Quickest girl in the frying pan...

It seems as though I'm developing an attachment to someone, or at least the beginnings of a potential attachment to someone.

Someone that isn't GV8.

It's a mixed bag.

My sadness at GV8 leaving me, even if it winds up being temporary, has morphed into a mild lack of respect for him, which I believe I've mentioned recently. When he's reminded of me strongly, through events or actions, he forgets his rules... maybe forget isn't the right word. He discards his rules for the pleasure of my company.

Just tosses them straight out.

And something that I valued in him, the first thing that made me stop and realize that maybe he was one of those few men I truly consider mine (in the sense that this type of man belongs to me, fits with me) was his self-control.

A friend of mine mentioned, when I told her how much I admired his self-control, that it was easy to have self-control when you had no rules for yourself.

I'm finding that more and more true.

I miss him, I truly do. It becomes easier each day, a little bit at a time, to not think of him. But when he does stray into my brain, that gutpunch feeling causes pain and mental doubling up around the source, trying to wad the memories of him in foam, box them up and store them in the furthest corner of my attic.

So I don't think of him.

And I try not to be angry. I try not to think that I opened myself to him fully, was willing to bare pieces of myself that I've held tightly so long, to mesh with him without reserve or doubts... and he said no.

Or, at least, not yet.

How can I return to that? How can I go back to him with open arms? Trust is burnt, respect is damaged, I'm shying away from him again, going back to my wild mustang hindbrain: teeth-bared-eyes-rolling-ain't-never-gonna-to-put-a-bridle-on-me-boy.

How can I expect him to even want me back, with his wild nights ahead of him, the club opening up in two weeks, living the life of a playboy, girls falling on him like they do.

How could he ever look back at me and think that he'd be willing to compromise, he'd be willing to give some of it up, so he could love me?

He's told me so often that he isn't relationship material, but he keeps trying with me anyhow.

I pass his tests. I'm the whole package, he says. The whole package, as far as I can tell from our talks, entails a combination of intelligence, drive, family values, confidence, ability to handle money, constant honesty, and insane sexual ability. I think I'm a bit wishy-washy on the drive and the confidence, but he was mostly okay with it.

Even if he did come back, even if he was able to gentle me, heal the damage between us, do I want a life with a man who won't offer monogamy? Who already donated one STD to my life? Who won't give me children? Who constantly changes his mind and his plans, who is never dedicated to one path if another one arises?

I don't know.

I say that often.

At least I admit it, I suppose.

And then this dark horse shows up, and I end up intrigued.

Makes me wonder if I'm just as bad as all the MRA guys say when it comes to women. Toss someone who smells like alpha at me and I'm spreading my legs. That's the belief, right?

No, I'm not having sex. I haven't touched anyone since The Bassist. My body feels like begging for touch, for an hour in bed with someone with hard, smooth skin and a strong jaw.

I feel disloyal.

Imagine.

I feel disloyal who a man who never offered me physical loyalty. To a man that said he'd call me when he figured things out... with no set date. It could be next year when my phone rings. To a man I may never actually talk to again.

I feel inconstant, easily attracted, easily distracted.

In my defense, I wasn't looking for it.

In my defense, maybe it's a good thing to remind myself that there are the occasional rare males out there that I can actually connect with, so I'm not so desperately hinged on GV8, thinking that he's the beginning and end of my world and letting that dictate my behavior.

It makes me wonder if I'll be able to respect a man again, or how long it will take for that respect to develop. GV8 pushed the bar so high, so far out of reach when it comes to certain behaviors and desired traits, and then... then he fell.

I remember, one of the last times we were together, he was sitting at his desk, looking at me. I don't know what we were talking about, but he commented that he wondered how long it would be before I was disillusioned with him, until I looked back at him like I do so many other guys who didn't live up to my expectations- not of a partner, but of a person, the same expectations that I hold to myself, constantly striving for, even if I don't meet them.

I have high demands of the people around me. The closer they are to me, the closer I allow them to me, the higher the demands rise. Those expectations aren't financial, or social, they aren't about wardrobe or who drops the most names. They center around honesty, integrity, self-awareness, ability to communicate, lack of external judgement, self-control, ethics, honor, perception, compassion, emotional stability and intelligence.

It's a lot, I know.

I strive towards those traits. I respect those traits.

So I look at myself and wonder why this is happening. If I'm being weak by allowing it to happen, if I'm guarding myself from the pain that GV8 will inflict when he lets me know he can't compromise his life style for me, if I'm giving myself a platform of objective reality, if I'm cheating on my lack of intimacy rule I've set for myself, if I'm using him as a crutch to feel not so alone as I deal with all these changes in my life, if I'm a disloyal and inconstant whore, if I'm just as bad as all the MRA guys would say, if it's all about that alpha-related tingle, if GV8 will just add it to his mental list of reasons he should not be with me, if this is really as weak as it sounds.

Lots of ifs.

One instinct.

My brain runs wild and I balk. Rare connection, ability, blessed ability to talk, to discuss ideas, to find someone who will be honest with me with their feedback, no rose-colored glasses, no white knighting. Knowing I'm just as wrecked as them.

What am I going to have to give up with these actions?

Which domino will start the chain of events that will unravel this thread?

How much can be held against me, and how much can I hold against myself?

What am I doing? Creating self-loathing or saving myself?

Probably the former.

So weak. Still so weak.

