Pedal Slowly OR Just Stop?

 “Damn Carmen, it sounds like you are further ahead with things than he is, so I’m not saying get rid of him altogether but you may need to just pedal slower and allow him time to catch up.  Then on the other hand, he’s acting like a man and telling you what you want to hear because if he’s realized you are that good of a woman, he’s not going to want to let go.  That’s the reality of the game.  I think you need to cut out the benefits so he doesn’t have his cake and eat it too because the way I see it is this – a real man will go after what he wants if he wants it bad enough instead of making up excuses about work and living situations.  Have YOU told him you didn’t want to deal with him for any of those reasons?  If not, then you have your answer on whether or not he’s playing games and simply wanting to play the field vs. a dude who wants to and is ready to settle down.  The bigger question is what’s his plan?  When does he plan on looking for a new place?  A man without a plan is a man with NO plan, get me?”

Yeah, I get you.

These wise words came from a married male co-worker who I’ve known for over 7 years, as I gave him that look of sheer  exasperation when he asked “Have you settled down yet?” and responded that I stop by his desk later for the abbreviated version of my situation with Out of Sight.  A situation that I honestly believed was a non-factor up until a week ago when he broke down and contacted me.  After three weeks of not speaking  or communicating otherwise, it had seemed as if my last message to him about me not being able to give without there being anything in return  had pretty much  sealed the deal that things between us were over.  He never contacted me again and while I had moments of wanting to fire off a few “Fuck you bastard, you wasted my time” messages or “You should never have started something you really had no intentions of finishing” type messages I hadn’t reached out to him either.

No, I had to refrain from doing the types of things that men EXPECT women to do when a situation goes south but to be honest – that time without any contact with this man who I got along with so marvelously, giving hope to what has been a hopeless situation in dating was needed.  I missed him terribly but after seeing him Sunday for a quick moment and again when he took me to lunch later during the week,  I feel like I’m just asking for trouble when in reality that chapter should have been finished.  It should be finished and instead of me wasting keystrokes talking about how emotions I tried to downplay have resurfaced, I should be talking about how nice the last two dates have been with Showtime.  This should be about a man who is a family man, who learned from the mistakes made in a 18-year marriage and who isn’t in the mindset after being single for over two years of needing to get out and “do him”.  Yet instead, it’s a post about me revisiting someone who should probably be left alone.

For the single men and women out there who are truly worth it and so deserving of a compatible significant other in their lives, how tired are you of hearing why you haven’t been married?  As a matter of fact, as I sat across the table from Out of Sight during lunch while he was complimenting me on how much of an amazing and beautiful woman I was, he asked (again) “How is it that you haven’t been married?” I blushed and thanked him for the kind words and simply said “The reality is that I keep wasting my time on men….” and he finishes my sentence by saying “Men like me is what you wanted to say, isn’t it?”  Well I guess the answer would be yet –  men like him.  What I can appreciate about him is he doesn’t get upset when we’re having these types of candid conversations where he’s being called out on something.  For instance, I asked if he minded me sharing my assumptions about why he’s really reluctant to get in a relationship he was totally open to it and surprisingly – agreed to most of what I was saying.

Baggage.  His issues and memories from bad experiences with women from dating early on, getting married and any women that came afterwards including a particularly frightening fatal attraction encounter.  Out of Sight admitted that he wasn’t trusting because women “change once they go from dating to relationship status” and that many were lying when they said they weren’t the needy type.  Yeah okay man, I hear you and we all have issues we need to work on to try avoiding the same mistakes made in our past but get over it because the fact remains is this – month two or even week one is when you should have simply stated “I’m not interested in anything serious and am not sure when I will be”.   It wasn’t just this same old song and dance that started to annoy me, but it was the fact that he took something I shared with him and basically used it as ammunition to make him not look like such the bad guy.  Out of Sight explains that based on what I said caused the demise of the relationship with Rescue (being in transition, starting over, didn’t have his own place etc…), the main reason why he hasn’t pressed the issue with us is because he knew I wouldn’t he happy with another situation that was so similar to what I had already been through.  He’s absolutely right but him basically using this as an excuse could only mean two things – (1) he listens and is carefully thinking about the situation or (2) he’s full of shit.

I recognize that there are a few flaws that need to be worked on within and one is that there really isn’t any grey in my life – everything is pretty much black or white, it is or it isn’t.  So when circumstances are such that there is confusion, I don’t like it and panic by making sure any casualties to MYSELF are either minimized or eliminated altogether.  After just a few days from our reunion my mind had been made up about how to deal with Out of Sight, and I called him with what I thought was the best way of dealing with each other.  Something that hasn’t really been present with any of the other hangovers is that the two of us had agreed a while back that no matter what, we wanted to salvage the great friendship that had been developed.  The only way this could happen (for me) is if we kept things purely platonic and in fact – the expectations or need for daily contact wasn’t needed;  we could simply maintain contact and catch up every now and then and this way, I wouldn’t end up resenting him later if I continued being intimate with him or heaven forbid, fell in love and found myself in one of those unrelationships months later.

Sadly, there are far too many women crazy situations and wasting time on certain types of men.  Those that aren’t all over the place in life and are actually very stable but just aren’t up front with their situations like the Special Agent’s  who claim to be single but have women from San Diego to Japan thinking they’re “the ones”, to those men who are struggling financially and shacked up with their parents with no real plan for improving their situation such as Hope to the ones who stop pedaling their bikes mid-way without letting the other party know that they just want to slow the bicycle down a bit like Out of Sight.

So now it’s just a question of whether my behavior modification suggestion can work so he doesn’t become a distraction to my dating efforts and I’m not being unfair to any new potentials while I have him lingering in the background.  This post should have been about Showtime and the two great dates we’ve had, along with our plans for the next outing.  I should have been saying how this new guy is interested and shows it, without making up any excuses for not being in touch no matter how busy the day gets with work, children and life.  These are the types of situations that often prevent people from being who they’re meant to be with, while having to make special arrangements or concessions for those probably should NOT deal with.  Maybe I’m right, maybe not.

Yes – I’ve made mistakes in the past by spending  too much time on men who didn’t know what they wanted, those wanting the benefits of a permanent employee but wanting to function as  temporary workers, and not  having given a fighting chance to the right men.  A few of my girlfriends are always commenting how strong I am to have the ability to breakaway from men that don’t seem to be leading towards a happy ending but damn, I’m tired of having my gloves on ready to fight.  So tired of it but still, have not reached the point of just settling or “hanging in there” as some women have foolishly done knowing things just weren’t right.  Many of you don’t get it.

This woman here? I’m still learning from mistakes made in the past but I think I’m getting better at learning when it’s time to pedal a little slower or stop altogether because if nothing is being gained from past experiences, I’m only setting myself up to fail with the future experiences.

Until there’s a cure for the hangovers…

Carmen Jones