Unexpected day.

Drove my sister to work. As I was getting onto the freeway, GV8 texted me.

Don't get all excited by the combination of my starting sentence and GV8 texting me. He has been my major pillar of strength in the last couple weeks, dealing with everything, pushing me forward when no one else would because they were too afraid I would break.

Honestly, though, GV8 is the only person who would have been able to get as much forward action out of me as he did. Everyone else would have just bounced off, due to my (massive) trust issues that even he hasn't been entirely able to breach.

My car has that little bluetooth modifier so I can squeal about technology and have GV8 talk to me through the stereo, which means surround sound GV8. And I finally have my hands free. Win.

So I called him on the way back from dropping my sister, talked about my anxiety, the events of the morning (which progressed past my earlier post), and how near panic I was over everything. I also mentioned my lack of moving boxes.

Fortunately, he had a set of twenty-five moving boxes at one of his stores, so I drove over to the loft, talked, hugged, cuddled, let him shower quickly (he was deconstructing part of the loft for a remodel and was very sweaty), and he took me over to BoHo for lunch.

See, I've had this problem lately.

I have to be distracted while I eat, thoroughly distracted, or I get sick and can't eat. I'm too stressed for food to stay down, too stressed to even feel hungry most of the time, so... I'm just not eating. It's too much of a physical hassle. Yes, I'll take a bite or two, but then my stomach rebels and I have to stop.

So I had GV8 take me out to lunch and distract me and calm me down.

Of course, then he said something about how, one day, eventually, maybe, probably, perhaps, sometime, in the far-reaching future, I'd find someone to bond with that I could actually experience the act of making love with again.

Which, oddly enough, hit me so physically hard, I had to bolt to the bathroom and stay by the toilet because I thought I was going to heave.

It's hard.

And it's weird. Sitting next to, sitting with, touching, holding hands, walking in perfect synch because it's what we do... the man that I thought was it for me.

My sex drive continues to be non-existent. I shot down Pseudonym Pending yet again last night because I just couldn't bring myself to go sleep with anyone, even for the likely DP he was setting up for New Year's Eve. I can't remember the last time I masturbated.

It's not even depression. It's as though I'm now missing an integral part of my sexual being.

GV8 says I need to get healthy, then learn (re-learn?) how to fuck just for the sake of fucking. I looked at him when he said that, head cocked. Why would I want to do that? I've years of fucking for the simple sake of fucking. When I was packing today, I ran across an old diary that had the first... twelve? Thirteen? men I had ever slept with. In order. And I couldn't even remember some of them. I stared at the names and drew blank after blank. They aren't even on the list I compiled a few months ago.

Ah, youth.

He mellows me. He centers me. Simply being around him gives me strength that lasts for hours after we separate.

After lunch, we ran by the store with the boxes. That store was the place we met at for our first official date. We held each other near the place where the white leather couch used to be, the one he made me squirt on, and remembered.

Per my request, we went back to his apartment and cuddled to calm me. Massaged my shoulders. Spooned. But my way of getting closer to someone's skin while spooning involves a sort of full body writhe that I don't even think about. The problem with this, of which there are many, means I'm pressing my ass against his crotch and writhing without thinking, just trying to get closer.

So the spooning didn't last long.

We cuddled, we wrestled, we laughed and massaged.

When we first started, when he pulled me against his chest and held on, his nose in the curve of my neck, inhaling... I almost panicked. It's hard to adjust. That apartment, that bed, we spent so much time in it. We have so many amazing memories of shared experiences. He got that bed, built that bed, for me. He hung the flatscreen at the foot of it for me. Surround sound speakers encircling the bed... for me.

Mind and body had to adjust.

And when I left, licking my dry lips as I drove the 101, I could taste him. We've reached this point where our bodies keep diving for each other, making awkward moments of physical collison. So now we peck on the lips and shift from there. No tongue. That's the rule.

Who knew?

Who knew that I would end up being this stereotypical tragic figure? This woman parted from her lover by reality, losing her interest in other men, in sex, in dating. Spending time together, still in love with each other, but both of us having the self-control needed to remain apart... to a degree. So it doesn't get worse.

