I’m halfway through the antibiotic (the prescription for which cost about $1.50 and my doctor’s visit $10, although Caroline’s doctor is only $1.50 a visit—just want to remind everyone how great socialized medicine is), and I feel completely better. I was actually suffering through that for a while—felt sick even before I went to London two weeks ago—so it’s nice to be healthy again.
Date #6 with Zak is tonight. Tomorrow marks two months since our first date. Six dates in two months? That’s nuts, as far as I’m concerned, and I’ve decided not to put all my eggs in Zak’s basket until I can be certain of what he wants. Which would explain why I went on a date and made out with that pickup artist back in October. And why I had a date last night with a Czech guy, who paid for me even though I had my wallet out, said at the end of the date that he’d like to see me again, and emailed me a suggestion for the next date. I’m not really sure how I feel about him, though.
On Sunday, our hash was probably the best one I’ve ever been to in Prague. I put some pictures up on Facebook: Linky.
I have nine days to find a cocktail dress for the upcoming conference. I have a couple of possibly suitable dresses at home but one is scandalously short and the other shows a scandalous amount of cleavage. I will go shopping tonight for the third time and if I don’t find anything I will try to FedEx something from the US or the UK. I really am running out of options here.
I had my second date with the American on Friday. His name is Zak, and I quite like him. He seemed a lot more relaxed and easygoing than on the first date and he’s been a perfect gentleman the whole time. I still haven’t had to pay for anything, and I like the way he wraps his arms around me. He makes me feel warm and secure.
He was very busy the rest of the weekend but texted me Saturday evening to see how I was. I texted him yesterday, and he let me know he’s free this coming weekend, when we plan to have date #3.
I am slightly concerned, though, that he could be a bit like David—well-off, established, educated, extremely busy, and possibly only looking for someone to keep his bed warm. I am basing this last judgment solely on the fact that he changed our second date plans from drinks out to drinks at his place. I hope he is not embarrassed to be seen with me. We’ll see if he takes me out this weekend (I also invited him to come out with my friends, and he said that he plans to get a lot done this week so he has more free time during the weekend, so perhaps I’ll see more of him than a single evening). Whatever. I don’t want to put too much thought into it.
Kev is back in Belgium after 3.5 weeks in the US and thank Christ for that. I missed him. He missed me too. After about two weeks apart, he wrote to me that he missed me a bit and he seemed surprised by it, if you can show surprise in a chat window. By the third week, he missed me a lot. I am definitely looking forward to visit him next month. He and I will get liquored up in London for Halloween, I think. I really enjoy his company.
Anyway, the rest of my weekend. I went to a mojito bar on Saturday and then out clubbing. I was out until about 5.30 in the morning and still up by 8 to take a day trip to Karlstejn for their burcak festival. Photos taken by my friend Petr can be found here.
But these are a couple favorites:
Me with Caroline.
Caroline, me, Petra.
Me, Caroline, Petra, and Jirka.
And again.
Also, I have twice hung out with this guy named Aaron who is from Washington DC and has a girlfriend in Slovakia. Purely as friends (he contacted me on Facebook well over a year ago when he was first in Prague but we never met up before). So he’s back in Prague and has been here since Wednesday. He’s contacted me every day to hang out. He only has one other friend, no job, and no place to live. His passport was stolen. I went with him to a concert on Wednesday and then invited him out to the mojito bar on Saturday. He annoyed the shit out of one of the other people there and she called him an imbecile after he left. He’s just so socially awkward. I have a soft spot for that but I also can’t quite stand him and want to shake him. It’s weird, though, to think that I’d give up a friend that seems always available but, right now, I feel more like his mother. Anyway, that’s enough of an update for now. Back to work.
So Chris’ ultimatum: Either he comes here this weekend or we never speak again. But the American guy I had a date with last week offered up this coming Friday or Saturday for our second date. Sophia is having a party on Saturday, so I agreed to a date on Friday. Weekend full now, so no room for Chris. It’s over. I persevered. Or something.
Actually I tried to talk to Chris a bit on Sunday. I was hungover and about to head out to the store, but I asked him for five minutes. He said, “NO,” and that he didn’t want to talk to me because he was busy, and I couldn’t believe he wouldn’t give me five minutes. He said we could talk in a few days. I said that if he couldn’t give me five minutes, there was no sense in his coming for the weekend. Bitchy? Yes, especially because I knew at that point that I didn’t want him to come anyway. But he certainly got me back for it with the end of our conversation:
[16:29:20] Chris: why can't you accept that i simply don't want to talk NOW???
[16:32:17] Kate: i have
[16:32:25] Kate: it's ok
[16:32:26] Chris: i said NOW
[16:32:32] Chris: i just don't want to talk NOW
[16:32:38] Kate: it's ok
[16:32:40] Chris: why is that so hard to understand?
[16:32:43] Kate: i understand
[16:32:52] Chris: and why do you always have to escalate?
[16:33:15] Chris: can't you simply shut the fuck up and keep your drama to yourself?
I said nothing after that. He sent me two apologetic text messages later but I didn’t answer either. He’s blocked on Skype again, and it’s only a few days until the weekend and then, if he sticks to his ultimatum, he won’t talk to me again.
That Czech guy that I had the unimpressive date with a while back texted me, in Czech: “You are a pretty girl, I want you.” Today, he sent me a long message on Facebook, in Czech, about how he will only communicate with me in Czech from now on because, isn’t it sad that I’ve been here so long and I don’t speak Czech? He’s offended by it.
