Depressed

So this past Thursday I met my ex (the one from right before the last one), the one who I really loved and had a kind of passionate love affair with, and who turned out to be really evil, told me he is engaged. Despite his truly despicable behavior, I really never stopped caring about him. It's hard to let people go even though you know you should. I had a few opportunities to start really dating him again after we broke up, but although my mind wanted to get back together with him, my body really didn't...it would revolt and start shaking until I stopped talking to him for a few months. And yet, despite this, I still feel positively sick over the fact that he is getting married. I guess I always thought he was too fucked up and too awful to be able to make it work with anyone and somehow I feel like I failed because he wasn't willing to make it work with me.

The back story to this is that many years ago I met M. and I fell instantly in love with him. Love at first sight. He had a girlfriend at the time, but we started hanging out. And then we started kissing. A lot. Everywhere. And I thought he was too good to be true, and we would never be together. But then he broke up with his girlfriend and we started going out and I was blissfully happy. I was also often drunk because he was drunk all the time, but I just loved being with him. He made me feel beautiful and special and I had never been more physically attracted to anyone in my life. One day I noticed that women that I didn't know were posting on his facebook account, and I asked him point blank if anything was up with any of them. He said absolutely not. And I believed him. Then, one night after we had been dating a year, we both went out and got really drunk. We went back to his place and he fell in and out of sleep on the living room chair and I sat at his desk similarly falling in and out of sleep. Then I thought I would read his notebook. I had been told that it was his writing notebook (he wants to be a writer) and that I was not allowed, but I thought...well, I want to see and he's right there 4 feet away so maybe it's okay. This is how people think when they are smashed. And so I opened it up (he kept it on the top of his desk in plain sight and I'd never looked at it). The first line of the first page said something like "I slept with S. again last night" I looked at the date and it was from 6 months ago...long after we had been together. S. was his ex who he had broken up with. I turned the pages..."Slept with Z. last night" it said. I started paging through frantically...name upon name kept popping up. I couldn't focus through my drunken haze, but I knew this wasn't right. I was trying to count names. I took the notebook into the bathroom to try to focus on it. It said things like "I hope Calliope doesn't find out...but I can't stop." The last entry of sleeping with someone was from just the weekend before and there was even one from the night before valentine's day. My heart broke.

I went into the living room and woke him up. "Have you been cheating on me?" I said.

"No. of course not. let's go to sleep," he said.

"I know you have!" I yelled." "i read this!!" I held up the notebook.

All of a sudden he went from asleep to wide awake. He picked me up by my dress and threw me to the floor. I screamed and he picked me up by my dress again and it ripped off. The bra ripped too. "you read it?!" he was yelling. He picked me up again and thew me against the wall. I slumped to the ground and started crying. He grabbed me by my hair and started trying to throw me against the wall or into the ground. "Get the fuck out my apartment!" he was screaming. He dragged me into the next room and the whole time I was screaming "please stop hurting me, please please!" finally he let go and there were chunks of hair all over me. I was sobbing. And not because I was hurt and bruised all over. Because I knew that was the end. That was the absolute end of our relationship. No matter what we would never be able to really be together because it was just over. he was a liar, a cheater, and now an abuser. no matter what, that was the final moment and that finality was devastating. there had been no warning, no slow let down, no discussion, just wham! 10 minutes. done. someone called the police. I was asked if I wanted to file a report. I didn't. I wish I had, but I hadn't had any time to process what was happening, I still wasn't even sober. We stayed together for a short while, but all I did was cry. I felt disgusted and violated but also so profoundly disappointed. So deeply sad. The one man I had ever really felt this way about and he was a perpetrator of domestic violence? someone who I could never trust? Even now it is hard to think about. I keep wishing it had never happened, that he had never cheated, that we were still passionate about each other. But he did and he did and we aren't and now he is in love with a girl 3 years younger than me who he claims to have changed for. I don't know how to feel about it, I just feel sad. 3 months ago we had gotten drunk and ended up making out but then he said he felt bad about cheating, and for some reason I just broke down because I felt like he was my great love and I had always loved him and he hadn't minded hurting me and now he suddenly minded hurting someone else? I was depressed for a week...deeply depressed. Sick depressed. I wanted to die. I stopped talking to him. Then he called me in the middle of the night from a taxi wanting to hook up...I said I was asleep. I was not. All I wanted to do was to have him come over, but my body would have revolted again. I wish I didn't still love him. I wish he were miserable.

Speed-dating part deux

Like the Naked Gun Part Deux, but not.

