What’s this thing called self control?

So remember that phone call I made to Bobby?  And that super duper uber promise that I made myself to not date anyone for a good long while?  It was like the 5th time I promised myself… but this time I meant it!  Or at least I thought I did.

I invited Bobby to come hang out with some of my friends who live in the apartment complex down the street.  We all hung out, played cards, got drunk (well I don’t really get drunk… but tipsy in the least). Anyways, at the end of the night Bobby was going back to his friend’s place to crash for the night, and I invited him to just come back to my place instead.  I told him how I knew it was breaking all our promises, but we wouldn’t do any funny business, we would literally just sleep.  And that’s exactly what happened… except not exactly.

A promise to yourself is the most fragile of promises.  I think of it like opening a bottle of soda.  I promise myself that I won’t drink the soda.  But it’s lovely to look at the soda.  And perhaps if I were to only unscrew the top, just enough to hear that satisfying hiss of gas whizzing out of the pressurized bottle… that’s not breaking my promise, right?  The cap is still on!  Well now that the seal is broken, it wouldn’t be that bad to unscrew it all the way off.  The bottle sits in front of me, no cap, and I decide that letting it sit would be a waste, so I drink to soda.  Oops.  Breaking a promise to yourself doesn’t just include the action that actually broke the promise.  The breaking happens with that initial unscrew of the cap, and once the seal is broken (before the soda is even consumed), the promise is broken.

Bobby sleeping over that night was like hearing that hiss of a broken seal.  Even though we didn’t do anything that specifically violated my self-contract, it sure as hell got the ball rolling.  The next night he slept over again, because we’d already done it once and it was fine, so why not, right?  He slept over 6 times that week.  The last 5 times, we did so much more than sleep.  Oops.

I can’t keep myself off of him!  Seriously, hooking up with Bobby is like skydiving with a mouthful of PopRocks (And just for the record, hooking up to me means everything but actual sex).  Seriously, the chemistry between us is breathtaking.  I have no idea how we haven’t had sex yet.  The main thing holding myself off him is the fact I’m not on birth control.  If I could get ahold of the pill without my parents knowing, it would be game over.  We kiss, he touches me, I touch him, I moan, he moans, we breathe, its like synchronized swimming.  I distinctly remember one night when things were getting particularly heated.  I’ve given Andrew a few BJs, and didn’t particularly enjoy them.  I had given one to Bobby before too, and again I didn’t like it.  But this night I decided to try it again, and I actually kinda liked it!  And he (of course) was so into it.  The whole time he was moaning “f**k yes”, which is super hot because he’s such a gentleman and never cusses.  After some more heavy kissing and touching the night came to a sort of climax, and then finally settled back down.  We lay down on the bed, out of breath actually, and Bobby exclaims “HOLLLLY SH**. Where the hell did that come from?!”.  Every time I think about that night I get butterflies!  If we ever have sex… we’re going to tear the house down.

A phonecall to Bobby

I’ve told you a little of my reservations about us… but so far I’ve been saying one thing but doing another, and that’s not good for either of us. I’ve been having feelings and trying to ignore them, because I like you so so much. But it’s beem growing on me and it’s not getting any better. Talking to my mom the other night kinda opened my eyes to it. I also talked to Kristen (my bff from home) and told her everything. She helped talk me through all this cause she knows me almost as well as my mom does.

I really like you – but the best thing for me right now is to just be friends. We should get to know each other and pursue a friendship first, then later down the road we can figure out if there’s more than just a friendship. I don’t want to lead you down a rollercoaster, dragging you along with whatever I happen to be feeling at the time. We’re a thing, we’re not a thing, we’re dating, we won’t be dating for a while… I’m confusing myself I can’t imagine how you must be feeling.

I do like you. A lot. But if we wait and get together down the road, we can enter a much stronger relationship, and we can know for sure what this is and what we want. I’ll be sure of my feelings, and know what I want. If our friendship can make it through this, (potentially one semester of school and a summer and semester away – more than a year of pure friendship), we know that we have something real. And we’ve been close friends before, I know we can go back to that, at least for a while. Focusing and growing our friendship is all I’m truly able to give you right now. Cause it’s eating me up inside knowing that I love you but that I can’t give you my all.

