Wednesday, May 27, 2009

It sounded like a good idea at the time...

So this past weekend was loads of fun. We had guests at our appartyment, fun guests who happened to be of the female variety: one my roomates girlfriend, who shall be named Lucile, and the other a good friend of all of us. Now one would think this post is simply about the culminations of the weekend and the experiences we shared, but that would be cliche for me and lets not go there. 

Instead, I would like to share a certain event that happened at the end of the weekend. If you are an avid reader of my blog (which I'm pretty sure I'm the only one, but thats ok), you will know life couldn't be so simple; relationships must be complex and strewn with mercurial emotions. Can you guess who I'm referring to? That's right, the mutual friend who shal now be named Ruth. I've liked her for quite some time now, after my last post, I think (disregard the one in Feb.). Truth is though, I was a coward then, forming excusses why I could pursue a relationship beyond friendship. Too busy at the time, was working at the time, not in same city at the time, didn't know her very well at the time; at the time, I was basicaly just scared.
 
I told myself I wouldn't wait any longer, however, and I had ready what I was gonna tell her. But before you can say, "she started dating someone else," she started dating someone else. He was a friend of mine, so I just dropped everything and tried to forget about pursuing that relationship any farther than good friends. After all, I wasn't about to stab anyone in the back, especially one of my close friends. 

Time went on and so did their relationship. We all watched the couple we had created (just go with it if you don't know). I tried to fill that void with others, or what I thought was a void, but nothing or no one seemed to work. I mean, I really did try. So for this epoch, I didn't actually like anyone; I just saw people as "potentials," people I might find interesting. Didn't realize this till later though.

Time went on even more and I found myself just drifting through the undulating motions of schoolwork and socializing, almost like a lifeless politician; shake a few hands, sign a few bills. Anyways, a turning point was about to happen. Ruth decides her relationship with friend is not working and cancels it. Initially, I was legitimately sorry for them. After all, at this point I had no more feelings for her and supported her like a good friends does. I was even there for talks about what happened because, of course, I'm the guy friend. Then, like bear crawling out of his cave after hibernation, those feelings for Ruth came back. Not all at once, though; a bear needs to stretch and eat after waking up.

With what little time of school that was left, we hung out frequently. Not alone, but with others. Still, I could tell that I thought of Ruth differently, like before New Year, like before everything happened. It was a very conflicting time; it was like I picked up right where I left off
and I was still ready to tell her what I planned. However, things were different now and there was a nice internal conflict with a monlogue that went something like this,
"Ok self, you know you like her so why don't you just say it like you
planned all along? It'll probably be fine." "Well, she did just break up 
with one of my close friends. What would he think? What would all
of my other friends think? Surely they would think I had felt this
way all along and I was just lying in wait till they broke up." "Don't
think about that stuff, just think about how you feel and what ever
happens will happen. After all, they are your friends and will 
understand." "I hope you are right. I have to tell her."
Yeah, nothing too complicated, just dissonant thoughts. But I was determined to tell her how I felt, but not for the reasons one might think. Allow me to explain.

Remember that void I talked about earlier? Turns out it didn't exist. It was just a spot that I had covered up, not gotten rid of. And we saw how that affected things: I was only able to other people as "potentials" and never anything more. I discovered that because of my nature the feelings I still had for Ruth were blocking me from getting closer to anyone else or rather from wanting to get close. I figured that the best way to move on would be to resolve the feelings I had and the best way to do that would be to tell her so I could move on, reason being that if I told her, there would be no way that any sort of relationship would come from this and hearing that from her would settle things. That wouldn't hurt me, it would actually bring me peace. Never that simple.

Now we are back to this past weekend. We had spent a lot of time together, occasionally just us two. I had so many opportunities to just tell her, but none seemed right. Eventually, the last night rolled around and I built up my resolve: this would be it. It was about 2 AM and we were about to go to bed and I was about to say something along the lines of, "Hey, got a sec?" when Lucile came out of her room and felt like talking. I'll be honest, I was a little frustrated since I wanted to tell Ruth when we were alone, but if anyone had to of been there I'm glad it was her. 

The three of us had some pretty interesting conversations that night, the subjects of which shall not be discussed. Anywho, those conversations went on until about 5:30 in the morning and I finally reached the epitome of frustration at myself. I simply announced I had something to say (or something like that) and had the attention of both parties. Now this next part is unexplainable. I could seriously not easily say what I wanted/needed to say. After much physical strain and metal force I was able to say it. "[Ruth], I like you. There, that's it." The tension in the room reached a whole new level in that split second. Lucile claimed she had known and Ruth said she knew at some point in our conversation that night. I felt a great lifting off my shoulders and very relieved. I was just glad I could do it. But it was 5:30 AM.

By this time Lucile had left us to talk, but seeing as how it was so early in the morning/late at night, neither of us really knew what to say. It was basically me explaining why I had to say this and that if nothing came out of this that would be fine with me so don't worry about my feelings at all, just tell me what you think. And this is the part where the post gets its name.

Seeing as how it was so late, she replied with Wow, this is totaly unexpected, I don't really know what to say, Thank you for telling me. Now that's paraphrased, but that's pretty much all I heard before I went to bed. I went to work the next day with out waking her, so I didn't get to talk to her then and I haven't heard from her since. Why is this a problem? Because telling her how I feel did not yeild the results of what I'm looking for which is resolution. I'm stuck in a kind of limbo where I just don't know how she feels. I need to know if there is something there for her too or if our friendship is not going down that path. And you know what? I can't honestly say anymore that I would be perfectly ok with the latter.  I think I forgot to mention above that after this weekend I saw it a lot more plausible for us to be together and now it is in my head that maybe I have a chance. I mean I'll still be ok with nothing more, but I sure as Hell wouldn't mind being together. 

So here I am, waiting for a response from Ruth, waiting for closure (or a new path...), waiting for a friend to call 

Peace and Love

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