It seems to me like he’s just trying to make up for the fact that his English is horrible, and there’s nothing wrong with that but I’m not going to date him. I took him off my friends list. I don’t have time for that shit.
Other things: I spent most of the weekend with friends—out to dinner with Sophia, Lindsey, Jan and a few new folks on Friday, and I met Caroline and Pavlina before and after that at the unfermented wine festival. I was again at the unfermented wine festival on Saturday. One of my friends wouldn’t let me put up photos of her on Facebook because she was so embarrassingly drunk, but so was everyone (except me). Seriously, at least three of them fell over drunk. Another wandered off and couldn’t be contacted or found. One left in tears after a big fight with her boyfriend.
…Basically, a great night!
Photos from before things turned sour are here.
I’ve dropped 2.5 pounds in the last two days. I know that’s not healthy, but I’m not starving myself. I even had a chocolate donut with lunch yesterday because I thought a sugar rush would make me feel better. But 3 of the last 4 evenings, I’ve been too depressed, busy, hot, and forgetful to have dinner. Thus, I have now lost 65 pounds since my highest weight and 31 pounds since I started dieting this year.
I wish I had more recent photos than the ones from the pool last weekend. You can’t see my body in them, but don’t I look happy?
I’m trying to come up with things to distract me while I get back to normal. I contacted two guys on an Expats website to see about getting together. Yes, they were male but one has a girlfriend and specified he’s not looking for “friends” but just people to hang out with. This is how I met Jan, and he’s a friend, not a “friend.” It’s possible. The other guy wanted to go swimming but he doesn’t work during the week and would prefer swimming then, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.
I’m also looking into going to London to visit Kev for a few days next week, if I can get the time off from work. He wants to take me out drinking. Remember that he’s married, so don’t get the wrong idea here, either.
But my other actions are less honorable. I may meet a Czech guy for a drink this weekend, which sounds an awful lot like a date, and we all know I’m not ready for that. But, then again, he’s leaving Prague so not much potential there and maybe a good distraction while I’m getting my head together. And nothing is confirmed; I can always cancel. The far worse action is that I contacted a former fling (the one who got mad and took me off his Facebook friends list about a year ago when I was looking for a relationship) to see if we could get together. He didn’t even question it; he was just like, “Sure thing; I’m free any time in the next two weeks.”
I don’t have to go through with any of these things. Maybe they’re just distractions for a slow, hot day.
Mostly, I feel like I should go out and meet people. Groups of people, that is, not men. But new people make me feel boring. Being alone makes me feel sad. Ideally, I could get a group of girls together to drink wine and watch shit movies, but I don’t know enough girls here. I thought of inviting that new Sophia girl (from my pool pictures) swimming over the weekend along with Jan and even bringing that guy who wanted to go swimming along to take the pressure off of me to be interesting. The more people, the less I have to talk. We’ll see if that pans out.
And, yes, if I end up alone, going for a nice walk through beautiful Prague will alleviate some of that. And I wouldn’t mind going shopping either. Or cleaning my apartment. There’s plenty to do as long as I’m not just lying in bed. 13 hours of sleep last night; this is what I fear.
David’s goodbye party is tonight. I know this from Facebook. I was not invited. To be fair, he’s getting his group of friends together, so why would he invite me? He commented on my Facebook status yesterday, but otherwise I haven’t heard from him since we met Tuesday night. I thought about writing him an email about what a wonderful man he is and how much I will miss him. You know, just in case it still isn’t clear that I adore him and want to stay in touch and see him after he moves. But deep down, I know that he knows how I feel and it doesn’t really matter to him. Maybe to his ego, but that’s all.
I’ve just got a few days or weeks to suffer through, and hopefully I won’t do anything too stupid. This is fucking rough.
I was really pissed. He’s drawing out the breakup, asking for time to think about what he wants. But he doesn’t seem to realize that it doesn’t matter what he wants. It’s over. I set my relationship status to “single” on Facebook. He responded by hiding his, which, in retrospect, was a lot kinder. I kind of wish I’d done the same, but I was making a statement.
Saturday morning, I woke up feeling rather weak. I responded to his email to verify that we would talk again on Tuesday, sent him a Skype message (he wasn’t online) to ask if Tuesday was going to work, and then texted him to say, “So, Tuesday, right?” Seriously, I am absurd. I needed to get away from the computer and my phone.
Fortunately, I had plans to go swimming. I went with Caroline, Jirka, a couple of Jirka’s Czech friends, my new Slovak friend Jan (who I may have written about before, calling him Johny because he anglicized his name when we first met), and his super cool British friend Sophia. Photos can be found here.
That was one of the best outings I’ve had with friends in a long time. So much fun. Around 6 PM, I got a text from Chris, saying, “Yes, Tuesday…” and it made me feel sad. I was thinking that I didn’t really want to talk to him. When I got home, I saw that he responded to my email as well, saying, “Yes, Tuesday” and asking how I was. And then he popped onto Skype briefly to say, “Yes, Tuesday.” I guess I deserved the triple response.
On Sunday, I planned to go to the hash. Actually, I did go to the hash but it began with a 30-minute bus ride and I psyched myself out right before I was going to get on the bus. No air conditioning, super hot, windy Czech roads? No, my stomach can’t handle it. So I took the metro halfway home and walked the rest.
Before I left in the morning, I exchanged some texts with David (and on Saturday, we exchanged emails). I’m not sure he’s going to Brussels. He had his last day at work on Friday, so he is definitely leaving, but I almost wonder if he was fired because he doesn’t seem to have his next job nailed down. Or, he was 99% certain he’d take the job in Brussels when the one he’d considered in Dubai months ago became available again.