I can tell he misses me. I can tell he loves me. I can tell his body follows mine like I've got a homing beacon in my chest. When he hugs me, he holds me. He wraps himself around me and runs his hands over my curves as if he hasn't explored them so many times over. I feel the air move as he inhales at the curve of my neck, his nose in my hair, his hands constantly looking to rest on the skin of my hip, the final "S" of my tattoo under his fingers.

So I left.

Drove home.

Plopped in front of the TV, trying to continue to clear my system. Enjoying the empty house.

And then I started packing.

Tomorrow I'm going to call the property management company and have my mother add herself to my application as a co-signer, just so nothing is left to chance. I want that place so much.

Tomorrow, I'm going to finish packing my room.

And next weekend, I'm going to be moving. GV8 is bringing his hauling truck and renting a trailer. Because he loves me. Because he's wonderful.

Because I couldn't wish for a better man.

My parents have faux-rented the guest room to a young Navy man who is working security somewhere up the way while waiting to be called back... to duty? I've never been in the military or really dated a military man, so I'm not sure what they call these things. But I hear he's a bit tatted up and attractive, so the next few months could be amusing.

No, not in that way.

Just the standard, "there's a hot man running around in a towel upstairs" way.

It doesn't feel like Friday to me. It feels like it should be Sunday, with how drained I am and how much has gone on since Wednesday.

I've been reading a decent amount of poetry. Derrick Brown and Mindy Nettifee. They're amazing. I saw them perform a few weeks ago alongside another favorite of mine, Buddy Wakefield. So good.

On Wednesday, after we talked, GV8 had to take one of his friends to the airport, which is when I posted about what had been going on, from his computer.

I popped his laundry into the washer and walked up the street until I spotted a sushi place that seemed like it could be decent.

The food was excellent, presentation was amazing, and, apparently, the sushi chef liked how enthused I was about his raw fish artwork that he sent over a special plate of various types of sashimi on the house.

It was... really good. I hadn't really been able to eat earlier that day, I think I had an orange and half a sandwich (which caused nausea), so by the time I was able to sit down to dinner, it was passing 7PM and my body was wrecked by the parade of emotions I was putting it through.

I sat there, eating amazing sushi, a non-rice roll I had never tried before, reading Nettifee's Sleepyhead Assassins... not quite unwinding, but relaxing as much as I could. Her words, her imagery, they're so soothing to me. I'm going to be posting my favorite verses from my favorite poems in here sometime soon.

Walked back to the apartment and moved the laundry into the dryer. He came back just as I was going downstairs to get the dry laundry, I saw the loft was open and lit, so I wandered in.

We talked while I put his laundry away, then he showered, and went to bed still wearing his briefs. There was a no-naked-time rule being enforced. I showered, then slid into my customary tight black wifebeater and black and white striped underwear.

Curled up in bed beside him after massaging his calves and arms for an hour or two, and he pulled me deep into his chest, both arms around me, spooning.

I could have laid that way for hours.

I matched my breathing to his, the unsteady rhythm, just a little off each time, feeling us rise and fall as a unit.

Around 130AM, a noise sounded outside. Fearing someone was trying to break into the loft, he got up quickly, went used the restroom, and dressed. A hoodie. I didn't think about it. I know I should worry somewhat, and I did, but something that that man does very well is take care of himself, no matter what.

False alarm.

We woke early in the morning, Thanksgiving.

I don't remember what we talked about, though I'm sure we cuddled and kissed, but he suddenly rose and told me he had a challenge for me.

A challenge?

He said he was going to take a shower, and when he got out, he wanted me to please him in whatever way I felt possible and necessary, for as long as I felt was necessary, without ever touching his cock. He wanted to see if I could do it, what I would do, without his prompt. He said I was sexually proficient, but he was concerned that I did not know how to please him without sex.

Which... sounds odd, I suppose, without the backstory.

I've had a hard time showing him affection on more than a physical level. Not just sexual, mind you, but also platonic physical contact. I'm comfortable, so comfortable with touching and pleasing. I'm confident in what I do and that the men I sleep with want me to do the things I wish to do. There's no smothering in sex, especially if you're pleasing someone. I worry about smothering. I worry about coming off too clingy, too dependent, too submissive, as I mentioned early.

