Author and Columnist
I am apprehensive, as I feel like Love's shill. Both a very generalized Love and a very, laser-precise Love.
Even only in your head, what you are doing with Kate is not love.
To expedite these entries, to the degree possible, I will cut down on specifically chastising you about Kate and focus more on what I find objectionable about your actions.
I do not suspect this will work, but I am giving it a shot.
All day, for several days, I have been victim to a very gnawing uneasiness.
You mean, you are feeling anxiety because, once the buzz of fooling around with Kate wore off, you realized how much you had compromised yourself yet again.
I do not for a moment believe that I have a chance to be her romantic partner again, though I did for a night.
I assume you knew this before you went into her dorm room, or maybe you are only trying to get her to read this and contradict you. I think it may be closer to the former than the latter.
I really would prefer to have this love out of my system. Go back to the misty, barely-there-but-constant love for her, not this ocean tide of passionfearlustattachmentfondnessjealousybeautyuglinessetcetcetc.
Which is how you can tell we are not working with love with Kate -- or at least mature love.
This is hideous and I am frankly done with lamenting over her. I wish that were actually true, yet I know very well it is not.
Stop being so dramatic. Lose her number; send her emails to a folder unread. Be done with her.
Honestly, you make out with a woman and then throw a fit? It does not skew well on a cost-benefit analysis. Why should anyone give you a chance when you lose your cool so egregiously?
I want this over, I do not want to love her as I do because it is obviously not requited, else you wouldn't be reading this entry.
If you want it over, you would let it be over. You are the one stoking this fire, not Kate. You seduced her, however keen she was to being seduced. You are choosing to see snogging a lovely, albeit erratic and unsure, woman as a crisis. Remember how often you kissed girls from fifteen to seventeen? Even visiting a few bases more than was wise? And you handled that with aplomb and continued friendship after the relationship fizzled? Why is this so different?
If not for my own sense of standards and models, I have wielded the immense power of my misguided adoration of Miss Katherine to keep myself holy (bet Love didn't guess I'd have a weapon! Foolish Love, when will you learn you arm those you afflict?). They must measure up, be capable of the task of distracting me from the consuming concept of Kate. It is a daunting task, few have made an honest attempt.
This is unfair to any woman who might be interested in you -- and woe betides the one who is -- because you promise to compare them against an ex-girlfriend whom you would not want if you could look at her objectively. (You would be her friend. For all the melodrama you imbue into your relationship with her, she is an amazing young woman. She merely isn't your type, and you make yourself more painful every time you pretend otherwise.)
If this is a weapon, it is one whose edge you keep touching and then weeping that your hand hurts.
One very nearly succeeded. She knows who she is (and if you don't, you should frankly be ashamed at your lack of cognitive functioning).
Eileen. Her name is Eileen. And she did succeed. The issue is that she decided that she wasn't ready to succeed with you.
I maintain that, if you had a suitable woman to project all this onto, you would forget about Kate, as you have a few times in this process. That does not mean that it would be fair to this new woman to be your methadone.
(Note: When you begin to date someone else seriously, Kate persists in being an issue and constant mental presence. Does this mean your next girlfriend isn't suitable?)
But she gave me up, and much as I get the feeling still that she wants me to desire her still, I cannot allow it. It is too late to play red rover with her.
Eileen does want that. I cannot tell you why for sure, other than that your adoration feels pleasant to her.
It is easy to distract my generally, I can stare at a leaf for twenty minutes and be distinctly enthralled. However, unless I am looking at females as I do leaves (beautiful, stimulating, natural art), I tend to let/force my touchstone of standards get in the way.
(Okay, I admit it, I am bloody scared of Kate and how much this is undoubtedly going to hurt. Let me pretend I have some semblance of control.)My boy, you have total control of the situation. Decide that Kate is poison to you right now and eliminate her from your life until you can tolerate her friendship and nothing more. Don't give away your control because you got your hand in her pants but not yourself into her heart.
Brief, stunning interaction, this is currently my drug of choice.
I recommend a few better prescriptions. They wouldn't fix what ails you, but they would allow you to downshift your mind long enough to begin the necessary and overdue work.
Granted the interaction seems small, as it will since it was a scene to be lived or at least witnessed to derive any sense from it. We gave each other a long two-second look, sharing a nonverbal joke and I popped into the room to put my dinner in the refrigerator. When I exited, she was nowhere to be found (yes, I did search). Perhaps she was a ghost.
You should have introduced yourself. Not because I think you ought to have known this specter more, but simply that the cure to focusing on Kate is focusing on anything else. Knowing more people who would have introduced novelty into your life might have saved you suffering.
On Friday, prior to the Kate situation, I attended a meeting briefly for the pagan organization I run. A girl who was smitten (I assumed she was over me as I kindly rebuffed her on several occasions) with me was there as well.
I remember the Mid-Hudson Pagan Network meetings well, sequestered in the back of the Denny's in Poughkeepsie, and how you stumbled into a leadership position at seventeen when all you wanted was an email list. I barely remember this situation and cannot at all remember this young woman. Why was she insufficient? Who was she?
However, when I returned home, perfectly ebullient over the evening I had shared with Kate, several people in attendance informed me that they believed I was in fact smitten with said girl.
So, if you did not have this evening with Kate, how would you have felt about a woman having a crush on you? It might not have been any better -- if you wanted her, she would have come up sooner -- but perhaps. Going to these meetings bordered on mass dates anyway.
I wish you would get to know people who had the potential to be important in your life.