Stupid Me Yet Again

2013-11-26

FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCKING FUCK FUCK!

Yea, I'm upset and I know it's stupid. I met a girl last year way out of my league. I know I shouldn't say that but it's a shortcut for she's super hot and knows it and is probably used to a certain type of manly guy that I'm not. Someone who is an aggressive type A guy where as I'm mostly a "nice guy" geek.

Let's call her Jane, I met her last year and was instantly attracted. Of course to her looks but she's also very approachable. She's easy to talk to and makes friends with everyone. Of course 2 things came up immediately. One I assumed she was like 28. Way too young for me. Another I assumed she wouldn't be interested. She also had a friend visiting from LA who I kind of assumed she was seeing though it later turned out that was not the case.

Anyway, I left Japan and thought I'd not really be likely to see her again but here's some conversation that happened a few days after I left.

Jane: Happy New Year Gregg! Are you still in Japan? Me: Happy New Year! Nope. I am back in SF Jane: Hope to see you again soon! Jane: When are you coming baaaack? Me: When you buy me a ticket and put me up somewhere Jane: If I can buy you a ticket, I'll probably fly there! lol Me: That works too

Then about 2 months latter

Jane: Hey! I kinda miss you, Gregg! That's all! Me: Just kinda? When r u coming to SF? Jane: Of course not! Haha you know what I mean Jane: Ahhh, SF is not happening cuz I'm broke now and once I start working I won't have the time

what What WHAT?!?! Of course that got my mind racing. What does "miss you" mean? We didn't interact all ..that.. much. I did dress to the 9s at a party we went to and I tried my best to treat her as a PUA would. Basically treat her like your sister who you playfully tease all the time rather than some hottie you're scared of. Did that work?

I thought well I'll try to get a conversation started. I had no plans to go to Japan again and she used to live in SF where I was so I asked if she had any plans to come to SF. "No, no money". One of my friends suggested I fly her out but I didn't propose that. My attempts at getting a conversation going failed and as neither of us had plans to visit I mostly let it go.

Fast Forward 7 months later. I've quit my job, am traveling around and decide to come to Japan for many reasons including if there is any chance with Jane. As soon as I say I'm showing up she messages me publicly with something like "Let's meet up" and I reply publicly with "Be proactive and ask me out!" which seems to work as she invites me to her bar. (she runs a bar certain nights).

I show up at the bar around 8pm and end up staying out all night with her and her friends. One gets so drunk she's throwing up. The club closes at 6:30am and we end up hanging out in a friend's club's VIP room until 10am waiting for the sick drunk girl to get sober enough to get her home. Of the 3 girls still around they all live in opposite directions an hour + train ride out of the city so one of them is going to have to take this girl home, an hour out, and then ride an hour back and a further hour to her own house. Since I'm staying downtown 10 minutes away I tell them they can all crash at my place. 2 girls take the bed. I take the sofa. The sick drunk girl is asleep on the bathroom floor.

Friday Jane asks me out to meet with her at a cafe. We talk for 4 hours. Saturday is similar to last weekend long. Clubbing until 7am then 2 of the girls crash at my place.

During this time I'm falling madly utterly in love. I can tell logically that Jane is probably "trouble" meaning with so many choices she's unlikely to stay with one guy unless he really does something for her. I can also see we're not really a match in any logical way. But at the same time I don't give a fuck. My heart is telling me I have to GO FOR IT! My heart is making me sing love songs in my head. It's making me want to do anything I can for her. It's making me want to take care of her. To make her happy. To do anything to get to be her man for life. It's making me want to be a better man. More manly. The kind of guy that could keep a girl like her. We talk, we chat, she tells me all kinds of stuff and everything is just making me fall for her more. I realize she's actually very smart. She's dirty. She's clearly got some history but in my state I'm really thinking whatever got you to this point here with me is ok by me. And all the rest of the stuff when you're in this state.

