INTRODUCTION
So, given that Blaise has a certain AAnonymous group that she's been in since last fall, it goes to say that she's got issues that she's still dealing with. Additionally, there are personal issues that make it more difficult for her on a day-to-day basis. I've been there for her many times -- to listen to her talk about her issues, and to help make sure she says on the path to continuing recovery. Mostly because I cared about what happened to her, but also because I have feelings for her that go beyond friendship.
It consumes me from time to time. It is a symptom that I think most guys have when it comes to lusting versus loving someone. I've been trying to sort those feelings out, and I am not quite out of those woods yet. Go figure, that while I am improving my phyisical body, my mental body needs to grow up as well. The past 5 months have been a rollercoaster ride for me when it comes to being (dealing) with her. For the most part, I say that it's because I have loving feelings for her.
Blaise has this issue of stressing out and getting hyper-sensitive to other's moods and personality changes. Talk about having to have a poker face all the time -- the slightest change in vocal pattern, speech cadence, or stance, and she's all over me with "what's wrong", "why are you acting funny", and "what's up" type questioning. I have a the worse poker face / physical signs of mood changes. Damn you feminine side!
PART ONE
So, I decide to take her out on a date of sorts. It was free VIP tickets to a concert, which included dinner and decent seats to see a formerly famous country singer perform. I thought that since she liked Country music, this would be a little treat for her. The group we were supposed to go with turned out to back out completely, leaving just her and I to go it alone. It was a close venue and the food was prepared by a locally good fine dining restaurant. I figured, it'll still be good, we'll have fun.
As the date approaches, I remind her (as she asked me to in the past) about the weekend, to make sure that she keeps the day and time on the radar. I don't want to show up too late for the dinner. It's not like I'll be missing much in the way of food since I have a limited digestive path, but I was told by the season ticket holder to get there by 6:00 pm. So I figure, he's probably got the best opinion on when to show.
Now for a bit of a back story... There is a guy, I'll call him Harris, who I first heard mentioned from the mouth of Blaise about two months ago. It was a name drop, having to do with a female friend of Blaise named Cheri. Cheri is a bit of a maniacal personality, and so during a conversation about the various AAnonymous meetings they went to, Harris' name popped up. Again, since it was all wrapped up in a story about Cheri, I thought it was just another person Blaise dealt / worked with during the meetings.
Back to the main story... I have a bit of an issue getting myself ready to go to the concert. The problem is I am not sure what to wear. I just bought two outfits the previous day, and also just donated most of my clothes to the Salvation Army because of my weight loss. So, after much hemming and hawing over what to wear, I call her and ask what she is going to wear. I figure since it's a VIP thing, that dressing casual slacks and nice button down shirt is more appropo, compared to Khaki shorts and tee-shirt.
It turns out that the pants I opted to wear don't work well when I am seated. The pants ride up my legs, and tighten at the calves, and have this pinching effect on my crotchical area, pretty much cutting off circulation to my hips. This suddenly made me very uncomfortable and I had constant flashbacks to being overweight and wearing new pants back then that fit me barely, and caused similar pain.
Because of the lateness of time, I don't turn around to switch pants, and just leave with the nagging feeling of the old fat days sweeping in and out of my mind. I spend the 20 minute drive to her temporary home, the whole time thinking about how bad the pants fit, and how much they grab the legs tight and the hips are squeezing. Meanwhile, I'm escorting a dog for Blaise, as she had asked me earlier to watch the dog while she spent the afternoon with her mother.
I pull up at 5:15 and she's not there. The house mate for the owner is there, and so I stop in to drop off the dog. I decide to get a push broom from the open garage and sweep up the front driveway while waiting for her. It's my way to relax, and help me think clearer and calm down from focusing on the various nagging issues at hand. No sooner than I make it around the first tree of the driveway, she shows up... immediately asking me what I'm doing. I feel a bit foolish, but explain that it's relaxing me. Blaise replies with, "we'll you should do his back porch instead."
I look at my watch and see it's 5:30. I think nothing of it since she said she had to stop over at her main residence to pick up a couple outfits to change into for the night's plans. She was also at her Mother's house that day, and so it was no doubt just part of the equation for the late return. I was concerned for the lateness of time since the ticket holder said you should be there by 6:00... and it's 15 miles away, and we're not anywhere close to leaving.
