Saturday, November 20, 2010

The "One." To Be, Or Not To Be?

I've been thinking a lot about fate of late, and wondering where this life is taking me. I have always believed in the concept of "The One," which I know is pointlessly romantic, but I am a pointless romantic. I have not had any experience in my life (or even really witnessed it in anyone else's life) that should lead me to hold out hope for romance on any grand scale. But still, I cling to this idea, because there is something in me that wants to believe, that can't let go of this ridiculously foolish notion.

What if you meet "The One," but the timing is wrong? What if they're already with somebody else? What if you feel irresistably drawn to them, and can't help but feel that in some small way, they're drawn to you too, but nothing can ever happen because of circumstance? 

I think that this might be what is happening to me right now. I think that I am genuinely in love with this man that I work with, let's call him The Writer. I have never felt this pull towards someone before. Sure, I've been physically drawn to people before, sometimes to detrimental effect, but this is not that. He is gorgeous, of that there can be no doubt. But it is not just his face, or his smile, or his stature. It is him. Just him. My heart skips a beat everytime he looks at me, I can barely breathe when he touches me, and this happens a lot, so I am suffering from breathlessness and heart palpitations on a fairly regular basis. I didn't know that it was possible to feel this way. I have been in love before, but this is different. Every other time love has struck me, I have still always felt uneasy, uncomfortable, like something bad was just around the corner. I can see that this attitude of never quite allowing myself to be comfortable or content in a relationship caused a lot of instability in the past. But this situation now, I have never felt more comfortable with a man, he is such a good friend, and puts me at ease instantly. Which makes it so much harder.

I guess my question is this- last time I was here, as discussed previously, I felt inexplicably drawn to this city, this country, this place. I could not put my finger on why, I just knew I needed to come back here. Is he the reason I was meant to be here? I know that I sound like a legitimate crazy person, but I can't help but feel that he is. Which brings me back, is he really "The One," but unavailable, probably forever? Or is he just someone that I have idealised and put onto a pillar for no apparent reason, other than that he is one of the nicest people I have ever had the pleasure to encounter?

I feel a bit like circumstances have led me to here. We both started work on the same day, and I don't think that I will ever forget looking up and seeing him give me his cheeky half grin, a look I am distressingly familiar with now. I had the opportunity, a week after starting this current job, to take another position that could have led to me being sponsored and being able to stay on here in Ireland, but I said no. And I can't explain that. I have no words for it. Because it would have been exactly what I need and want. But there was something stopping me. And I can't help but think it has something to do with this, without me knowing it at the time. 

I may be reading too much into the situation at hand, but I can FEEL it! In my bones, in the very core of my being. And I could feel it last time I was here. I don't know if this is what my life has been leading up to, and I hope that it is not, because if I am right, and he is the reason I came here, but we can never be together because of circumstance, I think that my faith would be lost. The romance in me might dwindle, and eventually die away. And that would be a crying shame. Because everybody needs to hold on to a little bit of romance, a little bit of magic. It is what makes life worth living. 

Hoping to Let The Right One In, 

B. J. Barnes

Sunday, November 14, 2010

All At Sea

Bear with me, as I'm feeling a little sorry for myself today. It could be the mild hangover, it could be the change in weather and the fact that it is getting darker earlier, whatever it is, I am not feeling as chipper as I normally would be. 

To be completely honest, my confidence has been a bit shot of late, when it comes to romance at least. One of the reasons I have been so quiet since August is because I was dating someone for that time period. Someone who appeared to be a Darcy. He was a gentleman, and although not traditionally what I would consider my type, I was willing to give something different a try, as dating idiots seems to have become a past time for me, and I really need to break out of it. It took a while for us to get comfortable with each other, as he hadn't really had very much experience with girls, and at times conversation could be awkward. But I stuck it out, and we had a nice rapport going. I waited dutifully for a month before inviting him in after a date, and then the problems began. He had performance issues, in that there was no performance. At first I thought that this might be because of his earlier issues concerning awkwardness around girls, and that he was probably just nervous and the next time everything would be fine. I was wrong. It wasn't fine. And it happened a number of times before I finally asked him what I could do, and he told me not to worry about it. I was worried, and the relationship has since petered out, but not before it made me feel incredibly unattractive. I know that I am not, and that his issue probably had nothing to do with the way that I look, god knows that other men have not had such problems. But it still hurts a little bit, especially because an explanation was never offered, and I was left to ponder why. 

