It Doesn’t Have to be Perfect

I’m not about inspirational quotes or anything like that, but this one really resonated with me.  It caught my eye because it was spray painted on one of the Miami art walks, which was an event that I’ve been to before on one of my past relationships.  I’ve had many perfect moments in past relationships; my first time having sex was thrilling, and I had this one perfect moment with socks jock on Miami beach where he kissed me tenderly and we both just savoured the moment.

Every relationship has its moments, and sometimes when I look back at my relationship with Mystery Man, I dwell on the good stuff such as the time he cooked for me, the time we went to California together for my friend’s wedding and it was picture perfect, the time he threw me a surprise birthday party.  The thing is that every relationship has its ups and downs.  Looking back, it is easy to do lose perspective if you hone in on just the positives or just the negatives.  The relationship is a combination of both, and ultimately the story for Mystery Man in short was that although we had some nice one on one moments together, he disrespected me with his flirtatious ways and he plainly did not want to be with me in the end.

My relationship with volleyball man does not have to be perfect, as long as we respect each other and want to be with each other.  I feel like I might be holding him to these standards that might be based on all the good things that I’ve ever experienced with the men that I’ve been with in the past.  I want him to be romantically spontaneous like Socks Jock, caring like Baseball Guy, amazing in bed like The Traveller and great at cuddling like Mystery Man.  I don’t think that I’ve ever held such a high bar for these guys that I’ve been with in the past.  The difference was that I was infatuated with the guys that I was with in the past, which is why I was able to excuse a lot of the signs that things weren’t working out until the very end.

I’m not infatuated with Volleyball Coach.  This is the difference.  We have a different kind of chemistry, the kind that makes me think that he is the one for me, but this also translates into me analyzing everything he does and asking myself if I can live with it.  If I think about it, Socks Jock was so much younger than me, was still in school and while I visited him in Miami, his place was a fucking disaster.  There was so much dust on the ground that after I swept it up for him, I realize that the dust was a collection of dead bug bits.  I was annoyed by this, but it never translated to me not being able to live with him.

There is a lot of good things with the relationship that I have with Volleyball Coach.  We communicate regularly, he makes a huge effort to do things with me that he normally wouldn’t.  He is compromising, but some things need time.  When I said his car is dirty and full of dog hair, he eventually went to go clean it.  I’ve communicated what I want, I’m just going to let that sink in with him.  I want him to get a new bed, and I want him to put him my shelving unit, and I’ve told him that directly so I’m going to leave it where it is.  I’m going to let him dwell on it, and see what happens.

In the grand scheme of things, having a shitty bed and an unbuilt shelf shouldn’t be the end of a relationship.  Both things are easily fixable, but I think for me it was the thought that I am with someone that would allow this situation to persist.  It makes me also think that I’m probably being difficult.  I also experience a lot of mood swings, and what’s funny is that I find my relationships work out a lot better when I am on birth control pills and it moderates a lot of these swings.  I’ve written about it in another post before.  I don’t think it’s me being self-conscious.  I do hear from others that I tend to get moody.

Whatever the case, after some thinking, I realize that there is a lot of good in my current relationship and it is being over shadowed by these small annoyances that I can’t seem to get over, but in the grand scheme of things might not actually be as big of a deal as I make it out to be.  I’m going to see how I feel and go back to a more normal diet to see if that will help.

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Two Very Different People

My focus seems like it is waning.  When I am away from Volleyball Coach, I miss him, and I get excited to see him next.  Then when I actually am with him, I feel so bothered.  I want to be this nice girlfriend, but I don’t like the way he treats me.  Though he’s nice to me, it’s like I want more and it makes me wonder if I’m being unreasonable.

Dating someone that is very different than you is really difficult.  He wakes up early and makes breakfast for me, serves it to me and even responsibly goes to walk the dog and buy me coffee.  He’s wonderful in that way, though he nags me about wanting to stay in bed and this particular morning he wondered out loud whether I would be ready for the responsibility of children.  I’ve just not been feeling well recently because we’re trying this diet, and although I am losing weight and feeling thinner, my mood is just so variable and it is really taking a toll on the relationship.