So I show love, I show care, through my body.

Which meant I never felt really comfortable doing anything special for him that wasn't in the bedroom.

And, really, there's not a good deal of things that are one-on-one that I haven't already done, as long as you toss male submission out, and any of the wilder, less hygenic fetishes.

So there's only so much "special" to be had on a pure activity level.

He felt I wasn't understanding him because of this. Because he's so dominant and wants that person serving him and I, I was so trying to restrain that part of my nature, which meant we entered into this situation where I was only focusing on the sex.

Which most men would enjoy.

But then there's that "more".

He finished his shower, got out, dried, suggested music (which made me feel like a moron because I should've thought of that on my own), so I went out to my car and got my copy of The American Dollar's "A Memory Stream". Fantastic album.

I started at the feet. To the calves, to the thighs, to the ass, flip over, the muscle the runs along the side of the shins, top of the thighs, head every so often laying on his stomach, kissing each part as I finished the rub, moving to the hands, the forearms, the biceps, flip over, to the waist, the back, the shoulders, the neck, his entire body coated in oil.

Two and a half, three hours.

My arm is still sore, it hurts to text, and I'm not even going to attempt to pick up any sort of writing implement.

Tongue sliding up from the lowest part of the back to the top of the neck, my body following. Back down, rimming. So many people shy away from it, and I understand, but it is an amazing, amazing, amazing sensation. I won't do it for most people, though, and I won't do it for that long.

Back to the feet, my foot fetishest. He loves it. Nuzzles, licking, suckling, nipping at the smooth calluses. Fingers, palms, ears, lips, rolling hips. Another hour or two, I work over his body with my hands and mouth, making sure to seek out the backsides of joints, the places that so few people touch that are extra-sensitive.

By 1PM, we're both naked, reclining opposite each other. He loves to watch me masturbate. His feet stray near and, for once, I don't shy away. I carefully let my toes stroke his balls, he orgasms twice.

With all of that, there's still the no sex rule.

I think it's a combination of him knowing that we can't keep it "just sex", that it always ends up becoming more, connecting us more, and a sentiment we both expressed at the split, that if we were to attempt to take a few steps back to just having sex occasionally, it would be a massively letdown from the intimate lovemaking we enaged in, that it would feel too wrong, too awkward.

And he doesn't know where we're going.

Later that night, Playboy texted me. Wants to come down next weekend. Then Pseudonym Pending, though I slept through that, then Restaurant Retard (I need to come up with a better nickname than that if he ends up recurring) the next day.

I suppose I should be glad of myself, that I've not had a guy I wanted regularly just one-night me in some time. Even Mr. Brush-off was up for more, and I would've been okay with that if he had not had a "it's complicated" girlfriend pop up.

GV8 has texted me a few times since that morning, talking about scheduling, the dessert I got for him, his hopefully upcoming vasectomy. I'm trying not to worry about it.

Forced myself to go out, grab dinner, see a movie, then meet up with some friends.

I forgot how much I keep to myself, socially. I could go out, and I do, but more often than not, I just keep to myself, hole up with a book in a coffee shop and people watch, not really wanting or needing to interact with anyone.

Wandering around, looking at the Christmas displays in stores, eating on a patio to watch the people bundled up in their California winter-wear walking by, listening to the Christmas carols being pumped into the air.

It's a weird experience, from March to now. March through, at least, May, was a non-stop exercise in awful for me. Out every night. Social obligations through the roof. No alone time. Three months without a night to myself. I'm surprised I did not go insane and flee the country. At least now I get weekends, if I force it.

I'm fairly sure I'm going clubbing tomorrow. I think it will be good for me to get out and move, work more on trying to get into the moment instead of thinking non-stop about everything but what I'm doing. Let go that vaunted control and trust in myself.

We'll see. It's 130 in the morning and I'm hitting that babbling stage. I should hire someone to write a CliffNotes version of every post and put it at the top so people have this mad wave of text flooding their monitor.

Oh well.

Tomorrow will be another day to see what I can do with this life. Let's see what happens.

Blank screen.

Sitting on my bed, black sheets.