We enter the house, and she proceeds to show me what outfits she's considering. I suggest going for a more classy look vs. the country bumpkin style she was opting. Her cowboy boots and Daisy Duke shorts just seemed to slutty for the night. She looked sharp in her black outfit, and within 15 minutes we were on the road... and I was a bit preterbed by the fact that we were leaving at 6:00 pm.
The entire time, I was showing signs of being annoyed by things. She was reacting to my curt attitude and she was also recipricating that distancing and curt act I was exhibiting. I drove aggressively from the house to the concert venue, and on the way, she had me stop off to pick up an energy drink because she was exhausted, AS USUAL. She left any sort of money at home, so it was old school dating for the night.
To cap the moment off, my father ends up calling me for a really goofy technical support reason. The printer would not turn on, and he was not certain why. I started trouble-shooting the situation with him, he put the phone down and went about trying to resolve it based on my instructions. In the meantime, the call dropped. I hung up the phone and he never called back. She was inquisitive as to why I was rude with my father on the phone. I explained that the call dropped, but I suspect that for Blaise it was not a good enough answer.
Then we arrive. I pull up to the VIP parking lot and park the car. We then start walking towards the gate. On the way ,we get a bit of an escorted golf cart ride to the gate. My father calls back again, and he starts talking about the situation, and I cut him off so that I can deal with the VIP ticket takers, just to make sure I don't miss any instructions. Plus it's a bit rude to the people around you to be blabbing on the phone and dealing with a physical moment issue.
We get inside rather quickly and ask where the food pavilion is. It turns out that the eating area for VIP dinner services is down a innocuous hallway. At the doorway of the pavilion, they read our tickets and give us wrist bands for the meal. I'm still a bit stiff from the whole late arrival, and the "expecting the unknown" situation I was in that Blaise was still off-put by my behavior.
Well, the dinner was buffet style, and drinks cost out of pocket. I figured that the bar was pay as you drink, but non-alcoholic drinks would be covered... but I was wrong. So, I fork over $6 for drinks plus a buck for a tip. We then head up to the "awesome" buffet. It happened to be consisting of solely things I cannot digest well. "Fuck it," I mumbled to myself as I took a plate of food that I knew I would barely touch.
I return to the table rather quickly since the food selection was quite limited. She returned a few minutes later making a snarky comment about how I must be really hungry because of my mad dash to the table. I really didn't want to go in to great details with her about things, so I gave a terse response of, "not a lot of choice there," and left it at that.
Our meal was punctuated with me letting her know that I didn't eat all afternoon for this dinner, and it turns out that it's not agreeing with my stomach. It was obvious that she couldn't really care about this. Oh well... I left it at that still stewing over the situation leading up to this moment. I have a hard time letting go of things -- when something bothers me, it usually consumes my energy and time as I continue to pick on that mental scab of botheringness.
I put the plate aside, and she heads off to the bathroom. It takes 5 minutes or so for her to go to the bathroom and do her thing. When she returned, she said I need to drop the attitude and act more relaxed. She was right, but I had this nagging feeling that I had to shake off first. I decide to take my vitamin and calcium pills and one of the pain pills I was perscribed for the pain in my neck that came back. I started to calm down more, and actually raised a smile.
I ordered her a coffee and she headed off to the dessert table. When she returned, the coffee still hadn't arrived, so I went to the bar and picked it up. I returned to the table and we started small talk which eased the moment, and I started feeling good about being there. She had to go something like three times this particular evening, so it's just something to was worth noting. I didn't put to much thought into it at the time. But it played as a key bit of useful trivia later on that night. This is all leading up to something, don't worry dear readers.
Eventually, we make our way to the concert area, and decide to get some soda and popcorn before entering the venue. She's looking good and I'm starting to feel the stress of my neck pain going away; so far so good. It seems that this evening might still be salvaged. We enter the pavilion for the concert, and locate our seats. As we wind our way to the final sitting area, the first band shows up on stage.
