Misery

I'm sitting, head on the kitchen table, Dinah Washington on the radio, glass of Bushmills next to my hand when it hits me. I was in almost this exact same position three years ago. Well, sort of. Three years ago I was still reeling from a terrible breakup, the kind that you snap out of a few months later and wonder when you decided to Sinead O'Connor your hair and how you managed to get so fat. Then you look at the Patsy Cline albums, empty takeout containers, and Sam Houston bottles and think to yourself, "Ah yes. Hence the haircut and five pounds."

If Patsy Cline and Sam Houston are my breakup sedatives of choice, Bushmills and Dinah Washington are my form of self-flagellation. They're my symptoms not only of unrequited love (and if you've heard Dinah sing "Misery" you'll understand how appropriate they are) but of the irritation I have with myself when I'm, you know, acting like a melodramatic less aggravating Ophelia.

And I am acting like a melodramatic, only marginally less aggravating Ophelia. But not entirely for the reason you would expect.

The problem, of course, is a guy. Rather, the problem is two guys. The first adds the slightly unexpected twist.

I am by no stretch a modest or a humble person. I regularly subject my friends to pronouncements varying in their ability to grate on one's nerves from "I'm wonderful" to "God sent me into your life to make sure that you're less of a sanctimonious bastard." For the most part they, being relatively more humble and modest, take these comments in stride with few snide remarks to put me in my place.

Full disclosures and mighty pronouncements of my wonderfulness aside, my ego hits its own bumps. When someone asks me out knowing these things in advance my first response is usually somewhere along the lines of "Are you sure you don't want to think this through? I mean, you know I'm in therapy, right? And that I snort when I laugh? And that I will talk obsessively about Shakespeare or the Cassini mission or how sea turtles have a compass in their heads that records the latitude and longitude of their birth beach so they can make the migration home when they reach sexual maturity? And I sleep with my mouth open. All right. I mean, if you're sure." I'm incapable of making eye-contact with handsome men, much less stringing two syllables together. I don't necessarily understand when someone is flirting with me or when they're just being kind or a good conversationalist. This, I suspect, is why I have a bit of a thing for alpha males, but that's a whole different blog post.

This all, of course, came to a head recently when someone with whom I'm, shall we say, friendly intimated that he'd like to be on more than friendly terms. Like an idiot, I was caught by surprise. Didn't see all of the signs that were glaringly obvious to the rest of the world. Just kept on goofing around and being mildly flirtatious and generally acting like the interpersonal relationship ditz I seem to be. Then there's this thing and I don't know what to do about it.

I'm flummoxed for a couple different reasons. The first because I didn't see it coming down the tracks. The second and perhaps more important is the reality that this guy and I should be perfect together. He's bright. He's well-read. He's good-looking and likes Carl Sagan and Downton Abbey. I always have fun when we're together. I look forward to seeing him in the way I look forward to seeing all my friends.

That's what has me feeling like a prize bitch. I have no reason to not be attracted to this guy. There's no reason not to start dating him. Except there's this feeling. Maybe lack of a feeling is a better way to put it. We're missing something and I can't quite put my finger on it. And without it, whatever the hell it is, things just feel sort of flat. Fulfilling in a general sort of way, but not what I'm looking for out of my next relationship.

*Dramatic orchestral swell*

Enter guy two. (Of course.)

On the surface, he's disgustingly similar to the first gentleman. He's cracks me up. He's well-read. He can use palimpsest in a sentence. The difference is that something about him makes my stomach drop and my heart get palpitate-y. And I have no fucking clue what it is. And of course, in the great karmic payback for screwing over person one with all of my "Oh-thanks-but-I-only-like-you-as-a-friendly-acquaintance" he is for oh-so-many-reasons out of my reach.

There's a Dessa song that I love that she played at her show on Friday night. It hit home for a lot of reasons, but there's a line in it that I adore: I'm not trying to be sainted/I don't need to be good/I'm just trying to stay blameless. When I heard the song and that line on Friday night, I inadvertently put my head in my hands and laughed, which was precisely the wrong emotion for that song, that time.

I'm used to stumbling into my relationships without any premeditation whatsoever. For the first time, I find myself thinking about them, obsessing over them, worrying about them. I've tried so hard to transfer the feelings I have for the second person to the first, afterall, they're so similar that it should be simple, shouldn't it?

Of course it's not. As I'm continuing to get accustomed to this whole "You're a human. You're supposed to feel this way!" thing (which is exhausting and possibly overrated, by the way) I'm realizing that feelings aren't transferable. That attraction won't just go away because you're willing your brain to make it so.

The hardest realization (aside from feelings are stupid, men are stupid, and my brain is stupid) is that there are going to be moments in my life--not just my love life, but my life--where I want to be blameless, but am completely, utterly, finally to blame. And there's not a goddamn thing to be done about it.

Tonight, listening to Dinah and mulling over how there's nothing to for it, a small part of me can't help but wish for the easier days of Patsy Cline and a clearly wronged party. Tonight, the lyrics to "Misery" seem to be cutting both ways.

But I'm fighting a battle that can't be won.
'Cause you're on my mind more than you oughta be.
Thoughts of you should bring joy.
But they only bring misery. 

I get up to make a cup of tea and when I sit down again the song is nearly over. I hit the back button. Sing it again, Dinah.