I didn't have a great day, but I'm doing ok tonight. I have been thinking about a lot of things, though.

I've spent half my life wondering what is wrong with people, and I've spent the other half wondering what is wrong with me.

There are days when friends don't act like friends. Sometimes it feels like you never know from one day to the next what you'll actually get. Flippancy hurts.

I have friends who half-ass it. Some just don't care to listen, and you can tell by the way they manage to extract themselves from the conversation once you become the topic. If I ever need to get off the phone in a hurry, I start talking about a problem I'm having.

I once had a friend tell me she can't imagine anyone keeping me at arm's length, and then there are the people who do it every day.

They say it'll happen when you stop looking. Then they say you've got to get out there and try.

Conventional wisdom never solved shit.

I may never understand humans, but what I put myself through because of them may be my own fault.

Most of you have never heard me talk the way I'm about to, but I'm not going to apologize, because how can I, when my anxiety has vanished?

Well, it has, at least for the time being, and it's not the first time this has happened.

Several weeks ago, when I really started to angst about all this Girl At Work shit, one of our recruitment reps at work (I'll call her Preggers because she's about to pop) noticed how badly I'd been feeling that week and asked if everything was all right.

I told her that basically nothing was all right, but that I was slowly dealing with it. And she asked me: have you prayed about it?

Now normally, Preggers is about the last person you'd expect to ask such a question. If you only knew her... hell, if I only knew her. She can be a bit... wild. I stopped for a moment to consider her question, and I had to answer her honestly: I hadn't, but I knew that that should have been my first response to the situation, not the last.

This morning, before I got out of bed, I finally got up the gumption to pray over it. I felt like absolute scum, for the record. I hadn't sat down and talked with God in who the hell knows how long, and now here I was, running back to Him because I was in trouble... again. I had no idea if He'd even care to listen to me after all this time, or if I'd wind up a lightning-charred heap on the bedspread for my mother to find after she got tired of listening to my answering machine pick up.

But I spilled it to Him big time, about The Girl At Work, all the anxiety, the sleeplessness, appetite problems, and also about her situation -- her marriage, her possessive, reactionary husband, and her feelings for Someone Else. And all I really asked for was some calm for the both of us, a little bit of relief from the constant abdominal cave-ins for me, and the teary-eyed near-breakdowns at work for her. It was a very heartfelt, emotional talk, and when it was over, I sat down on the side of my bed and cried like I hadn't in ages.

By the time I got to work, my anxiety was gone. I'm not making it up, and I'm not exaggerating in the least -- between the time I finished crying and the time I arrived at work (roughly two hours), my insides were calm as could be and I wasn't feeling a thing. I'm still not, and it's after ten p.m.

I defy every one of you to look me in the face and tell me He's not up there. I would say I've never experienced anything like it before, but the truth is, I have.

I was at Mizzou, c. 1995, and I was having what I can only describe as an emotional breakdown right there in my bunk in the middle of the night. And I started praying. Like crazy. I asked God to just take it, take all of it, because it had gotten to be too much and I just. couldn't. handle it. for another moment. And when all that angst and heartsickness drained out of my stomach, it was like someone had pulled the stopper out of a bathtub. To this day, I don't remember what I was so upset about, but I'll never, as long as I live, forget the way it ended.

And then this morning, it happened again, perhaps not in such dramatic fashion, but the end result is the same. God doesn't hate me; in fact, He's just happy to have me back talking with Him again.

There are a few things I need to touch on tonight.

First of all... I cannot tell you how much better I felt last night after I wrote all that. I was getting ready to try to sleep and realized, wow... one thing (of the many) that I really needed was to just get all that out. It had been boiling around in my head for two, three, four weeks now, and part of my problem was that I just had no outlet.

Secondly, and you may not believe this, given that I just hit you with a twenty-five-paragraph entry less than a day ago, but I realized today that things seem to have calmed down quite a bit on all fronts. I really should have written that entry at the beginning of last week, or maybe sometime the previous week. At this point, things are looking at least temporarily better for both me and The Girl At Work. I'm not fighting constant anxiety (only intermittent), and things with her and the husband have been pretty serene for about a week now. So here's hoping we can both ride this wave for as long as humanly possible, and here's hoping too that it's a sign of some longer-term peace we both desperately need.

Finally, some really good news. We were on the way back from lunch today, myself and The Girl At Work; she was driving, I was in the passenger's seat, and no one was saying anything. I glanced over at her briefly at one point, and as gorgeous as she is, a thought popped into my head without any urging from me: "I can get one of my own."

I was caught so off-guard, I ran straight to a friend's office (who's privy to the situation) and shared the news with her.

I don't, for the record, know how true it even is. I've been single for over two years, and the more I look around, the fewer single women of any age I see. So I'm not placing any bets. But the fact that this thought occurred to me without any conscious control tells a story, I think, and it's miles ahead of where I thought I was.

