E-Indeed: The Blog

It’s interesting. I’ve never thought of myself as a fan of controversy. As far as I can tell, I have spent my life thriving on stability. However, it seems that controversy surrounds me everywhere I go. And I don’t particularly enjoy it. The past month is a case in point.

It started out innocently enough. I got to Las Vegas at the end of last week to finish packing up my possessions (which have expanded over the past five years from a carload to fill a 1200 square foot house), expecting a rather boring week. instead, it’s been nothing but drama. To start off, we had a little bit of fun. I went to the Las Vegas Renaissance Faire, with one of my best friends, two of his sisters, and his brother in law. All fun. There was a slight amount of turmoil on my part, since I felt an immediate attraction to the single sister (it helps that she is one of the apparently few LDS females in existence who enjoys Anime), but that wasn’t too much of an issue seeing as a 14 hour distant relationship (once I’m in Sacramento full time) really holds no interest for me.

Then my most recent ex called me, told me she was having doubts about her current relationship, that she still had feelings for me, I was her best friend, etc.  I told her that she needed to figure out where she stood, since that was only fair to her current boyfriend.  I also said that I had no business being her best friend if she was considering getting married to a different guy (makes sense to me, at least). She then told me several days later that they had decided to get married.  And I was happy with this.  I could put her out of my mind and be done with this madness that has messed up my life for the past two years–which I admit is a VERY long time considering that we were never an ‘official’ couple.  More on that further down the post.

But no.  It never works that easily.  She emailed me AGAIN last week, and has decided NOT to get married at this time.  On top of that, she sent me to her blog–which is covered with pictures of her and her current boyfriend.  Now I’m not a jealous type.  I wish her all the best.  But that does not mean that I want to be informed of every development in an ex-girlfriend’s love life.

Maybe it’s my personality.  Somehow I seem to attract lots of female friends.  And by friend, I mean just that.  Our relationship stops at friendship.  I have repeatedly ended up as the ‘Token Male Girlfriend,’ as one of my buddies calls it.  In more than one instance, this has bitten me later because I developed romantic feelings for them, which ruined everything.

On the other end of the spectrum, every single one of my exes seems to think that I want to still be friends.  I don’t.  I think, and most of my male friends agree, that the only successful ‘friendships’ between guys and girls can only occur when there is no possibility of romance or attraction.  I have known people who can be friends with their exes, and that’s great.  In most cases it’s where they both realize that romance between them just doesn’t work.  The key word here is ‘both.’  I believe that if either party still has romantic feelings for the other, there’s no chance of being ‘just friends.’  Now, I should mention that I don’t really have negative feelings towards my exes either.  There’s no betrayal that has occurred, things just didn’t work out.

Actually, if things had ended badly, it would be easier–I then probably wouldn’t care about hurting their feelings too much.  However, as things are, whenever I say “no, we can’t be friends,”  the statement is always met with hurt and anger.  Then, I give in and agree to try being friends, but it never works.  Again, because they come to me with all of their relationship troubles and happiness, and I’m just sitting there, thinking “why do you insist on torturing me with this information that I don’t want or need?”  Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to my decidedly hopeless-romantic mind that if a girl has only one person they go to with all of their problems and that is a guy, who is not their boyfriend or husband, there is a problem.  I don’t have any issues with girls having guy-friends.  But if you’re in a relationship, your go-to person needs to be either someone of the same sex, or your significant other.  And if you can’t go to your boyfriend or husband with your problems, it seems to me that you should be seriously evaluating whether that person should be your boyfriend or husband (note:  if you’re married, this needs a lot more thought and prayer than if not), rather than going to another guy who you consider your best friend.  And I feel the same for guys, although we tend to need to talk about our feelings much less often.

For whatever reason, though, my relationships end up with my exes constantly wanting to talk about everything after we’ve broken up.  Most even call me “their best friend.”  I’m sorry, isn’t that usually when you’re supposed to get married rather than breaking up?

Now, according to Doc Love, I do understand what’s going on.  I apparently fall into the 64% of the American males which are classified as “Wimpus Americanus,”  AKA “Mr. Nice Guy.”  And, as we all know, nice guys finish last.  It’s not politically correct, but it is the truth.   For those who aren’t familiar with Doc, he is the real-life guy that Hitch was based on.  And, even though it’s unpopular, I know from experience that his system works.  It did revolutionize my dating life for the time I was using it.  The only problem was that I departed from it’s teachings when I agreed to wait for my last ex while she served her mission.  I should have known better (she asked me to wait when she’d already been out for two months), but I broke up with another girl I’d been dating for three months (happily, I might add) to do so, since I already had three years of friendship with this girl.  Well, actually, I didn’t break up with her, but she broke it off after my being distracted by trying to figure out what to do for the last month of our relationship, so I might as well have.

Maybe I should take the fact that I let myself get distracted as a sign that I wasn’t in the right relationship, but I have done this repeatedly in my past–broken up with a girl who actually was interested in me and made me happy just for the possibility of a relationship with someone who I had known (and had feelings for) longer.  I don’t think fear of commitment is the issue–I’ve wanted a family for as long as I can remember.  I just have always had problems falling for friends, and I wind up never asking them out, because of our friendship (or, in most cases, because they are dating someone else).  Then they tend to ask me once I’m  in a relationship (or at least indicate their feelings), and I fall all over myself, because I feel obligated to friends, for whatever reason.

Which, if you’ve been reading, summarizes my four previous relationships–I broke up with my first real girlfriend because one of my best friends who I had had feelings for for two years prior asked me out (and dumped me two months later for a pro-bowler).  My third girlfriend, I got distracted because one of my best female friends for the past 3 years asked me to wait for her from her mission, and the relationship I was in didn’t recover. Of course, the missionary got home and decided she wasn’t ready for a relationship, and is now doing the friendship thing that drives me insane while she gets engaged and unengaged.

And all this time, I just realize that I’m not cut out to deal with this drama.