I get to stay here and try to be emotionally sober and not get swooshed into any more distractions while I face myself, while I learn to love myself. I miss my friend, whether he was imaginary or not. He doesn't live in my heart forever, I don't think, but I wish him everything good. And I hope someone is taking good care of that plant.

Borrowed Grief in the Fancy Garden

 

"It's too late to change your mind

you let loss

be your guide."--Broken Bells

By the Monday after Valentine's Day, the city had been frozen for weeks. Ice on top of snow on top of ice, and the temperature was seldom higher than 20 degrees. I've been through fifty-one Februaries, and most of them seemed like they would never, ever end. I'd been trapped here learning to love myself with varying success. My brain imagined Guy Next Door having the most lighthearted and casual adventures while I worked my steps and did my therapy sessions. It was time to thaw. It was time for colors and light and alive smells. 

So BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I planned a day at the Fancy Gardens, almost as an emergency. We were both excited to look at colors and I planned to flood the entire internet with flower pictures.

But BFF's back was out! She had a brace on and was walking with two canes instead of two. It broke my heart the way it always did when she was hurting and it also made me remember times when she'd been hurting and I'd been unkind. When I'd been heartless and impatient. I don't think I could ever forgive myself for the ways I've let my BFF down. Here I am, lucky enough to have someone to stand by me, to be my Emergency Contact. It's been twenty-five years (That gum you like is back in style.) of the deepest and most meaningful relationship of my life, and I still couldn't figure out how to *save* her or to at least make up for all the pain and neglect.

Her version might just be that her back hurt and we had a really lovely thawing day looking at flowers. But OCD and codependency had different interpretations for me.

There was another memory of The Fancy Garden around the edges of my (Nonetheless taking SO many pictures of flowers, do not worry!) 

fraught-feeling soul: The Shy One. On February 6th it was three years since he broke up with me. The week before that, I'd taken myself to the garden for winter emergency reasons, yes, but also just to listen to myself.

Things had been off between us since he got back from his trip home. He was colder and more elusive and I was kinda going crazy because he came home with "a little malaria" and I couldn't come tend to him, couldn't help "fix" the situation. And I was scared, because I'd never encountered malaria outside of novels. My imagination ran wild and I thought he was going to die. I mean, everyone's going to, but I really was afraid I he was on his way out.

(One time he told me it was like I knew he was going away soon, like I was trying to have the whole relationship at once. I've wished for years I could go back and be more present, more patient, more accepting, but I was what I was, and so was he. I don't wish like I used to that I could turn back time and do right by him, but I am TERRIFIED of making the same mistakes.)

Anyway, back to 2023 Fancy Garden. Texting flowers had been our thing, Shy One and I, but though he had recovered he was still being snappish and uncommunicative. I remember looking at a shot I took, a semi-lewd close-up of a fiery orange amaryllis, with bitterness in my heart, like, if he's not going to say more than "good morning" with no emoji, I'm not sending him one more piece of art he doesn't care about.

Back in 2026, with the glass-warmed sun shining on me and so many different purples to look at,I was also in the middle of making third-date plans with Sweet Valentine and he was Not Texting Back. And OCD was telling me it was Shy One all over again, that I was making the same stupid mistake. I felt one of my deepest fears: What if I can ONLY be drawn to people who really aren't drawn to me,  who don't text me back, who don't need me for anything at all.

(They tell me in Codependents Anonymous that I can be loved without being needed, and I totally feel that sometimes! But not on this particular day.)

(I know from my OCD support groups that texting is one of the hardest things for those of us with Relationship OCD to handle. I'm definitely the only neurospicy hottie who regularly wants to fling her phone into the sea.)

(Back in 2001 when BFF-Formerly-Sweetie and I were getting together, it was the red light on the answering machine that used to vex me! But there weren't so many other things to check so the madness of it was less maddening.)

We had a beautiful day at the gardens. BFF was glad she came, if still hurty. I still very much wanted her hurt to stop. I've always been more emotionally fragile than she is, but her physical fragility is so hard to handle. I can't help but flash forward to a day when I'll be without her, when I'll SOMEHOW have to figure life out without her. I hope that's in a long, LONG time but sometimes, it seems like it's already here.

I cried a lot of the way home; good, productive tears.

It turns out I wasn't OCDing about Sweet Valentine's quiet, or not JUST OCDing. I was kinda reading the room. He'd been wondering if he couldn't live up to all his obligations and still be poly. He wanted us to slow down so he could listen to himself about what he really wants, what he's really capable of.

That is actually so lovely! But friends, I melted down. All the griefs of the day and of the years came out in a tangle to this already-overwhelmed-but-extremely lovely man with a life just as big and messy as mine. After two dates, I would like to have preserved more mystery, but he heard me about two-thirds of the way to my worst.

But he stayed in the conversation and had the conflict with me. I still felt a warm soul-connection to him and he SOMEHOW still liked me, even after I got so tangled. So that's why the month break, which has a little more than two weeks left. Most days, I feel carried and faithful about this, like I can trust both of us to listen to ourselves, to do what we really want. I trust, if he comes back to me, that it'll mean that's what he really wants. I think I already know what I really want, but who knows how two more weeks will change me?

That night when we were agreeing to the break, I told him I hope our respective Totoros will take us just where we need to go. He said he loves Totoro, because of course he does.

So if you want to know how this story will turn out, here's the only person who knows:

How Do I Grieve a Fantasy?

 I passed The Guy Next Door in the driveway this morning and he said three words: "I'm moving out." My main feeling about this is relief, with a healthy dose of the Universe loves me! But I also feel guilty and sad and I have the continuing sensation of waking up and realizing it was all a (sometimes bad) (mostly bad?) dream. I don't miss him like I used to, but I miss how much room he took up in my heart.