So he had a phone interview on Saturday with the place in Dubai and he has another interview this week. He said that what they’ve put on the table is just too tempting not to consider.
My opinion on the matter is now that if he goes to Brussels, he will ask me to visit (he already has). If he goes to Dubai, he may actually ask me to go with him.
Anyway, he tried to see me last night, but I declined and told him that I would still keep my schedule open for him so he should make arrangements with other people and he could squeeze me in wherever. Worst case scenario, it’d be brief and then I’d see him again when I visit him wherever he moves. He wrote back, “We will see each other before I leave :-)” and I confirmed it.
When I got home from the hash that didn’t happen, I felt sad and I logged onto World of Warcraft, seeking Chris. He was online, of course. I knew he would be. It was my fault that he got fat and only played video games when we dated and here he is with all the freedom in the world and what does he do? He spends his weekend playing World of Warcraft. Of course.
I sent him a couple of messages, but he wouldn’t really talk. He told me to “learn patience” because we would talk on Tuesday and that he was close to knowing all he needed to know but he needed a couple more days. He said that there was still a chance for us but that my pestering him wasn’t helping things. I told him that there was no chance for us (“why not?”) because of this. Because he didn’t already know. He told me again to “learn patience.”
I told him that I loved him but he is selfish. He asked if I could love him without blackmail. I told him that I wasn’t blackmailing him because I wasn’t asking for anything. And he made some other grand statement, which was about when I logged off. He was on Skype for several hours last night but I didn’t write to him and he didn’t write to me.
Instead I talked for about an hour to my mom (with my nephew Harrison in the background—adorable!), talked on the phone with Dirk for about an hour (I cut him off when he started getting preachy), and chatted on and off for a few hours with Kev.
And now it is Monday, and I am getting text messages from Renaud, that other French guy who never seems to go away, and he wants to meet for lunch, but I would much rather be alone. Perhaps I’ll get a pedicure. Who knows? The opportunities are endless when you’re a single girl.
Chris has given up drinking and has not had a touch of alcohol in…a month? Longer? He seems to be largely the same person but maybe a bit more patient and less wild. And he’s readier to move forward in our relationship. He is now ready for me to move to Vienna. Separate apartments, still, but he used to be nervous at the thought of me doing that in a year. A year from now, I expect that he’ll be ready to live together. We spent three consecutive weekends together and he’s realized in that time that I don’t require as much attention as he thought I did and that it’s very easy to hang out with me. Perhaps I put too much emphasis in our early months on doing things together when we were together, and now he realizes that I don’t actually require that. I can play around on my computer while he plays on his, and I’m happy to call that a Saturday afternoon.
Things with Chris may not be moving quite as fast as I would like but I know they’re moving in the right direction. He’s ready for me to be in Vienna, and I can’t be there for another 9 months or more. The more is dependent on job prospects for a non-German speaker. I’m going to ask him in the coming weeks if he can help me to procure a copy of Rosetta Stone.
David had to move out of his beautiful apartment at the end of June. He is now renting a room in a shared flat and wants to leave Prague in a couple of months. He’s looking into places like Macau and the United Arab Emirates. I told him that if he goes some place exotic, I’d love to visit him. I have no idea what has become of his wishes to go to the United States, but I could tell that he was really sizing me up on Sunday when I was at his apartment for the last time. He was trying to determine how much weight I’ve lost, which hasn’t been much at all. I’ve been stuck at my current spot for a few weeks because my focus shifted away from dieting to entertaining family and I hope to get back on track in the next couple of weeks.
[Edit at 2:57 to add: I think David still wants to go to the US but he's weighing his options. And also weighing me. He asked me when I plan to leave Prague and I said I didn't know.]
I put up pictures on Facebook from my family’s visit and he sent me a message to say that I looked “really good” and “well done” but I think I look thinner in them than I am and he was probably disappointed when he saw me on Sunday. Also, he was sharing photos with me of his trip to the US but we also looked through pictures from a party he threw in December (a party that I mentioned before in this blog because I was NOT invited), and he said multiple times that it was such a great party and an amazing party, and it was just sort of weird that he was sharing that with me instead of brushing it under the rug.
I will miss him when he leaves, and I will likely stay in touch but I feel properly detached from him right now. I guess that I feel whole right now, so I don’t need his approval. I feel good, loved by my family and friends, and by Chris. I am happy with my job, happy with my apartment and my little spot in the world. Things are good.
And now a few photos:
This was in the gardens of a palace in Vienna. It’s my new Facebook profile picture:
A little blurry, with my aunt:
Me again (I’m also showing off how much weight I’ve lost, even if these are completely deceptive):
Chris:
Me with my Grandma in Prague:
See, I look less thin:
And that’s enough. I hope I don’t anger the gods by not putting this behind a cut.
It's been a good weekend. I've sort of been going back and forth between Chris and David in my head, which is terrible, I suppose, but I do have a choice to make. I care about both of them a lot, but both have also done unimaginably shitty things to me.
And I wonder if neither is a good fit.
As far as David is concerned, perhaps I've gotten everything I wanted. I was so infatuated with him (ok, I still am), and I wanted him to return some of those feelings. He finally asked me to be his girlfriend a couple of months ago, even if it was contingent on my losing weight. And he asked me to move back to the States with him.
Whenever I was fantasizing about him seeing my value, these were the ways that I mostly thought he could show me: finally wanting to date me and moving with him (this fantasy emerged when he first told me he wanted to apply for that program in Canada).
