Author and Columnist
Interpersonal relationships are so terribly confusing. I think I shall simply have to begin having relationships with imaginary beings and inanimate objects.
A few things:
After dinner, I started kissing her again. It was very nice. She was teasing me that I was horrible, but she was cooing. She wouldn't let me kiss her lips, but everything else seemed fair game. I asked if I could kiss her stomach. She rolled onto her back and I began kissing.
If only we could take your hormones and hope down a few dozen notches.
Is Kate teasing and tempting you? Of course, she is. She is confused as well, and, at the moment, you feel good. She had been stringing you along since the last time you kissed because it is hard to resist the adoration of a loved one while doing whatever one otherwise wishes without obligation. A part of her likes the idea of this, and, I suspect, the reality of you kissing her stomach is undoubtedly pleasant.
After I nipped at her stomach playfully, she shifted and my hand slipped.
"Slipped" as though you didn't know what you were trying to do in getting your hands in her pants. Don't lie.
And ending up having her first orgasm since we broke up.
Assume there is uproarious laughter here at your naivety. I do think you genuinely mean this, you fool. Kate has been having orgasms that have nothing to do with you.
I cannot even guarantee that this was her first orgasm with you after the breakup. The situation, though hot, may not have been sufficient to provoke more than an "I am going to act like I am having an orgasm so that I can deescalate my ex-boyfriend fumbling around in my panties."
But, despite that I had my hand in her pants, she wouldn't kiss me. So I felt a trifle... used?
Yes, you were used. And you used Kate for different reasons. I am not downplaying your feelings here.
I wish you had more respect for yourself in these moments.
Afterward, I asked her to please kiss me, if only on he forehead or cheek, to justify what I had just done. So she gentle kissed my lips. And I was happy. So we sat up and held one another. I hugged her tightly and she thought that I was crying. So she began to cry. And I ended up crying honestly and telling her that, should she ever want to, I would be very willing to have sex with her and that I was ashamed of that.
Oh, that's a gut punch, Younger Thomm. Have some self-respect. Don't give yourself over entirely to someone who doesn't want you this way.
In parting, we kissed on the lips once again, but I did not feel hopeful like the last time we kissed. To me, nothing had changed, but I had behaved kind of sluttishly.
The lack of hope is an improvement. I know it doesn't feel that way. It is miserable and wrenching, but a part of you is accepting that Kate doesn't want you, and no amount of fondling her is going to change that.
This is not the last time you fool around with her. There are, to my recollection, two more, one coming too soon. The other comes too late.
On the phone later, she insisted that she had no problem with what we had done (and I was worried that she would) but that she did want me just to be her friend.
It would have been nice for her to have shouted this at you beforehand, but it wasn't like this wasn't something that she was doing with her friends.
Stop worrying about her. You are the one getting slashed to bits here. Kate will be fine.
I saw her again Saturday. Maybe I'm ridiculous, I don't really know.
What the hell is wrong with you? I'm sorry to take that tone, but seriously. You were made miserable by compromising yourself to this girl, and you run right back to try for another round?
But she didn't want me to touch her. At all. Even playfully.
And she shouldn't want to because you both know that you will use it to seduce her, and she might not care to stop you after you made explicit that you will have sex with her. She is getting what she wants and giving you nothing but an uneasy friendship.
And she asked me to give her my credit card number so she could switch the EZPass I use (and she gave me when she went to New Paltz originally) over to my account and if I could please give her $25 to cover the bills for it since we broke up.
Ooh, that's cold. Kate's right about switching it over, but it's harsh that she is willing to fool around with you and then ask for $25. She likely could have let that slide. I'm not sure what point she was making.
"I wear mine because I love you."
My foolish question, "Then why would you want to be with anyone else?"
Her shrewish reply, "Well, I love me mom too. It doesn't mean anything."
She is nothing but mixed signals, but I wish again that you had just stayed the hell away from her. She is toxic to you right now. If you hope for that to stop, you need to detox.
(At one point, I said, pertaining to her, that I am as patient as a leopard. Then questioned aloud if leopards are patient. I rescinded having the patience of a leopard for the patience of a tree sloth. She burst out laughing for a minute and then purred how adorable I was.)
Mixed signals. A part of Kate wants you, and she does love you the best she can. If only you didn't remotely want to be with her and could be okay being one of her, as she called them, "cuddle buddies," you would have been perfect for her.
Oh, but this entry isn't over.