I'm still not sleeping right, and my appetite is running really hot and cold... or lukewarm and cold. So I'll keep an eye on things and keep you 'posted' here... right, because it's a blog? Posted. :)

Right.

"Head underwater
and they tell me
to breathe easy for a while..."

-- Sara Bareilles, "Love Song"


So several of you have been asking about my anxiety issues lately, and I'm going to give this to you in very plain terms. For quite some time, I've been fighting some pretty intense feelings for a friend of mine who is married. I work with her, although not directly, and we are good friends who go to lunch together more days than not. Way back when, she became aware of my little crush when I would say harmless flirty things and compliment her occasionally on how great she looked that day. Hell, I'm half girl myself, so I know how to play that kind of thing without coming on too strong, or really, at all.

Several months ago, I was having an Ugly Day, as I like to call them, and she broke down and told me a secret. She said, as long as I could keep it to myself -- good job, I know -- that, "When I first got on here, I thought you were really attractive." She went on to say that if she wasn't married herself, she would be interested.

Now usually, statements like that sound so hollow and vacant that they almost piss me off, but for some reason, hers had a ring of truth that others' just didn't. A few other things have happened since then to reinforce this (such as the time she got plastered and told a mutual friend that she "liked" me), so I'm comfortable believing this statement from this girl on this occasion. That needed said, you'll see.

Fast forward to the present day. I've known The Girl At Work for about a year and my feelings for her have... intensified, let's say. Couple that, now, with the fact that her marriage is on the rocks, although according to some mutual friends, it isn't just on the rocks, it's on the verge of collapse. Her husband is apparently a bit of a paranoid about her going out/partying/drinking with friends, that sort of thing, the suspicion being that she'll cheat in some way. And he's crossed the line now into being verbally abusive in ways that has driven them to marriage counseling.

Here's where things get really, really confusing, at least for me... because, you know, I'm the only one with problems here.

You need to know at this point that The Girl At Work is bisexual. I always told myself I'd never mess with another bi girl, ever, because it was a fucking nightmare the other four times, so... just no. Well, you can't help who you love, apparently... and I can't believe I just used that word. But I'm not going back to change it, because I think it tells a story right where it is. Fuck. Me.

Despite her husband's concerns, I would never believe in a million years that she'd cheat. At least, that used to be the case, because I recently found out that she and a girl I'll call Smokin' Hotness went out one night, got hammered, and The Girl At Work tried for the better part of two hours to get Smokin' Hotness to sleep with her. It didn't work, because SH isn't gay or bi, but the attempt was there. And it was at that point I had to ask myself... do I really know this girl at all?

I would be absolutely crushed if she ever cheated on her husband, primarily because I do have so much respect for her, almost to the point where she's on a pedestal in my head. And when you have that kind of emotional investment in someone (whatever your relationship), nobody wants to be disappointed. And I do not want to suddenly find out that the girl I've revered for the better part of a year just isn't who I thought she was -- regardless of the fact that I have no designs on her myself (feelings, yes; "intentions," no).

Well... she's tried to cheat at least once that I know of. And even though it isn't my business, strictly speaking, I want to know my friends. And if someone I hold in such high esteem turns out to be a cheater, chances are pretty good that I don't know her as well as I thought.

Yes, it "counts" as cheating if it's with a woman. Please, nobody e-mail me with the moronic assertion that it doesn't.

There are other things. A couple of months ago, an "incident" occurred at work between her and her extremely attractive male supervisor. She flat-out "couldn't" tell me what had happened -- that's just how she phrased it -- except she did reveal that some things were said (some sexy, inappropriate things, I was led to believe), but nothing was ever done; then suddenly one day, the two of them weren't getting along at all. I still don't know exactly what happened, but the question presented itself again: do I know this woman at all?

Last week, I was on the verge of a breakdown. My feelings for her wouldn't shut up, I was constantly worried about how she was doing, given her situation at home, and she wouldn't talk to me about anything, so at lunch I asked flat-out: have I made it to where you can't talk to me? It feels like I'm the only one in the dark about how you're doing; I hear whispers all over the building, so you're talking to someone. And it hurts pretty badly that I have no idea what is going on in your life.

To her credit, I feel like she took an appropriate amount of time to talk with me about this. Apparently, it was one of those things where she was having trouble at home and didn't want to talk about it with guy friends, only girlfriends. I bought that. But here's the next twist: she found that she was having feelings for someone who wasn't her husband, and not only was that complicating the reconciliation process, she didn't want to tell me she had feelings for someone because she knew how much I felt for her.

No, she really doesn't. But that's another entry.

She never told me who it was -- my first guess would have to be Smokin' Hotness -- and even though I'm absolutely dying to know, I can't bring myself to ask. Her reasons for not telling me would seem to indicate that her Other Interest isn't me, despite her previous claim that she would be interested if she wasn't married. Honestly, it really makes no difference whatsoever whether her Other Interest is me or not, but as emotional as I've been feeling lately, I'm not sure I can stand up to hearing that it isn't.