I’m tired when I see Volleyball Coach, and when I’m tired I want to relax, and cuddle.  On the other hand, his idea of relaxing is watching videos together.  If he is really tired, he will sleep.  Today, he fell asleep next to me and I just looked at him wondering whether I can be with him for the rest of my life.  I laid there with my eyes wide open, just staring at the ceiling and pondering.  Every guy that I’ve dated comes with a nugget of shit, every single one and I guess the question is whether I can deal with his.

Volleyball Coach is a loving, emotionally invested and caring guy.  What I seem to look for is someone that I can trust to take care of me, so that I can mentally feel like I can relax.  Volleyball Coach is that guy for me, which is why I did feel something special about our relationship.  The problem is that he doesn’t let me slack off.  He calls me out for things such as not eating properly, being lazy in the morning, not exercising enough, not cleaning my sink, not disciplining my dog.  I honestly have not had anyone call me out in this way before, and it feels like he is criticizing my life, parenting me even.  I’m sure he doesn’t mean it in this way, but it certainly feels like it.  What I want is for him to take care of me and make my life easier.  Rather than helping me, he is this life coach that just preaches idealistic shit to me.

One example – he says that I can better optimize my place so that I can have more storage space.  I completely agree, but installing additional shelves and furniture for me is difficult because I don’t have the proper tools and I am not good at it.  The last time I got furniture I hired a handyman to help put it together, and Volleyball Coach is all about doing it himself and convinces me that is the way to do it and says he would help me.  We had a full conversation about how I am too quick to just hire someone to do things like this and it is a waste of money.  I start making notes about what pieces I’d like to buy, and eventually ended up getting just one big piece for the foyer.  Well, this big piece has been sitting in my foyer, still in the box for over a week and Volleyball Coach has almost forgotten about his promise to help me.  He’s now opened to the idea of me hiring my handyman again… which is kind of not the point here.

Second example – So we’re trying out this ketogenics diet, which in a nutshell is an extremely low carb, high fat diet.  The reason for this is because he had been gaining weight, apparently since we’ve started dating.  He implied that we were both getting out of shape, which threw me off because I’m quite happy with myself actually.  Anyway, I decided to support his diet, though I don’t have a weight loss goal I was curious to see if it worked.  I’ve been really diligent on the diet, but after 3 weeks of being on this diet, I am seeing too much fluctuation in my mood and how I physically feel.  He’s telling me to push through it and implying that I’m probably not doing the diet correctly and not eating properly.  He’s basically preaching the ketogenics diet like it’s a bible, which kind of scares me.  It’s something new that we’re both trying and we’re not sure the effects it will have, and I think a proper response if I’m not feeling well should be concern, and not continuous preach.

What it comes down to is that I feel like for most of my life I have to fend for myself.  I fought for my career, worked hard for a lot of things in my life.  What I’m starting to appreciate as I grow older is that sometimes I have to take it easy for certain things in life.  What I look for in a man is one that I can trust to take care of me (should I need it) and to help me simplify my day-to-day life.  While dating Volleyball Coach, I felt that he was a simple man that I can take notes from to enjoy the simple things in life.  Though recently I just feel like it’s not that simple.  This relationship is bringing on new challenges in my life and it makes me question whether I can be more flexible.

I do feel like when someone has been single for a long time, or not in a serious relationship for a long time, they get used to it and there is some adjustments that need to be made to allow them to adapt to being in a relationship.  I wonder if that is the case with me, and that maybe I am more difficult to be with than I think.  Two people, with two very different lives, I mean how could I think that it would be easy to just combine our lives?

I Still Think About My Ex

I’m going to write a really quick blog post, because my life feels hectic as hell these days.  There just seems to be a general sense of dissatisfaction.  I’m going to be really honest in this post, to my readers and my own self.