I put my arm around the back of her chair and enjoy the relaxing moment. The band starts up and then kicks two fucking beach balls into the audience. It's cute at first, but quickly turns into an annoying distraction. Trying to watch the show while keeping an eye on not getting struck by one of the two balls. Meanwhile, I'm trying to create a romantic moment or at least cuddle a bit, and she starts getting all pissy about me being grabby. I'm a bit dumbstruck by her blatent burst of aggression. She also says that the active beachball watch is annoying her as well. She leaves for a smoke and I follow along.
While out there, I pick up another popcorn, and a hot pretzel. She goes to the bathroom again, and is gone for a good 5 minutes. I stand idley by as she does her business. When she returns, we get back to the show. We're waiting for the main act to start the show and she decides to leave to get one last smoke in. I stay at the seats and watch the activity on stage.
Just then, two people show up next to me where Blaise was standing and starts dancing to the intro music. I tell the portly people that there is someone who's coming back sitting in the seat that they are standing in front of. Eventually, I scoot over a seat and save my seatspace for Blaise. When she returns, we opt to sit over by the end of the row, away from the new arrivals and the screechy set of ladies who sat to our left.
We stood through about five songs before she said, we'll I've had enough, and I offered us a chance to head out early. She jumped on it and mentioned maybe stopping over at Harris' place on the way home because of some AAnonymous party he was hosting. I tossed the idea around and said, sure thing... what the fuck... I've never met anyone from the other half of her life, so this might be a great chance to meet them.
On the way out of the park, she says she needs cigarettes, and in all honesty, I need a few gallons of gas in the tank. We stop off at a Sunoco station to get those items, and I mention perhaps we get coffee at Speedway on the way to Harris' house. She likes the idea and off we drive towards his house with a quick stop at Speedway. This brief visit at the gas station was longer than I expected, but we did get coffee, and I updated my Speedy Rewards account details.
As we leave the location, I decide to take the surface streets to get from there to hi house. The reason being it's just about as much time as it would be to sit at lights and deal with merging traffic, then getting off the expressway and backtracking two miles to his home. As I go, she starts to bitch about it. I said, don't worry, we'll get there.
As the date approaches, I remind her (as she asked me to in the past) about the weekend, to make sure that she keeps the day and time on the radar. I don't want to show up too late for the dinner. It's not like I'll be missing much in the way of food since I have a limited digestive path, but I was told by the season ticket holder to get there by 6:00 pm. So I figure, he's probably got the best opinion on when to show.
Now for a bit of a back story... There is a guy, I'll call him Harris, who I first heard mentioned from the mouth of Blaise about two months ago. It was a name drop, having to do with a female friend of Blaise named Cheri. Cheri is a bit of a maniacal personality, and so during a conversation about the various AAnonymous meetings they went to, Harris' name popped up. Again, since it was all wrapped up in a story about Cheri, I thought it was just another person Blaise dealt / worked with during the meetings.
Back to the main story... I have a bit of an issue getting myself ready to go to the concert. The problem is I am not sure what to wear. I just bought two outfits the previous day, and also just donated most of my clothes to the Salvation Army because of my weight loss. So, after much hemming and hawing over what to wear, I call her and ask what she is going to wear. I figure since it's a VIP thing, that dressing casual slacks and nice button down shirt is more appropo, compared to Khaki shorts and tee-shirt.
It turns out that the pants I opted to wear don't work well when I am seated. The pants ride up my legs, and tighten at the calves, and have this pinching effect on my crotchical area, pretty much cutting off circulation to my hips. This suddenly made me very uncomfortable and I had constant flashbacks to being overweight and wearing new pants back then that fit me barely, and caused similar pain.
Because of the lateness of time, I don't turn around to switch pants, and just leave with the nagging feeling of the old fat days sweeping in and out of my mind. I spend the 20 minute drive to her temporary home, the whole time thinking about how bad the pants fit, and how much they grab the legs tight and the hips are squeezing. Meanwhile, I'm escorting a dog for Blaise, as she had asked me earlier to watch the dog while she spent the afternoon with her mother.
I pull up at 5:15 and she's not there. The house mate for the owner is there, and so I stop in to drop off the dog. I decide to get a push broom from the open garage and sweep up the front driveway while waiting for her. It's my way to relax, and help me think clearer and calm down from focusing on the various nagging issues at hand. No sooner than I make it around the first tree of the driveway, she shows up... immediately asking me what I'm doing. I feel a bit foolish, but explain that it's relaxing me. Blaise replies with, "we'll you should do his back porch instead."