Sunday night K. and I headed to speed-dating, which costs $30 per person. Um or not, as one guy told me "They're always trying to get guys to sign up, so I go for free a lot." So, basically if I went enough I'd probably see the same 40 guys over and over. Fantastic. I even got assigned to sit in the same exact seat I'd sat in last time, totally by accident. All was going along like a carrousel, guys getting up and moving from woman to woman.

For those who haven't speed-dated, it is a less than horrible, but also less than enjoyable way to spend one's evening. If you want to find someone to go out with in New York, these are the kinds of activities that you have to resign yourself to. That and house parties of people you don't know. House party with people you don't know when you're 20? Awesome!! Well, if you were me and 20 the answer would be "um, okay. Sounds okay." and it would be okay. House party'o'strangers when you're in your 30s? Exhausting. It's like Liz Lemon says (paraphrased): "all the nodding, and talking, and naming of siblings, and for what? you have to have sex. I just want to skip ahead to when we've been dating ten years." I don't know about most women, but this comment struck me as genius.

~~~~waving lines, time warping us back to this past friday~~~~

when K. and I attended just such a house party in Carroll Gardens, a mere hour an a half from when I live WHEN THE TRAINS ARE WORKING, and they weren't. House party was not half bad: people were friendly, there were delicious chocolate chip cookies, there were strange vegetable kabobs with four different types of vegetables on each one, the second veggie of which was disgusting and totally unidentifiable by everyone there (except of course for the bringer of said nasty veggie kabobs, who dared not reveal him or herself). The host was cheerful and having moved from cali a mere week beforehand managed to get about 50 people to show up at his housewarming. Clearly, the man is connected, as I have lived in the big apple for 10 years and am concerned about whether 10 people will show up to my upcoming bday party. Anyhow, K. was wonderful for inviting me, and we mutually agreed that if you want to meet someone you're going to have to endure such parties and learn to navigate their very testy waters.

Host was cute, but was wearing TERRIBLE white button-down shirt with strange pattern. These things must be de rigeur on the west coast, but bespeak newcomerness. But sartorial judgments should not be passed: Wear what ye will. Hoping he might like K. as they would be a cute couple.

We got introduced to a couple of people. A girl asked if we were fellow singletons, and we nodded. She said there were a lot of single guys there (really?) including the guy that K. found attractive to her right (let's call him Dabbler). She then raised her large plastic drink cup and mouthed "he's a player". Thank you for the warning, good Miss. I wish more people would tell me these things. Although...back in 2000 I was warned by Midtown Girl that a guy was a player, but NO, I went right out with him. Bad move. This time, I'm listening.

Dabbler, who mentioned that he is interested in getting a phd "or something" asked if he could guess our professions. For me, true story, he says: "You're not an actress, I can tell that. Hmm, you turn the letters for a game show." Great, I'm vanna white (who, as an aside, has not aged in 20 years, it's freaky). As for K? "Congressional aide." What's this man going off of? hair color.

He walks away.

Cut to: K and I standing in the doorway. I want to be a wing-girl for her, but I can stand it no longer and confess "I'm exhausted." "Thank goodness!" she says, let's get out of here. We cab it back to our boroughs.

~~~~~~~wavy lines, back to the near past and original story....speed-dating~~~~~

In speed-dating, for those who don't know, you get a name tag and you have to write down each person's name in a booklet so you can remember them. I dutifully write down each person's name as he comes by, looking at and pronouncing his name. Then comes "Will" only I see the name tag and the "l"s are curled under, so it looks like someone wrote a hasty "u" not connecting the bottom of the letter. "Wiu?" I say. He looks at me like I'm nuts. I look at his nametag again, "Wu?"

"This is not happening," he says.

"Oh my god! You're name's Will! So sorry," (I wear contacts, but they are the wrong prescription, so it makes it hard to read things anyway).

I must add that the man is asian.

"Wow," he says, "this is totally not going to work out."

I turned bright red, it was a totally honest mistake, I SWEAR I thought it said Wiu even before I looked at him, you only have two minutes so you have to write down the name fast and then shake hands and talk.

I felt so embarrassed.

Fortunately, he came over during the break to say hi and have a further conversation, but I was so mortified I didn't "pick" him when it came time to enter our choices.

Then, I see K. talking to MD (a doctor). My god! That guy was at the last one and I could tell he really liked me and now I'm going to have to see him and he obviously knows I didn't pick him. I wave K. frantically over. She hasn't met anyone she likes so far either.

Bell rings and we're back in class, session 2. MD comes over, "you know, I thought about you after the last speed dating." oh no!

Anyhow, MD is a super smart Indian doctor who went to harvard and seems very nice (the opposite of who I go out with generally: usually I prefer alcoholics who treat me like crap). Um, so I picked him when the choice time came, why not? He's not bad looking and maybe he'll be more interesting than I thought. So, I'll keep everyone posted on that...