I have had so many conversations the last while where I felt all I was doing was shoving my foot further and further down my throat. That is, if people were looking for meaning in what I was saying, it would seem as though that was the case. Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be so, or the person(s) in question isn’t/aren’t reading my words that way, so that’s good.

I promise, sometimes I’m just honestly stupid.

I got my thesis proposal submitted with a medium of fuss and bother. I was up until 5 a.m. the night before it was due finalizing it, and I can blame Moose and myself for a good part of that. I love when people don’t listen to or don’t respect me saying ‘I’m busy.’ I also love that I’m not often strong-willed enough to say something like that and make it stick. I suck.

Of course, sometimes I play mean and feel as though I’m coming off as a complete and utter bitch. Case in point, the Christmas dinner I took the reins of for my friends and I this year. I ignored the feeble protests about location and chose a restaurant downtown, because it was better than having everyone drive out to the west end, then backwards to the south-east end. Now I did have to change the restaurant, but that was because the original one couldn’t completely accommodate us. No complaints.

The fun part however is asking everyone to contribute to the table d’hote. Yes, having a table d’hote can be frustrating because of all the different taste preferences and so on, but at some point I’m going to have to rein things in again and set forth food options and make people privately bitch and moan about me. :) As it is, I think there are some five or six dishes that have been chosen for the entrees, which isn’t going to work (we’re limited to four). I don’t know, whenever stuff like this gets planned, I usually try to keep my mouth shut on anything unless I have a conflict or a really strong preference. Since I’m planning it, for example, I’ve chosen gnocchi as one of the entrees. Hah! If I weren’t planning it, I’d probably be saying, “I like gnocchi, but I also like Italian, so I’ll probably be okay with whatever’s there, so long as there’s a non-cream based food or non-seafood option.” Which is possibly stressful in and of itself. *shrug*

Ah well, it’s probably the least stressful thing in my life right now, so I’m not overly complaining. Much. :)

I do still have a paper hanging over my head, but I’m likely going to be using this weekend to write it, since I don’t seem to be doing much work on it so far this week. Tonight is a new episode of Gilmore Girls that might finally deal in some way with the Luke-Lorelei storyline more than just a brief scene here and there, and I have a movie I rented this weekend that I still haven’t watched yet.

I did rent “Love me if you dare” (Jeux d’enfants), which wasn’t a bad film until the ending, which pissed me off because it had one of those grand romantic bullshit gestures that if it were to take place in real life would make me want to go beat the crap out of my friends/relatives/whomever for being so ridiculously stupid. Then again, maybe I just haven’t been in love so strongly that I would… no, I’m not going to ruin it, and I’m never going to be that asinine.

I didn’t sleep very well on Sunday at all for no discernible reason. Maybe I was too warm, but that didn’t seem to be the only contributing factor. I made it through the day and thought I was doing okay, but I went to bed early and overslept this morning (9.5 hours in all!), so obviously I was in need.

It’s funny how sometimes when I try to talk about my friends to other people who don’t know them, they question how person x or person y can actually be my friend. Or they say they aren’t really friends of mine, and in some cases, I have to agree. For example, I know someone who is in a relationship with someone who is married. The people know one another, this is an open issue and is not in questionable circumstances, and I respect that and do not cast judgement. I only know the ‘outsider’ to the couple (i.e., the one who is not married), but have seen photos of them together. The other half of the married couple is also dating outside of their marriage – again, with the full knowledge and consent of the espoused.

This is not the first open arrangement to which I have been exposed, and I recognize that while I do not think it could work for me, it does for many people, and as such, I do not judge. Even if I did judge, I recognize that it has absolutely no bearing on my life, so who cares if I approve or not?

That said, there are circumstances in which the outsider I know feels that s/he may be getting too emotionally involved with the married person, and that s/he doesn’t feel there is a future to this entanglement, and it is not the ideal situation for her/him, so that can be problematic. However, again, not my life, not my relationships, not my problem.

The frustrating thing about this outsider is that s/he is judging me and my carryings-on. S/he feels that because I have no problems meeting people for a casual coffee (which is now immeasurably linked in my head to a euphemism, thanks to a coworker of mine) while I might be dating someone, that I am looking for something more. S/he has said that s/he thinks I am jumping from boy to boy; never mind that s/he doesn’t know the boys I date (minus one), and that s/he doesn’t know the circumstances under which I either a) start dating a given boy, or b) break up with a given boy, beyond what I might happen to share. And even at that, I don’t usually share the full story with her/him, because I know how talk spreads.