I look at my watch and see it's 5:30. I think nothing of it since she said she had to stop over at her main residence to pick up a couple outfits to change into for the night's plans. She was also at her Mother's house that day, and so it was no doubt just part of the equation for the late return. I was concerned for the lateness of time since the ticket holder said you should be there by 6:00... and it's 15 miles away, and we're not anywhere close to leaving.
We enter the house, and she proceeds to show me what outfits she's considering. I suggest going for a more classy look vs. the country bumpkin style she was opting. Her cowboy boots and Daisy Duke shorts just seemed to slutty for the night. She looked sharp in her black outfit, and within 15 minutes we were on the road... and I was a bit preterbed by the fact that we were leaving at 6:00 pm.
The entire time, I was showing signs of being annoyed by things. She was reacting to my curt attitude and she was also recipricating that distancing and curt act I was exhibiting. I drove aggressively from the house to the concert venue, and on the way, she had me stop off to pick up an energy drink because she was exhausted, AS USUAL. She left any sort of money at home, so it was old school dating for the night.
To cap the moment off, my father ends up calling me for a really goofy technical support reason. The printer would not turn on, and he was not certain why. I started trouble-shooting the situation with him, he put the phone down and went about trying to resolve it based on my instructions. In the meantime, the call dropped. I hung up the phone and he never called back. She was inquisitive as to why I was rude with my father on the phone. I explained that the call dropped, but I suspect that for Blaise it was not a good enough answer.
Then we arrive. I pull up to the VIP parking lot and park the car. We then start walking towards the gate. On the way ,we get a bit of an escorted golf cart ride to the gate. My father calls back again, and he starts talking about the situation, and I cut him off so that I can deal with the VIP ticket takers, just to make sure I don't miss any instructions. Plus it's a bit rude to the people around you to be blabbing on the phone and dealing with a physical moment issue.
We get inside rather quickly and ask where the food pavilion is. It turns out that the eating area for VIP dinner services is down a innocuous hallway. At the doorway of the pavilion, they read our tickets and give us wrist bands for the meal. I'm still a bit stiff from the whole late arrival, and the "expecting the unknown" situation I was in that Blaise was still off-put by my behavior.
Well, the dinner was buffet style, and drinks cost out of pocket. I figured that the bar was pay as you drink, but non-alcoholic drinks would be covered... but I was wrong. So, I fork over $6 for drinks plus a buck for a tip. We then head up to the "awesome" buffet. It happened to be consisting of solely things I cannot digest well. "Fuck it," I mumbled to myself as I took a plate of food that I knew I would barely touch.
I return to the table rather quickly since the food selection was quite limited. She returned a few minutes later making a snarky comment about how I must be really hungry because of my mad dash to the table. I really didn't want to go in to great details with her about things, so I gave a terse response of, "not a lot of choice there," and left it at that.
Our meal was punctuated with me letting her know that I didn't eat all afternoon for this dinner, and it turns out that it's not agreeing with my stomach. It was obvious that she couldn't really care about this. Oh well... I left it at that still stewing over the situation leading up to this moment. I have a hard time letting go of things -- when something bothers me, it usually consumes my energy and time as I continue to pick on that mental scab of botheringness.
I put the plate aside, and she heads off to the bathroom. It takes 5 minutes or so for her to go to the bathroom and do her thing. When she returned, she said I need to drop the attitude and act more relaxed. She was right, but I had this nagging feeling that I had to shake off first. I decide to take my vitamin and calcium pills and one of the pain pills I was perscribed for the pain in my neck that came back. I started to calm down more, and actually raised a smile.
I ordered her a coffee and she headed off to the dessert table. When she returned, the coffee still hadn't arrived, so I went to the bar and picked it up. I returned to the table and we started small talk which eased the moment, and I started feeling good about being there. She had to go something like three times this particular evening, so it's just something to was worth noting. I didn't put to much thought into it at the time. But it played as a key bit of useful trivia later on that night. This is all leading up to something, don't worry dear readers.
Eventually, we make our way to the concert area, and decide to get some soda and popcorn before entering the venue. She's looking good and I'm starting to feel the stress of my neck pain going away; so far so good. It seems that this evening might still be salvaged. We enter the pavilion for the concert, and locate our seats. As we wind our way to the final sitting area, the first band shows up on stage.