It's been at least 10 years since I've been this on FIRE with feelings like this. I'm feeling like this must be how all those songwriters feel that write the best love songs. Listen to Smokey "Just to see her" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g5bvjUrVObk) or want a modern one, how about Alicia Keys "No One" (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rywUS−ohqeE) This is the kind of feeling men go to war over. This is the kind of feeling poets and artists write about and I should do just to everything in my power to follow that feeling.

Of course that basically makes me a wuss around her. I've lost my playfulness I had the previous year because now instead of "no chance" and therefore nothing to lose I'm thinking "I must have this woman at any cost". (1)

I also suck at dating. Or at least this time. I don't know where to ask her out. She's got a crazy schedule. I find out she's a movie nerd big time and tell her she can come over and we'll watch movies and she can crash at my place anytime. She likes that idea which I take as a good sign though no plans are made. A girl alone with a guy in his apartment late at night seems pretty obvious.

A few nights later she rings my bell at 5am (home from being out all night) and asks to stay. She stays on the sofa. The next morning like an idiot I confess my feelings. In my defense a Japanese friend said I should tell her as soon as possible. Of course I have no idea if he has any reason to know that's better or worse. Basically as I'm leaving to go to some appointment and she's still at my place I tell her I really Really REALLY like her. She inspires me to be a better man. And, I'd like to be more than friends. She says she'll think about it which isn't a good sign but I'm just happy it's not a no and that I manned up to say it.

2 days go by and no answer and so like an idiot I write her and tell her she doesn't need to answer. I'll assume she's not interested but just to be clear I haven't changed my mind at all. I'm still nuts about her and if she changes her mind she should speak up.

A few days later I convince her to come over and watch movies. She comes over, we don't actually watch a movie, just talk. Eventually she goes to sleep on my sofa and I go to my bedroom. An hour later she asks to get in my bed. Now, being the stupid nice guy I sit there for like 4 hours just looking at her and debating if I should make move. She's not facing me at all. I've been in a bed with a girl who said we'd just snuggle who then turned around started escalating so since Jane has not turned around I can't make up my mind if this means anything or not.

When we finally wake up and we're on the way to some place I ask her if I could have/should have been more intimate. She says something along the lines of "maybe. If you did anything I didn't want to do I'd have stopped you". I'm not sure if that means it might have been okay to snuggle or if it means more. At the time I kind of assumed more and so was hopeful to get another chance.

That weekend I'm spending 4 days in another city and sleeping on the sofa of a female x−roommate. I'm also meeting 2 other girls and all 4 of us will hang out on Sunday. Of course all I can talk about is Jane. How I'm feeling. How I can't think of anything else. How every thing I see reminds me of her. The girls hear my story and wish me luck. One of them, of course only hearing my side, thinks things are totally going to work out and Jane is just waiting for me to make a move.

While away I invite Jane to come over again for a movie this time fully intending to kiss her. She picks the movie Tideland which it turns out is arguably the worst date movie ever. Creepy but not scary with a some disturbing themes like parents dying and child molestation. Yuck!

After the movie we talk for a while and at no point do I feel even a hit of attraction on her part where I might make a move. I finally just pull her into my arms and talk to her about it. I'm at the point where I can't go another day without a resolution. Of course the resolution is she's not interested. She's never been interested. The messages were just her way of communicating. Getting in my bed meant nothing. She mentioned other mutual friends whose bed she's been in platonically.

Of course I'm crushed. But it's not just simple rejection this time. This is a 10yr high, maybe more. Feelings fade and I can't tell if a previous women I liked moved me this much but a month of daydreaming, singing, heart soaring, feeling on FIRE like just my passion for this girl could heat a building, feeling IN LOVE?, and also feeling something I haven't feel in soooooooooooooooo fucking long. 7 to 10 women in the last 10 years made it clear they were interested in me and I've felt not a thing for them. I've felt so bad turning them down and I've also felt bad being lonely and I've beaten myself up for not accepting one of them but I couldn't because I didn't feel anything. Now, finally, after 10 years I meet someone I feel something so powerful I have no idea what to do with myself and she's not interested. That FUCKING SUCKS!!! Sure maybe I'll meet a girl I kinda like and maybe we'll start a relationship but who wants an average relationship when you've felt touched by the power of the universe.