But all this being said, I’m really going to need your help. There will be times that I’m not going to want to do this. I may be willing to make compromises, want to go back on everything I’m saying right now, want to kiss you and date you and elope with you (lol) – but you have to put your foot down and say no. Because this is what I want for sure, I know this is what I need. If there’s going to be any chance of us having any future together, I am absolutely going to need this space to be single, grow as an individual, learn who I am and learn to love myself. I need to know who I am and love myself before I can love anyone else. If we jump into things now, things might be good for a while, but I guarantee things will end the exact same way they did with my ex (in confusion and misery and frustration). I feel something different with you. When I’m around you, when I kiss you, hold your hand, I feel things I’ve never felt with anyone before ever. But finding the right person is just as important as finding them at the right time. For me, right now is not the right time. So if you’re willing to wait, this is what I need. And I think it’ll be worth it if we do.

So what does this all mean? Hanging out is fine… but absolutely completely platonic till next semester. Then reevaluate and see where we’re at, after winter break. But the way I’m feeling right now I don’t know if I’m going to be ready by then, or how much longer I’m going to need. I do wish to pursue a friendship with you, I love being around you whether it’s platonic or not, and I love just spending time with you. But I can’t date you (or anyone) right now, and I’m so sorry it took this long for me to figure this all out.

Bobby

So there’s another guy.  I know, I know, I promised myself I’d stay single for a semester following this whole Andrew debacle.  But I just can’t seem to keep myself away!  I’ll start from the beginning.

Last semester when I first joined the tennis team, Sue asked me on the first day,

“So, who’s the cutest one on the team??”.  I looked around the courts, excited to be exchanging girl talk with a new friend.  I looked across the courts, and spotted a guy completely dominating the other player.  He was a middle-eastern or Indian guy, long hair pulled back in a pony tail, sporting bright orange sneakers and a Nadal-style headband.  He had a deep voice, joking with his buddies about his racket or something.  I pointed at him.  Of course I was still with Andrew at this point, but this was harmless girl talk.

“Oooo, you like Bobby?? He’s single, I could totally hook you guys up” She offered.

“Nah”, I explained “I have a boyfriend”.  Later during practice I told Sue that I needed to buy some racket grip.  She called Bobby over,

“Hey Bobby – Cady needs to go to the pro-shop, don’t you need to go tomorrow?”

He did.  We made plans to meet up the next day.  This is how it all started.  From there Bobby and I became great friends.

We played tennis a lot together; we were perfect doubles partners.  We didn’t talk much over the summer, but the following fall we went right back to being friends.  Whenever we were on the court together, everyone commented on the incredible chemistry we had.  Before I was even positive I liked him (in more than a friendly way), I had multiple people approach me asking if we were dating.  They bothered Bobby about it too.  Sue said over and over how great we would be as a couple.  Everyone saw us together before we even did.

Over time our relationship grew.  The initial attraction I felt toward him never faded – in fact it grew stronger and stronger with each passing day.  Bobby is incredibly smart.  He’s the president of the tennis team, a chemical engineering major, and taking premed requirements at the same time “to keep options open”.  He has such an incredible view on life… he’s creative, always waiting to pounce on the next opportunity to make something happen, open minded, easy going, curious about the world and how things work, adventurous, and well traveled.  He’s so interesting, and exciting!  I’ll call him on the phone to ask a quick question, and we end up talking for three hours.