The first night we hung out, when he talked about creating a garden "for us both to enjoy," I saw an entire adorable future for us: Together but living in our respective apartments, meeting on his patio for tea. Having just the cutest story about how we got together. And finally, finally, being able to give up the quest for love! Because I found it right outside my door!

I've always had a vivid romantic imagination, but this was different. I'm scared about how much it felt like I "knew" he was the right one for me. I guess if I'd been right I could call it intuition, but as things are, I'm tempted to call it delusion. But I don't think I got there on my own.

(The day of the last date, he said a parallel to the "for us both to enjoy" thing, he said he wanted to knock out a wall in his place so we could have breakfast on my terrace in the mornings. I like leaving the terrace nature-y for the birds, but what a nice idea!)

I remember laying in bed that first night feeling ELATED, feeling sure that he would stay here and be weird with me forever.

In the end, I felt like we were a cult of two, caught on a roller coaster of shared madness. (Codependent Crazy, my sponsor would call it.) After our break-off I looked up his (stated) diagnosis, Bipolar 2, and it described exactly what I'd been through with him--unpredictable moods, various degrees of lying, cycles of happiness and misery. It helped me to understand a little,  to give myself compassion about it, but it doesn't explain why I made the choices I did.

I could sit here and list his lies and red flags as evidence I got gaslit, tricked. But the important thing is--I chose him! And then re-chose him! So I'm asking myself, what made the fantasy so powerful?

Maybe it's as simple as a desire to fall in love and still keep my apartment? Maybe it's my porous nervous system and mirror neurons taking my brain to the mercurial place where his brain lives? Or maybe my dang soul just thought I could learn a lot from getting tangled up in him! I sure did!

Maybe I was lonely and needed a friend just as badly as he did!

I like my fantasy brain and plus, it's an autistic trait so I refuse to shame myself for it! But I'm afraid to sweep myself up into something so one-sided and shifting ever again. I know I can create beauty and romance out of pretty much anything, but I don't want to do it on my own, independently of reality. That's what art is for, not relationships.

It's snowing again and I'm using all of my self-care/hunkering down skills, lighting candles and feeling all the feelings, being where I really am.

I think part of my TGNS journey was about wanting to escape my own life, wanting to evade whatever growth and pain and love I'm finding on my own.

Or, I just loved him. He was my friend and I miss him, and I miss the idea of him I made up in my head. Both. I'm never gonna sort out the real from the imagined, the lies from the information, the throwing-away-art from the making of art in the first place. 

These days I'm supposed to be all twelve-steppy and put things in the care of my higher power, so that's what I'm doing. My HP and his will have to figure this out. In this case, I think, the Higher Power might just be time.

Princess of Livid

Bridesmaid dresses were kind of wild back then!
Or maybe the ladies in my family are just weirdos?

 It seems like the dumbest thing I've ever been mad about, but I think it's important. Week before last, on a Sunday morning, I was figuring out what to say to Mr. Breakfast and feeling jangled about some other stuff, when I heard The Guy Next Door talking in baby voice to whoever his date was:

"...and I treat her like a princess. I treat you like a princess, too. No fetish is ever gonna..."

Now, I'm pretty lucky for someone who lives next door to her onerous unrequited kryptonite crush. I've only run into him once since our break-off conversation, and I don't overhear anything blush-inducing. I almost always have white noise or music on, there's only just a sliver of space where I can hear anything at all. But there he was in that sliver of space. I wasn't eavesdropping, I just heard it.

I'm sure he wasn't saying it for me to hear, he was just saying stuff. I know him well enough that I'm pretty sure he's not treating anyone like a princess, but that's not how it landed.

The message my tangled heart heard was that I wasn't good enough, that other women deserved to be treated like princesses and I'd failed some mysterious test. This is one of my oldest and loudest and most destructive intrusive thoughts: "You're not as good as other women, they know something you don't and can't know."

Why my brain appointed him the designated arbiter of my worth is a question for infinite Codependents Anonymous meetings, but in that moment, I felt like I winked out of existence, the woozy, drowning feeling of being not there. If they were the princesses, if they had somehow gained his fleeting and sand-castle-like attention, then there was no reason for there to be a me at all. 

(How am I ever supposed to date men when I have thoughts like that? Makes me want to get myself to some kind of non-denominational anti-Fascist nunnery where I could garden and call congress and read books and forget that men ever were.)

He wasn't saying it for me to hear, but he knew it was a pet name I loved. I'd showed him my Feeld profile mentioning being a princess. (In fact, when he read the part about me looking for a sweet dom who's good with ropes, he said "Well you found him." That motherfucker could really SAY STUFF.)

Anyway, the morning of the overhearing, I was LIVID. I'M the princess, goddammit, how could he take even that away from me?

(The 30 Rock joke about "sexually transmitted crazymouth" comes to mind, although I guess it was transmitted via weird nebulous friendship instead.)

(Semi-platonically transmitted crazymouth?)

Anyway, it made me want to think about why the word "princess" feels so important to me.

I remember a moment, not too long after my teenage sexual assault, dressed up for Halloween in the above bridesmaid dress and looking in the mirror. The lipstick I'd just applied looked like clown makeup to me. All of me felt false, artificial, foolish, absent. I had some nerve dressing up as a princess, I was barely even a woman. I was barely even anything. I wiped the makeup off but wore the dress.

The next time I wore that dress, I was in my very early twenties and part of an art happening. My project was to create a pink-themed pyramid of everything about me, and let people take home anything that spoke to them. A stranger went home with a box of my love letters and I can't say I regret this choice! My brother got livid with me because I gave away the Barbie he'd given me the Christmas before.