So, reasonably, there is nothing else for me to get from him. I mean, I really like him and enjoy his company. I know everyone who reads this probably thinks he's a dick, but he's a funny, sweet, enjoyable person to be around.
Still, it can only go downhill. His longest relationship was five months, and I know he dumped some girl because she was taller than him and another because she was a smoker who goes to bed early. Ok, in his mind, these were parts of larger pictures in which he couldn't imagine spending his life with these women. They were flawed, and he's 34 now so he's got to be selective. But I find it hard to believe that a thin version of me is going to be satisfactory to him. I am all sorts of crazy, and he somehow has known me for a year and not figured that out yet.
As for Chris, he's told me that he's very open to living together in a year and that he'd consider children in two. I sort of wish he wouldn't have said the latter part but I guess it means they're not entirely off the table.
I'm so comfortable with him, and he makes me feel so loved. He knows all about how crazy I am, and he loves me anyway. He knows I don't cook or keep a tidy apartment, and he doesn't care.
But he's also so insanely unpredictable, and that doesn't mesh well with my brand of crazy. He gets me so anxious...
I started seeing my current therapist months ago and one of the issues I wanted to discuss was the way I handle relationships. I have made them the most important thing in my life, and I don't know why. I have been with Chris for eight months but have allowed David to stay on the periphery almost the entire time, and I don't know why. When things are going well in my relationship, I create problems, and I don't know why. I'm incapable of figuring out if these guys are total douchebags who I should ditch or if they're decent...and I don't know why.
I have thought this weekend about how I never would've met Chris if David would've been willing to date me last summer. If David finally wants me, do I still reject him for being an asshole who didn't want me in the first place? Don't I still want him?
And Chris is like a misguided child with some of his stupid ideas about women and relationships, but I think he can grow up. I mean, he's 30 so it's a bit scary that he's not more mature but he's a smart guy who honestly loves me...
I'm repeating myself. I got on here because I wanted to write that I am depressed, which I am. I feel quite terrible today, but then I started going into these same topics that I've written about for months. Nothing is solved. I thought a therapist would help, but he mostly looks bored when I talk to him and rarely says anything.
It is unlikely that I will go back to the US. David eliminates himself from the picture when he takes off in the next few months. I guess. But that only solves the current dilemma and not the whole problem. And that depresses me.
David:
Me and Chris, this weekend (hard to choose just one photo):
It was a hash weekend, and I have written about these before, but it’s basically an excuse for a bunch of zany people to get together and get drunk while doing running/walking trails and generally having a good time. I did one of these weekends before, and that’s how I met Dirk. That was the last time I did one: April 2006. It was ok. This time? I loved it.
We were in bungalows near the beach, and I went with Caroline. Leslie was supposed to go too and flew into Amsterdam with us, but she had a man waiting for her at the airport there. They’d been chatting on the internet and she ended up spending the weekend with him. She phoned me a few times during the weekend to check in and I told her to have a blast. I think she felt guilty for ditching the weekend we’d planned to have but I couldn’t blame her one bit. I’d have done the same, and I know she had a great time.
Anyway, here’s me and Caroline on the first day, on the beach:
Dirk was there too. We spent a fair amount of time together, but I managed to meet a bunch of new people too, which was nice.
My favorite was this fellow, who dressed as Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde at the costume party on Saturday night:
His name is Kev, and he’s a Brit who lives in Belgium. We’ve chatted a lot since I got back but don’t get the wrong idea: he is very happily married. And hilarious, which is part of what drew me to him.
Anyway, I think that a big reason why I enjoyed the weekend so much was because I received a lot of attention from men. Nothing happened, so, again I tell you not to get the wrong idea, but I think I was among the more attractive people there. When I told this to my therapist, I think he had trouble believing me. Fair enough. I’m no great beauty and this is Prague, where all the women are thin and gorgeous. But at this party weekend, most of the women were older and less likely to scrape on gobs of makeup to go on a hike. Plus, I arrived at Saturday’s costume party with my tits hanging out of my dress, so, any men who may not have noticed me the day before certainly did that night:
(It was also at the costume party that Dirk told me I was clearly the prettiest woman there but I wouldn’t go that far. I know that wasn’t the case but I was possibly the easiest to approach.)
And so the men flocked to me. Well, some of them. And it was mostly quite innocent.
At the after party of Saturday’s costume party, a couple dozen of us gathered in the living room of one of the bungalows and I plopped my chair down in front of a man who simply started massaging me (just my shoulders). Which was fantastic! And then another man decided that he, too, would massage me. And then another. And another.
And at least two men were trailing me like dogs. One asked me, at this after party, to come to his room (he gave me specific instructions) and surprise him. He said he’d have no problem kicking out his roommate. The following morning, he asked me if I had gotten laid, and I said no. He was really shocked how I could have so much male attention and not do anything. But I wasn’t interested (and I think I’ve almost managed to close my relationship again, so why would I muck that up?).
Anyway, what was so interesting about it all was that I had been talking to my therapist about how I think my life would be so much better if I were thin and beautiful. And then I felt like I got to experience it. Ok, still not thin but certainly attractive to many (who were drunk, but I didn’t mind). And what did I learn? I learned that I was right. Life is better when you’re attractive.
My therapist insisted that there was more to it—that the men were flocking to me for other reasons and so I humored him and I talked about this thing that Chris refers to as a “bitch shield,” which is that front that a lot of women put up to keep men they are uninterested in at bay. He has told me that I don’t have this, and he’s right. I am very approachable. I’m quiet, so I have to be approached--I rarely do the approaching. But men who buy me drinks in bars or hit on me on the street will get my attention and a smile.
