The Things I Never Learned (A.K.A. Time Goes By So Slowly For Those Who Wait)

 

I was born knowing certain things—and knowing how to do certain things. 

I was born knowing how to laugh—and while I may have learned some things along the way, I think I naturally knew how to make others laugh. 

I had a certain understanding of the world once I emerged from the womb—to a certain extent, how to read peoples' minds, or at least grasp their true intentions, despite what they might say or do. I had a natural knack for mimicry—which made me a fast learner, and a deft impersonator. I naturally had a musical sense, which my Grammy praised during our piano lessons—but then I learned how to read music and play it on keyboard, horn, and voice.

But there are certain things I came out of the birth canal not knowing—and, having never been taught those things by my parents, I never learned them. 

A Pandemic Valentine

Ever since the first shutdown was looming back in March 2020, I've been desperate to "get back in the game."

Not necessarily the dating game, or the relationship game, but just "the game"—to be among the other living, breathing human beings who desire and are desired. 

This Disposable Life

Nothing lasts forever. This, I know to be true—at least, intellectually.

But I am increasingly surprised and disenchanted at how disposable things are.

Or, rather—how disposable things have become.

I don't even mean interpersonal relationships—those forgotten encounters and micro-interactions that pile up over time, cluttering my purse with business cards and my rolodex with "connections" I can't seem to recall.

I mean actual things.

Sure, our plastic grocery bags have been replaced by "reusable" ones. Batteries can be recharged (though, if you ask me, the non-rechargeable ones are a huge, noxious waste that should be outlawed).

There's a lobby against disposable diapers, arguing in favor of the cloth ones that you've got to launder the poop out of. And there are even those who want to pluck the plastic straws right out of my very mouth.

But why is it that some of our most major purchases in modern times are only built to last a year or two?



I used to refer to my first car, a silver Honda Fit, as "my little tin can" because of how easily it crumpled. I would've turned the lease in early if anybody would've wanted to buy it back, but it had so much damage that I suspect they just disposed of it when I finally gave it back at the end of my three-year lease term.

The Honda dealership happily put me in a new car, a 2013 Honda Civic, for no additional money down and basically the same monthly lease payments.

In less than a year, I was ready to get rid of that one, too. Although it was much sturdier than the car it replaced, it bore the brunt of being rear-ended and pushed into a car in front of me. The body shop repaired it—cosmetically—but of course it never ran the same again.

I kept that one pretty much through the end of my three-year lease term, and the dealership once again had no issues waiving the cost of any of the "excessive damage" it had sustained, as long as I signed up for a new lease on a 2016 Honda Civic for no money down and just a few bucks more per month.

Less than 300 miles into driving that new car, and it was pummeled while parked in front of my building in a hit-and-run. If it had been any older, it would've been totaled—but since it was so new, the body shop just basically rebuilt the entire back end.

It looked like new again when they completed the repairs, but it was already battle-worn. I couldn't wait for the next three years to go by so I could replace it with something else.

But when does the cycle stop? Of course Honda wants to constantly keep me in a new car so I'm forever indebted to them for monthly lease payments instead of eventually paying one of those automobiles off.

They make more money off me that way—but also, I get to always drive a new car.

Inevitably, towards the end of my lease period, something on the car starts to go. With the Fit, it was the master brake cylinder. With my first Civic, it was the filters and the brake pads.

I've yet to see what's going to fall apart on the car I'm driving now, but I've still got two years left with it.

But regardless of any of the collisions I've had—and regardless of who was at fault—today's cars feel as disposable as a pair of summer flip-flops.

At what point did spending thousands of dollars stop getting you something that would last? Was there a tipping point when vehicles shifted from being fine china to paper plates?

It seems pretty certain that the next car I drive is going to be an older model, since brand-new cars no longer carry CD players and instead require periodic software updates.

So how far back do I have to go to get a car that I can buy and make a commitment to without being let down so soon after making its acquaintance?

It's always been that way with cell phones, of course. You could find an antique rotary phone now and it would still work as long as you plugged it into the jack. But back in the 1990s when cell phones were pretty new, the technology was advancing so quickly that you'd have to replace it just to have a device that could handle the available cell networks and the bandwidth available.

And that hasn't actually stopped yet with mobile devices. You've still got to swap them out every year or two—or you've got to suffer with an agonizingly slow processing system, drained battery, and insufficient memory for all the applications required to run the darn thing.

A couple of years ago, I got one of the cheapest Samsung smartphones available and it cost me over $300. This year, I replaced it again with the cheapest Samsung I could find, and what this time cost me only $150 works ten times better than its predecessor.

I can't believe how well this new, cheap phone works.

Looking back, I don't know why I stuck with that old phone so long. I think it's because I thought it should last longer. I didn't realize how transient my time with it was supposed to be.

Over the course of my life, I've stuck with a lot of things—and relationships, and jobs—that I should've gotten rid of sooner. I don't consider myself averse to change, but it just seems like things shouldn't have to change so frequently.

I prefer jobs—and boyfriends—that last longer than three months.

At some point, I'd like to drive a classic car that's not road-weary yet.

But I'm kind of really looking forward to what kind of amazing things my next cheap phone will be able to do.

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Junkie For Your Love

I went to a 12-step meeting once, but it wasn't for my drinking.

Although I've had a history of certainly abusing alcohol in the past, I don't think I'll ever go so far as to become an alcoholic.

But I do have an addictive personality.

It may be something that my mother passed down to me through her genes—since she's addicted to anything that feels good, whether it's sugar or shopping—but it's more likely that she encoded this addictiveness in me by depriving me of things that felt good when I was a child.

She deprived me of love—and now, I can never seem to get enough of it.

I always thought that meant I was desperate for romantic love—or, as my mother called it in my pre-teen years, that I was "boy crazy"—and some of my past romances have felt like addictions.

But I don't think I even fit the profile of a so-called "love addict" whose many compulsions are those of fantasy—because I don't want a storybook romance. I don't want drama or strife or tragedy. I don't want my stars to be crossed.

I just want real love.

But there's a reason for this inextricable tie between love dependence and chemical dependence.

There's, in fact, a physical reaction that happens when you're with someone you love—and it can happen from something as simple as gazing into each others' eyes. You don't even have to be touching.

It's the release of the "love hormone," oxytocin.

And, like other hormones and neurotransmitters (like endorphins, or serotonin a.k.a. the "happiness hormone"), it can make you feel kind of high.

Cuddling after sex releases oxytocin. And you know what else does? Cuddling a furry friend.



I realize now that that blissful feeling I once had of waking up next to a man I loved is the same as waking up next to the cat I love when he sneezes or snores or whimpers from a bad dream.

And it's especially true when he comes in close for a belly rub.

Of course there's no romance with my cat—but as it turns out, I don't need it. I don't know that I ever needed it.

I think I just needed a reliable source of affection—something I've never had my whole life, until now.

For years, friends would tell me that I didn't need a man to be happy. And that may have been true, but it always felt like I needed something.

I needed something to give me that influx of oxytocin.

And maybe it didn't have to be a boyfriend or a girlfriend or even a parent or a baby.