I bought this bed when Darkeyes and I broke up. We broke up at night, slept in the same bed, the next day I popped on Craigslist and found a new queen-sized pillow-top mattress and box spring for $350. Drove up to Beverly Hills with a friend and loaded it into her truck.

The two of us struggled up to my third floor apartment, with the multiple switchbacks on the stairs, and I dropped it in my new room.

The dresser to my right is from my grandmother's house. Cedar, or something resembling it. They kept it in one of their guestrooms, the one intended for her wheelchair-bound mother, they designed that whole back half of the house for her visits. Handicapped toilet, shower they could put a chair into.

Matching lamps, art-deco, industrial-looking desk, $900 office chair, all for free from a friend that was moving back to Detroit.

Bookcase, bought by Darkeyes to hold my mounds of books after a fight with my father that involved me rapidly needed to have a storage space for them. It was one of four that was carted from my parents' house to Burbank, where the back went flying off on the freeway and my best friend stopped traffic to get it, running across the cement.

Glass-fronted cabinet, from my mother's mother. She collected seashells and displayed them in this cabinet in her condo in the Valley. She later lost her marbles to age and had to be put in a mental facility for like-minded seniors.

A white dresser, another from my father's mother's house. Belonged in the guestroom that was built for my father's sister, who killed herself a few months ago. Gun to the head.

Wooden filecabinet and matching bookcase, from my father's father. Died when I was 13. Multiple strokes, diabetes, I remember kicking my family out of the hospital, telling them to get food and get out of that place for a few hours. I remember feeding him vegetables, him not recognizing me. I remember when he did recognize us, look at the plastic band encircling his wrist, realizing his life was over, even if he wasn't dead.

The majority of my furniture comes from the dead, it seems.

Two of the blankets on my bed are from my father's parents. One was on the couch in my grandfather's office. An atrocious, uncomfortable thing. Brown and orange knit monstrosity. I love it. The other, a red and black plaid that was kept in my grandmother's trunk, we'd curl up in the backseat of her car under it when it got chilly. I remember looking at Christmas lights, driving around her neighborhood, under that blanket, but that memory could be constructed.

I spent last night with Pseudonym Pending.

The poor guy was exhausted and stressed as hell. I walked into his living room, saw him sprawled across the couch, and was amazed he was still awake.

We were planning on having a night of frisky frolic, but he wasn't up for it. Understandable. He was going to cut out on me, but I don't keep lovers for the sex, I keep lovers for the contact, the humanity, and to help me keep my mind off the crater that becomes so defined in winter.

I needed that touch. I needed the skin to skin.

I did not need the sex.

An Entourage marathon was on. I've never seen the show.

I got out the grapeseed oil and spent nearly two hours rubbing him down, hands to feet, front and back. My ex-lover down in San Diego, the masseuse who taught me more technique than what came naturally, would be proud. Finished him, of course, with a stellar handjob. Ever since GV8 taught me how to do that well, I really can't get enough of it. It feels wonderful in my hands, the movements, the oil, the slickness and heat. I never thought I would enjoy handjobs anywhere near as much as giving head, but there you go.

In the morning, we showered and grabbed coffee at a Starbucks I used to frequent when I went to community college just a mile or two from his house. Hadn't been there in a few years.

There's always that awkwardness for me, when you're first establishing a physical relationship and then you step into a public sphere.

Some men don't like PDA, even with their girlfriends. They feel uncomfortable even when holding hands. So if you get one of those guys as a regular lover and you even think about touching them in public, they'll freak.

Others are like me. I hold hands, I kiss, I grind, I grope, I hug, I sit in laps, I launch, I suck fingers, etc. I cannot get enough of touching someone I'm having sex with. But I refrain when it makes them uncomfortable.

Some guys don't like giving the impression that they are "with" a girl, because it eliminates their chances with someone they've been flirting with, someone they want to be flirting with. I understand this completely.

So you get that awkward, this-is-the-first-time-we're-going-out-in-public-together, what-the-hell-are-the-physical-boundaries? I don't initiate contact, so if the guy doesn't, I refrain. Follow his lead, never go further than he does.