And so I offered that some of these men at the hash are perhaps used to getting a bitch shield and they flocked to me because I didn’t have one. I offered friendliness. And the relatively small selection of people (120 or so over the course of three days) meant that it was likely that they’d all at least talk to me at one point.
It’s an idea. Whatever it was, I really enjoyed the attention. It was great.
It has been useful to my friendship with Dirk as well. He wants me to visit him in July. I doubt very much that it will happen but he at least had one of those very drunk moments where he told me what a gift I am in his life. I love those moments so much.
And I’ve made a great friend in Kev, who I hope to see at one of the next hash weekends I attend. Hopefully that’ll be some time this year, but it is an expensive hobby to travel around to different countries for these weekends, so we’ll just have to see. Besides, I think it was mostly luck that I happened to be one of the more attractive hashers in the Netherlands. The stars will probably never align like that again.
And since I last fretted about my weight, several weeks ago, I have lost 5.5 pounds. That means that I have 34.5 more to lose, and I have lost 39.5 since what I have recorded as my all-time high. But that’s clinging to weight loss from almost two years ago, so I will focus instead on the 40 pound goal that I set for myself this year, and the 5.5 already lost.
I’m not quite ready to talk about Chris in detail, but I will say that he asked to open our relationship, so that he and I both can sleep with other people. I was not happy about this, and he knows that. Given the no marriage and no children things and now this, it’s hard to justify staying with him. But he has this very clear idea of how he will always have me and that we will be close and in love but he will occasionally sleep with other women who he will treat as mere toys. And they will understand that that’s all they are. This is how every relationship he has ever had has gone. He even lived with and was engaged to another woman, and they were together for four years. Every now and then, they would each go out and fuck other people and that was just like going out for drinks with friends. This is the future he envisions for us.
He bought train tickets today to come here for the Easter weekend. The part of me that is most hurt by all of this wants to give him an amazing time and then dump him so he really feels what he is missing. But I’m having trouble concealing my hurt, and I again told him last night that this may be the end.
He had trouble sleeping, he said, laying awake for hours thinking about how much he doesn’t want to lose me and then waking up again around 4 to think about it some more. I guess he could be lying about that, but I believe him when he tells me how much it hurts him to think about losing me. I think his assessment was that he could ask me for just about anything and I’m weak enough that I’ll comply, even if I’m not happy about it. He now has a glimpse of potential strength and it’s knocked him back slightly.
It won’t close the relationship, though, and I know that. Either I accept it or we break up. But maybe he’ll learn something from this, which is that he can’t have everything.
Also, one of my friends really wants to date me. I mean, REALLY. So leaving Chris doesn’t even mean that I have to be alone, although I’m disgusted to the point that several months of man-hating sounds remarkably appealing. Just in time for spring!
Photos from our last weekend in Vienna:
Chris:
And me with very messy hair:
Also, Chris and I have our five month anniversary today, and I sent him a cheesy email just now, inspired by the latest “This American Life” podcast, romantic love, and my desires to be with him for a long time to come.
Here are two photos from this weekend. The first is us at the Belvedere Palace, and yes, it was very cloudy and gray:
And the second is him with a beer. I love his hair like this. I think he’s going to cut it off this weekend. He’ll be here on Tuesday and I’ll get to inspect the damage:
Anyway, his visit next week will be for 4-5 days, and most of that time will consist of his staying in my apartment and gaming while I’m at work. But we’ll have evenings together as well as Saturday. And I will finally get my loot from Ikea, which is very exciting.
And now there is Scottish Chris who needs a nickname to avoid confusion. I wish I could come up with something clever. For now, he will be The Scotsman. So I chatted with The Scotsman for a couple of hours last night, but it was one of those chats where I would type something and then wait for what seemed like ages for him to respond. So the entire conversation might have been compressed into 20 minutes if not less.
Piecing what he told me into some kind of chronological order, it sounds like he had his surgery last spring to remove the brain tumor. He was still communicating with me at this time, and we were talking about it being over in a couple of months—all of the recovery and whatnot. But they hadn’t removed all of the tumor, which is when, I think, he decided that he was far too sick to be with me—it made him feel guilty, I suppose—and he had to stop communicating with me in order to spare me from a life of taking care of him.
Since then, he has had two more surgeries to remove more of the tumor and has another one scheduled in about a month. And that has been the last ten months of his life, for the most part.
As we were chatting, I was imagining the life with him that I thought I wanted and that might have been—both the ideal in which he is healthy and the alternative in which he spends the rest of his life in and out of hospitals. In that latter version, it’s now hard to see how I could be happy. I thought that being with him would have been enough but I doubt I’m a strong enough person to handle a situation like that. That said, if I were in a relationship for years and my partner became sick, I would do everything I could to take care of him; I just don’t think that The Scotsman and I had built up enough in our brief time together for me to take on such an endeavor.
Selfish, I suppose, but he may have been right.
He told me that he sometimes checks out my Flickr photos and was, I think, amused to see me dating a new Chris. I told him that I would like to have him in my life again, and he made certain that I meant as friends this time. I did.
Maybe he will become like Dirk or Leon, who I talk to every now and again. Or maybe now that I have closure, he will fade away permanently. It’s hard to say at this point, but I guess I don’t have to know that yet.
