friday i ordered coffee and they didn't ask me what kind of milk i wanted and just filled it with 2%. i have a fear of milk fat left over from my ED, and honestly have not consumed anything but skim milk since like january 2011.
so, sitting in my logic class with my coffee in front of me, i waged a private war within myself. eventually, i drank it. i basically twitched for the rest of the day. i really was a mess for the next like 5 hours at least.
the thing that i most want to talk about though, is not food or my ED, but my love life.
last time i made a full post, i was considering how it could be that i could have such a great thing going with someone whose company i enjoyed so much, and not have any romantic feelings at all.
that changed, hard.
the weekend before i moved down to college i spent it with JB at her school in baltimore, and on sunday i spent the day with ZM exploring the inner harbor of baltimore, which i really really liked. we invited JB but she vehemently refused, claiming she "didn't wanna crash our date." but we told her repeatedly that it was not a date and she was MORE than welcome. she didn't budge.
ZM and i returned from the inner harbor and bought a bottle of wine, picked up takeout from an indian place near JB's and ate it on JB's balcony while splitting the bottle of wine and talking about shit and i showed him my poems (which he didn't like the subject of but he liked the way i wrote them) and then we ran out and got another bottle of wine and watched supernatural and had good sex and another conversation about our "relationship," and i had my first inkling of "oh shit, i might like him."
that didn't last long, or wasn't super strong, because it didn't resurface until mid-september. i've seen him either every week or every weekend since i came down to maryland for school.
one day after a weekend with him, that feeling of maybe liking him came back, and then after i spent that thursday with him, i returned to campus liking him for sure.
that weekend (on the 15th), not entirely related to this revelation, i ended things for good with DE. we'd been continuing to sleep together and be couply in private, and he continued to clearly like another girl who he denied liking. i slept with him that weekend and it felt completely wrong and i didn't get into it at all, which i thought was a sign. and then i asked him to tell me that he didn't want to be with KS, and he said "i don't know." and i took that as everything i needed to hear.
i know he still loved me - loves me, but i'm not sure that i do. i'm not sure i have for a while. i started to doubt my feelings over the summer, which was quickly fixed, or so i thought.
but i think i've liked the comfort he brings, far more than him, for a while.
that breakup was devastating, for both of us.
but i finally felt strong enough to maintain it. i think my feelings sprouting for ZM helped to strengthen my resolve, and provided another outlet and person for me to vent to about my feelings (though i didn't tell him about the ones for him.)
i didn't see DE much that week.
the next weekend, i went to ZM's again. friday night we got really drunk (me especially), and confessed my feelings to him. he told me that he liked me too. i'm still really proud of myself for being the one to say something, since i had no idea if he actually liked me back too. i got such mixed signals from him. he'd stare at me and tell me how beautiful i am, and sometimes just say my name because he liked the sound, and we'd talk all the time and he'd say things like not wanting to let me go and that i'm always so fun... but that it was so great that we could do this without emotions and he'd let me know if he developed feelings but he didn't have any, and yeah.
but it turned out he had feelings for me too.
i wish i'd been a little less drunk when this happened, so i could remember things a little clearer.
but i definitely needed to be drunk to let that information out.
the next night, we talked about our most recent breakups, since i knew his was similar to mine but i didn't know what it entailed. (very similar indeed, only far less drawn out.) then we talked about our other summer "flings". his plan after his breakup was to be a super slut this summer, and then he met me and i fucked it up. when he could kind of tell (but refused to admit) that he kind of might be developing feelings for me, he specifically tried to go out and sleep with other people, but that was not achieved because he wasn't really into it.
i was so intrigued by him trying to use other people to avoid falling for me, and i really wanted to hear about it, but over the course of the story i felt a curious feeling - jealousy. for the first time with ZM. prior to that moment, i really didn't care what he did when he wasn't around me - or so i thought.