I think about my ex-boyfriend, Mystery Man everyday.  It’s been one year since we’ve been together.  It was a very difficult relationship for me, and though I am sure that I do not want to be with him, nor is that an option, it is still hard for me.  Yesterday, I found out that he is seeing someone new, which is what I expected, and although this news did not have a shock factor to it, it also is not insignificant to me.  I loved him, and just the way he made me feel at times, our relationship highs were so good that it saddens me and makes me feel like that will never happen for me again.

Volleyball coach is a very grounding relationship, but the relationship does not have those kind of highs that I had with Mystery Man.  I know that this is what a healthy relationship should be like, but part of me is just not mature enough to accept this yet.  Volleyball coach is honest, loving, and willing.  This is everything a man should be according to all the relationship books that I’ve read… so then, is it me?

Volleyball coach and I have been trying a very odd diet called the ketogenics diet.  Basically, we starve ourselves of carbohydrates, and there’s a complete following on this.  At first I thought it was very cute to push each other to lose weight and be more healthy, but as I am progressing on this diet, it is resulting in me having some very large swings in both my mood, how I feel physically, and mentally.  I’m on day 22 now, and my gut feel is to ditch the diet, but I’m a bit stubborn as I’ve worked really hard.  I’m seeing some weight loss, but I’m convinced it’s due to a lack of calorie intake, and that I’m not doing this diet properly.  Volleyball coach seems kind of hard on me, because he wants to push me, but he seems to have that approach.

There are times when life is tough when it doesn’t need to be.  Simple stuff, like me not feeling like going into work and wanting to call in sick.  Volleyball coach is essentially a coach and pushes me through things like that, but I want him to help make my life easier.  I mean, why not just tell me to take the day off?  It’s this kind of attitude that concerns me.  I want to be with someone that has a natural inclination to take care of me and protect me.  I’m already my own life coach and I typically go hard at things already.  I want someone to tell me to slow down, smell the flowers, enjoy myself.

In the bedroom, Volleyball Coach is not performing.  He says he likes to take control, he says that he wants to try different things with me, which got me really excited at first, but really he just wants me to initiate and do the work.  This diet seems to have an affect on him too as he can’t seem to keep it up.  And even if that’s the case, I think he should still put in effort to help with my sexual tension.

Wow the more of this I spill into my blog, the more issues I feel I have.  I just want to be in denial of many of these things, because I just want so badly for this relationship to work out.  Again, honest, loving, willing, we both are trying.  I wonder if my relationship standards are too high and that I should look elsewhere for fulfillment.

Same Room, Same Bed, Different Man

Admittedly, I still think about mystery man and I don’t know if I’ve ever been in a relationship with anyone where I’ve thought about someone else this much.  It seems unfair to volleyball coach, but it’s not like I have strong feelings about wanting to be with mystery man anymore.  It’s just that volleyball coach is so different from him, and sometimes I do contrast these differences.  Sometimes it’s just a little surreal actually when I find myself doing many of these relationship things with volleyball coach that I’ve already done with mystery man.

The experience that really captures this is just having volleyball coach be in my bed, where mystery man used to sleep.  It just feels like it wasn’t that long ago that it was mystery man who was sleeping right there, and it was mystery man that I was cuddling with.  Although I’ve had other guys sleep in my bed, it seems different because mystery man almost lived with me, which made him such an ingrained part of my life that I still find it difficult to move away from.

It’s possible that is why I have such a problem with sleeping in the same bed as volleyball coach.  I got used to a certain way of sleeping together with someone else, and a certain way of cuddling and volleyball coach doesn’t do it in the same way.  Being in bed with mystery man was significant, because that’s where we had a strong physical connection, and also where we had any meaningful conversations.

I’ve since purchased a new bed, and dresser, probably because I knew that I had to try to move away from that.  Now, when I’m in volleyball coach’s bed, I feel quite uncomfortable and not at home.  When I am in my own bed with volleyball coach, I realize that it is pretty much the same room, the same bed, different man.