He’s incredibly thoughtful too.  He loves his little sister more than anyone I’ve ever seen.  His mom told me when she was first born, Bobby (who was 3 at the time), would hold her for hours and hours, staring at her with the biggest smile on his face.  They grew up very close to each other.  Bobby and his sister both started playing tennis and taking private lessons around the same time.  At one point they were equally talented.  Eventually however his parents ran out of money, and could only afford to continue sending one of the kids through private training camps.  Their coach at the time saw more potential in Bobby’s sister than he did in Bobby, so his parents pulled Bobby out of competitive sports when he was about 10 years old.  He continued to play recreationally, but quickly lost the level he was at previously.  Currently his sister is the top of the tennis team ladder at her college.  From the time Bobby stopped getting lessons, he had to sit back and watch his little sister take all the glory and attention.  This would make any normal person angry, jealous, and bitter.  But instead of resenting his sister, Bobby turned into her biggest fan.  He attends every single one of there tournaments, helps coach her, sends her care packages to college, drives 6 hours to watch her college tennis matches, and talks to her every single day.

He also remembers everything I tell him, even the smallest silliest things (like how I hate driving though drive-throughs because of the time I got the car stuck at McDonalds).  He appreciates everything about me, right down to the things I don’t even notice about myself.  He makes me feel confident, and he has honestly helped me to love myself and all sorts of things about me.

I know it’s not good to compare relationships, but I can’t help myself and I’m sorry.  Andrew was never phased by anything.  Even the most exciting things in the world and in both his and my own life, he never expressed amazement toward anything.  He would be happy mabey, but never in awe.  I know he loved me, but I was alway kinda doubtful about why, or how much.  Bobby is truly in awe of me, completely.  He loves me, and expresses it in such an effective way.  He points out specific things, tells me every day, and gets excited about things simply because I’m excited about them.  I’m not trying to say anything bad about Andrew, or that I wouldn’t consider getting back together with him.  I’m merely trying to explain a tiny part of why I’m so purely happy when I’m around Bobby.  He makes me feel like I’m worth something, that I’m treasured, that I’m a rare gem in a mountain of pebbles.  And he does all this while staying true to himself.  He doesn’t say that he can’t live without me, or that if we ever grew apart he’d be miserable and die.  I wouldn’t want it to be like that.  He does say though that he’s the luckiest guy in the world when he’s with me, and that he’s going to do everything possible to hold onto me because I’m the best thing that’s ever happened to him.

Mabey it’s unfair for me to compare Andrew and Bobby.  With Andrew I remember the full two year relationship, but the part that’s most fresh in my memory was last 6 months or so when the spark was fading.  With Bobby, all I have to compare is this month that we’ve been (kind of) together.  It’s still in the “honeymoon phase”.  Will this relationship with Bobby grow stale just as the one with Andrew did?  Will I realize that Andrew was my perfect match all along, and is spending time with Bobby going to impact my chances as getting back together with him?  Or is Bobby my true match, and I’m hesitant because of how quickly things ended with Andrew and started with him?  Or mabey neither of them are right for me, and I’m wasting my emotions, effort, energy, and time for personal growth?  More of these thoughts in my next post…  stay tuned.

Because I’m Happy (To the tune of the Pharrell Williams song)

My grades are dropping, I’m not doing so hot in tennis, I’m single and missing Andrew, it’s a rainy dreary day, and yet I’m happy.  Am I a crazy person?

I’ve lost most of my motivation for school – I’m not immune to the plights of college life!  Friends, parties, work, it’s all so much more enjoyable than school.  I can feel my grades dropping… and yet I don’t really care.  I’m having fun, I’m getting at least Bs so it’s not like my future is at risk, and I’m not stressing myself out to the point of breaking.  Mabey it’s time to let myself let go of perfection, and just live life.  There are so many more important things in life than getting perfect grades, being on time everywhere I go, and having money, power, and success.  I’m really good at doing school, but school isn’t what brings me joy.  Joy comes through friends, tennis, boys, food, puppies, and family.  Is focusing on what makes me happy such a sin?

Things that always make me feel better

Working out

Chick-fil-a sauce

Loud music

Doggies

Being outside

A clean house

Hot showers

America’s Funniest Home Videos

Warm mug of coffee

Cold glass of iced tea

Playing tennis

Snuggling with friends

Anything Autumn (apple cider, hay rides, pumpkins, crunching leaves)

Warm chocolate cookies

Randos are not good kissers

Now that I’m living up my single life, I finally have the chance to do all the things I couldn’t before.  Which is… not a whole lot I guess.  The major difference is how much more time I have for myself (or for my friends) on weekends, and that instead of calling Andrew to say a quick “hi” on the way back to my home, I call my Mom.  My Mom loves me being single.