Please could it be?
"What?" You may ask. "He said he was done talking about Kate, and that is pretty much all he talks about."
Yes, I might say that. Most people might. You are tedious on that point. Remember Shelly, the attractive woman you drove home a bit over a week ago? The one you bored talking about Kate and never saw again? Because I sure do. At this point, Shelly could have been a heroin addict and been a better match for you than Kate.
Surely you can think of someone better than Kate?
Well, a few months before a quit, they hired this girl (and I do mean girl literally as she was all of 14, to my ever manly 17) that I befriended and helped out.
There is nothing, just absolutely nothing, that helps a boy deal with romantic troubles with a nineteen-year-old girl than deciding to throw a nearly-seventeen one into the mix.
I still wish you had pursued Shelly a little more.
I ended up talking to her (we will call her "Eileen," as that is in fact her name) online at great depth. Frankly, I was unaware the girl could speak at depth. In fact, she tended to speak effortlessly like Sarah and Kate did (I asked her if I should not be honest with her and she replied, "Eggshells are painful to walk on, my dear, and you cannot carry me").
Yes, Eileen was a wonderful young lady, no question. I don't fault you for having a not-entirely-inappropriate crush on her.
ME: I'm not allowed to be attracted to anyone younger than you. ... Normally I would see a 16 year old as far too young to be interested in, but I find you amazing
Given that your greatest love before the one you marry (you remember, the then-12-year-old mention in my last response) was around eight years your junior (a spritely eighteen) when you began dating her, I don't feel on solid grounding to lecture you here on Eileen.
Still -- and don't think I don't cringe to try this logic with you -- a sixteen-year-old high school student has growing up to do compared to an eighteen-year-old college student. The age difference is relatively minor on paper -- a mere three years and some change -- but those high school years are crucial.
So, over the next few hours of speaking, I am fairly sure I proposed and accepted a lunch date tomorrow. She is fully aware of how much and what I feel for Kate, even what I have told you in this entry. But I am not warning Eileen away, like I have done with everyone else interested in me.
Okay. Okay, this could be good. You are going to go on a date. Something casual, since you are not in a good place for starting a serious relationship while still dealing with this Kate fallout. I've wanted you to date and, look, you are going on a date. With a precocious sixteen-year-old, yes. Not what I would have chosen for you, but it is something.
Just a low-pressure date.
...Wait. You are keeping it low pressure, right? Eileen isn't some great love in the making. Don't screw this light, casual romance up by projecting. That's all I'm saying.
I'm going to go on a date with a 16 year old. Granted she'll be 17 in month, and 25 the day after. She certainly doesn't feel like a 16 year old in my mind.
No, Younger Thomm. She will be sixteen tomorrow, barely seventeen in a month, and still scarcely seventeen the month after. Don't fall into the trap of aging girls up in your mind to make your feelings more appropriate. Let Eileen be what she is.
The age honestly doesn't bother me. Maybe it should, but it doesn't.
I don't honestly know if it should. If I were one of Eileen's classmates, I would find you sketchy, but you weren't sketchy. Her parents liked you, which you found odd. I suppose there were worse hands into which their daughter could fall.
What does bother me is that I have thought about it carefully, and I could kiss this girl and not double over vomiting.
Yet you won't. Not really. I wish you had.
(The kissing. Not the vomiting.)
You are right, though. You could have kissed Eileen, and it would have been lovely if temporary.
In case it matters, Katie is at least aware that I think very, very highly of Eileen (I compared her to Sarah!) and caught on that she is one of the girls that cared about me too much to try to get between Kate and me.
Except... Eileen never said that. I just presumed.
Don't presume. And probably don't tell Kate any of this. Were you trying to make her jealous? Because Kate can get jealous. It just won't do you a bit of good since jealous Kate isn't going to realize that she wants you but may decide to express her jealousy in other beds. Eileen doesn't deserve to be used that way, either, which is honestly the bigger crime.
But you aren't using her that way. You genuinely do like Eileen. Beyond Kate, beyond your issues, you think highly of Eileen. In better circumstances, you might have been more significant to her. Though, in other circumstances, you also might not have flirted with a girl in high school.
(Hey, you know who wasn't a girl in high school? Shelly. I'm just throwing that out there. I'm sure there is a plentitude of options, but I will agree that Eileen is cute.)
She is certainly apprehensive, knowing my feelings for Katie.
As well she should be. Your hand has barely dried off from seeing Kate.