The Hmong Literature Major and The Black Jack Dealer

Peter and I were both drawn to Ryan for some reason, so we invited him out to dinner with us. Peter's an ex-gay Catholic; he hasn't "been with anyone" in seven years. "I believe God created a man and a woman to be together," he always says. I feel bad for him. It basically means he's screwed - unfortunately, not literally - because he's hopelessly attracted to men. Especially "manly" ones, like Ryan.

It was one of those horseshoe-shaped booths, so there was plenty of room. But we were a recovering-alcoholic sandwich: I was the fresh, hot meat pressed in between two slices of aged whitebread. Ryan could feel my body temperature rise as he was sitting next to me. He put his hand on my leg, and said, "Whoa, Peter, you gotta feel this...". Ryan rubbed my leg up and down, getting closer to my crotch, and Peter watched with excitement. I was hot, and getting hotter.

Bruce called me on my phone right at that moment. I didn't answer, of course. It had been a strange week-and-a-half ever since he came up to talk to me on the steps at school on the way to the parking lot.

Bruce was a literature and writing major (like me, before I stopped double-majoring), and he was my age, an older college student - he'd served in the army and entered college after two tours in Iraq. He was Hmong, Mormon. He loved Dante Alighieri, John Milton, death metal, Asian martial arts flicks and his Mitsubishi Eclipse. His dad's first wife and son were killed in a mine field as they escaped China, and then his dad met his mom after settling down in a Hmong community in Merced. He has 9 brothers and sisters. I wasn't sure if that was because they were Hmong, or because they were Mormon.

It was the last week of January 2013 and the semester had just started. It was the first time we'd spoken - I didn't recognize him at first. He told me we were in the same American Lit class the semester before. He made me laugh when I told him I was a VPA major ("What is that?" he asked. "Visual...Pterodactyl...Alligator?") so I offered him a ride to his car, since he had parked at the shopping center across the street. He asked for my number, we exchanged, and I called him on my way home and we set up a coffee date for the next day.

The next day he told me he had had a crush on me the whole prior semester: "You were the only person in the entire class who, when you talked, didn't use the word 'like'. I was very impressed." I started spending a lot of time with him over the next few days, spending the night and whatnot. He was really into me. Thought I was beautiful, smart, funny, and melted when I sang to him inside Panera Bread. I had him show me how to hold the arcade gun when we played Time Crisis 4 after seeing a cheesy vampire movie at the theater, and I think that's where he really fell in love, hard.

But I soon noticed that Bruce was very immature. He was willing to not fuck me, so that was nice, but he had a really annoying attitude. He kind of acted like a little boy most of the time, and was very judgmental and high-and-mighty, like his shit didn't stink. It just really got on my nerves, and no matter how much he liked me, I really just couldn't stand the guy. Plus I could tell how tiny his penis was when he dry-humped me from the spooning position. So I just wasn't all that into him.

After I ignored his call at Denny's it gave me a chance to vent to Peter and Ryan about him and talk about how I wanted to get rid of him but didn't know how. I'm not sure if that was what prompted Ryan to suggest he and I go to a hotel room and him carrying me out of the restaurant over his shoulder to his car (and Peter asking if he could come watch, though we declined), or if the latter were completely unrelated to Bruce's phone call.

And it didn't work, anyway. I told Bruce on the phone the next day, but he 'forgave' me, since we hadn't "defined the relationship". So, I found some other guy to make my boyfriend (#22) - since obviously the one-night stand didn't do the trick (I'd wanted Ryan for the boyfriend thing, but he wasn't interested).

The Satellite Communications Engineer, part 3

Last night was our second date. He was perfectly respectful. He provided me with a fulfilling dinner. We had deep, analytical conversations. He played a couple of his compositions for me on his smartphone out of the speakers at Best Buy. The kisses and holding hands and hugs were nice. He dropped me back off at my car at 9 o'clock. We talked about what our strategies would be to not have sex, and he even set some boundaries. I talked about my recovery, and he fully listened. We were attracted to each other. There shouldn't be any reason for me to not see him again, except...

I was crawling out of my skin. I felt inadequate, insecure, out of place. I felt like I was from another planet, wearing a bad disguise, afraid of getting found out and being deported from Normulus back to Terra Weirda. I didn't feel the connection that I thought we'd had before. I tried to manufacture it, but it didn't work. I tried to look deep into his eyes, but all I saw was myself trying to look deep into his eyes for something I couldn't see. I tried to speak, but all I could say were things I thought I should say. I tried to listen, but all I could hear were my own thoughts, going, "Okay, nod, smile, look really interested, and hurry, come up with something honest and meaningful to say to relate to what he's saying when he's done." I'd try to impress him, but then I'd recant and say that what I'd just said wasn't entirely true, that I was exaggerating, trying to impress him.