Maybe it never had to be any human at all.

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Open Letter to Our New President

[Photo added 12/28/16 6:34:00 PM - CC0 Public Domain]

I don't think I've ever known a U.S. president as well as I know you. 

In fact, I met you years ago. I met you over and over again in the 20-plus years of my adulthood. You had different faces and different names; you were in different cities and wore different clothes; but you were you, all the same.

You were the man who pulled his car over on Sunnycrest Drive and asked me for directions to the high school when I was walking home, and then pretended not to be able to hear or understand me as I kept my distance, urging me to come closer. You were the first man to show me your penis uninvited, but you were far from the last.

You were the man who lived in the dorm room next door and came to visit me drunk one night, just to tell me how inexperienced and foolish I was and coerce me into doing things I hadn't done before and didn't want to do. 

You were the man who denied doing all of it and then blamed me for misunderstanding. 

You were the stranger who followed me off the Night Bus in London and shoved your hand up my skirt while muttering something unintelligible and then slithering away.

You were the classmate who walked me home drunk just to have sex with me, even though I said I didn't want to.

You were the guy who used a crowded subway train on the way to work as an excuse to rub up against me with your hard-on, so bold and unabashed that I couldn't believe it was happening, and I froze in fear. 

You were the guy that catcalled me on the street and then called me an ugly, fat cunt when I rebuffed your advances.

You were the date who complained that my bra didn't match my panties.

You were the date who complained that I didn't wax my hair down there.

You were the bartender who wanted me to crawl around on all fours like a dog.

You were the bartender who tried to shove it in the back door without asking nicely first.

You were the bartender who only pretended to put on a condom.

You were the friend who started having sex with me while I was asleep, even though I only let you stay because you were too drunk to drive home.

You were every guy who got too handsy with me in the office, and who got every excuse on earth from all those around you. You were just being friendly. You were just joking. You were married. You told me I was being too sensitive and uptight. 

You were the boss who couldn't see past my womanhood. I was smart and successful, but you took every chance to tear me down with a double entendre, and you made sure you had plenty of witnesses.

I've often wondered why I've encountered so many versions of you over the years, what makes me a target and makes you seek me out to harass, abuse, assault, and otherwise victimize me over and over again.

But now I know: It's not me, it's you. 

There are so many Donald Trumps out there, and they all voted for you. 

And there are many more of them than I ever expected, even though I'd met so many of them already.

We tell our girls to stay away from guys like you. We tell them not to put themselves in a compromising situation with you, not be alone with you, not to go home with you, not to get drunk with you.

But how can we avoid you, when you're the president of our country? When grabbing life by the horns -- and women by the "pussy" -- is considered presidential?

How can we teach boys who are becoming new men to be kind, loving, and fair -- and not to rape?

How can I have any hope for anything, when the people have most certainly spoken, and what they've chosen is the one thing I've spent my entire life trying to get away from?

Don't get me wrong, President-Elect Trump. It's not all your fault. You're simply the pied piper of all the sexist, misogynist, superficial blowhards who've finally come out of hiding.

They say you should know your enemy. Well, I know you. I know you all too well. 

But you don't know a thing about me.

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Photo Essay: Naples, the Dreamland of Southern California

Having moved to LA for a job located in Venice, CA (formerly known as "Venice of America"), I was familiar with Southern California canals.

The canals of Venice, of course, have famously been paved over, and those that remain are flanked by million-dollar bungalows.

But I only recently found out that there are other canals in the Southland region—in a tiny area of Long Beach, known as Naples.



I've been obsessed with going there—mostly because they offer gondola rides. So imagine my excitement when the mystery excursion on my birthday this year turned out to be sailing with the folks from Gondola Getaway at Alamitos Bay!



As we pulled up and parked the car, I gasped and said, "I see gondolas..." And that's not something you see—or say—every day in LA.



We arrived to their dock during the honey glow of a late September Magic Hour...



...while a wedding party was busily gathering to set adrift for a couple's impending Neopolitan nuptials.



The sky and water were still blue at that point, and the palm tree fronds green against a darkening backdrop.



Some of the more modern, American-made gondolas in the fleet can hold up to 14 people...



...but we cozied up in a vintage gondola from Venezia, built for two passengers.



Our gondolier, Giuseppe (real name: Joseph), promised to give us as much alone time as we wanted while he rowed from the back. Of course, as always I had so many questions to ask, so I didn't exactly let him off the hook.



Traditional Venetian gondolas are almost 40 feet long and built asymmetrically, so they can be rowed with a single oar and fórcola, which acts as a fulcrum.



But in these canals, the newer gondoliers start off by rowing one of the custom-built vessels—at 25 feet in length, they're shorter, symmetrical, and are rowed with an oar in each hand.



When I asked Giuseppe if he could sing, he obliged with a stirring rendition of "O Sole Mio" under one of the many concrete bridges designed by the partnership of structural engineer Edward Leodore Mayberry Jr. and architect Llewellyn Adelbert Parker (who also designed some LA theatres, including the building that became the recently renovated Teragram Ballroom).



Although people do live along the Naples and Rivo Alto canals upon three distinct islands, and their docks, boat launches, and boats are privately owned, the water here is actually public.



That means technically you could swim in it—though it's only ankle-deep in some parts of the bay. Other areas of the canals can go as deep as 25 feet.



This little-known area was completed in the 1920s—and rebuilt after the 1933 Long Beach earthquake—by developer Arthur Parson as the "Dreamland of Southern California," though its Mayberry & Parker design is primarily Italianate.



Arthur Parson was to Naples in 1903 what Abbott Kinney was to Venice in 1905—but the gondolas have gone from Venice (save for the sculpture at Windward Circle and the one hanging from the ceiling in Danny's).



The Long Beach version of Napoli may not be as authentic as actually being in Italia; but true to its name, it sure is dreamy.



And as the sun sets into a pink horizon, the palm trees flutter in black silhouette. The gondola skims silently along a rippling course, propelled by one paddle that breaks the water surface but never touches the bottom.



Gaze forth, the gondolier behind you and out of sight, it seems that all you really need is a dream—and the wind—to carry you all the way to serenity.

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More Than a Woman

I've never felt like I was born the wrong gender. As far as I know, I was born with one kind of private part, and I got to keep it. As far as I know, I have two X chromosomes, and that feels just about right.

But that doesn't mean I've always identified with women. Quite the opposite.

Sure, I like pink. A lot. As a preschooler, I was so vain about wearing nail polish that it helped me kick my nail-biting habit. I begged my mother to let me wear pantyhose and lipstick even before my older sister, and I pored over the cosmetics section of Wegman's while my parents shopped for groceries. When my mother refused to let me go to the affordable Piercing Pagoda kiosk at Shoppingtown Mall, I used my own allowance money to pay a doctor an inordinate amount of money to pierce my ears.

But I always admired men, and I mimicked them inexhaustibly.  I wore rainbow suspenders like Mork from Mork and Mindy. I worshipped the Fonz – not because I wanted to be his lover, but because I wanted to be him. And out of all the Pink Ladies, I would've chosen to be Rizzo, the butch-est of them all.