In one scenario I can think of, I was commuting home with this outsider and a few colleagues. I was talking very generally about relationships and meeting boys, and the outsider pointed out that I was seeing someone (fortunately for me, because I’d almost forgotten and all). I said that I was aware of that, and that I hadn’t spoken to that person in nearly two weeks. Outsider semi-pointedly asked me if my phone was broken, to which I replied that no, it wasn’t, and that I had called and left a message a few days prior, and that the boy also had contact numbers for me, could call me at any time, etc. While I accept my share of the responsibility in a relationship, I’m not the only one in said relationship, and as such, should not and will not bear the blame for situations such as those.

Fortunately my colleague supported me both there and the following day (when the outsider wasn’t present), and the outsider later semi-apologized for being a bit harsh in her/his comments.

Regardless, no one but me knows the dating history I have experienced. Even friends or relatives who have known me while I’ve been dating various boys or have been friends with various boys or even just liked them, don’t know how things are between that boy and I, except for me and that boy (oh, how I murdered that sentence). Even the boy may not realize how he was treating me while we were dating – do you think UBFM feels that he was abusive towards me? Do you think Boys X and Y feel they were passive-aggressive towards me? Do you think the Boy X feels that he was immature and unreasonable? Do you think the coworker feels he has a victim complex, and used me and my (admittedly not-pure) actions to feed into that?

Do you think anyone knows of these issues if I don’t talk about them?

Because realistically, there’s a lot I don’t put on this site for a multitude of reasons. There’s a lot I don’t tell my friends or family about boys I’m dating. So no, I don’t think that it’s fair of outsider to cast judgement on me and my actions, and I do my best to either stop her/him from telling them to me, or explain what’s going on.

Such as (and this ties into a conversation I had with Moose this weekend), if you are seeing someone, and there has not been an “I want to be exclusive/yes, me too” conversation, then you are not inherently tied to that sole person. I personally feel that when you are being physical to whatever extent together – if clothes are starting to come off, especially on a regular basis – there is a line that starts being drawn, but even that isn’t entirely fixed in stone.

Before I started seeing the Smooshy, I was seeing three different boys. One had hugged me, the others and I had had make-out sessions. One of those was talking dirty to me and trying to get me to grab his dick (on our first date), and the other was trying to get me to sleep with him on our third date. I passed on both opportunities. The Smooshy and I hit it off immediately, and I called the other boys and said I couldn’t see them anymore. Problems solved. He was in similar circumstances, though I don’t know how physical he had gotten with any of them, and he did the same thing. Because I hadn’t had any “We’re exclusive? Yes we are!” conversations with the other boys, I didn’t feel guilty in the least about dating them at the same time. If something had progressed with one of those three, I’d have called off the others.

But that doesn’t mean that when I’m dating and haven’t had an exclusive conversation with someone that I’m automatically seeing other people, either. There are times that I don’t have the energy or wherewithal to go out looking for other boys, or I haven’t met any, or I simply like the one I’m seeing and don’t want to go out looking. But that doesn’t mean that I won’t stop chatting with people, or possibly meeting them for coffee or whatnot. It simply means that I let them know upfront there isn’t going to be anything romantic progressing from said meeting. Outsider was saying that s/he has enough friends, so doesn’t go looking for more in circumstances such as the ones I’m describing. I simply said that I’d been speaking to two boys for awhile, enjoyed chatting with them and had nothing against meeting face-to-face. While outsider may feel that s/he has plenty of friends and doesn’t need to cultivate more, and I have my moments of feeling the same way, I like meeting new people, and I find that it helps me overcome much of my shyness.

Plus, it helps me practice my skills at talking non-stop or damn near for an hour at a time.

So yes, colleagues of mine have enjoyed pointing out that outsider has no right to judge me (I agree), and that s/he is no friend of mine and so on. I have another colleague I’ve spoken to about his/her romantic tribulations, and I have expressed advice and opinions (at his/her request), and have my thoughts on the matter, but it’s not my life, I only know that which s/he shares, and the circumstances are not necessarily as I picture them. It’s a shame more people can’t do the same. Mind you, I’m used to being judged; I’ve lived with it my whole life.

It would be nice though, if I could stop getting flat pop out of the vending machine downstairs. This makes two in a row, and I’m unhappy about it.

How’ve you been?