I don’t want to fathom the thought that I am still hung up over mystery man.  I can’t be, I just can’t!  I’m 6 months deep into a new relationship with a man that I have mentally acknowledge to be “the one”, who has broken barriers and shown me a completely different way of life, and approach to love.  He has shown me how to be affectionate and vulnerable.  He has shown me so much more than mystery man ever has, so I don’t want to do this to him.  I want to respect him.

I feel like I deserve this new love.  I’ve done so much to try to move on, and rid myself of my past.  I’ve cut my connections with many things such as friends of mystery man.  I’ve put in the time and effort into myself, my friendships and my career.  I want to love him whole heartedly, but I can’t.  I don’t know what to do, but keep trying harder to accept this love that has come to me in hopes that one day these thoughts that I have about mystery man fades to a point where it no longer disturbs me in this way.

Volleyball Coach Irks the Hell Outta Me

Lately, I’m not sure if is my changed diet (I’m trying out the ketogenics diet, which is basically an ultra low carb diet), or whether it is my time of the month but I just so irked by Volleyball Coach.  I can’t exactly pinpoint it but there are so many things that he does that annoys me.

We went over to his friend’s house for dinner and it was the first time I was meeting them.  We got a long well, and while playing board games I mentioned a racist joke.  Later that evening, he told me that I should be weary about making racist jokes since one of them was an educator.  I said okay, but then the more I thought about it, the angrier I got.  I recalled another time when we were fooling around in his bedroom with the door open.  It was just some heavy petting, and later he realized that his roommate may have been within earshot / viewing distance.  He freaked and said in a stern voice to me that we should respect his roommates and we should have closed the door.  I said okay at the time, but even then I brought up the point that he could have closed the door at any time!  Why is this my fault?  It seems that he is easily embarrassed by some social situations that I put him in, and the more I thought about it, the more I realize he does this quite a bit.  Next example, he shushes me sometimes.  We were walking in his foyer when I commented that it smells like McDonald’s.  He shushed me and said it’s probably because the security guard is eating.  I finally told him that I cannot be apologetic about who I am.  I am quite brash, upfront and straight-forward, and I have a certain sense of humour.  It is not that I was not self-aware in any of these situations, it’s just that I’ve assessed the situation and I am fine with my actions.  There were no cases where I look back and think, “Oh shit, I should have … closed the door” for example.  I basically said to him that there will be times when I will make you feel socially uncomfortable and you will have to just accept that.  I told him that it makes me feel like a child when he tries to reprimand me for my actions and it makes me feel like I cannot be myself.  He said he didn’t feel like he was being reprimanding, though I’d have to disagree.  I know he was telling me what to do in these situations as opposed to asking me.

Fundamentally, we disagree on financials and this is a pretty huge deal.  It makes it difficult for me to see how things can work if I have to push for what I want.  When we first dated, he would sometimes suggest to split the bill or pay separately, which confused me.  Dating for me means taking turns on the bill, and not in any orderly type of fashion, but just not thinking about who got the bill because it isn’t important.  Taking turns will also mean that at the end of it all, it will be even, and even if it isn’t, who cares?  It’s not really possible for the difference to be too significant and the idea is to be in it for the long run anyway.  Even when dating for the short-run, I would argue the same point.  So, it seems he has compromised on this with me but he still likes to keep tabs on (slightly) bigger items.  It doesn’t make me feel comfortable because now I don’t feel comfortable asking him to spot me, say, if I forgot my wallet (which has never happened yet).  I don’t want to keep running a tally in my head.  Generally, I also believe in buying quality items, and I feel like he hasn’t matured from the stage of quality over quantity.  He has a lot of clothes, and a lot of them are quite raggedy… basically that’s what my closet looked like when I was in my teens and early 20s.  I feel like I cannot respect a man in his 30s that doesn’t understand the value in quality underwear, it doesn’t even have to be really expensive, just high quality.  So, you see, one argument could be that he does his thing, and I will do mine, but already I feel like I am making lifestyle adjustments.