In truth, I'd probably rather be a T-Bird than a Pink Lady.

In fifth grade, I thought the coolest thing was to walk around with a comb in the back pocket of my jeans. I'd suffered for four years in Catholic schoolgirl skirts, my plump thighs rubbing together, my too-big white Sears underpants riding up with nothing to hold them in place. In jeans, I felt like a badass.

I knew I wasn't like the other girls in school, but I never thought that I wasn't a girl, nor that I wasn't meant to be a girl. I just had a broader definition of what being a girl meant. I could play with Barbie dolls and Hot Wheels. I could wear a red plastic fire helmet around the house and dress up like The Hulk for Halloween. The whole world was open to me. I could do whatever I wanted, and no one would question it. Well, not much.

If I had been born a boy and wanted to play with dolls and cars, they would've thought something was really wrong with me.

Yes, there are chromosomal and hormonal differences between the male and female genders. Men get the benefit of an X and a Y, and women get stuck with all X's. But women get to experience testosterone-fueled aggression and estrogen-linked dysphoria. We're lucky like that. There may be documented psychological differences between men and women, but they're not absolute. Can you be intellectually a woman? Can you be emotionally a woman? What does that even mean?

I've always felt more comfortable around humans of the male variety, from a very early age—preferring my father over my mother, and gravitating toward my godfather and uncles rather than my aunts. I went fishing with the guys instead of hanging out in the kitchen and helping the womenfolk with dinner. I didn't deny femininity altogether or spurn girlish conventions. I just embraced it all.

As I grew older, it seemed to me that I had a capacity to love all types of people, with complete disregard of their body parts. I didn't care what was in their jeans; I was attracted to how they treated me and what made them special human beings. Some were manly men; some were girly girls. Even more confusingly, some were boyish girls, and some were feminine boys, which kind of rendered the whole gender dispute a wash. They kind of just cancelled each other out and seemed the same to me.

Throughout my life, probably since puberty or so, I've occasionally had dreams in which I was a guy. In some cases, I was a male version of Sandi – me, but a dude, penis and all. But I was the same me. This dreamtime gender fluidity never disturbed me, and I never read much into it. After all, for a very long time, I wished I could trade my life with someone else's. (I kind of still do.) Why not a guy's?

I enjoy slipping into the costuming of a skydiver, a race car driver, and a construction worker. I love hard hats and belt buckles and cowboy boots and leather jackets. Might I wear a tuxedo one day?  Sure, bring on the top hat and tails, and I'll sing like Marlene Dietrich.

I have the luxury of being able to do it all, without being labeled a cross-dresser. Sometimes I think I deserve that label when I get my makeup done and wear a gown. That isn't reality for anybody. Pajama bottoms are reality. T-shirts are reality.

In those cases when a man takes on stereotypically "female" characteristics—whether as a sassy West Hollywood gay man snapping and strutting while calling out "Girlfriend!", or a drag queen hosting bingo at Hamburger Mary's, or a transgender celebrity extolling the virtues of embracing their true self as a dolled-up, half-naked cover girl—I recoil a bit. I can't relate to them. It's too much. It's a persona, not a person. It's some hyperbolic fantasy of womanhood that many of us natural born women can't live up to—a fantasy that perpetuates a comic book caricature of what we are or what we're supposed to be. We women are torn down when we live up to that expectation, and we are torn down when we don't.

I never classified myself as a tomboy, but I've definitely been considered "one of the guys" in several different groups of friends. In college, there were fraternities that joked about inducting me into their brotherhood because I fit in so well. In most "no girls allowed" scenarios—even up through adulthood—there's usually an unspoken "except Sandi" clause.

I embrace this. I don't question it. There are women who exhibit stereotypically male traits, and men who are in touch with their feminine side. I try to take what I like, and leave what I don't, regardless of which bucket it belongs in. I like people who are strong and confident and kind and loyal and caring and honest and trustworthy. I drink margaritas and straight bourbon. I enjoy chick flicks as much as action movies. I want to drive muscle cars and ride in horse-drawn carriages. I've flown a sailplane and then gone winetasting. I've taken my aggressions out at the shooting range, and then gone home and cried myself to sleep.

I am genetically and physically a woman. But I'm so much more than that.

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Living Among the Unfriended

It used to be if you didn't want to be friends with someone anymore, if there wasn't a big fight to split you apart, you either confronted them with those words that are so hard to say, or you took the easy way out and just stopped calling and returning their calls.

This is when phones without caller ID were the primary way of communicating with each other.

But now, when are friendships are based more on text messages, emails, Likes and reblogs than actual time spent together face-to-face, it's a little more complicated.

Or is it?

With Facebook, now there's an official way to end a friendship with a certain feeling of finality and closure: you simply "unfriend" them. This of course was a made-up word that entered into the American English lexicon when the Oxford English Dictionary officially acknowledged it and even named it "Word of the Year" in 2009. But the Oxford definition of "unfriend" is incomplete: it limits it to the world of social networking, where you are simply removing the person from your list of friends.

But no, when you unfriend someone on Facebook (and let's be honest, this is only a Facebook thing), it's either because you realize you were never really friends in the first place, or you were once friends but you just don't want to be friends anymore.

I unfriended a guy I met at a mutual friend's party once (and never saw again) because he repeatedly wrote negative comments on my posts and then called me out for publicly drunk-shaming a guy that gave me his number at a bar, saying he was glad he never went out with me. We were not friends.

I unfriended a guy I used to work with because he totally pulled an Eve on me and took a job that was meant for me, in more of an attempt to cover his own ass than to steal the spotlight. After that, he was dead to me.

I unfriended the principals of the company that laid me off last year because I did not need any more people in my life that told me they loved me and then abandoned me.

I unfriended (and blocked!) a guy I went on one date with who became way too attached way too quickly and then lashed out at me when he started to feel rejected by me. We could've been friends, but our mutual baggage just got in the way.

I unfriended (and blocked!) a guy I was friends with who confided in me about his girlfriend since we met, and then proceeded to seduce me and send me multiple shirtless selfies. The last straw was when he was contacting me from his bachelor party begging me to reciprocate with a nudie shot. I declined, and unfriended.

I unfriended another guy who kept making fun of me and trying to make me feel bad on Facebook, as well as one of my best guy friends' ex-girlfriend who hated me and totally sabotaged my friendship with him. We were never friends, after all.

Most recently, I unfriended the bartender who should've protected me from a sexual predator, or comforted me when I felt threatened, or, most importantly, just believed me. It's really sad because I thought we were friends. I wanted to be friends with him. But based on his recent behavior, he is not my friend. A friend would never walk away, or roll their eyes at my tears.

Trust me, I've been unfriended too – most spectacularly by my own sister, and by a couple of former lovers who needed to clean house. Another discovery of being unfriended came as a relief, since I hadn't really been enjoying our "friendship" and was looking for a way to get out of it. It turns out all I had to do was not reply quickly enough to a text message inviting me to a group trip to Disneyland. Friendship erased.

There have been others – a coworker here, an acquaintance there – but I've barely noticed them. I can't imagine I've harassed or made anyone feel bad enough to deserve being unfriended. But I'm sure they had their reasons.