Friday night, as I brushed my teeth before bed, Chris went into the hall to smoke a cigarette. When he came back, I was lying in bed, and he declared that he had something to tell me. “I may regret this,” he said, “but fuck it. Tonight’s the night.” And then he made his way over to where I was lying, wrapped his arms around me, and said, “I love you.”
“I love you too,” I said and then asked him why he would regret it and he told me something about how he didn’t want to seem weak. I told him that was silly, but I also knew that was how he felt, which is why I didn’t think he’d be the first one to say it. But he was. I was surprisingly willing to wait him out.
In our karaoke box on Saturday night, he said it again, although in the form of “You made me love you.” And then again on Sunday, I brought it up, causing him to say, “Yes, I love you, Katie, and it scares me a bit.” It scares him, he said, because he is capable of having such strong emotions.
He hasn’t had a serious relationship since his last girlfriend broke up with him in the summer of 2007. They were together for four years, and he thought they would spend their lives together. In the end, they wanted different things and she left him. He was heartbroken and unable to even consider having a new relationship until almost a year after their breakup. A couple of months later, he met me.
All along the way, he’s made comments to me about how surprising it is for him to have feelings for someone again and how I’ve made him feel things that he didn’t think he would feel again. He’s even made it clear that he’s reconsidering having children. His very clear stance on not procreating was one of the things that led to the end of his last relationship. There’s the possibility, then, that he’s telling me that he’s considering them simply because he thinks that might make me happy—because he doesn’t want to spoil this in the same way as his last relationship. But he strikes me as far too honest for that.
And if he ultimately decides that he doesn’t want children, that’s ok, of course. That is a decision that is years away and, for now, I’m just basking in his love. I know it sounds corny and difficult to believe, but I really did feel quite magical when he told me that he loves me. Our relationship isn’t even three months old yet and is having plenty of growing pains, but this weekend made me feel like we will be together for a long time to come.
Here we are, looking drunk at karaoke on Saturday:
I know; I'm struggling with my hairstyle. It's still growing out from a mullet. Just leave me alone!
I know we both look really drunk in this photo but we're not. Hungover? Yes. Drunk? No.
And this is totally cheesy but fun. Sigh.
For now, I want to write about one relatively small component of the weekend and of our relationship. That component is love.
Aww.
Actually, it's not so "aww" because neither of us has said it yet. But I'm about 95% certain that he's in love with me, but he doesn't want to be the first to say it. I don't want to be the first to say it either, but for a different reason.
I have been in about five relationships in which the L word was mentioned. In only one of those relationships (with Leon, actually, if you're curious) was I the first to say it. In all the others, I think it came out of the other person's mouth too soon.
In three of those cases, it was viewed as Not A Big Deal, as something completely casual. In the fourth, I knew it was coming because he told me that he had something he wanted to say to me. And it made me uncomfortable. All of these situations made me uncomfortable, because I was not in love with any of them when they first said it. Was I supposed to say it back? Say "thank you"? Smile and nod politely?
What should have been a beautiful moment in our relationship was awkward and uncomfortable and that is why I am waiting with Chris. I will say it when I think he wants to hear it back. Also, I am trying to make sure that it's what I feel for him. I'm generally of the "you just know" opinion when it comes to being in love, but I had very strong feelings about a certain someone not too long ago (gee, who was that?) and, while it was reminiscent of love, it was not actually love.
But I will be the first to say it with Chris, because I know he won't say it first. It has to do with his attempts to be "cool," like I explained in that dog tail wagging analogy a few posts back. And I don't care that I will be first; I'm just pacing myself and ensuring that it will be well received on his end. I'd say all signs point to yes on that one.
He and I have been talking a lot about mature and immature views of relationships, and he thinks I need to grow up a bit in this regard. He's probably right. Anyway, I took this to mean that he thinks I have an immature view of love, so I asked him, when I finally tell him that I love him, will it not mean anything to him because my views of love are immature?
This is when he explained to me that he thinks my views of love are mature; I only need to grow up in terms of relationships.
"Oh, ok," I said.
Silence.
"Why do you ask?" he said. "Is that just a hypothetical question?"
And I explained why I asked and then said yes, it was hypothetical.
"...Oh," he said.
Right before I went with him to the train station yesterday to send him back to Vienna, we were talking about promises--specifically, I asked that he "promise" that he would do something. He joked that he is incapable of forming the words "I promise."
"Ok, sure, whatever" was my response.
Then he asked if there were any other combination of words that I thought he'd never say, and I know he meant "I love you."
I told him no. Because I know that he will eventually say it. After I say it.
And as affectionate, caring, and considerate as he is, I don't care that he hasn't said it yet. We'll get there, possibly when I'm in Vienna two weekends from now.
Here's the only photo from this weekend that I've put on Flickr:
I'll get the rest up soon, but this is possibly my favorite anyway. Well, it's a shit picture of me but he looks great. We went to lunch on Saturday with Amy, and here I am holding Emmy while Chris puts away a quesadilla. I think he's so handsome. Sigh.
But nothing ever seems to work that easily for me. It took me a full hour to get from my work to Amy's--something that shouldn't have taken more than 15-20 minutes. The problem was that there really aren't a whole lot of take out restaurants between my work and her home, so I volunteered to pick up "whatever," which turned out to be a choice between Subway and Thai.
I deemed the Thai to be tastier and also closer, but I still had to take the metro (subway) and then a tram. Which made a simple gesture of picking up dinner into a full on ordeal.