I’ve gone out twice now with Faith and Marie.  We take a cab or an Uber down into the city to a bar.  Marie isn’t actually 21, so we have to “pass back” Faith’s ID (the two look relatively alike).  I always get so nervous doing this – if we’re caught I could go to jail for serving alcohol to a minor!  It also makes me feel like a bad-ass.  Which is cool I guess.

One of the things on my single to-do list has always been to make out with a “rando”.  You know, like a random guy at a bar who you may or may not know his name, but certainly don’t know anything about him.  People usually blame the make-out session on drunkenness, but we all know that’s not true.  Sure, alcohol may help you get up the courage to make those moves to kissing strangers, but deep down everyone (drunk or not) enjoys a good make-out here and there.  Well, two weekends in a row, I got my wish.  The first guy was named Adam.  He was a friend of a friend of a friend of Marie, who we happened to run into at the bar.  I met him after dancing up on a number of other guys (with none of whom any kissing took place).  I was feeling confident when this guy started talking to me.  We had a nice brief conversation (it was very loud and difficult to hear each other), then started dancing.  Finally, Faith wanted to go home.  I was pretty tipsy at this point (much more than I ever really remember being before in my life) – but certainly not drunk.  I was about to leave dear Adam for Faith, when I got a wonderful idea.  KISS HIM.  Why not?  What did I have to loose?  So I did it!  And he (of course) was totally into it.  We made-out for 30 seconds or so, then I said good buy and ran off to find Faith and Marie to catch the cab home.  This was a good experience, because it was my first rando ever kissing!  He wasn’t a particularly good kisser… but he was respectful, polite, and the kiss only lasted a small amount of time.  I was also very proud of myself.

The second weekend wasn’t so exciting.  I wasn’t as tipsy that time, and we had been dancing in the bar for a few hours so I was getting tired.  A cute guy came up and started dancing with me.  He had a very strong french accent, and explained that he played tennis for UMBC.  Awesome!  We danced for a while, both of us facing the same way.  Then he turned me around so that we were facing each other and dancing.  I could tell that he wanted to kiss me, he was kind of awkwardly staring at my face for a while… I pretended not to notice.  That’s when the “screw it” bulb flashed above my head, and I turned to give into it.  Boy was I surprised.  Apparently not all french guys are stellar wonderful amazing orgasmic kissers.  This guy goes straight for my face, full speed ahead, tongue first!  He continued kissing, 90% tongue, 10% I don’t even know what else.  I don’t know why I put up with it for so long… but we continued in this way for a good 10 minutes.  I was trying to mix in some lips, pull his hair a little to change things, but damn was this guy stubborn.  The cigarettes on his breath didn’t improve things either.  Finally I told him I had to go off and find my friends, and after convincing him that I did not want to take a cab home with him, I left.  Unfortunately I gave him my correct phone number (I don’t know why I did that), so he called me twice and texted me 4 times that night wanting to meet up when I got back to the school.  I think he wanted the sexy time.

This is how I feel about these two guys

So what’s the moral of this story?  Well one good thing to come out of all this is that I do have more self confidence.  I know that any night I want to lock-lips with a rando, it’s much easier than I once thought.  It’s also much less romantic than I once thought.  You may find an awesome kisser here and there, but to be totally honest most of them (especially when they’re drunk) are slimy and smell like an ashtray.  Do I regret my actions?  Yes and no.  If you asked if I would do it again, I’d probably say no.  But if you asked if I’m glad I did it, I’d probably say yes.  I firmly believe that you need to live it to learn it.  It’s not enough to hear someone else’s experiences, you really have to go out there and do it for yourself.  When I was with Andrew I had lots of FOMO (“fear of missing out”) about not being able to go out and party and make out with randos.  I put it on this pedestal, like there were so many epic amazing nights I was giving up to be with him.  I definitely need this time alone to be free and explore this, and live these nights.  But if it turns out that they’re not so epic and amazing, I won’t regret going out, I’ll just know better for next time.  I’ll be able to make a firm decision, that I’d rather commit to Andrew (or someone else even) than live life single and “free”.