i told him about the 32 year old at the start of the summer, and the chronicles of flirty lifeguard at camp, and confessed to him that i'd still been sleeping with DE. but that i hadn't been enjoying it and in fact last time i slept with DE i even thought of ZM because i thought that might help me get into it. am i despicable?
he told me he felt jealous of them, too. with this news, we discussed exclusivity, and decided it was desirable. i didn't want him to see anyone else, nor did i want to see anyone else, and the same was true for him too.
but then that raised the question of how this new thing was different from a relationship, if it was based in feelings and we've become exclusive. but neither of us WANT to be in a relationship. so we don't want to call each other boyfriend and girlfriend. we don't want to be facebook official. there was like a hot minute where we were basically an "unofficial relationship" and i was actually his girlfriend. but it made both of us really uncomfortable because relationships end and that's all i can think about and i don't want it to end. i don't want to think about ZM and i breaking up. i don't want to think about him complaining to another girl about me. i don't want to think about a time when he doesn't like me. and i know it's stupid to avoid a beginning to fear the end but it just made us so uncomfortable that we don't want to put pressure on the really really fantastic thing we have going. so we're calling ourselves "dating" and we address each other as friends. i'm introduced to people as his friend, i talk about him as my friend, and that is a-okay by us. for now anyway.
when we told our mutual friends or at least friends that knew both of us, they were all like "i know. i've known for a while." and we're like "but it just happened??" and they're like "no it's been at least a month. maybe you guys haven't known."
and they're probably right.
i don't know why he was so afraid to admit his feelings. he was even more afraid than i was. but i think he told his summer roommate that he was fucked, early on.
so, like two days later, DE told me we needed to talk. that he didn't think he could do this friends thing. it was too painful to look at me, be around me.
and then he seemed to do an about-face. he asked what i would say if he asked me to get back together.
i waited six and a half months to hear that question.
only now i didn't want to hear it.
i'd felt like i had closure, and i closed the door for him and opened it for ZM.
i could finally stop thinking of my life in terms of "but DE...," i could finally stop torturing myself over thinking about what he was doing, if he was thinking about KS too much...
i was ready to move on.
i had waited six and a half months, and in a week i didn't want to hear it.
i think that even if i didn't know ZM, i still would have said no. i don't think DE and i are especially compatible anymore. i feel like he's made new friends and they've changed him. not dramatically, but enough that i simply don't feel the attraction to him that i used to. i still think he's amazingly beautiful, and i could look at his face for hours, and i so miss cuddling with him and the way our bodies fit together, but i have no chemical feelings for him anymore. and that's kind of really sad. i miss the way things used to be. i wish that i could love him again so that we could be together. i know he made me so happy. and we could be so honest and open and unafraid with each other. that comfort level has never been reached by me before, or since then.
but i think that comfort level became dangerous. it was so easy to retreat inside my relationship with DE, but my therapist commented that in the last couple of weeks i seem so much more vivacious and energetic and alive. like i've really come out of my shell. i can see how he would think that. he raised a great point about my comfort with DE being kind of detrimental.
regardless, i'm not going back. i'm going to be strong.
for now, DE and i have a good, if slightly emotional-tension-filled friendship. i told him to stop trying to win me back. he didn't even try that hard when we were dating. but i would still love to be friends.
this weekend, however, i spent with ZM. i was supposed to spend it with JB, but she was wrapped up in her new boy, and so i got wrapped up in mine. it was super fun though.
we did chill at JB's school with JB's friends for most of the time. and i went to a ke$ha concert. i don't like ke$ha much but it was still pretty fun. high energy and glittery. and drunk people everywhere. and then we went out and hit up fell's point, which was a great new experience.
and then me and SC met up with AE and ZM and GS and some girl i don't know, and that was fun.
driving back to AE and ZM's school at 3:30 in the morning was fantastic. ZM and i were in the back seat, and we'd agreed not to be cute in front of people, but it was so late and we were so tired and it was just AE and this girl and so we didn't give a fuck. i had my head on his shoulder (where it was comfy beyond compare), and his hand was resting on my leg while our arms were entwined and i was just so unfathomably content.