After the show, when most of the pink pyramid was gone, I felt empty but also less alone. If I couldn't figure out how to be close to people, at least I could get them to take a piece of me home.

After that night, the friend who ran the art show started calling me Princess (My Name)--he even wrote a song about me! I LOVED being Princess Me. These were my raver years and also my shoplifting-at-my-friends'-mall-stores years, so I was never without shiny too-short dresses, manic panic hair, and Urban Decay makeup. And glitter. So, SO much glitter. And sometimes bubbles that were also candy. It was a magical time.

One time a guy I flirted with at the coffeehouse told me I looked like I was from space, and that felt like the highest compliment.

Between the mid-Nineties and whenever I made my Feeld profile, the Princess persona got less plasticky, but never lost its glitter. It morphed from a costume to a gender expression, a femme way of fiercely, adamantly claiming womanhood in a world that was never gonna declare me to be womaning properly.

Calling myself a princess was a way to give myself what I felt like no one else was ever gonna give me, a way to treat myself like a magical treasure, the way I saw (or more likely imagined) other, smaller, quieter, more conventionally beautiful women being valued, being attended to. It was a way to attend to myself, a skill I'm still trying to learn.

In the weeks following my unfortunate overhearing, I have been treated so, SO kindly. 

For example:

Sweet Valentine: What song is this?

Me: I Wanna Be Adored by The Stone Roses.

Sweet Valentine: And you are!

I've been treated kindly by my friends, too, and my Higher Power, and by the gently-thawing weather. And most importantly, by myself. People are welcome to join me in my princess-ness, but I have to treat myself that way, and keep doing it.

Right in this moment, I feel the truth: No one can decide whether I'm a princess, or any other pet name, except me. Right now, I feel like I'm up to the challenge of self-love.

Two Things About Christmas Scrabble

 

For the most part, I'm not pining. I'm looking forward to turning the entire apartment into a nest for the coming snowstorm, feeling cozy and self-contained.

But taking down the Christmas tree the other night had me close to panic. The lights were on there so tightly and so tangled that I had to cut off some of the branches to get the lights off. It made me feel trapped, nauseous, and scared, like I was the one bound and tangled up, absolutely NOT in a good way. 

Even after I had the lights off the tree, I considered just throwing them out because they were SO hard to untangle. I got them apart and put away, not as neatly as I would've liked, but they're out of sight.

I felt a lot of anger and fear during all that untangling, but I also felt just good old fashioned love and grief. I've been having the nicest time flirting with new folks and going to the correct door, but I still have to acknowledge that Christmas with TGNS was a big deal.

So, two things:

***He spelled the word "Wholes" during Scrabble and that's what I felt like we were, just for that moment. Wholes is what you have to both be to have the kinds of relationships I want to have, and we weren't that. But just for a little while, a few sparks of time, we were Wholes.

***He and I sang together. The best part of King of Carrot Flowers: "Than he could dare to tryyyy, ah ah ah ay ay, ah ah ah ay ay." We sang it together and it was so beautiful. Our voices matched and our souls chimed. I loved the moments when I could let down my guard and sing in front of him, and I think he liked those times too.

Of course then Latto's Big Energy came on and made me sheepish, made me hope nobody was paying as much attention to the words as I always do.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door, Part Five: Enough.

There might be lots to worry and wonder about another day, but for now...

I tried so hard to be his friend and he wanted to get to attraction to please me, but I felt love and he felt friendship. I could comb the story for clues and reassurances, but.

We liked being around each other. There was some kind of spark. We had a great date and he didn't want to kiss me.

I could see it as tragic or damning or proof that I'm unkissable, but what happened was just...dating. It hurts worse because we genuinely liked and got to know each other, but still, it's as simple as:

Not a match.

All this week I've been in a hum of self-care, touching base with my friends and my breaths and my Twelve Steps. My OCD quieted almost immediately after we said goodbye.

The Monday after the date, in that doomed and meltdowny but ultimately helpful conversation, I did tell him I love him, and I'm glad. People should know when they're loved. Now, I'm trying my best to love myself.

I feel anger and shame at myself for being so openhearted, but I hope someday I won't. I remember how much I used to value my wholeheartedness, and I would like to value it again. I would like to treat my heart like it's worthy of healthy, happy love. Not like it deserves this:

It's not post-blue-box Mulholland Drive over here, I probably won't be disappeared in a floof of blue smoke. It's just sad. I'm afraid to really grieve because what if the grief is forever? What if I can never get free of the sadness because he is RIGHT THERE all the time? I guess I can't know how long the pain will last, but it's better to feel it than keep hurting myself. Better to cry than to live in a fantasy.

Thanks for reading me through this, friends. I know-

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door, Part Four

I kept being surprised at how much time he wanted to spend over here! He came over the night after Christmas for music and leftovers, and it was my favorite night of this whole story.

Because of the Saddest Little Sound in the World, I'd resolved to keep us at the friendly table rather than trying the nebulous-meaninged couch. We had warmed-up turkey and potatoes. We listened to his playlist, which was enough like mine to be good and enough different to breathe new life into the place.

When we got to a welllll what should we do now place, I pulled out the Tarot cards and we played. I pulled out three or four different decks and we read each other the explanations or just made things up. One of the decks came with discussion questions, so the talk got deep. It was this incredibly wholesome feeling of enjoyment and peace and, for me, falling deeper in love.

After that perfect while, he said he would like to try cuddling! So we set up his laptop full of Bob's Burgers-es, dimmed the lights, and approached the couch. It felt awkward, like neither of us had ever cuddled before in our lives! But we figured it out.