New apartment

So I’ve moved into my new apartment!  I love it here.  It’s technically on-campus housing, but it’s so nice.  We even have our own laundry room!  I’m here with Faith and Marie, Faith is a good friend of mine from high school, Marie is her old roommate.  There’s also a 4th random person.  I’ve got all my stuff moved in, and I’m pretty much settled in.  Every day this place feels more and more like home.  I decorated a bit, we bought some dishes from Goodwill, and my mom even gave me a pretty table cloth for the dining room.  I love it here.  I love living on my own too.  The independence is so great – I feel like I’m running my own household but without children or a boring smelly husband!  Life is great.

5 Seconds

After I got home, I went back to the hotel room to hang out with the interns.  I learned a new party trick – how to snap a bottle cap and make it fly across the room.  I was really frustrated though, as Coby was blatantly ignoring me.  He flirts with me for a month straight, and yet makes zero moves.  I was giving him hint after hint that I was into it, and still nothing.  Now he refuses to acknowledge the fact that I exist?  I was so annoyed that I finally confronted him.

“Coby – what is happening between us?  I know there was a thing, we even talked about it, but now you’re pretending like I don’t exist and I don’t know what’s going on,”  I said.

“What do you want from me?  You have/had a boyfriend, the summer is almost over, what’s the point of dealing with all of this?” he replied.

“We don’t have to define it, I don’t even want to date you.  But I like you and you like me, and we have two weeks left together, let’s just see what happens and have fun,” I told him.

His reply was to act as if he had no idea what I was taking about.  He went on about how he’s a very flirty person, and that I probably got the wrong idea, that he doesn’t like me.  By the way that’s complete bull shit, because we’d had multiple conversations specifically about liking each other.

“You can’t deny that you flirt more with me than anyone else.  You straight up told me you had feelings for me.  We cuddled on the couch, we laughed, we talked, we had a genuine connection.  Now you’re pretending like that never happened, and you’re treating me like I don’t exist, and it’s really frustrating!”

“What do you want me to do – give you 100% of my attention?  Not talk to anyone else but you?” he shot back.

I was so annoyed, I didn’t even know what to say.  But I knew we had a connection, and part of me still wanted him, even for only 2 weeks.  Even if he was being so incredibly stupid.  After all, he was only 18, possibly all of this nonsense was simply immaturity or inexperience.  I gave him an ultimatum.

“Coby, forget the bull shit – you have exactly 5 seconds to either kiss me, or walk away.  If you walk, I will not hate you, we can go back to being friends just like before.”

5 seconds pass.

He stands there like an idiot, too much of a pansy to make a decision.  If he didn’t want a thing with me I’d respect for him for that.  All he needed to do was to act on what he wanted.

But he didn’t kiss me.  And he didn’t walk away.  So I did.

I still have no idea what his deal was, and I probably never will.  Rumor had it he was planning on getting back together with an ex.  Someone else said he was too scared to act on anything, and the ex was an excuse.  Whatever the case, he missed his chance and I’m done.

One of my other intern friends, John, knew him pretty well, and knew me pretty well, and was helping me through this.  John’s opinion was that Coby was a young immature idiot, too stupid to realize what a bombshell I was.  As the night went on John got more and more drunk, and his helpful advice turned into hitting on me, which turned into inviting me into a threesome with him and his girlfriend.  The scary thing is that I was so upset about all of it, I almost said yes!  I doubt I would have actually gone through with it, but the fact that I even considered it… Oh god.

The next morning (Saturday) I didn’t wake up until 2:30pm.  That night I went to a club for a fellow intern’s birthday.  I made sure to look super hot to force myself to forget about Coby.  Some guy in his late 30s approached me,

“It would absolutely make my evening if you would dance with me,” he said.  My friends pushed me to him, knowing this may help relieve me of Coby frustration.  I did not have a good time dancing with him.  He was pretty forceful, pushing me up with his leg in between mine… it was gross.  I made an excuse and left.