Another moment of awkward is the first time you sleep over. I tend not to, because I feel it's violating the physical territory and morning routine of my partner. Most men, I've found, don't really know what to do with themselves in the morning, when a girl is over. Cuddle, kiss, dress quickly? Shower together? Brush teeth together? Eat and run? Quickie?

Adding a new person in is... disconcerting for some.

And I know me. My boundaries are... lacking. If I'm sleeping with someone, I have no body boundaries, I have no personal space boundaries. They've been in me, they've passed all other limits, there's no point in going back. There's a lack of emotional connection for me, I know this well, so if I'm holding a guy's hand, it means nothing other than I feel like touching them in that way. But then they sometimes get worried.

You know, because I'm female.

I've ranted about that more than once in here. About my male friends getting worried, having that talk, disclosing that they had been very concerned, that I was getting too close to them.

Falling in love.

And no matter how many men I've been with in the past, no matter how long I've had some of my lovers without more than friendly emotional involvement, it doesn't seem to matter.

Somehow they're more special.

The only lover I've had that I've ever come close to falling in love with was GV8.

And as soon as I realized that was not going to work out, I bailed.

It's tricky, being me.

Sounds a little egocentric.

But it's true. The balancing act between making guys feel special and cared for, but not too much. And none of them are the same. One will be perfectly comfortable introducing me to his friends, family, meeting my friends, my family, holding hands, kissing, seeing movies, going out to events and meals. Another will only want to see me when we're having sex. Yet another will be okay with holding hands and kissing in public, will be fine with curling up and watching a movie, but no friends, no family.

So if I'm sleeping with, say, three guys at one time, I have to keep track of which is comfortable with what. And none of them want to know about the others, even the ones that just want the pure-sex, bare-minimum friendship set-up, where knowing about the others would make them worry less, but they can't bear the thought of it.

Which makes sense. I don't begrudge them that at all.

Last winter I was cycling through five men and dating a lot, with the occasional one night stand.

Zat was in Studio City, sound engineer. I could call him, text him IM him, to talk about personal problems. He loved to cook, so I'd go over there, we'd kiss, cuddle, watch Iron Chef all afternoon, not even always have sex. Wouldn't hold hands or kiss in public. Really didn't want to know about the other guys. I never spent the night there.

VG was in Playa del Ray. Video game producer. Loved to hear my torrid tales. Never held hands, kissed, anything, in public. My choice on that one, oddly. Just felt odd. Hung out, bullshitted, talked video games and books. Mildly worried, I think, that I would fall for him. Later went to ask me out, relationship-style. Verbally cockblocked him before he could get it out and imbalance our friendship.

Hardwood Floors, Hollywood, poet, server, bartender. Hot. Beyond hot. Rarely talked on the phone, rarely emailed, no IM. Would meet up, do dinner, breakfast, lunch, hold hands, kiss, hug, screw our brains out. He didn't seem to care or worry about others, or about me falling for him. He understood the game.

Blond and Studly, unemployed hotbody in Orange County. He could have been professionally hot. Beautiful man. Hung perfectly. His whole body was art. Meet up, cuddle, kiss, would never go out in public. He knew my reputation, wasn't worried about any emotional developments on my end. Could not understand why I wasn't pursuing him. The only reason I ever spent the night there was because sex would end up lasting until 5AM and I'd need to crash before driving anywhere.

SFPlayboy, nutritionist, occasional accountant, San Fran resident, PUA. We do not see each other enough. Can't believe it's been almost a year. He is comfortable enough to play the boyfriend role. Complete access, complete comfortability, complete faith in my ice-princess being. Well, now. He wasn't always. Grocery shopping, meeting friends, cuddling, teasing, cooking together.

Five different men. Five very different levels of comfortability.

And me. With my lack of boundaries, and constantly needing to remember that others have them.

It's work. It's a hell of a lot of work.

It wasn't work with GV8. I asked him, PDAs? And he basically required them, needed them. No boundaries. No worries. Relaxation. Physical enjoyment. Mutual understanding.

So we woke up this morning to the alarm on his cellphone going off. Sounded like Jamaica was trying to wake him. Curled up into his body, softly rolling my hips, running my hands over his torso, up his neck, cresting the back of his skull, lips against his brow. Thirty minutes of touching while he dozed in and out.