Maybe my standards for friendship are too high. I've forgiven friends for their frailties and misjudgments because I love them unconditionally. If they made a mistake and didn't mean to hurt me, I tell them what they did and we move on. If they go away for a while because they need to take a break from me and then come crawling back weeks, months, years later, I embrace them. I expect the same in return.

But modern day friendships don't always work that way.

And just because you unfriend someone or have been unfriended, that person doesn't cease to exist. You might run into them on the street. They might sit across from you at the bar. They might get invited to the same parties as you. Just because they're removed from your feed doesn't mean they're gone. You may not be friends anymore – officially – but you still have to deal with the persistence of their existence.

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Acceptance

You know, they're not kidding with those five stages of grief.

And the grieving doesn't have to be over the loss of life – but really the loss of any loved one, lost for any reason.

The same principles that apply to death apply to a breakup, or a disappearance.

In October, I was in complete denial. I thought he'd come back. I was convinced that once he got drunk again, he'd come crawling back. I was convinced that I just needed to give him time.

In December, I was angry. I lashed out at him via text message, though he never responded. I tried to date others to get back at him, as though he'd be jealous. I looked for him in the neighborhood just so I could slap him across the face.

In January, I kept thinking that if he could just get sober, if he could just see me again, he would come to his senses and come back to me. I would've bargained anything. I would've given up myself. I would've retracted the ultimatum I'd given him in September.

In February and March, I withdrew. I gave up. I yearned for him, but I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe he was doing me a favor, and I was dodging a bullet. I gave up all hope on love. If I couldn't be with him, I didn't want to be with anybody. I was so depressed, I ate myself into oblivion, gaining 10 pounds since January and 30 pounds since August.

In April, I finally saw him again. I first saw him walking down the street, certainly on his way to his favorite bar. I had somewhere to be, or I would've certainly pulled over. But instead, I just watched him, first through my driver's side window, then through the rear-view mirror, until he was out of sight. At least I knew he was alive. At least I could see that he wasn't stumbling, or bleeding, or limping, or – God forbid – with another girl.

Later in April, I saw him again, at the place where we met, the place where we'd spent so much time together. I was brave enough to say hi, but the vapid chitchat was so excruciating, I declared, "I'm going to get something to eat," and I sat perched across the bar from him, watching as he flirted with other women, sipping his Budweiser, avoiding eye contact with me. After a couple of glasses of wine and a bathroom break, I approached him again, and asked, "Do you have anything to say to me?" After all, he never actually broke up with me. One day it was "I love you" and the next day – the next six months – it was nothing: no explanation, no excuses, no declarations, no closure. He just disappeared.

"No," he said.

"You don't have anything to say to me?" I asked, shocked.

"No," he repeated, and then started muttering about focusing on his family and giving excuses that wouldn't have made any sense to me even if I were sober.

"I'm just trying to figure out why you hate me," I said. It was a hauntingly familiar line. I used to ask my mother the same thing.

"I don't hate you...." he trailed off. But if he didn't hate me, how could he deliberately cause me so much pain? How could he put me through all those stages of grief?

I ran away again instead of arguing the point, because I knew that this is what he does. I'd seen text messages on his phone from prior girlfriends who'd been disappeared on in similar ways, girls who felt that they were owed an explanation or at least some kind of response. I always thought I would be the exception to that. But I wasn't. Now I was just another desperate text message in his phone, another girl he didn't have the guts to face.

Still, I went back to my spot across the bar, and cried my eyes out. It was a deliberate attempt to get his attention. He always melted when I cried before, and begged for forgiveness. I thought it would work again.

But this time, it didn't. He wouldn't even look at me. He couldn't even see that I was crying.

And although I was upset, I was also relieved. This was the confrontation I'd been both looking forward to and dreading for six months. This was the worst case scenario: complete rejection, without explanation. I'd fantasized about him having some kind of alcohol- or medication-induced amnesia (he'd always had a terrible memory, and lots of blackouts), forgetting me and everything that had happened last summer, giving us the chance to start over again, and begin our romance anew. But the fact that he remembered, and didn't want to come back, didn't ask for forgiveness, and didn't think he had anything to apologize for, was the complete worst that could happen.

Good for him for having no regrets.

I think he should regret something.

I wish I'd never met him. I wish I'd never let myself fall. I wish I didn't remember. I wish I didn't feel sorry.

But it's done now. I can finally accept. I don't know if that means I can move on, per se, but at least I'm not hanging onto the past. I'm not hoping anymore. What's done is done.

I wish it were different, but it's not.

And I don't have to wonder anymore.

I told him he would break me, and he did.

And now I'm broken, if I wasn't already before.

And I don't have to worry about it happening. The worst has already happened.

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Just The Way I Am

I guess I'm just used to being criticized.

Given the fact that I'm almost 40 and I've never had a long-term, committed relationship, by now I'm used to people asking what's wrong with me.

Or, worse yet, I'm used to people telling me what's wrong with me.

Except everybody has a different theory.

For many years now, I've focused my behavior and personal development on making myself a good potential girlfriend, maybe even a good future wife. But as much as I've grown and matured and settled down in my wild ways, it's still not enough. So when I meet a guy I actually like, I find out what they want, and try to be that girl for a month.

But I just can't seem to get the job. I always fail.

"Why is it important to know why?" Chereta asked me. She's a new member of my LA-based support network, and she always seems to ask the right questions.

"Well, because then I would know what I could do to change," I said.

"But what could possibly be wrong with you?" she probed. "What could you change?"

We were actually talking about my career and why I keep getting laid off, and why I haven't been able to find another permanent job in almost a year, but my mind immediately went to romantic relationships – to the guys who rejected me or, even worse, just disappeared.

"Well, like, for example, if a guy didn't want to be with me because he thought I was too needy–" I started, but was interrupted.

Chereta looked at me and gently suggested, "Well maybe you could just find a guy who doesn't mind if you're needy. Or maybe you could find a guy who likes your neediness."

Honestly, that never occurred to me. Ever.

IS THAT EVEN POSSIBLE?

I mean, I can understand someone forgiving your eccentricities and frailties because they're outweighed by your positive qualities (or maybe just because the sex is that good, or because you're convenient), but actually embracing them?

DOES THAT HAPPEN?

Where are these people?

My own parents couldn't accept me for who I was. As a kid, I constantly tried to adjust my behavior accordingly, but I couldn't change who I was as a person. And that's what they took issue with. So much so that they went silent eight years ago – a merciful reprieve after the torture I went through while they were actually in my life.

If my own parents didn't, how can I find someone who couldn't love me better, who loves me just the way I am?

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Excuses, Excuses Part 2
This Is Why I'm Single
The Cable Guy
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To Not Be Alone

I'm working in a gallery today, but I'm not really doing anything for the gallery. I'm on my laptop, checking emails, researching places to explore, planning future events.

But even though I'm not doing anything for the gallery, it's important that I'm here.

It's important so that the other person – who is doing work for the gallery – isn't alone here.

