The "Friend" Speech

The last few days I'd been working up to a major funk. Of course I say "I'd been working" as if I'd had a choice in the matter. Would be more accurate to say my body had been working on a funk and taking me along for the ride. Nevertheless, I saw it coming.

So on Friday I started pricing airline tickets to visit a "friend" of mine, in hopes that it would give me something to hold on to and look forward to as I went through this upcoming funk.

This "friend" has never been just a friend. Shortly after I moved into my apt in May, we began talking and sniffing each other out. We weren't quite dating, but we weren't quite just friends either. We have several friends in common which is how we started talking, and supposedly (he says, I don't remember) we'd met once back in 1997. So there were lots of unknowns as far as attractiveness. He lives halfway across the USA from me, so distance was always a factor in keeping it more friendly than dating.

I wasn't going to be uprooting myself for a man again, and there are no jobs in his field here. We'd kept up this stalemate for months, talking daily as much as we could.

Then about a month ago, we began discussing evolution and intelligent design. We'd already discussed religion and he'd said he was "kinda Christian" and we agreed on a few points of religion.. enough to get by I thought. But when I mentioned that I thought everyone should have the choice between evolution and intelligent design, and that my children will learn both so they can make up their own minds.. Things got heated. He solely believes in evolution, and cannot understand how I cannot.

There is nothing that 100% proves that "God" had no hand in it, and there is nothing that proves "God" did. Stalemate.

Since that conversation things began to cool down. (Fred, see this is why I don't like dating atheists, even if this guy isn't one). We'd have one big conversation a week, then sporadically small ones. But he still seemed at least a little interested, as he often was the one initiating and we discussed sexual preferences after that as well.

I'd threatened to visit him several times, but never with any real specific date. So on Friday, I emailed him with an exact weekend and asked if he wanted me to visit. He replied on Saturday "Maybe.. we should talk about it." Because I know him, I knew this was a very bad response, besides having that horrid "We should talk" phrase.

Saturday (even before his reply) I slipped further into my funk. I forced myself to go to a party of a friend, but I ended up leaving early. I felt fat and ugly.

Sunday morning I woke up in full funk. I didn't want to see anyone or talk to anyone (I had several plans for the day and cancelled them all). People would IM me and I'd end the conversation. A friend called and I told her in no uncertain terms that I was totally antisocial and I'd talk to her later in the week. It really was all I could do not to hang up on her. I distracted myself with copious amounts of TV and Netflix. The smallest thing would make me cry or angry. I felt fat, ugly, and unlovable.

He messaged me and I told him I was in a foul mood. He didn't do his normal "ask whats wrong?" thing. He wanted to get it off his chest I suspect. So he called and blurted out...

"You have a great personality that meshes well with mine, I love talking to you, and I really care about you, but we'll only ever be just friends."

Seriously, he couldn't have picked a worse day. I started crying like a little baby. I was trying to cover the phone so he couldn't hear. I knew the tears had little to actually do with him, but I couldn't stop them.

He tried to comfort me and it only made things worse. It pissed me off so I cried more. Seriously, you don't get to tell a girl that you just want to be "friends" and then comfort her too. Saying shit to her like "I wish I could just hold you" is not going to make anything better. Bastard!

It seemed like ages, but probably just a few minutes before we finally hung up. I let myself have a good cry. The funk wasn't over, but I distracted myself with episodes of the BBC series "Coupling" which is guaranteed to make you laugh no matter what.

Finally at 3 AM, I was too tired and fell into bed to cry myself to sleep. I haven't had a funk this bad in years thankfully, hopefully it will be many more before it comes again.

I woke this morning to sunshine and hope. I'm not sure I have a whole lot of hope in finding someone to share my life, but today spending the rest of my life alone doesn't sound so lonely. The world is full of people that actually do care about me, and right now, thats enough.