In the shower, he scrubbed my back. Suprising, but good.

Coffee, sitting in the shade under an oversized umbrella, talking. Me, trying to determine where our public boundaries were set. Failing to do so.

See, I have this issue. If I'm regularly or semi-regularly sleeping with someone, I generally like them. Okay, I always like them. Otherwise, I wouldn't be sleeping with them. So I like to spend time with them, show them things I think they'll like.

But then, more often than not, they think I'm doing more than that.

Which leaves me sitting there going, "Uh... no. You like X. This is like X. So I wanted to show you this. Because I like you. Because I like it when you're happy. Because this will make you happy. This logic thing... it's working out for you, right?"

Anyhow, back to our broadcast.

Unexpected kiss goodbye. Wasn't the smashed-up-against-one-of-our-vehicles-grinding-the-morning-away kiss, but it was still good. Helping with the boundaries.

And, right now, I can hear GV8 in my head. Telling me to be who I am, do what I want to do, and stop trying to please everyone around me by conforming to their boundaries instead of asserting my own. Do what I want to do. But I hate making other people uncomfortable. And I know that how I am, sexually, is something uncommon enough to cause concern in the male populace. And I know I have more control than the male populace. And more experience. Which means I know that some guys get incredibly unnerved if you grab their hand in public. Or go to kiss them. They wig.

Because so many of them cannot combine a female they're fucking with a female that enjoys the affectionate things.

Example A: After the DP, Pseudonym Pending and I curled up in bed, cuddling, while The Broken Prince used the restroom. He came back, walked into the bedroom, took one look at us and said, "Oh no, no cuddling. DP is fine, but no cuddling. That's just weird."

He was genuinely disturbed by the idea. Pseudonym and I just looked at each other, with this kinda "WTF?" expression. You know the one. The one that someone would give you if a blue deer bounded through their living room being chased by a pack of baby pixies.

For some, it's probably a respect thing. Cuddling is for girlfriends, or for girls that you've had to seduce into your bed. Girls that require effort to get into their pants. They've earned the cuddling. If you're like me and you see someone you want, so you take, you don't usually get respect, at least until they get to know you. I suppose it's like cuddling with a prostitute. You're laying in bed going, "Why the hell does this chick have her head on my chest? Doesn't she know I'm here for the sex? Isn't she supposed to be without emotions or need for non-sexual physical contact?"

It is what it is.

I am what I am.

It's not a lack of respect for myself. It's a lack of respect for the social rules defined by insitutions that I don't agree with and a love for sex and physical contact.

I don't know where Pseudonym's boundaries are.

And maybe I should do what GV8 advised: assert my own boundaries. Be who I want to be. Stop molding myself to the desires of whichever man I'm with at the time. I am not going to spend the rest of my twenties as a single girl conforming to other people's desires, taking lovers that only satisfy me in one way. I only have so much time. I'm a pleaser, true, but others can please in return.

Anyhow, it's nearly ten. I need to be up at six or so. Eight hours is my minimum and this week, with the holiday, is going to be killer. My industry is going to be insane for the next three days, so I better be functional.

Also, completely unrelated sidenote, MAC Cosmetics' holiday collection, the pigment set "Sexpot" is an absolute dream. I love that company's products so much. I might get a second one, just in case. Beautiful.

How a boy feels...

Realized last night, after posting, after being texted by Mr. Pseudonym Pending, that I'm hypersensitize to my male (platonic or sexual) friends.

This year has been, not exactly a nightmare, but a frustrating tangle of my guy friends admitting, in one way or another, deeper feelings for me.

Feelings I have not returned.

And, sure, you're sitting there, all logical-like, saying, "Well, so what? You can't force yourself to have interest for another person. You didn't lead them on or anything."

Guys love to try to white-knight me. I know this.

They feel incredibly special and close to me when I talk to them about the things going on inside my head, my conflicts, my vunerability. They think that we're bonding more than I bond with others, that I'm sharing special things, that I'm showing trust in them, that I'm seeking them for advice, that our friendship is deepening.