I asked if he'd like a regular blanket or a weighted one, and he chose weighted. Settling into his arms felt like a WOOSH of bliss, like a relief, a coming-home. He held my hand in his long and beautiful hand. We both did a lot of sighing.

But also, he talked about Oxytocin, which made me wonder whether I was being a person right now or a drug. Why not both, I guess?

I took his hand and placed it on top of my head, then felt my whole being go quiet. It had been so long since I felt it--submission. The feeling of being precious and small and protected, of being, in my heart at least, adored.

I kept thinking, this is what I pictured when I met him. Just cuddling on the couch watching shows. In the original fantasy, we were watching Twin Peaks, but otherwise, this was exactly what I'd known would happen. I read a thing somewhere that falling in love fast is a sign of emotional intelligence, and that doesn't seem quite right, but the feeling of I just knew was so beautiful. I felt everything fit together in such a profound way. It felt so good I almost needed a break from it, but I didn't take one.

I could have laid like that for a hundred hours, but he was ready to go after a couple of episodes.

"Ahhh human contact," he said as we were hugging goodbye, making me wonder once again whether I was a specific human to him or just a convenient warm body. Thank goodness I didn't say that in the moment!

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door, Part Three

 Before I leave the cute art night, I just want to remember the feeling of stapling up silk flowers with my sweet doomed crush while he sings "Do you realize?" in the sparkly Christmas Eve night. Two angels doing angel stuff, nothing can change that.

For Christmas, I'd originally invited TGNS to come over after dinner, for Scrabble with me and BFF-Formerly-Sweetie. But he kind of hinted that he wanted to come over earlier, so I invited him for dinner too.

(Things were different between BFF and I, this guy around. She was so cool about including him in Christmas, she was remarkably un-grumbly about him over all, which was new. She was so copacetic about it that it kind of freaked me out, like was she REALLY ready to let me go? That was beautiful but also so sad and scary too! What would our friendship be like if I had another Person around? Would it go away? Would we lose the bond we've built with each other post divorce, just because of some guy? I MAY have cried on the floor about this not too long ago, and I'm glad.)

The Guy Next Door was not on time for dinner, so I went over and got him. He came over like such a good boy all excited because he'd just downloaded a bunch of Bob's Burgers episodes for us to binge after family time was over.

He gave me a card with Monet's Water Lilies that said I was delightful, and that word made me inordinately happy because ever since he'd encouraged me to chat with the delightful Girl Next Door, I wanted to be delightful too. And here I was! I had it in writing.

Scrabble was so fun! BFF had admonished us to at least try to beat her, and we did respectably! 

The warmth and glow of that evening helps me understand what made TGNS want to cling to me, "conventionally attracted" or not. I remember when I was in my divorce process--connection and warmth felt so unattainable, I clung to it in any way I could. I feel so much compassion for where he's at, and I really, REALLY wanted to make his pain go away. Because I am codependent and taking care of people is my addiction! A fact I'm glad to have remembered yesterday.

After BFF went home, it was time for me and TGNS to try the couch again. I made my own little nest on one end, and he sat in my usual spot. I put a pillow wall between us so I wouldn't spook the poor timid boy, but after a while, I asked if I could put my head on his shoulder, and he said yes. Goodbye pillow wall!

"I won't try anything untoward," I said, and he made the saddest little sound. Maybe I should take up poetry again so I can give Saddest Little Sound its due, but I'm honestly so sick of this obsession.

What I see now looking back on that night is someone who really, REALLY wanted to want what I want, so we could have harmony. I wanted the same! I wanted to let him be timid and hesitant and reluctant and whatever else he was feeling.

But it felt bad, the pain he seemed to feel with every step forward. I can try to understand it, turn it over and over to try and figure out what he really wanted from me, but again, sick of the obsession.

It felt bad when he left at like 8:30 instead of commencing the promised binge. I resolved to set my sights on friendship and start letting the Other Stuff go.

(Meanwhile, while I'm typing this, I heard him screaming in anger next door, hopefully not at the cat! Can I go steal the cat?! Only sort of kidding.)

Okay, I'm Completely Lost

 

Mulholland Drive helps me.

Okay, Christmas was very cute, but I've been living in a fantasy for a little while and it's time for me to do as the cowboy says. Hopefully with a happier ending than Naomi Watts gets.

Skipping ahead in the story, The Guy Next Door and I had our first date! That's what he said it was! We had so much fun! He said I was beautiful and said he wanted us to try putting ropes on each other!! I can't prove that this happened, but it did. I can't prove that he was ever attracted to me, and to be fair, no court of law is asking me to.

(He told me yesterday that he's not "traditionally attracted to me," but that he felt something. It sounded really close to calling me "not traditionally attractive" which, in fairness, I am not. I have other qualities!)

Jesus fuck though, is there anything worse to hear than "I'm not traditionally attracted to you?" Just tell me I'm ugly already, this is taking forever.

ANYWAY we got back from the date (Which I don't really think is what it was.) (He called our two apartments "our place" though.) we settled in for a cuddle, which we'd tried a couple times, but this time, we were in my bed.

It felt good, so, so good. I felt hopeful and safe and beautiful. My head was resting on his heart and the moment felt almost right.

I said "I'm gonna kiss you, I'm just waiting for the right song to come on."

And he made the saddest little sound. It was the same sad sound he made when I put my head on his shoulder for the first time, back when we were watching some post-Christmas Bob's Burgers. (He'd downloaded a bunch for us to watch when my Roku was out for a day. I thought that was so sweet because it was, in fact, SO SWEET.)

Anyway, saddest little sound, so I asked, is that okay? and he said

"Not yet." Which a very good and appropriate thing to say when you don't want to kiss someone. Technically a Good No even though I hated it.