I remember towards the end of my stint managing a clothing store a couple years ago, my boss had messed up the schedule so much, and had entrusted so many irresponsible new hires, that a few times I had to open the store by myself. It really freaked me out. I didn't like being there alone.

Even if we had no customers, I could barely run to the back door to accept deliveries. I struggled to escort the armored car driver back to the safe to pick up the deposit. I couldn't leave the store to pick up lunch from the food court. I couldn't leave the sales floor even to go to the bathroom.

And if anything happened, I was all alone.

I felt exposed and vulnerable. Even if the phone never rang, and I never had to open the cash drawer, I felt like a target.

So today, I'm happy to just be here. I know I'm a warm body. But at least my coworker can go to the bathroom when nature calls.

The other person doesn't always have to be doing something. Today, we've barely talked to each other, each absorbed into our own little worlds.

But it's just important to not be alone.

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To Fall In Love With Anyone

There's this New York Times article making the rounds through the internet and around watercoolers everywhere called "Modern Love: To Fall With Anyone, Do This."

As though there's a trick to it.
As though you could read it in a book and solve all your problems.
As though it were a magic pill or potion, that could also get rid of belly fat and give you a throbbing erection whenever you want.

As though the world actually worked in a straight, linear, do this, then this fashion.

As though you'd want to fall in love with just anyone.

As though the anyone you choose to fall in love with is the right one.

Like many theories, though, it seems worth testing.

I just don't think there will be anyone to stick around long enough to last four minutes while staring into my eyes, which is part of what you must do to fall in love with anyone.

I don't think anyone out there really cares about my answers to the 36 questions you're supposed to ask each other. I think everybody just wants to be asked the questions.

And I feel compelled to answer the questions, even though no one is asking.

So here we go. I've answered the questions that don't directly relate to me and my phantom partner, the dreaded "we." If you want to fall in love with me – if you think I may be your "anyone" – then feel free to send your answers back to me, and find a way to stare deeply into my eyes for four uninterrupted minutes.

Set I

1. Given the choice of anyone in the world, whom would you want as a dinner guest?
A: Anyone I can think of who's famous (Madonna, George Clooney, Ryan Gosling), I'd be afraid that a real-life encounter with them would be too disappointing. Honestly, I just want to have dinner with Mike and Maria in Syracuse or Michelle and Edith in New York City.

2. Would you like to be famous? In what way?
A: Yes, I would like to be famous for my talent and my personality. I would like people to want to get to know me and be interested in my interests. I would like to be remembered for my creative contributions, and for having some impact on the greater good.

3. Before making a telephone call, do you ever rehearse what you are going to say? Why?
A: Absolutely, but in my head (not out loud). I don't like to be caught off-guard.

4. What would constitute a “perfect” day for you?
A: Sleep in just long enough, wake up next to someone I loved, share breakfast, go for a drive, go swimming, learn something new, watch the sunset, share a long, leisurely dinner, laugh all day and all night, fall asleep together.

5. When did you last sing to yourself? To someone else?
A: Yesterday in the car to myself. I can't remember when I last sang to someone else, maybe singing happy birthday to a friend in December, or singing some funny song on the phone to my friend Michelle.

6. If you were able to live to the age of 90 and retain either the mind or body of a 30-year-old for the last 60 years of your life, which would you want?
A: Body of a 30-year-old, even my body when I was 30.

7. Do you have a secret hunch about how you will die?
A: Yes. Car accident.

8. Name three things you and your partner appear to have in common.
N/A

9. For what in your life do you feel most grateful?
A: For all the parents of my friends who took care of me when my own parents abandoned me.

10. If you could change anything about the way you were raised, what would it be?
A: I wish I was trusted more. I wish I was given more freedom. I wish I was taught more. I wish I was loved.

11. Take four minutes and tell your partner your life story in as much detail as possible.
N/A

12. If you could wake up tomorrow having gained any one quality or ability, what would it be?
I'd like to be fluent in another language (maybe French).

Set II

13. If a crystal ball could tell you the truth about yourself, your life, the future or anything else, what would you want to know?
A: What's the point of everything? Will there be the payoff I've been waiting for? Or is it all just f-ed up for the sake of being f-ed up?

14. Is there something that you’ve dreamed of doing for a long time? Why haven’t you done it?
A: Getting married. Nobody's asked; nobody's wanted to. And it's not the kind of thing you can do alone.

15. What is the greatest accomplishment of your life?
A: Surviving my childhood, getting out of my parents' house and seizing every moment, as soon as I had the freedom to do so.

16. What do you value most in a friendship?
A: Unconditional love, loyalty, and reciprocation.

17. What is your most treasured memory?
A: Nightswimming with Maria. Thunderstorms with Maria. The Blackout of 2003. Halloween parties in my Manhattan apartment.

18. What is your most terrible memory?
A: Being sexually assaulted in college.

19. If you knew that in one year you would die suddenly, would you change anything about the way you are now living? Why?
A: I would find someone to test this theory of falling in love with me, fall in love, get married and not have to die alone.

20. What does friendship mean to you?
A: Everything.

21. What roles do love and affection play in your life?
A: Something that's always missing – a vast hole that can never be filled.

22. Alternate sharing something you consider a positive characteristic of your partner. Share a total of five items.
N/A

23. How close and warm is your family? Do you feel your childhood was happier than most other people’s?
A: My birth family is cold, stoic, isolated, and my childhood was unhappier than most other people's. But my new family – the family that has chosen me – is close and warm, and I'm happier with them than most people are as adults with their families.

24. How do you feel about your relationship with your mother?
A: I'm glad it's over.

Set III

25. Make three true “we” statements each. For instance, “We are both in this room feeling ... “
N/A

26. Complete this sentence: “I wish I had someone with whom I could share ... “
A: Experiences.

27. If you were going to become a close friend with your partner, please share what would be important for him or her to know.
A: There is no if here: I must be close friends with my partner. Whether you're just my friend or my partner/friend, I don't want to be lied to, but I don't always want to her the truth.

28. Tell your partner what you like about them; be very honest this time, saying things that you might not say to someone you’ve just met.
N/A

29. Share with your partner an embarrassing moment in your life.
A: I was in a Ladies' locker room after swimming at a public pool in LA and I noticed a bunch of little girls pointing and laughing at my naked body. I yelled at them, "Oh is that what we're doing now? Laughing at strangers' naked bodies? Let me tell you something: get a good look, because YOU'RE GOING TO LOOK LIKE THIS ONE DAY." One of the girls came up to me and apologized, and said, "I know I shouldn't say anything, because I'm going to look like you one day too."

30. When did you last cry in front of another person? By yourself?
A: Tuesday in therapy. Tuesday night in my car driving home.

31. Tell your partner something that you like about them already.
N/A

32. What, if anything, is too serious to be joked about?
A: Rape

33. If you were to die this evening with no opportunity to communicate with anyone, what would you most regret not having told someone? Why haven’t you told them yet?
A: I would just regret not being able to say "Goodbye." I've told everybody "I Love You" and "I'm sorry" and "I appreciate you."

34. Your house, containing everything you own, catches fire. After saving your loved ones and pets, you have time to safely make a final dash to save any one item. What would it be? Why?
A: My laptop (or at least my backup drive) because it holds all my writing and photos.