What they don't realize is that I'm not sharing special things. They're things I discuss with multiple people. I'm not opening up. My walls are immense. The bonding they're feeling is created inside their own head because other girls don't act like I do. Other girls don't do this. Something must be special, something must be unique.

And I'm incredibly physically affectionate with my male friends. I express myself through touch. So it's not unusual for me to curl up in bed with one of them, to put my head in their lap, to press my thigh against theirs when we sit next to each other, to rub their backs when they twist something, to walk with shoulders rubbing, touch them when I want to show them something, hands on their shoulders or lower back when I want them to move.

I touch a lot.

So I end up creating this male-female relationship where I am very physically affectionate and comfortable with them, where I'm revealing "secrets" and "vunerabilities" and, in turn, they are revealing actual secrets and vunerabilities while attempting to "fix" me, doing shared activities, going out to movies, meals, clubs, concerts, and it becomes this near inevitable thing where I'll get a phone call, a text, an email, or be stopped for a "serious conversation".

And then I feel horrible.

I feel like I haven't laid down enough boundaries.

That I should have brought up the men I was sleeping with more.

Or made "you're such a good friend"-type comments.

Because I'm the aware party. I know what I'm doing. I know that I'm triggering these things. I've seen this before, done this before.

I'm the responsible one in this situation.

For not just laying it down as soon as I see those signs start cropping up. The probing questions about my relationships, the physical contact that isn't casual on their end, the attempts to save, the insulting of the men I sleep with. Tiny of dozens of little fractures that they make in an effort to break the shell of the platonic friendship I have enforced upon them.

It makes me feel like I'm committing emotional statutory rape.

Because they don't know what they're doing. They don't have the experience. They're children.

When I got that text message on Saturday for the DP, that night I went out with my clubbing friend. The one who made me the mix CD of songs he could see me dancing to. The one who guest-lists me at the clubs. The one who I run to when one of those guys at the clubs will not leave me alone so I press up against him and whisper in quick panic "grab me, act like you're my boyfriend, NOW" so I don't have to spend the next few hours dodging those men who can't read my body language. The one who I talk to when I'm upset, the one who tells me about his family, his life, his issues, his female problems.

He's expressed interest in me. He's asked my friends about me.

He's warned others off me. Not aggressively, but enough.

So I just dumped the DP on the table. Like it was just another day in the life of me. Which it kinda is. I left the club early, hugged him goodbye, he knew where I was going. Left shortly after I did, actually.

I hate having to build these walls.

I hate the barriers.

I hate worrying that I'm going to end up hurting yet another of my friends.

I hate the body language, the behaviors, the predictable words.

The sinking feeling I get in my stomach when I realize they're going for it, my mind racing to figure out a way to verbally cockblock them without embarassing them, without damaging our friendship, without insulting them or rejecting them outright.

This is something I loathe.

I hate rejecting men. I hate the damage it does.

I hate feeling like it's entirely my fault.

But what am I supposed to do? Completely change my social behavior? Never express myself with them? Never be truly affectionate? Keep awkward, physical walls in place? Declare the minute I start hanging out with a man regularly on a social level that I'm not going to date him ever, so-please-don't-even-think-about-it-thank-you?

Who am I supposed to talk to, if not my friends?

Or am I only allowed to talk to my straight female friends so this doesn't occur?

There's got to be a better way to handle this.

I don't like these feelings of guilt that crop up because I have knowledge and awareness that these men do not. Amusingly, if they did, I'd find them desirable.

Which makes perfect sense.

It happened earlier this week with the text I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm still trying to stop the slow descent with my clubbing friend, one of my oldest friends told me on Tuesday that he loves me as much as he loves his girlfriend of four years. I know, I've known for a long time, that he has been in love with me. I did not realize the level.

Then there was Redding, who went so incredibly wrong. Near obsession. Near stalkery, even when I flat out told him no, never. Near begged him to get over it.

And all the other little incidents that I've had to stop, gloss over, with others.

It's no wonder I don't respect most men.

You'd think I'd be a pro at this by now.
You'd think I'd have the zen by now to know that this happens and there's nothing I can do about it so I need to stop worrying and watching for when the next one starts to go.

Apparently not.

I hate rejection so much, I squirm when I reject others.

Another thing to address.