He kept acting like this was the start of dating though! I even tried to plan our regular (never was really that regular) Thursday Art Night, and he said he thought we should see each other sooner, so we picked Tuesday, which is today, and for which time slot I've booked a somewhat-emergency therapy appointment.

After he left on Saturday, I was very close to panic. I didn't understand the not-kissing! And I didn't want to ask because, that's just not the thing to do! I didn't want him to feel like I was complaining when things had gone so well. I wanted to have space to understand Saturday before I tried to understand what was going on.

With OCD, reassurance is the addiction, I have to keep it to a minimum. But in a new thing, you need reassurance! I need to stop thinking about that contradiction or my brain will loop forever.

I gave myself space from the panic, and eventually I chilled out and was able to experience the warmth and promise of what had happened so far. So I reached out and told him how beautiful I felt, and how I did want to do the ropes with him if I could put them on him first, and how I hope he was understanding what's going on in the new season of Stranger Things, because I couldn't make heads or tails of it.

OF COURSE that cute and very nice text was met with a mini-radio-silence on his part, and I got triggered. I wanted to ask "Am I being too much?" and then was LIVID that he was making me feel like I was too much. I am SO MUCH but I like myself this way. Or I usually do when it's not yesterday!

I told him about the trigger and he seemed very understanding, he even offered to change a few things so I could feel a little more oriented. It seemed like I was talking with someone I could trust, so when he said "Any other questions?" I went ahead and asked:

"You said it was a date, but you didn't want to kiss me. Can you tell me some more about that?"

He said he was just figuring things out and needed to give it some thought.

So I asked the real question: "Are you attracted to me? I'm seeing about 40% attracted, 60% terrified. Am I getting the math right?"

And he said he needed to ponder that too! 

What in the world were we gonna talk over on Tuesday if on Monday he had to ponder whether he was attracted to me or not?!

I went over after work to ask about that, if there WAS anything to talk over, and it just kept getting worse and worse. I said things like "How come they're (Girl Next Door and Yoga Camp Hottie) kissable and I'm not?

Questions there are no answers to and shouldn't be answers to.

 Questions I know I'm not supposed to ask and still can't let go of yet:

Why them and not me?

Is it the fat?

What am I missing?

I'm trying so hard to do this right, what am I not doing?

I teared up with a little self-compassion typing those questions. The longing, the hurt, the loneliness. The everlasting torment that there exist more kissable girls with more  (TRADITIONALLY) yoga-y butts.

On my part, there's love here, even a little acceptance but I can't get to it through a wall of obsession.

I have a mental illness that makes me and my experiences feel unreal, and sometimes I choose people who help make us feel even more unreal. People who are shifting, mysterious, in flux, at sea. That's who I've chosen for my last two crushes and my most recent play partner.

It's hard to have any hope for love right now. I have to give up on him, but I don't want to give up on love. I'm glad I booked a therapy appointment instead of waiting for him to come talk to me tonight. 

I don't know how a person with a brain like mine can be loved, and I need my higher power to help me find faith in myself again. Probably not today, but soon.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 

Christmas Eve at my (Unitarian) church was SO good. I went with one of my closest friends, the music was gorgeous (Even when they messed with the chorus of "Go Tell It On the Mountain." Not the time!) and we did the thing where they turn off all the lights and we sang Silent Night and everything was absolutely perfect--I'm so glad I stayed in town for Christmas this year.

The pastor read a poem about how it was really kinda funny for the angels to say "Be not afraid"--like OMG an angel is talking to you and the whole sky is opening up and you're supposed to be...super chill about it?! I liked thinking about awe and it helped me understand why my connection to The Guy Next Door felt so overwhelming--miracles are big and overwhelming, but you have to deal with them anyway.

And that gave me courage! Or foolhardiness, time will tell I guess. I was going to put up some street art after church and I invited TGNS to go with me. And he did! Is the romcom a compulsion or just how things are sometimes?

Either way, it was Christmas Magic for sure. I felt so aglow, so in love with the world and my neighborhood, and, okay, him, and he seemed happy too! After we got the art done and made a few "Wait are you Banksy?" type jokes, he agreed to come home and watch Bob's Burgers on the couch with me. He'd never been on my couch before! 

But! The Roku was out! And we were both too sleepy-stoned to fix it, (plus troubleshooting makes me feel like I'm dying) and I didn't want to push my luck with the couch stuff, so we said a dreamy goodnight. He was coming over for Scrabble with me and Sweetie the next day! It kinda felt like things were coming together, like romance might be possible with him, like we would keep getting to know each other and maybe something sparkly would develop between us.

I'm glad I gave myself a moment to feel that! Christmas just kept getting better.

Poly Feelings and Christmas Cute With The Guy Next Door: Part One

Friends, I am FREAKING OUT. Yesterday was my first real date with The Guy Next Door, and it went well! And today OCD wants me to know ALLLLLL the possible things that could go wrong, or could prove it didn't happen at all. So it's past time to write about what happened over Christmas.

Ever since he helped me with my left-my-phone-in-the-Lyft emergency on Election Day, TGND and I have been hanging out pretty regularly, just friend time with the occasional flirty spark. I didn't know what was going on with the other two ladies, but my therapist gave me this treasure of an advice:

"Maybe you don't have to figure things out and you can focus on having an amazing holiday"

AND OMG I DID IT!

He came over the Thurs before Christmas to help me put up my decorations (Definitely counts as Art Night!) but instead of doing that, we talked for three hours. He'd told me he was poly before, but this time I actually HEARD him. As he filled me in on his relationships, I felt an old familiar golden emotion sparking up!

Compersion!

But more than that, I felt like "Oh yeah, this! I know how to do this." The generosity and lightness I've felt during the best parts of poly life--there they were!