35. Of all the people in your family, whose death would you find most disturbing? Why?
A: My birth father. He deserved such a better life than what he got.

36. Share a personal problem and ask your partner’s advice on how he or she might handle it. Also, ask your partner to reflect back to you how you seem to be feeling about the problem you have chosen.
A: My personal problem is I'm a lost soul swimming in a fishbowl. And I keep looking for someone (other than myself) to save me.

Sure, after having gone through this exercise, these 36 Questions feel a bit like a Cosmo Quiz, or one of those chain letters that were so popular in the early days of email. (Remember The Purity Test?) But most conversations on dates – at least, early in a dating relationship – are so vapid, it would be refreshing to talk about more than work or working out or food or geography. I'm so tired of being asked what I do for a living. Tell me something that's not on your resume.

Then again, when I hear most people talk, I don't like what they say. So maybe better not to pose the questions at all. Maybe I don't want to know.

Related Posts:
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Letting Myself Go

I was doing so well, back in February of last year, nearly a year ago.

I was working regularly, and back into a routine.

I was leaving work a little early to go hiking before it got dark, sometimes hiking after the sun set just so I could get it in.

I didn't want to let myself go. I wanted to be in shape and a healthy weight for me. And I was trying really hard.

But as the pressures of my new job started to get to me, a job which unraveled as quickly as it began, I gave into the many temptations of office life. One slice of pizza turned into an entire personal pizza all for me. Flavored seltzer water turned into beer at lunch. Healthy snacks turned into handfuls of M&Ms.

When that job ended, I was determined to keep up my fitness routine, particularly now that I had plenty of time to devote to hiking and swimming during daylight.

And then arrived the ultimate sabotage: I got rear-ended, giving me whiplash and a brain injury, exacerbating my preexisting fibromyalgia, sending me into physical therapy three times a week for three months, plus weekly visits with a talk therapist and nearly daily phone calls with an attorney. It was hard to find time to exercise. It was hard to get out of bed. It was hard to move at all.

Even as my physical condition improved, my head wasn't ready to get back into any physical activity that required thought, or choreography, or navigation.

I was stagnant because I needed to be. My focus was on getting better.

But all of these traumas – and dating someone new – brought on a significant amount of anxiety that I'd never experienced before, obliterating my appetite and twisting my stomach into knots. I lost ten pounds in a month. At the time, I attributed it to having a new boyfriend and being motivated to look good naked, and when it didn't work out between us and ended unceremoniously, I started letting myself go.

Sure, it was the start of the holiday season – first my birthday, then Halloween and pumpkin spice everything, then Thanksgiving and Christmas and New Year's Eve and rainy days and Mondays – but I deliberately let myself go, I decided to let myself go, because it became clear to me that my looks didn't matter. Even at my most beautiful, I would not be beautiful enough for LA. I clean up good, but not good enough.

So why bother stressing myself out over weight loss, hair removal, manicures, makeup, contacts, blowouts, fashion? I had enough to worry about: my own physical and mental health, my dwindling finances, my spiraling career, and more.

So I stopped worrying about how I looked. I stopped getting my hair done. I stopped wearing makeup. I cried so hard and so much, my tears ate away at the skin around my eyes, creating red sores and scaly patches. I wore the same pajama bottoms as pants every day. I ate whatever I wanted, and watched my body expand exponentially.

It didn't matter. I was letting myself go. I was letting myself fatten up like a Christmas goose. I was not just allowing it to happen, I was making it happen.

At least I could make something happen. I didn't seem to have control over anything else in my life.

And what a relief not to count Points or calories or fat or portion size. What a relief to say "I can" and "I will" rather than "I can't" or "I won't." What glorious comfort I received from chocolate and chips and pizza and pasta and calamari and cookie dough, when I needed it most.

But when it came down with it, I was inconsolable. I knew I was destroying myself, but I couldn't stop. I'd been here before, these familiar feelings of shame and loneliness and failure and addiction and obsession. We do strange things to survive. We do what we can, left to our own devices.

But there was an end in sight for me. At no time did I tell myself, "This is my life now." This stage of letting go, falling off the wagon, was always meant to be temporary. I just had to get through spending the holidays in LA alone, and then I could get back on track.

I knew it was a cliché, but I just couldn't wrap my head around depriving myself of these comforts until January 2.

And when the New Year came, I was ready to let everything else go, and take myself back. The benefits of hedonism have now been outweighed by the disgust I feel when I look in the mirror, the pain I feel when I wake up in the morning, and the time it takes to find something to wear that fits.

I haven't had a drop of alcohol since January 1 (11 days and counting), the longest I've gone dry since July 2012. I've been following Weight Watchers again. I've gotten back into hiking, and have gone back to the gym.

I'm the heaviest I've been since 2010. I'm very out of shape. And, for the timebeing, I'm very sore from the increased physical activity, after months of stagnation. I feel a little better, but I've got to be in it for the long haul. This isn't just a New Year's resolution. I have to take back my life, and find myself again, whether or not I'm working or dating someone.

I've gotten buried somewhere underneath all of these crises and circumstances, and it's time to dig myself out.

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The Marrying Kind

So many of my past relationships didn't work out because the guy didn't want to be a boyfriend.

But at some point, he changed his mind.

If you were to go through the Facebook profiles of the guys I've hooked up with over the years, you'd see that a lot of them eventually did become boyfriends – and more than that, they got married and had kids.

Not to me, and not with me, of course.

But most of those guys don't matter, really. The only guys that matter are the guys I've loved.

Earlier this year, I found out that one of them got married to the girl he started dating when he was also dating me. It was particularly heartbreaking not only as a nail in the coffin of the relationship we never really got to have, but also as the defining moment that proved that he was The Marrying Kind. He was husband material. I'd picked a good one.

He just didn't pick me.

I loved another man before him, one who has been in and out of my life since 1997 – with two straight years of real closeness and intimacy that ended abruptly, devastatingly, and without explanation. But I knew from the beginning that he wasn't The Marrying Kind. He thinks that settling down – i.e. getting married – is settling. So, in some ways, I am comforted by the fact that he will never commit to anyone, because it's not me, it's him.

But what if, one day, he does? And it's not me?

The possibility haunts me.

The thing is, I thought I'd learned my lesson from him. I thought I'd moved on. I became drawn to the niceness of guys. I realized that I deserved love, and not just any love. I even fell in love with a new guy who I knew, from the beginning, was The Marrying Kind. He said he wanted to get married and have kids. He talked about his future wedding, who would be invited, what it would be like. On our first official date, he looked at me, baffled, and asked, "How are we not already married?"

And then whatever we had started ended abruptly, devastatingly, unbearably without explanation. And I am having post-traumatic déjà vu, suffering a heart broken twice in the same way by two different men, never truly healed in between.

So what went wrong?

How have I been single for 39 years?

I am The Marrying Kind. Despite any dalliances or tangents or distractions or regrets, I always have been.

But those times I thought I was on the right track, that something real was happening, turned out to be a fallacy. Maybe I made it all up. Maybe I imagined the feelings between us. Maybe I fabricated a two-sided relationship when there was really only one side.