I put my arm around the back of her chair and enjoy the relaxing moment. The band starts up and then kicks two fucking beach balls into the audience. It's cute at first, but quickly turns into an annoying distraction. Trying to watch the show while keeping an eye on not getting struck by one of the two balls. Meanwhile, I'm trying to create a romantic moment or at least cuddle a bit, and she starts getting all pissy about me being grabby. I'm a bit dumbstruck by her blatent burst of aggression. She also says that the active beachball watch is annoying her as well. She leaves for a smoke and I follow along.
While out there, I pick up another popcorn, and a hot pretzel. She goes to the bathroom again, and is gone for a good 5 minutes. I stand idley by as she does her business. When she returns, we get back to the show. We're waiting for the main act to start the show and she decides to leave to get one last smoke in. I stay at the seats and watch the activity on stage.
Just then, two people show up next to me where Blaise was standing and starts dancing to the intro music. I tell the portly people that there is someone who's coming back sitting in the seat that they are standing in front of. Eventually, I scoot over a seat and save my seatspace for Blaise. When she returns, we opt to sit over by the end of the row, away from the new arrivals and the screechy set of ladies who sat to our left.
We stood through about five songs before she said, we'll I've had enough, and I offered us a chance to head out early. She jumped on it and mentioned maybe stopping over at Harris' place on the way home because of some AAnonymous party he was hosting. I tossed the idea around and said, sure thing... what the fuck... I've never met anyone from the other half of her life, so this might be a great chance to meet them.
On the way out of the park, she says she needs cigarettes, and in all honesty, I need a few gallons of gas in the tank. We stop off at a Sunoco station to get those items, and I mention perhaps we get coffee at Speedway on the way to Harris' house. She likes the idea and off we drive towards his house with a quick stop at Speedway. This brief visit at the gas station was longer than I expected, but we did get coffee, and I updated my Speedy Rewards account details.
As we leave the location, I decide to take the surface streets to get from there to hi house. The reason being it's just about as much time as it would be to sit at lights and deal with merging traffic, then getting off the expressway and backtracking two miles to his home. As I go, she starts to bitch about it. I said, don't worry, we'll get there.
I'm driving a little too fast, but the road is clear of traffic and it's rather late at night, so who cares. I ask her for turn-by directions so that I can anticipate the drive a bit and she tells me at the last second each time, then tells me she doesn't like my driving while I'm on pain meds. The funny thing is she also complains about my aggressive driving ever since my return from Mongolia. So which is it?
We pull up to the house, and it's 10:30 ish. I'm thinking that the party is over because there is no cars around. She insists on us going into the backyard, and seeing who is there. I figure, whatever, I'm game for any type of social event. As we make our way to the back, we see Harris standing on his back deck looking over the grounds and the table. He welcomes us, and I take a seat.
At this point, I'm just assessing the person, the situation, and their reaction together. The conversation is light and boring, but it's all about AAnonymous people any way, so what else would I expect. He offers us food and I figure, i'll take a bit of dessert. Eye movement, and eye contact through out the visit was my perogative. I don't know why, but with Blaise looking really good and wearing a short party dress, it's obvious that he was getting as turned on as I was.
In the course of the hour we were there, he briefly mentions that since she left earlier, more people showed up. This piqued my interest since she was at her mothers the whole afternoon. So, from what I started to see, she was covering up how much of her life was occupied by Chris. I blew it off since she spent a few nights a week at AAnonymous meetings and hanging out things, that it's possible that she was just there for a quick stop-off before heading to her mother's house.
Then she had to go to the bathroom. This is where it got a little more interesting. She went in, and then he follows up behind her saying he had to put something away, mumbling as he went. Her bathroom visits were rather lengthy all evening long, so it made me wonder why it only took two minutes for her to come back outside. Furthermore, he was not in the kitchen when she was in the bathroom, so I started getting more suspicious to the disappearance and short return of Blaise and Harris.
The conversation leans towards tomorrow. She wants to go to a morning AAnonymous meeting, and he says he'll be going to that one too. He asks her if he should give her a morning call. We start walking to the car at this point in the talk. She jokingly says to she relys on my morning calls from time to time as well.