AND

OMG

I CAN'T EVEN BELIEVE IT

The Guy Next Door is a rope top! Gentlekittens, start your engines! (400 scream emojis)

As we sat there, looking through each other's hot pictures, (Though I held off on sharing all but the most chaste rope pictures of me.) I felt like yes. This is The Thing. It's happening. The Pink Haze that takes over sometimes and leads me in the right direction, here it was decorating my apartment, which was good, because nary a Christmas light was hung.

The next night, he came back to actually put up the lights. I was making cookies for Angel Face's Solstice party, so I assigned TGNS to put the lights on the tree.

And I said

(because I am extremely me)

"I think I'm about to get very jealous of the tree!"

He looked shy and startled and said "You're making me blush." and all the bravery drained out of me at once. I felt an ice floe of fear and clammed up, focusing back on the cookies. We joked back and forth like "Oh haha we're such flirty people, of course we're flirting, no big deal."

But I knew that wasn't what I was doing, so I asked, "Do you think we'll get to snuggle someday?" 

And he stopped, thought for a sec, and said "Maybe!"

"Maybe's good!" I said, and for maybe the first time in my whole entire OCD life, I believed it.

Postscript: The Guy Next Door Doesn't Actually Hate Me

 Friends! I had such a cute rope date on Friday! Maybe I'll tell you all about Dreamy Playlist Angel sometime, but first I want to wrap up another story.

So, a couple weeks ago, I sold my dear red car. It was hard to let go, but she was costing me like 1500$ a repair visit. I need to be saving up and improving my credit in case I need to move (Because rent keeps going up, not because of Guy Next Door) so BFF-Formerly-Sweetie is very generously letting me share her car.

So that meant that, because BFF does poll work on Election Day, I didn't have a car last Tuesday. It was a particularly stressful workday, fun but with lots of moving parts. So I was dazed and a little giddy when I was getting in my Lyft at the end of the day. The backseat door handles were the hidden kind, I still don't understand where they were. I got in the car a little flustered, just wanting to go vote and then take the most emphatic nap ever.

The driver was cute and maybe mid-thirties, and his day job was adjacent to mine-lots to bond about on the short ride. He bragged that (swoon) he'd voted first thing in the morning, and I told him that's where I was headed after home. I put my chitchat on autopilot and listened to his answers, each one more charming than the last. But my head was all swirly from work, from the person who would come to be Dreamy Playlist Angel, about how pretty the bright yellow fall trees were, about how good it would feel to lay down and take my scheduled after-work nap.

When I got in the door, I discovered that my phone was not in my purse. Or in the pockets on the outside of my lunch bag. It wasn't in my hoodie pockets, and there weren't any pockets in my very work pants-y work pants. I had left my phone in the cute driver's car.

Okay. Well, I had my laptop, so I hopped on customer support and reported my lost phone. The driver wrote back pretty quickly that he had the phone, just needed my address to bring it back. And I would be charged an extra 20$ for his time--so fair! But there was a glitch and the chat with the driver cut off. By the time I started the request again, both my address and the driver's number became unavailable. I needed a phone to get my phone back.

I almost kinda begged for them to do it by email instead, but they couldn't. Online impossibility is my worst trigger, so I let myself melt down for a few minutes, a good scream-cry and lay on the floor combo. Then I got up, wiped my face, and resumed trying to solve the mystery of how to get my phone back.

There are five apartments in this complex, four sets of very lovely Weak Tie neighbors who would have been more than happy to help, and Guy Next Door, who had *just* gotten back from a monthlong yoga retreat. I was feeling like we could be on good terms, but I didn't want to find out in the middle of an internet void meltdown.

So, in the latest installment of the demented romcom that is my life sometimes, I knocked on his door. He opened it, smiling and smelling of after-work weed. He was in his work clothes too--like we were both in our cosplay as grownups.

He gave me a hug and agreed to help right away. I invited him in and we sat at my very cluttered table, covered in everything I'd just dumped out of my purse, some undies and socks that needed to be folded, and various other midweek detritus. I was behind on the dishes as always, so I hoped he wasn't too grossed out by my perpetual Dishhenge.

I told the very unhelpful Lyft chat that I had access to a phone now, but they told me I had to re-report it, but the reporting-it link kept looping back to the unhelpful chat. There wasn't anything I could do at that moment but to stare at the void. And catch up with Guy Next Door.

I told him I was sorry for being a jerk, and he said, "Even if you were a jerk, I'm here for it. I just like being your friend,"

!!!!!!

While I went a few more rounds with The Void on my laptop, I was so happy to be updated about GNS's adventures! And he was an excellent emotional support neighbor! He looked up my very uncalm calm-down song:

I had him set a timer for me (he picked singing bowls) so I could only try my futile online quest for eight more minutes instead of looping around on it eternally. He had some helpful ideas to try, but he is tech support, not Void Support. When the timer went off, I said goodbye and a million thank-yous and went off to vote.

Voting is a big social event in my neighb, and it cheered me up a bunch. As I was walking back from the polling place, I heard a man's voice saying "You!" in just the cutest way. 

It was the Lyft driver. He'd been driving around for an hour trying to figure out where he'd dropped me off. He remembered I'd said I was going to vote, so he thought he would ask around at my polling place to see if anyone knew how to find me! He said if that didn't work, he was going to go back to my work and drop it off there! My HERO!

OF COURSE I asked for his number--I can never resist a possible meet-cute! We exchanged numbers and I went home, elated to tell GNS that all was well, delighted to have voted, and very, very ready for gummies and Gilmores and sleep.

It wasn't a meet-cute with the Lyft driver, just a golden moment of possibility that made me feel so entertained and hopeful and silly. So that's where I am now. I wonder what will happen next.

Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door, Part Six

I really wanted, as I always do, to fast-forward to friendtown. I didn't want to give myself space to let the rejection-hurt pass, I just wanted to keep being around him. But my OCD therapist gently pointed out that if I kept being around him, the feelings would just get bigger. (What happened to "maybe, maybe not," lady?!) I got really mad at her but I knew she was right. 

I texted to tell him about the spark, about needing space, about how sitting around listening to The National was not going to help me find perspective about him. He responded so kindly and so rightly! He said he'd look forward to being friends when the time is right and that he was still always up for catsitting whenever we needed him.

This was the night I was trying the mermaid wrap over and over, getting nothing but slipped loops and tangles. I HATED being called a friend and I wanted him to have seen me as desirable. OCD fired up and told me it's because I'm fat, and old, and not normal enough. OCD told me he couldn't see me, though I think in some ways he saw a me nobody else knows yet!

I texted and asked: Like, why not me? Why just friends? I retracted the question immediately, how could there ever be a satisfying answer?! I tried to call to try and smooth things over (If I'd just gone over there, would it have been more or less humiliating? The world may never know.) but just ended up leaving a short and bitchy voicemail. Not horrible, but definitely uncalled for.

I was HORRIFIED with myself. Ever since I saw Baby Reindeer  and probably before that too, I've been scared to death that I might be, deep down, a stalker. Two texts and a voicemail do not a Martha make, but I was scared RIGHT to death. I called BFF-Formerly-Sweetie to come over and mind me for the evening, to make sure I didn't do more. Definitely a little bit overkill, but having her here calmed me down.

There was more mortifying back and forth the next day, including the mistreatment of our respective artwork. (Nobody puts Ribbons in the recycle bin! That's how the Dirty Dancing line goes, right?) 

Blessedly, he'll be away for a couple weeks at a yoga retreat, and I'm so relieved to be temporarily offstage from that crush. I don't know what will come next, but I think, just like with Summer Princess, I took bad care of this connection. The time being his friend went by so fast and I wish it wasn't over already. 

I miss him and I feel afraid of him and afraid of myself. But the Autistic Euphoria was real, and I hope I can someday share it with someone in a healthier way. I've been browsing apartments to make myself feel less trapped, but this in-between feeling is sad, and there's nothing except time that can fix it.

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Five

 

Even though I was on edge about how to talk about (Or not talk about? Who can say?) Girlfriend Next Door, the second Art Night went even further into the magical realm of Autistic Euphoria. It's not too different from the joy of meeting someone the ropes really like! It felt so profoundly liberating to have someone to play with! He bought over his music (some complicated situation with a private server) and we played songs back and forth.

If I'm playing songs back and forth, my heart is 100% in the mix. I try to tell myself it's no big deal, but that's a lie.

I was hypervigilant for Signs He Might Like Me Back. He talked a little about Girlfriend Next Door and it didn't sound like they were that serious of a thing, but he was definitely not as touchy-feely as he'd been the previous visit. A couple of times I touched his arm for emphasis and he looked apprehensive. I can read signals from time to time, and it's concerning to me that sometimes I just want to ignore or counteract them. Maybe everybody feels like that sometimes but it makes me wonder if I'm a predator. I don't think so, but I could do better.

No polite "thanks for having me" text this time. He'd offered to watch the cats for an upcoming trip, but he didn't write back or acknowledge when I sent him the trip dates. So my brain did what it does for inscrutable texting rhythms--made it about me. Was he Backing Off or just busy.

Why, at any point, didn't I just tell him what I was feeling or ask him anything about what he wanted this connection to be? Things I could have asked if I was being true to myself at any point during our sadly abbreviated friendship:

After the first hangout: "Hey I felt a spark last night, what do you think? Any potential there?"

At any point: "Am I texting you too much or do we just have different rhythms?"

After I found out about GFNS: "Are you two poly or exclusive?"

I have these skills! I've been poly or poly-adjacent for nearly my whole adult life! But, when The Guy Next Door first came onto my radar back in August, my OCD therapist suggested I wait and let him say something if he liked me in a romantic way. This had a certain logic to it, especially since we live so close together.

So, as if the work of this blog had never existed, I'd accepted the don't-tell-him challenge. And it brought me so much pain. Probably caused him some pain too.

Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door: Part Four

 

I was so busy bouncing, listening, interrupting, and picking out songs that I didn't realize he'd drawn Happy Eraserhead Baby! A moment of pure garmanbozialessness,

So after I found out about Girlfriend Next Door, I told The Guy Next Door there wouldn't be any Art Nights for a little while, but that I was happy to be friendly neighbs and wouldn't rule out hangouts in the future. I started Operation Mind My Business. I was genuinely friendly and welcoming to Girlfriend Next Door when she was housesitting, and there seemed a chance that all the crushiness might be over, that my ever-elusive dignity might stand a chance.

(Wait is the idea of dignity kind of a pain in the butt? I think maybe it is!)

But by the time he was on his way back from his trip, I just missed him. So I texted, "It's lonely here without anyone making me tea." and reinstated art night.

(Later on, a Codependents Anonymous friend would identify this choice as "abandoning myself." Maybe it was but I can't quite regret it all the way.)

Three Thursdays ago was our last Art Night. There were only two between us, not sure why my brain made it into such a ritual that it might as well be an institution! Except! Oh yeah, OCD, autism, and an acute case of twitterpatedness! I worked so hard getting the apartment ready! I agonized so hard about what to wear! Strangely, I don't remember what I did end up wearing! So weird! So rare!