we slept well that night. though not long enough.
the next day, we went into baltimore to go back to chill with JB and SC and DG who had come in for the day, and lots of other people. it was supposed to be a chill drinking game movie night, but got way out of hand. not crazy, per se, but... bizarre. lots of touchy-ness, not even because AE was rolling on molly, he was actually possibly the most manageable person there. JB's friend JB's sister AB was there, and she's so cool. and super nice. she paid me so many compliments i couldn't handle it. she told me about how i was beautiful and amazing and smart and sarcastic and intellectual and feminine but feminist, and i do not take compliments well so i kind of wanted to become a turtle but yeah it was so nice of her. AE added on how ZM was telling him how he thinks i'm amazing, and that AE also thinks i'm amazing, and when ZM came out on the balcony with us he told me how everything that AB was saying was completely spot on. i felt so warm and fuzzy and bright red.
eventually, it started dying down, people started pairing off or leaving or both, and ZM and i headed out. AE's girlfriend JM was downstairs when we passed the building after getting food, and she was pissed cuz nobody would let her upstairs.
then, ZM and i got back to his house and took the remainder of the molly. god damn that shit tasted horrible i thought i was going to vomit. if i am ever doing that again it has to taste better than that, somehow. fuck. that was the worst part of the night.
it hit ZM before it hit me, cuz i'd just eaten. then i started feeling it more. we had sex, and took a shower. then we just laid down and talked. i shared some art with him and he showed me his journal which was full of really cool doodles - it really looks so creative, i'm so intrigued by the way ZM's brain works if that's what he produces on the fly. this is when it hit me hard. i felt SO HAPPY. not like giggly elated type happy but just beyond peaceful and content and just so so happy with the way the whole world was. and i felt so much for ZM. i'm so glad we did this when we had already come to terms with our feelings for each other because i'm sure they would have become a thing last night, which would have felt really artificial.
we had more fantastic sex, cuddled, went out on his roof and peacefully watched the sun rise while the MDMA wore off, and i was just so at peace with the world, there in his arms with my head on his shoulder as a sunny day began before our eyes. then we went inside and i slowly fell asleep.
we talked about it on our way to his dining hall, and we do feel that last night made us closer. he told me that there was a moment last night when he was afraid that when it wore off it would have all been temporary, but no. i feel so much more strongly for him now that i almost don't know how to cope with it.
since he dropped me off back at school, he's all i've been able to think about. i managed to do my logic homework because i had other people to talk to about it, other things to focus on, but left alone my mind wanders back to him in an instant.
he has this green hoodie that is nice and soft and i like a lot and whenever he wears it i ask if i can have it (not seriously, of course), and this weekend he actually said that he's been wearing it a lot so he was gonna wear a different one this weekend, so yeah i can take it home if i promise to keep it safe. when i was leaving he actually was the one that picked it up and handed it to me. so i wore it home. it makes me happy whenever I look at it, and it smells like him. i like his smell. i'm gonna wear it always this week...
i like him so much i don't know how to deal with it. i'm starting to become afraid that pretty soon i might actually want to be in a relationship with him. but when that happens i'll have to talk to DE about it because i promised him i would (i told him i liked ZM when we had our conversation about getting back together), and i really don't want to have that talk with DE.
i'm going abroad next semester. ZM hates to be reminded of it. he jokes about trying to change my mind, but i know that he actually really wants to encourage me to go out and do what i want to do, because that's how he is about me dying my hair red as well. he likes to push people to do things they want to do but are too afraid to do. he's not going to hold me back, i know.
i'll be sad to go. i'm sad to get out of his car when i know i'll see him within 2 weeks, i don't know how a semester is going to work without him. fuck. we'll skype though, we already kind of talked about that.
fuck, guys.
i really really like him.
and i know he feels exactly the same way.
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