It gets worse because basically I don't like myself. I'm a fucking "nice guy". The guy that never gets the girl. Never makes her hot and heavy (2). It's not just that. It's like there's 2 worlds. There's the world of party people? People that got drunk in college, slept around, maybe tried a few drugs. People like those on The Real World. People that pop music stars sing about (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlyXNRrsk4A). I'm not part of that crowd. I never have been. For the most part I'm pretty tame. I don't feel a need to have every experience. I don't need to try heroin. I don't need to sleep with a prostitute. I don't need to participate in a threesome. I don't need to wake up with no memory of the previous night from drinking too much. And yet, when I interact with people from that world I feel so stupid. Like they actually have lives and I'm just letting my life disappear. And it's not just that. Sure, fine I could go out and do those crazy things. I could try a bunch of one night stands or I could try drugs or hire some sex services. But, I can't because it's not me. And yet I can't accept that answer. I'm not okay with that answer that it's not me. Rather I'm angry and frustrated that I can't and/or won't make the transition to the other world. That on the one hand there is a part of me that wants those experiences and on the other I just can't and won't do them, not worth the risk.

If I think about it I can see objectively I should be okay with it. Maybe I should find a way to avoid that 2nd world and people from it. I have some friends that seem to have avoided it. They have full lives with families and are pretty wholesome and keep similar friends. They love life. They have fun. They have love. They don't need these other experiences. And yet I don't have either. I don't have the fulfilling wholesome life nor the experience rich wild life. I just have nothing.

Maybe that's not it entirely either. Maybe it's also that I fucking hate being an introvert and some of that feels like those experiences I'm not having make people less introverted. I hate not knowing how to keep a conversation with a stranger going. Yes, I've read 20+ books on it but so far I haven't been able to make it work. I suppose because I'm too in my head. Maybe because I don't believe people want to talk to me. Of course some people do. How about specifically women though. Ugh.

I've listened to all a zillion PUA talks, I've even taken a class. I know they have a bad rep but there's gold in there as well. When you really analyze many of the better ones it comes down to being a better man. If you want women to be interested in you be interesting. Do something. Play an instrument, take up a sport, travel, etc. It's all good advice. Similarly take care of yourself physically, don't be a slob, dress well, not expensive, just well. And finally you have to learn the art of pick up which put another way is being 100% comfortable around unknown people. Learning to be playful and fun and learning how to go to the next step. And, that there is a problem for me because I have no interest in picking up random women. I just want one. This idea that I need to pick up 10−20 women to get good at talking to new women I met so that when the one I really want shows up I'll not blow it, I just can't get myself to do it. Yea, I guess that's like saying I want to play guitar but I don't want to practice learning to play. Maybe that's not a good analogy though. Learning to pick up women makes you good at picking up women, the by product of which is you'll probably be a way more fun person in social settings and way more attractive to more women and hopefully "the" woman when you meet her. It's those last things I want though I just can't get myself to accept the activities I'm supposed to do to get there.

There's other things too. I can't stop being the nice guy. Sure I can be more teasing. Sure I can not give in or be the push over. But unless someone truly does something bad to me I won't be mean. Case in point, even as I wrote this Jane just texted and asked if she could crash at my place again and I can't say no. I guess the positive light is I get to practice squelching my feelings although it's hard not to look at her, hear her voice and stories and not let the longing start again.

Some people might call this infatuation and maybe it is. I have no idea how to tell. All I know is it sucks to have such strong feelings and be denied any way to express them and just have to squelch them. It feels like having found the meaning of life only to be told "no, you don't get to feel that".

(1) note: I'm not saying if I had kept up the PUA work things would have worked out or that she would have been interested, only that I was doing the wrong things regardless of if I had a chance or not.

(2) Objectively not true as the many girls who wanted me in the last 10 years prove as well as previous girlfriends.

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