The opening sentence two paragraphs above this nearly read, "But nothing ever seems to work that easily in Prague," but I imagine that, for many people, things are that easy here in Prague. But even though Prague is a relatively small city with great public transportation, I find that I spend far too much time getting from place to place. It can be good exercise and a great way to keep up on my myriad podcasts, but it's also a huge social deterrence--often I have to ask myself if I would rather spend 45 minutes traveling to another part of the city (and an hour coming back, because public transit isn't as available later into the evening) to meet friends or stay in? As the weather gets shitty, I'll be staying in. And so will Caroline, as I already noted about her winter hibernation schedule.
Maybe having a boyfriend will keep me social this season. We shall see.
Anyway, after an hour rushing about the city, a delightful evening was had. Here's Amy and her daughter Emmy:
By Saturday afternoon, the sore throat was front and center and, that evening, my tonsils were so swollen that I could barely swallow water. Not that it was a near physical impossibility but it was excruciating. I was up in the middle of the night to blow massive amounts of snot out of my nose and take a couple of ibuprofen for my general achiness. But I had to psych myself up to simply take a few sips of water so getting the pills down was a nightmare.
I really wonder if my tonsils should come out. I kept going to the bathroom mirror to stare at those massive lumps in the back of my throat and thinking that life would be wonderful again if only they were gone.
As for the other things that are memorable about the weekend, one big thing overshadows everything else. I’m not going to discuss it in detail here; suffice to say that I did something really stupid and embarrassing. So embarrassing was it that I thought I might have to chuck my budding relationship with Chris in an attempt to erase that horrible thing from memory and, hopefully, existence.
He thought I was overreacting, which he seemed to find endearing but silly. And so he tried to tease me about this stupid, embarrassing thing, but that almost never works with me. He told me that I would be laughing about it the next day. Nope, didn’t happen.
On the one hand, this might be an advantage to dating Chris--we all know I take myself far too seriously and it might be good to be around someone who can look me in the eye and tell me that whatever is bothering me really isn’t such a big damn deal.
But on the other hand, it’s not as if I haven’t had this before. And maybe it would be better to be with someone who understands why I take myself so seriously rather than someone who thinks it’s silly (even if he’s right).
But his reaction isn’t the big deal to me; the big deal is the initial embarrassment. And I still want to melt through the cracks of the floor when I think about what I did. Ugh.
Other than that and being sick, it was a nice weekend. Chris is very easy to be around and he feels the same about me. He keeps remarking on how easy I am to talk to, and I feel that way about him. We’ve had a few awkward silences, but they are few and they are bound to happen with someone who is as quiet as I usually am.
Our current plan is to get together the weekend of October 10-12 with him, ideally, coming to Prague, but we don’t yet know how that will work out. And then he wants me to take a few days off of work at the end of October to visit the part of Austria where his parents live and meet them. We'd also spend some time in Vienna and there was talk of a Czech leg to this trip but I think that might be overkill.
Anyway, he's very affectionate and sweet, and I quite like him. He tells me all the time that he likes me very much, and, on Sunday, as we were sitting in the sun by the Danube Channel, he told me that he has feelings for me. It felt like the "L" word was about to pop out of his mouth, but it didn't come. We've only known each other for a few weeks, so there's no need to rush it. It just felt so appropriate.
Anyway, here is Chris for those of you who haven't already glimpsed him on Facebook:
Anyway, I was rather disappointed with the way things transpired on Thursday. I felt like he really didn't want to talk to me. I was trying to talk to him about his job, because the last time I saw him, he was upset about a feud with a coworker. So I tried to talk to him about it at least three or four times, and each time, he gave me some kind of yeah-it's-fine answer and tried to kiss me.
Finally, after the fourth time that I tried to ask, he said, "I really don't want to talk about work."
Which meant that he didn't want to talk about anything. He just wanted to kiss me, and I found that insulting. (Maybe I'm looking to be insulted, though. We hadn't seen each other in three weeks, and he missed kissing me. I missed talking to him. That doesn't make him flawed, just different.)
[Confidential aside to Leon: I know what you're thinking, and that is sort of on hold for about six weeks, pending some shit getting sorted out. Email or Skype me for details.]
Anyway, normally the day after David and I have a date or a meeting or whatever you want to call it, I email him to say that I had a nice time or to clarify things that I think I didn't state well or to ask him questions that popped up after the fact. But I didn't do that on Friday, so, Saturday morning, I woke up to this:
Hi Kate,
Thanks for coming on Thursday, it was nice to see you after quite a long time.
I would like to see you more often, but like you said, there are other people in the picture, and I try to give time to everyone when I can. I am meeting more and more people in what are still my first few months in Prague.
And what happened to the post meeting long email?? ;))
Have a great week end.
David.
I have been thinking all day about how to respond to that, and I am writing this entry now because I have stopped in the middle of writing my response to ponder it some more.
Am I reading way too far into that or does that not sound like a giant blow off? It's like saying, "I know we haven't seen each other very much lately but I have other girlfriends and I have to make sure I devote some time to them too."
Fuckin' hell.
In his mind, he's probably just saying, "Good to see you after so long. I'm super busy but making time for you when I can." Possibly the same mentality that thought that after not seeing him for so long, I'd rather kiss him than talk to him. Little does he know.
Oh, and I'm posting a picture of him because I care so much about you, my dear readers. I would've sooner, but I've not taken a picture of him and posting one requires me to gank one from his Facebook, which feels very stalkerish. But, whatever. I stalk for you, LiveJournal friends. It's all for you.
And since you haven't seen me in several months, this is from my recent trip to Germany. But, really, you can always find pictures of me on Facebook and Flickr:
Anyway, we’re friends. I haven’t told him much about Chris (who, by the way, I last heard from on May 2nd and everything seemed positive), but he knows that he exists and that I am Chris’s girlfriend, i.e., attached and unavailable.