Not 20 minutes later, another guy approached me asking to dance.  I said YOLO and danced with him for a while.  He had such a creepy smile, and crazy eyes.  Out of nowhere he leans in,

“Can I kiss you?” he whispered.  NO WAY.  I told him John was my boyfriend, and that he’d be sad if I kissed someone else.  Call me the queen of excuses, I made one quick and left.

After that I was done dancing with guys.  I hung out with all the girls instead, it was super fun.  Suddenly this really cute guy approached me.  Was he going to ask to dance?

“Let me introduce you to my roommate,” he said.  To my surprise, he takes me over to a girl dancing on top the bar.  I hopped up on the bar with her and danced for a while… until she attempted to twerk with me!  No way – this is too much. I continued dancing on the bar top though, and eventually convinced some of the other girl interns to join me.

I should be embarrassed about this whole fiasco, but I’m totally not. Screw guys – Coby gave me a great reason to hate guys and sware off them for a good long time. The really hard part is gonna be my self esteem – I almost said yes to a threesome!  Gross.  Who am I.

Adults can have fun too

Friday night I went to happy hour at a microbrewery called Dogfish-head with a bunch of the Post-Docs from my hallway.  It’s so crazy to finally feel like an adult!  I’m used to seeing these people in such a professional manner, always being on my best behavior and watching how I think, talk, and act.  But this time it was so different.  We were just a bunch of friends hanging out at a bar.  Dr. Smith, Dr. Tracy, and Dr. Williams disappeared to Karin, John, and David.  I’ve never experienced seeing my superiors as peers – and having fun with them!  I thought the evening was going to be an uptight, official gathering to discuss work and research.  Instead it was a table full of friends hanging out, guys flirting with girls, girls gossiping and giggling, friends picking on each other, and coworkers laughing at their bosses.  It was awesome.

Friends on my side

Last week I told Wendy about Coby… but only the shorthand version.  Basically that I had a mini crush on him and that I was hoping for a snuggle session before the summer ends.  Her response was “Cady, I don’t like this guy.  Stop liking him”.  I am so happy she said that.  The fact that she took the time to say exactly what she was thinking, regardless of how it would make me feel.  That’s what true friendship is all about.  She said that this guy was nothing compared to Andrew, and that I didn’t break up with Andrew to go make-out with guys much less worthy than him.  She told me to forget about boys, but when I do think about boys to keep my bar set high.  She knows absolutely nothing about Coby, and yet she’s in my corner of the ring fighting for my best interests (even when I’m not even fighting for my own best interests).

I remember one time that I got so angry with Wendy about this girl who I didn’t like.  Her name was Marge.  To make a long story very, very short, Marge and I didn’t get along.  It lead to a rather immature Facebook fight, posting back and forth and saying silly things to each other.  What made me so angry wasn’t Marge, but the fact that Wendy (or any other of my close friends at the time) didn’t stick up for me.  They told me to my face that they didn’t like Marge either, but no one got on their computer and liked any of my comments, or even said to my face that I was in the right about the whole thing.  In retrospect, I probably wasn’t in the right, and I do understand why my friends didn’t jump onto their computers and join in behind me.  It was a silly argument, and pretty dumb to get into a Facebook fight about.  I was just so angry that my friends wouldn’t dismiss this girl simply because I didn’t like her.  They weren’t direct friends with her, but I wanted them to snub her the second she even approached them.  The thing that bothered me was this quote about friendship – “a true friend supports you and sticks on your side, even when you’re clearly in the wrong”  Now I’m realizing that this isn’t true… it’s not about being right and wrong.  What matters most is loyalty.  You should never confuse loyalty with petty arguments about “who’s on who’s side”.  In the end, Wendy has my back.  It was her (wise) decision to stay out of this silly argument between I and Marge.  However when an issue matters, like this thing with Andrew and Coby, she has her opinion and she’s going to fight for what she knows is best for me.