IN A FUNK

Yeah, yeah. I know. I've been a lame ass for not posting much. Don't worry. It's not you. I've been a lame ass pretty much all the way around. That's right - I'm in a funk.

I'd like to say that this happens to me pretty much every fall and every spring. It's a seasonal disorder. But this year, I think I have some pretty legitimate things that have put me here (or I like to feel sorry for myself).

I've been reluctant to write much about the things that are bothering me lately for a couple of reasons. The first reason is because although I like to whine sometimes (mostly for comedic license) I'm really not that much of a complainer. Another reason is that I tend to be closed about my feelings and thoughts to the general population because, well, I'm a guy and that's genetically coded in most of our brains. The final major reason is because my life is fast paced in a slow motion way. Kind of like one of those flip books where the image doesn't change much over many pages but then all of the sudden changes dramatically over just a few pages. What can I say, I'm a freakin' cartoon character.

But for the sake of entertainment (at least for myself) I'll blather a little about what's up. As with most people, it really just boils down to two things. Career and love life.

I'll start with love life.

It may surprise some of you to know that I have been dating someone "off and on" for almost 4 months now. I say "off and on" because for the first month or so, it was the "We're not committed because we're taking this slow" period which, in all reality, was just our way of pretending we weren't crazy about each other while we spent almost every available hour together. Eventually, in an intimate and drunken exchange the "L" word pops out. Of both of us. Not too long after, I did what I always do and started to plot my escape from the sure doom of being emotionally attached to someone.

Before any girls reading this decide I'm scum and plot to sabotage my computer with an electronic equivalent to the herpes virus, I'll explain why I do this. 1) I'm a very loyal person. I don't make many promises because the promises I do make, I keep. I've never cheated. I never will. But I won't make a promise to be in a committed relationship with someone when my eye is wandering as well. 2) I'm very independent. When I do commit to a relationship, it's no longer an "I", it's a "We". Which isn't to say that two people in a relationship can't be independent - as far as I'm concerned that's vital to any healthy relationship - it's more that you do have to consider another person and their feelings in all choices made. Most of the time, this freaks me out a little. 3) Being in love with someone means that inevitably, certain decisions I make will be emotionally driven. That's not how I normally roll. Even though I recognize that it's the nature of the beast, I'm not comfortable with it and often make the wrong decisions.

Moving on with the story, I sabotaged things and in the process crushed her. Not cool. Not cool at all. NO,NO,NO - I didn't go out and hook up with someone else or anything like that. I just capitalized on something she did that really angered me and took the opportunity to be cold and callous and pretty much walk away without much of a discussion. I then tried for the next 4 days to get her out of my head. Where this might normally work for me, the problem was that this time it didn't. I couldn't get her out of my head, no matter how much I tried. I finally called her to meet up with me to talk. She did. But in my emotionally mixed up mind, I really didn't know what my objective for the conversation would be. To try and patch things up? Try to just explain why I ended things so abruptly? Just to see her again? I didn't know. And unfortunately, by the time we actually got deep into the conversation, I was several beers into the night and talking in circles due to lack of objective. Yes, that's me. I'm an idiot. I was leaving on vacation early the next morning and I figured it would be a good time to sit on things and collect my thoughts a little, as I'm sure she felt the same. We could talk again when I returned.

When I arrived back in SD, I returned a call from her as soon as I hit baggage claim. My hopes were high that we'd be able to get back to working on something and I think her's were too. We immediately tried to jump back into things but neither of us really anticipated how complicated this was going to be. I mean, really - I had hurt her. Bad. Which immediately makes her skiddish about letting down the wall again, even if she wants to. Pretty understandable. Pretty complex.

At the end of the day, you have two people who really care about one another, don't want to call it quits, try to be independent and still a unit, are very stubborn, are very caring, love each other but can't stand each other and both contribute to what has become a bipolar relationship.

This brings me to what's really been eating at me for several weeks now. Is it possible to pull this back into more of a healthy relationship? Do I really know how? I've chosen to not be in a relationship for a very long time and now that I've found one that I want to be in, do I really have the tools to make it work? Is this doomed because of such a rocky start?

To all of those questions, I can come to only one conclusion: I don't have the foggiest of ideas.

And I'm usually pretty great at solving problems.

Damn emotional decisions.

So that's the shape of things here. As for the career side of things, I'm a little warn out from writing this so maybe I'll tackle that one tomorrow...

Cheers!