I hate his bed.  His bed is like the bed of a 90 year old lady living in a third world country.  The bedsheets are this brownish pattern and it’s made out of flannel that pills.  He has one decent foam pillow, which he doesn’t use and instead he uses a folded up brown towel.  He has a worn out duvet that looks worse than what can be purchased from Ikea for $20 and another large towel, that I can only describe as being made out of the same material that a microfibre car washcloth is made out of.  I can sleep on anything, and of course I can sleep on his bed, but why am I doing this to myself?  When he stays over at my place, he does not get the concept of a loose flat sheet so he ends up kicking that off, which means that I have to wash my duvet or duvet cover when he leaves.  I told him that his bed should strive to be of the same level of comfort as a basic Ikea bed.  He makes some excuse about it not being a priority, budget, moving out soon anyway.  It’s not the bed really, it is the fact that I now have a hard time picturing us living together.  Everything he owns is shit.  If I was to rob his place, there would be nothing that I would take, except the two items that he borrowed from me which is my MacBook Air and my GoPro.  I cannot think of anything that he has that has any bit of value.

Next, his dog.  For a long time I tried to deny that I don’t like his dog, because I’m a dog owner myself and my puppies are pieces of shits most of the time (but I love them).  His dog is antisocial, sheds hair all over the place, drools everywhere, constantly has diarrhea and cannot walk long distances.  Aside from being a bit overweight, this dog is in good health so I am convinced that it’s just a lazy piece of shit.  He brings the dog everywhere, including to our romantic weekend getaway, which meant we had to take extra care to accommodate for the dog by picking a pet friendly hotel.  This dog’s hair sheds like crazy and imagine sleeping in a tent or being in a car with hair (and most likely shit) is just flying everywhere.  Okay, so maybe I don’t hate the dog, but what irks me is the way he fusses over the dog constantly.  He will narrate this dog constantly too.  Why can’t he just have a dog, love it, care for it and bring it to dog appropriate places?  I feel like the interaction between him and his dog is unnatural.  I’m friends with a married couple that recently had a baby and got a dog.  The husband is so obsessed about their dog, seemingly more so than their baby and I feel kind of pissed for the wife and baby.  I don’t want to be that family.  And you can’t just outright say stop obsessing over the dog because people love dogs, and while I love my dogs too, I think there is a line that needs to be drawn, boundaries.  I think that is what it boils down to.  I need there to be boundaries between me and his dog.  There are certainly boundaries between me and my own dogs.  My dogs sleep in a different room as me and if I go on a trip, or have a busy weekend, they stay with my parents and my brother.  If someone wants to borrow or watch over my dogs, they are more than welcomed to.

Now, are these issues actually really issues or am I being crazy?  And are any of these issues deal breakers?  I’ve discussed one of the above issue with him and the thing is that he loves me and he wants to do what he can to make it work, but are these things we can actually work through or am I just annoyed with him as a person?

My Erotic “Professional Massage”

Okay, so many things I want to share in this post.  First, volleyball coach and I are going strong and he is so sweet.  My birthday weekend has turned out to be super busy with him throwing a bachelor party for his friend, so he surprised me with a spa booking (just for me to enjoy, because he couldn’t be there).  So here I am having the most pampering day, getting my hair done and getting a massage and thinking about how I want to be the best girlfriend for him, not just by being nice to him, but by being the best version of myself.

So the second thing I want to share is that the masseuse just gave me the most erotic massage I’ve ever experienced at a spa.  There was just so much sexual tension, and I don’t think I’m misinterpreting.  I’ve had many massages by registered and non-registered masseuses before.  The massage started normally with him feeling for knots over the covers.  Then he pulled the sheets all the way down to the middle of my buttocks.  He started off on the knots in my upper buttocks, okay, at this point I still felt the massage was normal, though looking back I don’t think that’s how draping should work for the buttocks part.  He massaged my back, though he also put his hand under my torso and massaged my front side almost all the way up to my breasts.  This has never happened before during any of my massages, but at this point I still felt it was normal.  He did a great job on my shoulders too.

