Catie Misses Her High School Love

2 Comments

marcia

1/23/2012 2:28:49 PM

No matter what the future will bring to both of you, you will do what's in your heart. If you really ache when you think of him, - I know the feeling, and it is pleasantly painful, admit it ! - that is a very good sign indeed. Why should you think of the negative side of it? When you met with him, you were both romantically inclined. That means your feelings are quite mutual. The chemistry is there, the friendship is there. I would advise to keep in touch with him and see: according to his tone, you will know how he feels. We women have a great intuition, but some men also are mind readers. If you both are blessed in this way, guesswork would be eliminated. Distance is not such a problem, if you don’t mind waiting. It could be that you like waiting. After all, the journey is more important than the destination. Think about it –once you are there, it’s over. It might even be that you nearly prefer waiting, if your pleasure in love is more mental than physical. Love, confusion, indecision, are all a part of the game. But if there is enough passion, one day one of you will decide to crack this distance. If it is meant to be, it will be inevitably. So meanwhile, enjoy thinking about him, and watching your English movies, and send him an email to let him know you what you think you want or can tell him. You would be much more miserable, if you weren't interested in anyone, stayed at home feeling nothing, while watching this movie. Better be pleasantly injured than bored. I say you are lucky.

Lola

1/23/2012 8:59:02 PM

Exactly how far apart do you live? Was he the one who brought up the subject of not continuing a long-distance relationship? You said you saw him 3 months ago. Does he arrange to see you, or do you arrange to see him, or does him being in town have nothing to do with you? I know I'll never get answers to those questions, but they go toward seeing if his interest is at all proportional to yours.

I empathize because I've had trouble forgetting about people, but then I learned to, if not forget about them, put them on the back burner while I got on with my life, promise myself maybe there'd be another time so it wasn't quite so sad. I imagine I was as obsessive as you. Or maybe it's just that I know what I like and don't give up easily. Probably both (worst possible combination?)

You might be interested in a poem I wrote in 2002 while walking away but promising myself to return another time regarding a man I've known since 1972, didn't see how 25 years, saw again, and then, of course, had to again let go. As you can see in the verse, I'm not positively definitely completely absolutely certain that I am committed to this being the end. Anyone not repelled by poetry, I'll post it temporarily at http://electricwitch2009.blogspot.com/ . It's called "Paleocyberia." (And right below it is an embarassing blog where I recently got gobsmacked driving down the road and fell in love with a rock icon just because a song came on the radio!)

Catie, I hope you find at least that you are not alone, and I commend you for your lucidity regarding your intense longing.

I was highly amused (and impressed) with Dr. Archer's tips for forgetting about someone. The part about giving up English actors was quite painful, wasn't it?

That "stop thinking about him" thing really works, but it is a discipline. My version of it I had to use on someone (we'll call him Ballerina Boy) who simply wouldn't stay gone long enough to give me a fighting chance of getting past him used the same technique Dr. Archer suggests, combined with making yourself think of two bad things for every good thing that enters your head about him. Now, this works best when there ARE glaring bad things about him, so it was perfect for BB. However, as you can see in the poem about the quest for the other guy, that method was impractical for The Phantom, who was so highly romanticized both by myself and by himself that I was never given any real grist for the hate mill with which to work.

Also, at its most extreme, that exercise is a bit like blocking things out, and I won't say that it didn't come back to haunt me in a fashion some years later, putting all those things under my cap. I blocked so much out that I truly convinced myself any relationship Ballerina Boy and I had was all in my imagination, and that that meant I had real issues, but when I reviewed my journal decades later, clearly that was not entirely the case. He just had problems. I loved him in spite of the ones I knew about, and he was an idiot for not loving me back. When I saw him for the first time after he'd moved to the West Coast while I was there on business (him now happily married, and not, miraculously, to a Hollywood hooker) with a new baby, right away, he confessed that he had had problems, that it was him, that he'd had to address some childhood abuse and had overcome some of the issues. And then just when I thought he was on the road to having a nice life, alcohol took control of him.

Lord knows, I had tried my old standby, the five-day drunk, first before resorting to anything that involved discipline trying to get past him, but when that too failed, I had to get creative and do the "stop thinking" method. Then finally, like a switch, one day I tranferred my feelings for BB right over to a new guy and had a hard time imagining for some time thereafter why I had been so transfixed. And BB handled the new boyfriend well (eyes rolling). He sometimes wouldn't leave my apartment, even (or perhaps especially) when he knew I had a date coming over. Nothing biligerent, you understand, all very jovial. But this is what I had to contend with. Right away, I had to explain him to the new guy, who was miraculously understanding.

When I first effortlessly switched my feelings from BB to the new guy, I worried about that, even though it was a huge relief, because it was too clean. But you have to remember, that love is coming from inside you. It belongs to you. You can blast your superturbo F-16 engine afterburner at anyone you wish. I confess when I read my journals after decades, I fell in love with all of them again. I even spent a few days bickering with BB, for old times' sake, before deciding his acerbic charm had degenerated with age and he very much began to sound like an old lady telling me how to drive. (And then I remembered, "Oh, yeah, that was one of the two bad things for every good one.")

Do as Dr. Archer says and keep busy. Cool your jets until a better candidate comes along. Maybe you'll revisit the issue one day if the circumstances improve.