Kosta calls me “Fluff” or “Fluffio,” which has something to do with the down of a newly hatched chick. I remind him of this. I think this is because I have a soft and gentle personality (ha!), but when he was explaining it to me, he made reference to fluffy dandelions, which he said are big but made up of soft, little parts. “Aha!” I said. “So this is because I’m big!” And he laughed at my omnipresent weight sensitivity and my inability to understand my new nickname.
I took him to the hash with me yesterday, and he stopped by my apartment before we headed out. The night before, there had been a misunderstanding and he left early—he and I were going to have dinner with Caroline, Caroline’s visiting sister Amy, and Caroline’s flatmate Adrian and then go to a gay club but Amy didn’t like the idea of Kosta going to the gay club so Kosta ended up leaving before dinner. So, when Kosta arrived at my apartment, we had to have one of those uncomfortable conversations where he explained why he left and I apologized for any insensitivity on my part, and we ended this conversation with a hug.
“I love you,” he said.
And I freaked out.
“No, you don’t,” I said. And, “You barely know me.”
He didn’t respond, so I kept going. “I mean, how can you love me when you’ve only known me for a little while?”
He laughed. “I didn’t say ‘I love you.’ I said, ‘Fluffio.’”
“…Oh.”
I think my cheeks were red the rest of the day.
Anyway, after the hash, Kosta and I had a serious discussion in which I reiterated that I am in a relationship (with someone else) and that I don’t see myself dating Kosta. I felt it needed to be said, but he was very hurt and went home a few minutes later. I texted him and later called, but he didn’t respond. We’ll see what happens, I guess.
That’s Kosta. I guess I still owe everyone a picture of Chris.
It had to be one of the most awkward introductions I've ever had, and, given how awkward my interactions with others always are, that's really saying something.
The main reason that it was so awkward was because he doesn't speak a word of English, and the only thing I can say in Arabic is, "Hello, my love." (Well, what would I need to say?) Given that, we could do nothing but look at each other, which? Awkward.
He said something to Fouad's friend who was also present for the webcam chat, and Fouad's friend translated it for me. "Mohammad says you are very nice, Kate."
I wasn't sure how to take that. It didn't sound like a compliment, and I should know because many of Fouad's friends have told me that I am "beautiful," which is just their way of flattering Fouad and being polite.
But when Mohammad said that I am "very nice," I could only think that it was his way of politely saying, "Ha ha! My brother is dating a fatty!"
But I tend to be a bit oversensitive.
Anyway, Mohammad is just a wee babe of twenty, and he's Fouad's only brother. Fouad also has four sisters, two of whom I've spoken with on the phone. One of those conversations lasted less than a minute, and my half of the conversation was in English while hers was in French. But the second conversation, with his youngest sister Mariem, was a success.
I think Mariem has the best education in Fouad's family and therefore speaks the best English. She's 22 and still attending university.
But, really, this entire post was just a reason for me to show you a picture of Mohammad, who I think is cute as a button! Also present in this photo: Fouad's sister Nassima (in the hijab), two of Nassima's daughters (far left and far right), and Fouad's sister Ouahiba's (spelling approximated) daughter in the middle:
Aren't they a beautiful family?
- Music:Hellogoodbye - "Baby, It's Fact"
Not great, but I still had fun. I plan to go back, but I might wait until it's a bit warmer. There's a special Thanksgiving hash weekend here in Prague, but I'm not
Well, maybe.
Anyway, my favorite part was seeing and petting this very friendly donkey, who ran to greet Caroline and Jirka when they set the trail.
We picked a couple of apples to feed to him, which we hope was okay.
And then Caroline learned that the fence was electrified. Oops!
(Don't worry; she's fine, and all is well.
- Music:The Decemberists - "The Tain Part III"
He's about to finish his sixth month of asylum here in the Czech Republic, and, because the situation in Algeria isn't that bad (it's certainly no Iraq), it's quite likely that his days are numbered.
Now, let's be clear about this. I don't think that he's on his last week or that he'll be shipped out tonight--I think he could easily have another six months, but the point is that his time is not unlimited, and his number one priority since arriving here has been to avoid the inevitable return to Algeria. The easiest way to ensure he can stay in Europe? Marry a European.
...Or marry an American who just happens to be living abroad.
But I have no intentions of remarrying so soon, and I don't think Fouad knows this. More than once in the last week, he has said that if I don't want to marry him, I should tell him and he will "go." As in, break up with me and find a new girlfriend who wants to get married.
I haven't known how to respond to this, and so I haven't said anything. But I have suggested a couple of times in the last week that we break up. Specifically, I have told him that I think he'd be happier with someone else and that maybe we should part ways. Unsurprisingly, he is not in favor of this.
I wonder what he'd say if I just told him the truth.
You know, it's not unlike the situation with the British guy from two weeks ago: I think I'm sparing someone's feelings by not outright rejecting him, but, in reality, it would be much kinder to just say no.
Of course, there is a selfish aspect to all of this with Fouad. I do really like him, and I think he is a good person. He's very sweet, and I know he loves me and cares about me, just as I love and care about him. It's quite nice having him in my life.
But as my boyfriend. Not my husband.
I really have to tell him that this is my intent; otherwise, I am not being fair.
...But, on a slightly lighter note, if we break up, who will take pictures of me in shopping malls?!
- Music:Queen - "Bohemian Rhapsody"
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