Let me stop right here and clarify a couple of things. I would never, ever want a woman to leave her husband for me. That's way too much pressure right out of the gate, and besides that, if she'll leave him, she'll eventually leave me. And although you could be forgiven for assuming otherwise, I need to assert that I am in no way hoping for a split between her and the husband. I want those two reconciled and happy and married; I do not want their little boy to have a mom's house and a dad's house. On top of that, if they did split and The Girl At Work moved on to someone who wasn't me, I would probably go completely to pieces; before, I couldn't be with her because she was married. If this happened, I couldn't be with her because she doesn't want to be with me, and there's a big ass difference. Her admission that she found me attractive has only altered my perception of the situation enough to cause problems, ironically enough.

With this emotional investment in mind, I think what scares the piss out of me more than anything else is just the possibility of being disappointed -- that The Girl At Work will turn out, after all this time, to not be who I thought she was at all. She does not, of course, have any responsibility to me on that front, and I realize this. But I do not want to spend all this time falling half in love with a woman I know I can't have anyway and then find out that she wanders. I want my faith in her to be rewarded, and I want to know that my feelings for her, however un-returnable on her part, are still well-placed.

But I am haunted by her lack of openness on so many fronts. Easily half of my questions about how she's doing and what's been going on are met with:

1. I can't tell you.
2. I can't talk about it.
3. I shouldn't say anything.

Personal privacy is one thing. But given our close friendship, the fact that she "hasn't done anything wrong," and that her husband's fears are completely unfounded... she sure does spend a lot of time dodging questions. Secrecy breeds suspicion, fairly or not, and I can't help but think she's keeping some truth from her friends because we'd think differently of her if we knew. Isn't that the same as lying, no matter whose business it is or isn't?

I want to know my friends. I worry about her a lot. And nobody wants to be disappointed. That is why this eats at me so badly. And I have no idea what to do about it.

My stomach does flip-flops so bad, I have trouble staying on task at work sometimes. My mind races so much, I don't sleep until three or four a.m. I'm bumming Xanax off my friends to calm myself down, sometimes in the middle of the day. I sit down to eat and realize nothing sounds good. And not a single hour goes by that I don't think of her.

I've taken her off my computer's wallpaper, as well as my cell phone's wallpaper; I just can't look at her all day and expect to make any progress. And I'm starting to think, no matter how painful it may be, that the only way I am going to make any progress is by putting some distance between us. I don't want to, but at the moment, I'm just not doing well, and it cannot be healthy to pine over a married woman like this. I've done my best not to covet my neighbor's wife, but fuck... it's her own damn fault for being so fun, intelligent, engaging, warm, considerate, generous, and gorgeous in the first place. Isn't it?

For what it's worth, your faith in me is well-placed. Throughout all this, I never had any intention of seducing her, "stealing" her away, or causing a rift between her and the husband. It's just that I caught myself trying to snag every lunch hour I could, smelling her hair without her knowing it while we're in line at the restaurant, that sort of thing. I need to get one of my own. This just isn't cool at all.

The truth is, I don't have problems compared to her. Her marriage is (at least currently) falling apart, and she has, from what I can tell, some pretty significant issues with her own feelings and how it's affecting her behavior. My biggest problem is that I like (love?) a girl I can't have, and let's face it, I'm pretty comfortable with that.

I know this is someone I cannot be with. But every time a little dream like this dies, I get just a bit sadder than the last time because I realize it'll never get to grow into a big dream. And every moment I spend on dead dreams is a moment I can't use to cultivate a live one.

The following is a series of relatively individual, free-standing stream of consciousness bits I wrote over the course of this afternoon. More to come.

---

I am absolutely sick to fucking death of being told what a catch I am, what a great guy I am, how happy I'm going to make someone else... by people who wouldn't touch me with a ten-meter cattle prod. So far, no one has been willing to put up, but they won't shut up, either. Please: shut up.

---

Up to this point, every single person who's been interested in me has been broken -- low/no self-esteem, low standards, emotionally damaged and parasitically needy, desperate for acceptance from someone, anyone. If anyone un-broken has ever been interested, they haven't spoken up -- which leaves me with the impression that everyone interested in me is broken.

---

My favorite thing in the world is when someone looks at me and says, "And you wonder why you're still single." I can't crack a joke or trade punches with friends without someone overhearing and deciding that the nature of my joke(s) is what keeps me single. But here's what I'll do: I'll walk up to some tub sitting in McDonald's and say, "And you wonder why you're fat." Oooh, that wouldn't go over well. Would it.

---

The truth of the matter is this: I'm not single because I have a bad attitude, impossibly high standards, or think I'm better'n everyone else. I'm single for life because most women, not all, are irredeemably shallow. When you take my two biggest weaknesses -- looks and money -- and place them in most womens' #1 and #2 priority slots, I'm not going to fare very well in the dating game. Before you dispute this, do refer to paragraph #1 above... and then speak.

"Just because the earth isn't flat doesn't mean you're not a good looking guy."