If I have to try so hard, am I really "being myself"? Hell no! And who the hell am I? I still don't know. That's the problem from the very beginning. Being a serial relationshipper means I have absolutely no identity (I did record at a music studio this weekend, and I sang in church, but I was a horrible mother to my son because I was obsessing about this guy and freaking out about where it may or may not go and what I should or shouldn't do, I hardly contacted my friends as much as I normally do to ask how they're doing, I ceased writing my inventory of my past relationships in order to write about this relationship, I stopped thinking about and feeling the loss of my mentor Margaret, I didn't get any chores done, I lost a ton of sleep, and I just felt completely derailed, in general).

But it's not his fault, even. I had assigned him the same "magical" qualities I always assign men when I want them to want me and I want to want them (although I probably gave him more of 'em than any of the past guys combined, and the following list doesn't even cover 'em): "intelligent", "healthy", "sane", "normal", "musically inclined", "mathematically inclined", "physically active", "family man", "driven", "kind", "vulnerable", "honest", "handsome", "traveler", "Christian", "gardener", "affectionate", "composer", "fearless", "performer", "successful", "engineer". And my motives were all wrong. Damnit, successful guys always foster in me that Ooh,-he-could-take-care-of-me bobble-headed fantasy. No matter who he is, that's my motive. Oh, fuck, it's so messed up.



And another motive: Thursday, the day I met him when he first asked me out, was, not just in correlation but in causation, the first day I didn't have the searing chest pain that had, for the prior week on a (sometimes twice or thrice) daily basis, prompted me to scream uncontrollably and cry to the point of exhaustion over Margaret's suicide. Dating James was a way out of that pain; when the opportunity presented itself, my depression gave way to excitement, joy, thrill, happiness, and gratitude. I had no willpower to decline. I couldn't foresee that I would actually miss the pain, that yesterday, when it came back, after I'd heard from her lawyer that she'd put me in her Will and that I needed to go in for a reading of it tomorrow (today...in about an hour), there was something comfortable about it. It felt right. The pain of loss felt normal. What doesn't feel normal is dating someone so I don't have to feel it. That feels wrong.

Margaret's fiancé died over a couple years back. Within a month, she was with Crawford, and within another month they were living together, and within two years he broke her heart, and she killed herself. She told me, one of the nights we spent talking about our dismal experiences with men, "I just don't want you to be 53 and having to go through something like this. Please, please learn from my mistakes. Promise me." Her "mistakes" are resounding with me now, saying, "Stop dating...it's too soon...". The sex and love addiction book says that "wherever and whenever we are vulnerable, we will be tested". I've failed the test, damnit.




But...okay...stepping back here...I want to acknowledge that this is what my Catholic "ex-gay" best friend Peter calls a "Cadillac" problem (I don't know why I had to add the descriptors; he's just an interesting guy). One reason I hang out with people with much worse problems than mine (other than to fulfill my *ahem* purely angelic desire to be of service to them) is to get out of this deplorable self-centeredness and be grateful for the good in my life. There was this guy, Cecil, in the substance recovery meeting I went to yesterday, who has been living in his car for the past couple of years...former vet, now coming up on 3 months sober...who got a job. But, he didn't have enough gas to make it back "home" where he's used to parking his car. So one of the ex-cons who sells newspapers at an intersection threw him a few bones and said, "I'm supposed to give 10 percent of this to a charity, but I ain't gonna give it to nobody I can't see. I can see you need it, man." And Cecil was overflowing with gratitude as he shared about all this with us, his Bible clutched in his hand. It made me beam, and it put me right-sized.



Because I do have so much good in my life (my son, my church, my blues band, my recovery meetings, my sponsors, my sponsees, my friends, my family, my reading, my writing, my singing, my cats, my place to live, my jobs, my God), I do wonder, why does it matter so much whether I have a man in my life or not? Why does that have to be my focus? Why can't I just forget about the whole damn thing and just go help people?

I guess it's because this aspect of my life makes me feel so...lost...and it's driving me absolutely crazy. I do try to help others, but I don't have a lot to give just yet. I feel like I need to find myself -- and pull it all together before I'm just completely gone (like Margaret...although I would never do what she did; I'm an optimist, as it turns out). Right now, I'm scattered in pieces that I've left with every man I've been with along the road. I heal more and more as I go back to gather those pieces (even if, here and there, I still drop some). Through writing, however shabbily, I absorb the pieces of my self back into, what I hope someday will be, a whole.

"Being whole means being healthy, feeling content, fulfilled, and proud of one's accomplishments.  It means being confident that you can handle whatever challenges might come your way.  It means that you know that you are worthy of happiness; worthy of respect.  It means you have the motivation and ability to follow your dreams.  It means you are proud of who you see looking back at you in the mirror.  It means you will be proud at the end of your days as you look back at a life well-lived." http://www.onbeingwhole.com/

Here's a quote I really like: "I'm not a bad person trying to get good. I'm a sick person trying to get well."