(OCD Versus) Autistic Euphoria and The Guy Next Door: Part Three

Meanwhile

 After our first Art Night, The Guy Next Door texted a gentlemanly note thanking me for the evening, just like someone would do after a promising first date. Or a lovely first friend hangout! I should have just asked.

It didn't take long for OCD/trauma to take over for the euphoria feeling. I didn't WANT to devote so much of my consciousness of whether he was texting me at any given moment, but that's the illness. That 15-to-20-percent of my brain could have been used for lesson planning, for learning my knots, or literally anything else, but my brain remained fixed on the little green messages square, hoping a red number would appear. If I could have one aspect of my gorgeous neurodivergence just zapped right out, I would.

We talked in the yard sometimes, so I tried to gauge how much he would want to talk and how much he wanted to be left alone. I tried to do the insane math of how much he would want me to be out in my own yard. I'm doing a thing lately where I weed 10 minutes a day (Trying to avoid the dreaded weedwhacker!) so that kept me from hiding in my apartment and avoiding the yard entirely.

At one point, I sat in one of my Adirondack chairs to read and it broken underneath me. I have no idea if he saw, but in my head, I might as well have been onstage.

Both our sets of front windows are so big! But I felt exposed even with the blackout curtains drawn, even in the privacy of my own bed. It was hard to ever feel truly alone. I felt his presence when he was home and I missed it when he was out. I got entrained to his rhythms. I still am.

No more texts came for a few days. He missed saying happy birthday, even though I'd mentioned the date like a million times. Signals! The day after my birthday, when I was feeling satisfied but spent from my birthday adventures, news arrived.

"So it turns out that (Girlfriend Next Door) and I got back together, lol. She'll be housesitting for me this week. I hope you'll get to do some chatting, she's a delightful human being."

Things just change so fast. Sometimes I can't keep up, and this really felt like the rug being pulled out from under me.

He'd mentioned being poly, and this seemed like some poly bullshit, all of a sudden being expected to bond with her because he liked her. Or! Just some friendly neighbor stuff. I did meet her and we DID kinda bond, over his love of making hot drinks in overly complicated ways. She's curvy, chatty, femme brunette, it's possible he had a type. Or it's possible he just needed a stopgap until she came back to him. Or! Courtesy of Occam's Razor--friendship!

I didn't know what he wanted me to do or want or be, but I knew one thing--I didn't want to get tangled up with these two.

So I told him I needed to pause art nights for a bit, hunkered down to be sad about this mismatch. I truly wish I'd left it there.

Knotty Thursday: Cards Instead

 

I'm still feeling a little trapped from the Guy Next Door situation, so I don't feel ready to try the mermaid tie again. So I did what I always do when I need a little inspiration: read seven different Tarot decks!

Autistic Euphoria and the Guy Next Door: Part Two

 On Thursday evenings during the busy part of the year, I try to stop everything and make some art. Whenever I want to get to know somebody, friend or date, I invite them to join.

The Guy Next Door came across the yard to my door with a gardening book he'd picked out from one of the VERY numerous Little Free Libraries on our surrounding blocks. He showed me an illustration of a wall garden he wanted to create "for us both to enjoy."

(Ladies and gentlehumans of the kitten jury, I submit this as evidence that I wasn't crazy for thinking he might like me back! Not that you asked to see evidence!)

He sat down at my table. I played my summer camp playlist, skipping the songs that felt too emo or too harsh for the occasion. We were doing watercolors and it was just...it was so easy. He talked so freely and I felt so comforted by how open he was about his life. Divorce, love, disappointment, sobriety (of the California sort). It felt so easy to share my own stuff back without feeling like it was too much, like I was too much.

All that sharing made me powerfully smitten, so fast! I knew I couldn't fling myself at him because I wasn't ready and he's LITERALLY my next door neighbor. (In retrospect, flinging might have been the safer choice.) Instead I made plans like this:

"If I knew you better, I'd scoop you up and take you to the beach with me on Sunday. Let's stay friends for at least a year so we can have a beach day next summer. You drive so I can be high on the way home. We'll listen to Atavista by Childish Gambino."

"Okay, I can do that!" He seemed happy to be included in my weirdly specific daydream. Art night dream.

I had tickets to a little-bit-out-of-town showing of Fire Walk With Me, my favorite David Lynch movie and maybe the second-scariest movie ever. (First place goes to The Blair Witch Project.) "If I knew you better, " I said, "I'd give you my extra ticket because (BFF Formerly Sweetie) does NOT care. I see us at a David Lynch event someday, you as the Log Lady and me as... I don't know, I'll have to pick a less obscure character than I usually do."

Typing these visions of the future, they feel more than a little nutso, but I promise, he looked so happy about these plans. He was, as they say on My Brother, My Brother, and Me, playing in the space with me.

I forgot to feel embarrassment or shame for being so enthusiastic and nakedly fascinated by him. (If there had been real nakedness, I think things might have gone better. OR worse! Who knows.)

He seemed nakedly fascinated by me too. (I wonder if that was just the fact that he was higher than me. As OCD therapy would say, maybe, maybe not.) Under his gaze, I bounced. I rocked. I fell into special interest holes and he said he was happy to fall down in there with me. I was giddy with unmasking, and he seemed to be in a giggly joyful state as well. Maybe he was. Maybe it was real, at least this part.

Mostly he sat across the table from me, but sometimes he came over next to me and we sat stonedly shoulder to shoulder. When he was leaving, he gave me a hug that just crossed the boundary over to sensual--his fingers moved over my shoulders in a desire way? Or just it was that over-familiar weedy hippie-boy hug that used to send me into an anti-Platonic tizzy in my college hometown in the mid-Nineties.

Maybe my evidence isn't incontrovertible, but I really want to convince you this wasn't just me fooling myself for the millionth time.

Yet.