Date & Dish

Well, my friends, you can probably tell from the title of this post what I’m about to tell you. Yep…things are over with The Reader. I wish I could explain what happened, but I honestly do not have a clear understanding of what exactly went wrong. I suppose that’s par for the course though.

I know that The Reader might, well, read this. But I don’t care. It’s so beyond over with him that I have nothing to lose at this point.

I really liked The Reader. I believe The Reader really liked me. I think things started to get “real” and suddenly everything changed. I honestly do not know if The Reader is confused, or trying to play games with me, or all of the above, but regardless, it’s really disappointing. I didn’t think that things with The Reader would end up this way.

Basically, I believe that The Reader pursued me, and won me, and then didn’t know what to do with me. He asked me to go away with him, and asked me weeks in advance to hang out on Valentine’s Day with him, and did all the things that you would expect a guy to do when he likes you. When I told him someone at work had asked me if I was single, and I didn’t know how to respond, he and I discussed the fact that we were kind of in an in-between area…not really dating but not really not dating. You know what I mean. We were in limbo, and I was sensitive to the fact that he was just out of a serious relationship, but we were enjoying the time we spent together. He treated me well, and I felt like we respected each other and were able to be open with each other.

After we had a pretty serious talk about some past relationship stuff, and about some of the stuff he was dealing with, I felt like things changed. I asked him if he wanted to just focus on being friends, or continue dating me but see other people, or what…I told him to just let me know what he wanted things to be like. He said we didn’t have to decide right then. I felt like he was conflicted and a bit anxious, but that was understandable given the circumstances.

I expected that we would continue to see each other after that talk, but then he started acting really weird to me. He would make plans with me and then cancel, or I just wouldn’t hear from him at all, or I would get a text the next day. I think I saw things going downhill when he came over and made an offhand comment that I found kind of rude, that made me take a step back…I sensed that the way he viewed me had changed in a pretty serious way. Early on, before we were even dating, we discussed the fact that we both think we’re catches…I think I’m awesome and he thinks he’s awesome. We talked about wanting to be with people who think we’re catches and who will treat us that way. I think he used to treat me like he thought I was great, and when he stopped treating me that way, I knew I needed to exit stage left.

I cancelled plans we had made after a string of signs that pointed to trouble, saying that I felt like things had gotten weird. At first, his reaction was that he understood where I was coming from but he was disappointed that things turned out that way. Later, he seemed confused by it, so I gave him a pretty detailed explanation, pointing out (in italics since this was over e-mail, which — given his affinity for texting — I felt was more than appropriate) that it all came down to the way he had been treating me since we had the serious talk. I simply didn’t have the patience for it. His response gave illness and work as reasons for cancelling on our plans, which I can totally understand, but I don’t think he understood that I had picked up on something else…like the comment he made that took me by surprise and other signs that he just wasn’t feeling it anymore. He said he never wanted to be exclusive with me and had said that every time we spoke about it, and he didn’t mean to lead me on. Um, we only talked about the exclusivity issue once, and that was after we had the serious talk that started everything going downhill, and even then, when I asked him specifically if he wanted to see other people and still date me, or focus on being friends, or what, he had said we didn’t need to decide right then. I even mentioned at the beginning of that fateful talk that we had never talked about exclusivity…I was well aware of it. So him saying that he had said that every time we spoke of the matter was a little odd to me.

Besides, and I told him this, I wasn’t upset because he didn’t want to be exclusive with me. It was how he treated me that made me realize that it wasn’t going to work out. I’m all about being open and honest, and if someone doesn’t want to be serious, hey…that’s fine. Just be honest with me. Don’t play games with me or try to push me to the point of breaking things off with you if that’s what you really want. I don’t have time for that, I don’t have the patience for that, and I have better things to do with my time than try to figure out guys who either don’t know what they really want or are incapable of communicating it to me…or even incapable of communicating that they don’t know what they really want. Heck…we’re not always clearheaded and totally collected about where we are in life, and that’s okay. But at least be able to express that that’s where you are, and then tell me what you want from me.

I think the moral of this story is that actions speak louder than words. At the beginning, The Reader’s actions were honestly a little surprising. I was taken aback by his approach and his manner, and by the way he treated me like he thought I was special. It was really unexpected from someone who had just gotten out of a relationship. I didn’t want to be the rebound girl, so I was cautious. And in the end, The Reader’s actions signaled to me that things were very different to him than they were in the beginning, so I wasn’t going to wait around and continue to be treated like I’m less than awesome. Because I am awesome, and someday I will meet a guy who can handle my awesomeness, and we will make beautiful music together.

So with that, we close the book on The Reader. I would like to remain friends with him, but right now I kind of feel like he has no desire to talk to me or see me at all. I asked him to let me know when we could meet up, because I still have some of his stuff. And I also got him a gift for Valentine’s Day that he’s welcome to have if he wants it…it’s a book that I thought he would really enjoy. But he hasn’t responded to that at all, so I guess I’ll send the book back.

Sigh.

If you’re reading this, Reader, I think you’re a good guy, and I hope you enjoy whatever it is you want to be doing with yourself right now. I wish you the best!