I'm a roller too, baby...

Finally.

I was able to register for classes today. The pushing, emailing, and visiting got me into the university after applications had ceased being accepted, during the massive budget cuts they are undergoing.

Wasn't sure it was going to happen.

But it did.

And it's funny, I haven't had a semester off since I was... er, 19? 18? Probably 19, and even when I did have a semester off, it was because I had been kicked out of college.

I've gone to four colleges now. Kicked out from the first, graduated from the second, graduated from the third, fourth was simply for work purposes, and now I'm back in the third. Full-time student, full-time employee, rocking along like I do.

Not bad. Got into the classes I need to, am taking one of the two required exams for certification on Saturday morning, have an essay to submit, another application to file, if I remember correctly, and I have to go get fingerprinted and immunized.

Most of my free time is currently being spent working towards goals. Writing, exercising, studying, eating, reading books I should be reading, learning as much as I can, maintaining social relationships. I don't really have much time in which I'm not working on something. Even my lunchbreak at work is spent in a combination of exercise and, currently, going through various classic British Lit.

I study fashion and make-up when I have an hour or two between activities, I read books and articles on social dynamics, on body language, diet, and seduction.

I've been doing this for months, and this drive has not left me. It's just growing more and more as I push myself harder and harder, fitting in as much as I can into whatever area or timeslot I can manage, sacrificing sleep and recreational activities so I can develop.

Makes me wonder when I'll be satisfied. If I'll be satisfied.

Fall apart and start again...

How relaxing this weekend has been. I haven't even left the city.

I finished Exile in Guyville by Dave White this morning. God, that book had me howling in laughter in public places, people looking at me like I had lost my mind.

Started The Surrender by Toni Bentley, about half-way through now. Mr. Savage recommended it to me, said our writing was similiar. I've had people say that before, about other authors, but when I've looked at their work, I don't see any similiarities.

...but, oddly, Ms. Bentley's writing style and my own are similiar. We both do that listing word-flow, comma after comma after comma, attempting to catch that moment. It's been weird reading it, but there's enough of a difference in our attitudes so that I don't get too lost in the pages, wondering if I lived this life.

Fortunately, she's on this spiritual bent that I will never follow.

Faith in something... it's never worked for me.

The most faith that I have is in the theory that people will act in their own self-interest, neither good nor bad in nature. And it is with that world-view that I operate.

I did not spend this weekend with GV8. Usually, what I'll do is have a date on Friday night with someone, a date on Saturday afternoon, then go out with GV8 on Saturday night, which will translate into Sunday morning and afternoon, the two of us running around Hollywood, occasionally dropping into Los Angeles, until I drag my carcass home. We don't get to see each other that often because of his business.

So I stayed in town this weekend. I went to dinner with a friend, as previously mentioned, at a bar so now I know that if I feel like wrangling myself a tattooed rocker boy, I can drop in there. I do love a man with a lot of ink.

And I went to a semi-farmer's market thing this morning.

I haven't been spending a lot of time in this particular part of Southern California. Sure, it's where I grew up, for the most part, but I ejected out of the familiar fairly fast.

So I'm wandering around, looking at all these people, mostly dads and their offspring, and I walk by this girl.

Oh, look at that. It's one of the bitches from high school. Captain of the flag team, the all girl's choir team president... VP, whatever. Something. She went out of her way to give me as much crap as she possibly could... I still don't know what I did to offend her so much that she gunned for me all three years I attended that school.

She never left this town.

She married a guy who was a grade above her.

When they were dating, years ago, I overheard him trash-talking her at a Starbucks.

I see this girl who used to be so fit, so aggressive, with such a toned, athletic body and this healthy, wild, curly hair, and these sharp, angry brown eyes as she strode around the school, queen of the band nerds and colorguard.

She has not aged well.

It looks like someone took several pairs of nylons, stuffed the legs with waterballoons, and wrapped them haphazardly around her body. Her fat hangs and bunches in pools. She has a waddle around her neck, that wobbles when she talks, bulges when she lowers her chin. She's probably five years away, max, from having that pile of fat that some women store above their cunt. Her hair is piled up on her head looking like a tangled mass of hairy upchuck. She's wearing bug-eyes sunglasses, jeans that are making her muffintop, and double-layered tank tops that show every misplaced roll on her body.

It was pretty damn sad.

Her husband was with her. He has aged better. He was always nice to me, when we spoke. I never understood how he could tolerate her, find her essence, that of the Bitch, attractive. I just walked by them, no words.

I'm five, maybe ten pounds max, heavier than I was when I quit high school.

I'm travelling all over the place, meeting amazing people, doing things I never even heard of before they were proposed to me. I have friends all over the place, people I've met through various means, people that have become dear to me. I'm keeping active. I'm working on myself, working on my body, on my mind, constantly. I tear through books, movies, and music, searching for more to learn. I talk to strangers constantly throughout the day because interacting with someone new will teach you something, maybe about yourself, maybe about the world. But you'll learn. I'm going back to school, finally driving towards one of my dream jobs, and focusing so much on my writing. I'm recognizing fears and things that have held me back and I'm doing it for myself. Because I can be better. Because I should be better.

Never flatline.

Never stagnate.

You're in the moment now. You can sit and wait for something to happen, you can backslide, or you can walk forward.

I choose to go forward.

Because there is so much more I can be.

Just watch.