What’s up, What’s down
The bottom line to the title… I don’t know. I talked about (in some earlier post) a conflict that came up because of me joining the group that the riding club I’m a part of through B caused between he and I. It forced us to try to have conversations about our relationship prematurely, before we were ready; it cornered him into feeling he had to make a place for me by “declaring” me; and it made me feel bad because I walked away not sure of what was going on with us or where we are/were.
Through hours of hell of talking, we reached a level place, and what felt like a compromise. Something within the rules of the club, yet not really used, and I would be declared. Not as someone who is looked at as a permanent person in his life, but not as one of the club “groupies”. Yet that has been a month ago now and still I remain undeclared, not really an entity in the group. Last night it hit me the hardest when he took the time to in a big way welcome other friends of his to the group. It made my absence painfully clear at least to me. I did a lot of thinking about it over that time. My initial response in the beginning was when it created such a problem that I would just withdraw. B didn’t want me to. Yet, looking back over that time, I can see that for him it just wasn’t that important. If it had been he would have made some room for it in his schedule. I’m not angry or anything. It’s not really a judgement. It’s just an observation. We do the things that are important to us. I could interpret that to be many things, and while thinking about it over the last week, I certainly have gone through phases. But it doesn’t have to mean anything. It just is.
Another thing that happened is that he asked me to go to a party last Saturday night (well 2 now). Cool. I was really looking forward to it. And then I get there and I find out that he has also asked a mutual friend to go with us, to dinner before and then the party. Meaning she was riding with us, and we would have to follow her time schedule as well about leaving. This is the friend who was the backseat in the riding club before me, and who I really have bonded with in so many ways. It wasn’t so much that I minded her coming along. But I wasn’t even asked. He just invited her. I think maybe I’ve done the same thing but I’m pretty sure I’ve either asked or at the very least told him I was planning on having Mel come along before hand. It kind of hurt. It felt like he doesn’t want to be alone with me. Or that R has to be a part of most of our activities. I guess there is some jealousy there. Most of the time I really see no difference in the way he treats her, or his expectations of her. Other than they don’t sleep together and I have the first pick of being on the back of his bike. So yeah, I guess I’m jealous because I don’t feel special. It’s like she’s always there.
Then there was the night in the hospital. For whatever reason, even though I talked to him first on the way home to get M to take to the hospital, completely freaked out, distraught, crazy and unable to cope, he really didn’t have much to say. And then in spite of me trying desperately to reach him from 6 pm until almost midnight, he never called to check on me. Instead Mel and R stepped up to help where and how they could help. That was good on many levels. The first was it was a kick in the ass to remember my friends are there. They rallied around me. But the second was to realize that I really am seeing too much in our relationship. That it had been more to me than to him. There are certainly other possibilities. Another friend, Sally reassured me that are multitudes of reasons, most of them totally unrelated to me, that would make that happen. And she’s likely right. I have no real feelings one way or another about that either.
So where does that leave me? Well mostly sad. Last night I made the decision that I would take matters in my own hands about the group. The only two real choices that are there for me for that are to either stay where I was, which felt like limbo, and just accentuated the fact that he had been forced into making a decision/declaration that he didn’t want to do and was therefore sort of avoiding it. That hurt to begin with and continued to as time went on. Or I could just leave the group and it becomes a non issue. Obviously that is what I chose. Better to just have it done with. Yet when I told him last night on IM, he really didn’t have anything to say. And in fact although he asked me why, he didn’t really say anything. And finally when I just said that I was sorry because I had apparently pissed him off, he signed off and didn’t even say goodnight. Now THAT really hurt. I thought we could talk about things. And maybe we will, but when I tried to say anything about it today, again I got complete silence with no acknowledgement that I had said anything. I have no idea what that means. I do know I won’t bring it up again.
And so for me I’m really feeling down tonight about that. Because now we’ve stepped back. He originally said something in the whole mess of things about putting on the brakes. And I guess that that is what has happened. Because I am back to asking if he wants to do anything. I no longer take for granted that we will spend time together on the weekend, or that he will want me along on a ride or at an event. And based on his responses today, not only is he completely ok with the retreat, and that we will likely not be spending nearly as much time together. And while I’m rationally ok with that, my heart hurts. I wanted to have something deeper. I know that it could be. I feel that way, or at least felt that way until this week when I have felt myself back down. I know that I just can’t keep my heart out there -
And truthfully the last couple weekends together have been different. I have really wanted to spend some time just us, and expressed it to him. No time has been made for that. It looks unlikely I will see him this weekend. So here we are again, at for what feels to me like the beginning again. Me wondering where the boundaries are, what the limits are, giving him his freedom, seeing if he comes back to wanting to initiate things. Up until now I had said he was my boyfriend. But I guess we are truly just dating.
And I need to let it be that way. I don’t want to be the only one who wants this.
So yeah, I’m sad. To me, stepping back instead of forward does not seem to promise much.
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