But regardless, the problem is no longer that I'm picking the wrong guys.

So what makes me the wrong girl?

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Hung Up

I have spent my entire time in LA – nearly four years now – hung up on some guy.

I say "some guy" because that's how others would see them – "he's not worth your tears" etc. – but these guys, all three of them, have been pretty great.

But no matter how great they have been, I can't help but think I've wasted a lot of my LA time trying to nurse a broken heart.

When I first landed at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, I'd been crying just nights before over The One That Got Away, kicking myself for leaving New York City when I'd just started dating the most wonderful guy, even though the real reason we stopped dating was because he wasn't ready to be in a relationship, regardless of where I lived. I agonized over his Facebook and Twitter profiles, seeing him actually get into a relationship with some girl. I emailed and txted occasionally to remind him I still existed. I reconnected with him during a visit back home, rekindling the fire within me, and somehow that freaked him out enough that we haven't communicated since.

I've had two broken hearts after Brian, and I find myself still thinking about him.

When I first moved to LA, it had been a couple months since I'd been blown off by the guy I'd been seeing out here during my frequent scouting trips out here, getting prepared to move. I was pretty sure that meant he'd gotten himself a real girlfriend, but now that I was here, it didn't feel right to not be in touch at all. Lucky for this stalker, he was in a band, and I could just show up to one of his gigs to track him down. When I did, we tried to forge a friendship. He welcomed me to LA and embraced me into his circle. We got to know each other better. And it was only then, without being able to kiss him or wake up feeing his eyelashes brushing against my neck, that I fell in love with him.

But, of course, he still had that girlfriend, and he knew he couldn't have us both. He asked me to stay away, and because I loved him, I did. I thought it was temporary.

I was hung up on him for my first 15 months in LA while I was going to see his every gig, and I was hung up on him for the two years I wasn't allowed to see him afterwards, and the two times I unexpectedly and accidentally ran into him.

And, most of all, I was still hung up on him when he married that girlfriend. Maybe worse than ever, because it showed he was the marrying kind. And it proved to me that the separation was permanent. It was over, it was finally over.

But I wasn't relieved. This wasn't my chance to move on, it broke my heart wide open, when I'd been managing to keep it together, waiting for him to come back to me. I had been merely hung up – holding onto hope – and now I was completely romantically shattered.

Soon thereafter I got laid off from a job I so desperately needed, and I worked so hard at. Soon after that, I got into a car accident that really rattled my brain.

And so began one of the worst depressions of my life.

The only thing that made me feel better? The only thing that gave me a break from myself and all the past heartaches, disappointments and abandonments? Falling in love again.

What an idiot.

So here I am, still hung up on a guy back in New York who wants nothing to do with me, still hung up on some guy who married some other girl, and, on top of all that, hung up on some new guy who was supposed to be a rebound – a palate cleanser, an ego boost, a sexual injection – who told me he loved me and wanted to take care of me, and who then disappeared without explanation.

My first inclination of how to get over him was to get under somebody else. But I can't compound this fracture any more. The aggregate stress and heartbreak is becoming too overwhelming. When the same thing keeps happening over and over again, everything just seems so hopeless.

Maybe my time has passed.

Maybe I need to detox, to experience LA through some lens other than romance.

Maybe I need to learn how to not need to love and be loved.

But how do you live without love?

....And if you do, what's the point?

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This Zombie Life

Ever since the shit hit the fan last spring (in a trifecta of disasters including witnessing a former lover's wedding on Instagram, being betrayed by a former employer, and getting rear-ended on Fountain), I've been a bit of a zombie.

I've been out amongst the walking wounded – injured emotionally, mentally, physically and financially, but not really bad enough for anybody to pay that close attention to.

I look OK.

To the casual observer, the stranger or acquaintance who doesn't know me very well, I seem OK.

I'm conscious.

I'm breathing.

I'm talking.

I'm walking.

I must not need help.

Out of all the disasters, traumas, crises, plagues, and perils in the world, my little problems are of relatively low priority.

I'm expected to be able to work, listen, and help others.

But I am not OK.

And sometimes, like the others who are wounded, staggering around, and neglected, I think I'm doomed.

When it all first happened, instead of allowing myself to heal, I plunged myself into various jobs, professional tasks, and pro bono work, and failed miserably.

Instead of trying to put my heart back together alone, I dove into another romantic relationship – a rebound which was probably doomed from the start, and which may have broken me completely and irreparably, for the final time.

So now, for the last seven months, all this trauma has been eating me from the inside-out like a voracious zombie – starting with my brain, moving down into my heart, gnawing away at all my guts,  my motivation, my moxie – leaving me a mere shell of a living corpse, a living human host body for the zombie within.

I probably could've recovered from any one of these traumas by themselves, as isolated events, cushioned by the successes and joys I could find elsewhere. But, in one fell swoop over the course of a month, every aspect of my life took a hit. And although no single attack would strike a fatal blow, I wonder how many more of these relatively minor punches I can take, before my shell collapses into the vacuous space inside.

I am grieving for the life and the loves I have lost. I am grieving for the life and the loves I'll never have.

In the meantime, I can't do much of anything else.

I don't know what will happen. I don't know anything. I don't know how to help myself, or heal myself. I don't know what to do, because I don't trust myself anymore. I keep making the same mistakes over and over again, no matter how hard I try to do better, use good judgment, do the right thing.

I am not in charge of my life anymore.

And maybe that's a good thing.

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Left Behind

Up until now, I was always the one to leave.

Sure, my parents abandoned me emotionally, but they were always there physically. When we became estranged, they kicked me out of their house. They made me leave. I had to find somewhere else to sleep.

I was the one who went away to college.

I was the one who left her first boyfriend behind to study abroad in London.

I was the one who quit her favorite job ever to move to New York City.

I was the one who left all of her friends back in New York to move across the country and start a new life in LA.

I didn't know what it was like to be left behind. I was always moving forward.

Until now.

Sure, I've been left before – my affections spurned, romantic advances rejected – but now I find myself holding down the fort in LA while someone I love is gone for two months. And he wasn't exactly mine anymore when he left. And I don't know if I'll be his when he returns.

Two months is a long time.

I remember I'd only been dating my first boyfriend Seth for a month and a half, maybe two months when I had to leave for London in the Summer of 1995. Our relationship was so new that we knew we'd have to break up before I left, but we spent so much time together right before my departure, at the last minute we both kind of looked at each other and said, "We don't have to break up, do we?" That August day I left, he dropped me off at the train station to say goodbye, and I sobbed as I tried to hoist my luggage full of four months' supplies onto the overhead rack.

I was a mess when I arrived in Hudson, NY to join my future roommate on the way down to JFK for our flight to London. It was my first flight ever, and I was anxious, nervous, and most of all, heartbroken.

But then I arrived at Heathrow, took a black cab to pick up the keys to our new flat, arrived in Kilburn Park, and started to settle in. I met my new flatmates and classmates that lived across the courtyard. I started drinking and forgetting. I moved on more quickly than I ever expected.