I picked up and continued on from where I had left my former self, ie. going out pretty much every weekend and flirting relentlessly with men. I had some success on Halloween, kissing a lovely boy from Monaghan. It was a very brief encounter though. But Halloween also brought me another little surprise. My friends and I were admiring from afar a rather tall, handsome in a way that only Irish men can be, gentleman dressed very stylishly as a gangster. As we walked past him later I commented upon his rather big gun. This prompted him to say things to me that no man has ever said to me before. Let's just say a wall, a shower, and a bed were all involved in his suggestions to me. Normally such behaviour would have resulted in a stern rebuke from myself, but I am at a point of desperation, and he was very nice looking. I know that I said before I am trying to avoid idiots, but, eh, what is one to do when faced with such an opportunity? I did not take him up on his offer that evening, but he did take my number and some texting occurred the next day. He has since befriended me on a social networking site (ah, who am I kidding, THE social networking site) and on Friday night a conversation took place that if I was to be completely honest about, has not left my mind since. He openly suggested that we become friends with benefits, or, to put it another way, (insert expletive) buddies. I am wary of this situation, I have been in it before and it did not end well. To be fair though, the person I was in that situation with was the King of Emotional Fuckwittery and it was after we had broken up, so there were always going to be residual emotions floating about, tampering with the very fine balance that is the friends with benefits situation. I have a feeling that it might just work with this guy though. For starters I have no feelings of a romantic nature towards him, just a sense of mild amusement at his outright cockiness. And I am very attracted to him, in a physical sense. Intellectually though, not so much. He can barely spell, and struggles constructing basic sentences, so I don't think that I would be tempted to take it any further than the bedroom. Another plus in the situation is that he does not live in Dublin, he is a Galway man, which makes sense, seeing as all of the gorgeous men in Ireland seem to reside West of me. At first I did not view this as a plus, seeing as he can't be on call at the drop of a hat, or a drunken text. But I guess in a way it works out, he comes to Dublin fairly regularly, and he can just blow in from time to time, and then blow right back out again, leaving me free to do as I please in the interim. At the moment though, this is all pure speculation. The offer has been made, I have tentatively accepted, but who knows whether anything will come of it. I did send a drunken text last night, and am yet to hear back. Not a great sign for the beginning of a fantastic physical relationship. Time will tell. 

So, I am feeling a little wounded, pride wise, due to the lack of response to my text, but also for a couple of other reasons which I will mention briefly. I spent a long time attempting to tune two separate men last night and nothing came of it, I feel like it was a wasted night. I have a fairly high strike rate here, usually all I have to do is smile and speak, and the second my Australian accent is heard I'm in like Flynn. It probably didn't help that my friends both picked up (one of them kissed three different guys!) and I went home alone to ponder the safety issues of attempting to make a bacon and egg sandwich whilst drunk at 1:30am (the risk was ultimately assessed as too high, and I had to wait until later this morning). My failure with one of the guys bothered me more than the other. It really is not fair that a guy with the most beautiful smile I have ever seen, gorgeous blue eyes, and slightly curly brown hair is called Laurie. It immediately made me think of Little Women and I ramped my seduction (snort, I was so drunk I don't really blame him for displaying very little interest in me) techniques up a notch. I pulled out all the stops, I smiled a lot, I touched him on the arm and chest, leant in when we were talking to each other, and was very confused as to why he didn't respond. I probably just wasn't his type, but weirdly it was him who approached me first, rather than the other way around, so I am still a little perplexed.

Anyhow, that is my whinge session for now. Back to the drawing board, and here's hoping my friend with benefits comes through with some benefits very, very soon. 

A little shaken, but still stirred,

B. J. Barnes

Monday, November 8, 2010

Why Me?

Sigh. Unrequited love. It's a bitch. Especially when you're single, and they're not, and when you know that they are very unlikely to be single ever again, and that you are likely to be single forever. Again, sigh.

I've been mad about someone who wasn't so mad in return once before. But when this madness was in full swing I was in a long-term relationship with someone else, and it was more a case of 'the grass is greener' (it was much greener, think lush rolling green fields compared to a barren desert with the occasional tumbleweed). It is much easier to love someone else from afar when you're relatively secure in a relationship, and they're also taken, because it is just a little fantasy you revert to when times are bad in your own relationship, it's not something that consumes you. In hindsight I know that I was thinking about my ex whilst in another relationship because I was idealising him and the brief relationship we had. I felt like circumstances had ruined our chance, but that we were actually meant to be together, and that one day he would break up with his (horrid) girlfriend and come running to me, giving me a golden opportunity to escape the dead-end relationship I was trapped in. I thought that we would rule the country together, that he would go far in politics and that I would be right there beside him, urging him on, that we would have a family and be happy and successful and perfect. I knew that this was madness, but it was a form of escapism, and I'm a sucker for that. I'm a romantic escapist, a very dangerous combination. But I'm also capable of being rather pragmatic, and I know that the reality was that I just didn't get enough closure with Chinchilla to properly move on, and that if we had stayed together or got back together at a later stage chances are it wouldn't have worked, because there were aspects of his personality (particularly his propensity to bitch relentlessly about people behind their backs but be their besties when face to face) that would have irked me, and vice versa. This wasn't some magical, fated relationship (even if our first kiss was at a ball and we walked the city streets afterwards and kissed on a park bench whilst wearing our finery). Not to him anyway. It was just a brief, largely meaningless mistake he made with a girl who to that point had been his friend. I still think about him sometimes, but I know that it is foolish of me to do so, because he's not the one and I need to accept that. 

But if all of this sounds bad, it is nothing compared to my current predicament. I've been working in a temporary job for the last few months and I am madly, completely, I-am-literally-going-slightly-insane, in love with one of my co-workers. He is loveliness personified. But, of course, of course, OF COURSE, he has a girlfriend. A girlfriend that he lives with. A girlfriend that he is moving countries for next year. A girlfriend that he loves more than anything. A girlfriend that one day will be his wife and a mother to his children. And I wish it was me. More than anything, I wish I could go home to him at the end of the day, and see him smile, and be with him. It is heartbreaking and ridiculous and creepy, but it is how I feel. It is like someone took everything that I could ever dream of and made a man. Sweet, smart, good-looking, funny, and just the perfect amount of nerdy to make it a decent match. I'm going all Bridget Jones on myself, but I can't help it, if you met him you would understand. It's impossible to be around this guy and not fall a little bit in love with him. Harumph. 

In short, I need to meet someone, even if only for a brief fling, incredibly soon, or I am going to lose my mind, as well as my heart. 

Your Creeper, 

B. J. Barnes