She asks for, and he gives her a hug by the side of the car, and then we get in and drove off. She made a comment how she's more comfortable giving hugs than she used to be. I blew off the comment, fully knowing that Harris was the guy she's been getting physical with, and that she was trying to cover the tracks of this evening's events. She's been hugging people in the meeting for months, it's not like she suddenly started liking it. In my eyes, this relationship I've been working on (even as a friendship) was faltered from the start.
So, we return to the house she's watching, and I start working on the computer for the house owner. He's away on a trip and left a short list of things to do on the system. I start my work and notice that the system is reporting 1 GB of RAM instead of two. I start getting pissed off at the fact that the Apple store fucked up the RAM install. So, I tell her the situation while she prepares for bed.
While she was looking for the receipt, I start transferring his photographs from the backup drive into iPhoto. The process requires each photograph being displayed quickly as it adds them. I ask her for the receipt so that I can take the computer with me and she says that I should probably not take it. I said, it's better to fix it before he returns home. As the computer is doing it's import, she blatently asks me in her commanding voice, "What are you doing with the pictures?"
I state, I'm importing the photographs as I told the computer owner I would. She accepts the answer, but then asks me again. I say, I'm looking for porn, and she blows off my response. "Whatever," was the only thing I was thinking. It was obvious she was annoyed by something, but I am not sure quite what. I chalk it up to a shitty evening and misunderstandings.
So, I grab the system, and leave. It's close to midnight anyway, if not a bit later.
PART TWO
The following morning, I get a call from her asking me if I'm going to work out at the membership exercise gym. We both have an account there. I said I have my training session with my trainer and that I expect to be there by 8:30. She then asks if I can bring a few ________ since she already consumed the ones I gave her the day before. I question why she blows through them so fast, but she just comes up with lazy and half-ass excuses.
So on the way out, I grab a few and bring them along. I leave early, and get there early... and as it turns out, she's in the parking lot next door buying water and cigarettes before starting her workout. I wait by my car until she pulls into the gym parking lot. I am quite indifferent at this point.
I keep repeating that she's only having me in her life because I am able to supply her. The reason she wants to meet me this morning is to get a few ______ from me before her workout, because the body stress hurts her and it helps when she's got a few ______ to take before doing strenuous work. I begrudgingly oblige to the request and hand her 2 ________ and 2 ________.
As we walk towards the entrance, she pulls out a cigarette, and lights it up. I watch her talking and don't really hear what she is saying. This is just stupid, I'm thinking. She's trying to work out, breathing in cigarettes, and popping _______ plus whatever energy drink she took to get herself up this morning, and now she's acting like it's all fine. As we walk closer, she pulls her cigarette snuffing trick of wiping the lit end against cinder bricks of the building, and tucks it into the pack. Gross.
I enter and prepare my membership card for the worker. Blaise turns to me, and says loudly... "Goodbye hun, have a good workout," punctuated with a kiss on the cheek. She then turns around and walks past the counter towards the ladies changing room. The lady yells at her that she'll need to check in first. Blaise just retorts, I'll come back in a few minutes with my card. The counter lady yells back, you'll do it now! Blaise keeps on walking and says, yeah whatever.
The lady looks at me and the only thing I can do is shrug my shoulders and offer a look of I don't know what that was about. I get my card scanned and walk to the guys changing room, while overhead I hear the lady call for staff backup. Wow. I cannot believe this bullshit that Blaise is pulling. Too ballsy for my tastes, since it only takes a second to get the card out and scanned.
I had a decent workout, and the trainer was quite pleased with my performance. About half-way thru, Blaise comes into the workarea I was in and tells me that what the lady did was bullshit and she's going to write a letter of complaint to the management. I think to myself, whatever... keep ranting you spoiled child, and then return to my trainer assigned task.
I leave and return home to take the computer to the Apple store. In the meantime, it's also school clothes shopping time, so I drop off the computer and go to my sisters place to get my daughter. I don't hear from Blaise all day until she calls asking what the status of the computer was. I tell her it should be done, and that I'd like to come over afterwards to drop it off. She says ok, perhaps we can watch Law and Order together after that. I'm thinking, wow... maybe she' apologizing for her actions from the night before. This was beginning to sound suspicious, but I took it for what it was worth -- an opportunity to be with her.