Right away I started receiving letters and phone calls from Seth. I didn't always answer the phone. The distance from him was too great, and after such a short period of time dating, I started to doubt everything we'd experienced together. I grew cold to his affections. Even though he sent me flowers on my birthday and wrote the most loving things to me, I didn't believe him.

I recently recovered a couple of those letters from storage boxes, and, in reading them, terribly regret how I treated him. He always considered our breakup temporary. He wrote that he would only consider himself complete with my hand in his. That my competition was none. That I remained in the future. That he was mine without question.

I don't know why those words didn't make my heart melt back then. I don't know why I didn't believe him.

No one has ever said anything like that to me since. I don't think anyone has ever felt that way about me since.

Instead of writing him back, talking with him and reassuring him, I had sex with other people, even though I knew that was the last thing he wanted me to do. After I'd been gone for two months and acting increasingly distant, his letters began to express his worry. He asked if everything was OK. He tried to make me jealous by talking about other girls.

When I finally got home in December, I didn't call him right away, though I knew he expected me to. When we finally did talk on the phone, he admitted that his ex-girlfriend (the one with whom I likely overlapped when I started dating him) wanted to get back together with him.

"Maybe you should go do that," I said. And that was it. We were really broken up. I didn't want to come home to him. I'd lived a whole lifetime in four months in London, and I was a different person than the virgin girl he'd taken out dancing the summer before. I was hardened by city life, and by the world. I'd experienced other men, and women.

Granted, I was only 19 years old when I left, and turned 20 while I was away. I didn't know anything. When I came back, Seth said that he had been in love with me, but I didn't believe that, either. After all, although I'd liked him very much, and I'd loved having a boyfriend, I didn't love him. I couldn't imagine him loving me.

And now I do love someone, and I'm the one who's been left behind. I thought my heart would grow cold again – I looked forward to the separation, so I could move on – but my heart still beats hot and hard. I'm not moving on. I'm waiting for the days to pass. I'm hoping to wake up from a coma two months from now so I don't have to wait the entire time out.

I don't know what's going to happen when he comes back. Considering what I did to my first boyfriend when I was the one to leave, I probably deserve however he treats me, having lost whatever love he once had for me in the time since. Maybe he'll meet another girl. Maybe he'll remember things differently. Maybe he'll want something new and unfamiliar when he gets back to LA.

There's no way I can know. All I can do is wait it out.

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The End of Acting Out

I have a long history of acting out.

At age 19, I moved to London for a semester abroad just a couple of months after having gotten my first boyfriend ever and having lost my virginity. At some point, I figured out that there had been some overlap between me and another of his girlfriends. Subsequently, the second guy I ever had sex with was a drunken Irishman in the ladies' bathroom stall in a pub in Galway.

There were plenty of other college indiscretions, of course.

The year I moved to New York City, I spent Halloween night judging a kissing contest between three guy friends. When the winner spurned my subsequent affections, I started hooking up with another one of his friends. When that guy spurned my affections, I hooked up with every fellow member of his band except one (and a few of his other friends).

My parents didn't allow me to date in high school, but they also didn't teach me how to respect myself. They abandoned me emotionally and left me to my own devices. What else was I supposed to do?

I self-medicated with random dalliances.

I manipulated people.

I turned them over to the dark side.

I never learned how to have a healthy relationship. I didn't even know how to start one. (I still don't.)

I jumped from guy to guy (and sometimes from guy to girl to guy) trying to fill this huge vacant space inside of me, and it kind of worked. I had plenty of stories to tell. My phone was always buzzing. I rarely had to be alone if I didn't want to be.

New York City is like that. Sex is in the air.

If one guy rejected me, I could walk down nearly any street and find another. I knew which bars to go to, and at which times. I stayed until they closed and the doors were locked with me still inside. I drank and I got them drunk. I didn't always know their names. I didn't always remember their faces.

Although I began two years of sexual avoidance in 2008 after disastrously falling in love with two different people who would never love me, I bounced back with a vengeance in 2010, and I started pursuing nice guys with the same obsession that previously targeted bad boys. I had my groove back, and my hands full. It seemed healthy – just having fun, celebrating life, celebrating my new body after a recent dramatic weight loss.

And then I moved to LA.

Life hasn't been easy in the three and a half years since moving here, with two layoffs, inconsistent work and money, and persistent loneliness. The romantic and sexual interest once felt so strongly in NYC has since been timid, hidden, or non-existent. I've had to work much harder for it. No longer does anything just fall into my lap, so to speak.

I mean, I've had my moments in LA for sure – a couple of bartenders, a late night hot tub, a rock star. When I lost my first job in LA, I ran directly into the arms of someone who was completely emotionally unavailable. When he spurned my affections one night, I hooked up with his housemate.

But I've made progress. I ended things with a cute guy who'd only call me at 2 a.m. I cut off the guy who was weirdly obsessed with what he considered my fat body. I stopped dating the guy who never acted like he liked me in public and then expected sex at his place at the end of the night. I refused to be the other woman. I finally asked for what I wanted, rather than just accepting whatever came my way.

Still, old habits die hard. When I recently realized that the person I'd been faithful to hadn't been faithful to me – and probably had no intention on being faithful moving forward – my first inclination was to act out. I texted former lovers. I went on Tinder. I joined OKCupid. I was desperate to find somebody else to make me forget, to help me punish him.

I've only had a few days now of putting myself "out there," and you know what? I'm done. I don't want this. I don't want some other guy in my apartment, in my bed. I don't want to have meaningless chitchat with somebody new. I don't want to take my clothes off, though they used to come off so easily.

I want the love that I felt when I was with him. No crazy sexcapade is better than falling asleep with his head on my chest as he whispers, "I love you."

I hadn't been with anyone for six months before him, because I'd been looking for someone like him. Maybe he wasn't a perfect match, but I'm not going to settle for something else now.

And maybe that means I'll have to be completely alone for a while.

Or maybe I just have to get used to the idea of being alone forever.

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Oops, I Did It Again

It's funny how things seem so different in the beginning – so unlike all your past failures – that you actually hope that you've learned and moved on, that you've made better choices, that you're making progress.

That there might actually be hope for you.

And then as the situation unfolds, it starts to feel more and more familiar to you, until you realize you've unwittingly fallen back into the same exact pattern you were trying to avoid.

It may be a new person, a new city, a new setting, but you could recite the dialogue as though memorized from a script. You predict the future with unquestionable certainty, though this future is heartbreakingly bleak.

You try to do everything to change the course of what was meant to be, because you don't want this, you never wanted this, you can't go through this again, but you're only delaying the inevitable, denying the already determined.

You thought it was going to be something else. Something worth working for.

But you shouldn't have to work so hard.

You shouldn't have to do so much.

You shouldn't have to feel so bad.

Sometimes the best things happen when you can just do nothing – float on your back, let the water fill your ears and drown out the sound of the world around you. When you try very hard to float, tightening your muscles and craning your neck forward to check your position, you will most surely drown.

You don't have to cry.

You don't have to scream.

You don't have to beg.

All you can do is just...be.

And if this isn't what you thought it was, if it isn't what you wanted, you have to be willing to walk away.

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