Strangers when we meet.

Men want me, kind of.

All my friends
Now seem so thin and frail
Slinky secrets
Hotter than the sun

No peachy prayers
No trendy rechauffe
I'm with you
So I can't go on

I guess that's my absurd lesson for this winter week, because it's been all about men, boys, whatever. Listen to these shorts:

My Very First Boyfriend Ever contacted me this week. Fine. Good. Complicated. We met when I was a troubled, suicidal teenager and he left me without a word after a year of blissful first teenage love. Or so I thought. What really happened is that he was beginning to develop Crohn's disease and had to move away, and though he kept trying to get in touch with me, my parents told him to stop trying to contact me. So, he gets sick, has to go away anyway, stays sick for years, and eventually finds me on MySpace. This is a gross simplification, of course, but that's basically what happened.

Well, one expects one's first love to fuck one up, of course. However, the initial episode compounded itself with my nascent abandonment issues and began what I would later recognize as the beginnings of my massive intimacy issues. You know the ones:

Don't breathe too deep
Don't think all day
Dive into work
Drive the other way
That drip of hurt
That pint of shame
Goes away
Just play the game

Sing it, Mark. Anyway, flash forward to this week and these events. So I meet the guy at Elliot Bay Bookstore, and he's sweet and charming and apparently still cares deeply for me and is awfully sorry for everything that happened. Which is gratifying but not an end in itself, so now I'm left with looking back on my past relationships thinking, Could I have made this different? How much was me?

I know I could never have changed some things: the one that cheated on me, the one that really and truly did have to move across the country to find himself, the one I rebounded to that I just couldn't love enough even though I wanted to. But for years I've lived with the bitter presentiment that every man (woman are a different case) who has ever loved me has left me, with the notable exception of a violent alcoholic that will neither save himself nor stop asking me to save him. (We'll get to that later.)

All my violence
Raining tears upon the sheet
I'm bewildered
For we're strangers when we meet

So I find out that this isn't true and everything I know is wrong. Fortunately, I had my therapy right after I met up with him, but that just means that my real work is just beginning.

Mr. VNRS told me that I'd start having weird dreams after this, and he's been right. My brain is trying to process this new information and it's being a little too efficient for me to rest properly. So I slept hard last night, but woke up anxious and restless sometime in the middle of the night.

Speaking of whom, the Very Nice Rock Star and myself had an unsettling conversation last night. I was explaining to him about something I had talked to Jaime (my hippie, Buddhist therapist) about: my intimacy issues. I have this problem which is somewhat freeing but ultimately unhealthy, which is my inability to rely on a person that I'm dating -- or, to a much lesser extent, my friends. In other words, I assume that every time I see them will be the last. This might be lovely and Zen if I didn't actually believe it so much, but as it stands it means that I don't really feel that these people are a part of my life so I don't let them affect me either positively or negatively. If they aren't in the room with me, they might as well not exist at all. That's cold. It helps if I don't date around too much after I find someone I like, otherwise that's an excuse for me not to avoid intimacy.

The next thing I know, and I'm not sure how this happened, but Mr. VNRS is saying, "I don't want you to be disappointed, but you know that we're still in the non-exclusive part of our relationship, right? It's just that some women have conveniently forgotten that..."

Which filters to the Angry Woman portion of my brain as: "Oh, it must be very painful for you to not be close to people like that. Well, maybe that's good, because you really shouldn't, anyway. Nobody wants to be close to you, you know, because innately broken women who have spent time in famous insane asylums aren't attractive. Except to that one guy you told me about who was freakily into it."

When what he really meant was: "I really like you, I just like going very slowly and I know you do, too, because we've had really great, open conversations about it."

The Angry Woman wants to reply: "What, you think I don't know the score? I get it. You're talking to the girl who gets regular complaints from actual boyfriends -- you know, people who aren't paralytically afraid of commitment like you and I are -- that she's too distant. Also, you treat me like your girlfriend and you probably treated those other women that way, too, so how much is conveniently forgotten and how much is you not bothering to define a clearly-recognizable boundary? Fuck off, asshole, I do know the score, I've been here with other people and I'm over this kind of bullshit, so I'm leaving you right now. GOODBYE FOREVER!"

When what I should say is: "Your timing was awful and that hurt. A lot. Look, tonight was really great for both of us, so let's not ruin it by talking about our relationship. I feel lonely enough lately, thank you, and I have a lot to deal with emotionally, so please don't. I love you, good night."

I can't remember what I did say, but I over-analyzed it until I fell asleep. Cue the intense dreaming. I woke up pointlessly angry and cold and went to work.

I check my e-mail when I get there. There's something from Mr. Alcoholic Rock Star:

Things have been crazy. I'll wait until you're
entirely better so I can tell you all about it in
person.

Okay. Well. We'll see how that turns out. If it's anything like past I have something I need to tell yous from him, he'll probably tell me he's seeing someone (last time he got back with an ex-girlfriend), at which point I'll tell him that I don't really care because so am I.

Maybe he's getting married.

Blank screen TV
Preening ourselves in the snow
Forget my name
But I'm over you

Blended sunrise
And it's a dying world
Humming Rheingold
We scavenge up our clothes

All my violence
Raining tears upon the sheet
I'm resentful
For we're strangers when we meet

On a final note, Jinny is not, in fact, moving to Portland. I want the best for her, so if she's sure, I'm happy. I want her to be with me right now. I want to go away from the boys and either hide under the covers until they all go away or go out with my girls to the Wild Rose and say fuck 'em if they can't take a joke, break their windows.

I learned that one from a man who left me.

Cold tired fingers
Tapping out your memories
Halfway sadness
Dazzled by the new

Your embrace
Was all that I feared
That whirling room
We trade by vendu

Steely resolve
Is falling from me
My poor soul
All bruised passivity

All your regrets
Ride rough-shod over me
I'm so glad
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm so thankful
That we're strangers when we meet
I'm in clover
For we're strangers when we meet
Heel head over
And we're strangers when we meet