So, the day wears on, plans come together and fall apart with dinner and family, so I just decide to blow it all off and just take the computer to the house where Blaise is staying. She calls me one time before I leave the house to tell me when she'll be there and what she was up to that afternoon. The conversation takes some strange turns, including her saying something to the effect that "I told Chris I didn't want that kind of relationship, that I wanted to be just friends." I'm thinking, what was that about. At this point, the puzzle picture is coming into focus, and the real meaning is just a few pieces away.
I mention that she talked about watching Law and Order, and she's suddenly acting like it's a bad night, just install it and leave, because she needs alone time. I'm thinking, "Ok... here we go again." and toss out my hopes for a relaxing evening hang-out. Fuck it. At this point, I'll drop the computer on the guys desk, make sure it fires up, and leave.
I get there and she's not there. I wait as she finishes up her shopping. Fucking crap. Oh yeah, she asks me for more ________ because she blew threw what I gave her. I bring a few more along for the hand-off completely tossed by the idea that I am only a supplier to what she addicted to. She shows up, I grab the computer and go into the house. I make my way into the back room and start work. I'm back in silent, introverted, and pissed mode again. She starts her clean-up job and asks me why am I acting funny again.
This is when I open up and say, "I don't know. Perhaps it's because I feel like a dealer more than any thing else, and there is seemingly no reciprication to my efforts of getting her things." She tosses out that if she was really desperate for _______ she could easily get it off the streets or from some other people. I don't care about the answer, since she says, with the way I was dressed last night, she could get whatever she wants.
I'm thinking, you would whore yourself to get whatever you want. I say something to the effect that it's just that I don't feel there is anything else in the relationship that I see that is of any benefit to me. Then from out of no where, she says, "I knew I shouldn't have let you met Chris last night." I'm thinking, what the fuck is that about? Where did Chris come from in this conversation.
"What does Chris have to do with this?" I ask her. She doesn't really reply, and tries to backpeddle a bit. I ask her once again, "How does Chris fit into this argument. I liked the guy, he seemed decent. What should I be concerned with?" I ask.
She suddenly lightens up, and changes topics. At this point, I know the game. At this time, I see the happening. The puzzle is complete. She's been fucking him for some time now, and the fact that I met him was too much for her. This all seems very convenient and realistic at the same time. What am I doing here, I asked myself. I played nice with her for the next hour as I helped her wash the owner's dogs and help make the bed. Then I decide it's time to leave. As I make my way to the front entrance, she goes out for a smoke and we talk for a few minutes.
She mentions that Harris suggested he throw a party for her 40th birthday party. I was a bit off-put by that but figured since the association with AAnonymous, it would be something that someone from the group would do. I asked her who would be there, and she said, "well, you, the home owner, her boss, and her brother and sister in law, and Harris, and the rest of the AAnonymous friends." I'm like yeah... I'm sure that was the intention.
I bring up small talk about me not really remembering my 40th because they all blend in, but mention that I want a major party for 42 because that's the answer to all of lifes questions. I give a brief explanation about Douglas Adams, and she smiles a bit at the back story. I can tell she senses a change in me. I'm sensing it too, and for some reason I start feeling very empowered by finishing the puzzle of Blaise's actions. I start towards the car and she asks me for a hug. Then she wants a fuller stronger hug, to which I don't really comply. Then she asks for a kiss, which I give to her. Then I leave.
I'm happy now. I am glad to know what the big secret is. It's funny how things come together, even when it takes months to put it all in place, the payoff was brilliant and unexpected. I felt like Encyclopedia Brown finished the job! I drove home happy, and upbeat. I went to bed feeling good about how I'm finally able to find a reason to get over her. The fact that I discovered Blaise was compartmentalizing her life to keep things in order, which included who she used and who she let use her, made me an early winner on the way she thinks.
The next thing to do is end this pursuit, and leave it just as it is -- A simple friendship built on a client who needed assistance. I have no need to further the pain of pursuing my intentions to win her over and make her my girlfriend. I don't care what happens to her as much as I used to, and that's a shame, since I still have occasional bouts of pity for those in need. I now know what happens when I try to care too much. ;-)
James