When he got to my legs, he draped the sheets all the way up to my butt crack.  He massaged all the way up my legs and most definitely brushed my outer vaginal lips several times.  He also massaged my pelvis and what I mean by that is the frontal area where the legs touches the torso, and grazed the pubic bone area.  So at this point, I am becoming aroused so I am more aware of his massage that is becoming more and more erotic.  He asked me to flip over (this is normal during a regular massage), and while I was on my back he massaged my legs and he made sure to go all the way up my inner thigh, while massaging my buttocks and again grazing my vaginal lip area.  He did this on the left side, and when he got to the right side he massaged my legs all the way up to my torso in one sweeping motion (leg, buttocks, abdomen).  I thought this was a clear sign he wanted to see how comfortable I was because there was a lack of symmetry between the left and right sides.

When he got to my arms, he made sure to brush up against the side of my breasts with his arms as he massaged my biceps.  And when he was done massaging each arm, he placed them on my lower abdomen, close to my privates and over the sheet.  Everything was just so subtle, yet sexual.  When he massaged my head, he put his large hands over my throat in a choking like motion and tugged on my hair.  Oh, and did I mention that at this point I am so turned on that I was welcoming all of this?  I enjoyed every bit of it.  As he was massaging my head and pulling my hair, he was standing right behind my head and he was breathing on me, and he bent down as he massaged the upper part of my chest, and as he bent down I felt that his crotch was probably touching the upper part of my head given how high the massage table was.

At the end of the massage, I thanked him, and he said that “the pleasure was all his”.  Oh my god, it’s like I’m in some kind of porno or something.  It was so unexpected, and really do not think I am exaggerating any of this.  I don’t think I could make this up if I tried.  It’s just so subtle and not entirely outright sexual.  I think I would’ve enjoyed it more if I wasn’t on my period and feeling sub-conscious about bleeding on the sheets that were practically right up against my ass crack.  I tipped him well and went home to masturbate several times.

I think in this day and age most people would feel like that was a violation, some kind of sexual assault.  I do wonder if a more natural response was to have been angry, but I really don’t think that I am. He added just enough pizzaz to my day and it was welcomed.

Will I be telling volleyball coach any of this?  I used to be entirely open to my partners about things like this, and they never cared and it might even come off as I’m flaunting that other men want me.  Now, I feel like I’m more mature about relationships.  I’m not cheating on volleyball coach and I can’t imagine telling him this story would make him feel good nor would he think it was a good laugh.  I think I’m just going to keep this one to myself and maybe a close girlfriend.  It’s just something that happened.

A Complementing and Balanced Relationship

Turns out volleyball coach getting fired just means that we get to spend more time together during the week.  We’ve been going to yoga classes consistently every week, and while I’m helping him with his job hunt and staying positive, he is helping me with my business and setting up the dogs new play pen so that they can stay with me more often during the week.  We’re very complementary to each other in terms of what we bring to the relationship.

He’s great at bringing structure to things, which also means disciplining the dogs.  I’m good at bringing dynamic and variety to the relationship, pushing us to try new things.  Now that we have a bit more flavour to our relationship, he has been convinced of using his calendar even.  This balance that we have in our relationship is nothing that I’ve ever experienced before.  It works, and I feel like it is taking me time to get used to a relationship actually working.

Had I not had any dating experience behind me, I might think that this relationship is rather dull, but I do not take for granted the balance that we have in this relationship.  Balance and willingness to accept one another is what makes volleyball coach and I work.  He gets that it takes effort to make a relationship work, and he is proactive in making sure that things continue to go smoothly as opposed to being passive about it.

The more I get used to this idea of a healthy relationship, the more I feel okay with never having those feelings of excitement and anxiety for someone ever again.  Even as I read other people’s writing about the hardships of early stage dating, guys that don’t text back, guys that have this veil of mystery about them, I feel as sure as ever that this is not what I want in my life.