~Friday, August 03, 2007

Attempt #2

Another failed attempt at trying to tell my mom about Scott and he was becoming impatient. To quote him, "That's fucking bullshit." I was on the phone with her and the conversation just wasn't going anywhere where I could introduce him. He had even gone so far as to talk to me while I was on the phone with her so she could hear his male presence in my apartment.

Now we were sitting by my pool after work with a cooler full of beer and my pink cellphone in hand. "Will you just call her and tell her?"

"I have to. If she ever found out that my father is meeting you before she even knew you existed, her feelings would be so hurt." My father called minutes ago to expressly invite Scott and me to dinner Saturday night. I begged off the phone without responding and told Scott about the invite. Scott agreed to go and it caught me off guard. I guess it made sense seeing as how I'm meeting his parents the next day.

I chewed on my lip, "I feel like I missed my window to tell her and now it's awkwardly late."

"It is," he helped.

I groaned and dialed her number. Once again, the conversation wasn't going anywhere where I had an in. I had to force one.

"What are you doing for dinner?" she asked.

"I don't know, I'm sure Scott will cook something," I cringed.

"Who's Scott?"

"This guy I've been seeing for a little while."

My mother, having not heard me mention a boy's name in two years, got extraordinarily excited. "Oh!" she breathed, "Is he there now?"

"Yup."

"Well let me get off the phone with you, then. You have a nice time. Bye!"

That was a whole lot easier than I thought it was going to be. I jumped in the pool, "Baby, I did it!"

"Wait. Your mom didn't know you two are seeing each other?" asked my neighbor.

Scott leaned over my empty lounge chair, "I know, right?"

I swam to the steps. "How long have you been seeing each other?" he asked.

Scott looked at me, his face scrunched up. He didn't know. I did because I opened a calendar up the previous day after I love you to do the math. But if he didn't know, I wasn't going to admit it, "I don't know, a couple of months?"

"That's it?" said my neighbor, shocked. "But you guys act like you're practically married!"

"Blech," I made the obligatory face. I got up out of the pool and wrapped my towel around me. Scott got up to go to the bathroom.

"So has he told you he loves you yet?" my neighbor pried.

"No," I ended kind of high pitched, sounding like "noooooooo?" I mean, he hasn't expressly told me.

"It's coming," he offered. "Will you be the first to say it?"

"Hell no!" I laughed.

"It's coming," he repeated. "It's coming soon."

***

Scott pulled a beer out of the fridge and returned to the couch. He then lifted my skirt and thrusted the cold can against my thigh.

"Be nice to me! You like me!" I yelped.

"I love you and I am nice to you," he retorted.

So... the second time and it can't be an accident. Once again I glossed over it by extending my giggle. If he came out and said it, I would respond, but I don't know how to handle him slipping it in midsentence.

Mike told me that with relationship stuff, I need to have just one or two confidants. Unwittingly, that advice made him one. This morning I shot my friend an e-mail about the incidents.

He responded:

First of all, you are in the big leagues now, so this "pretending it didn't happen" thing has to go. Obviously, if he is inviting you to meet his family, he thinks the world of you. That rite of passage means, "she's in my life. Please include her if you include me in something. You will be seeing a lot more of her, and I want you to be comfortable". So, he's playing to win. It sounds like your shields are still up on this whole relationship thing. I think you might need to have another sit down with him, and really discuss how you feel about things, and where you want to be in your life. And how that when you heard him say "the phrase that pays" (and in his case, it paid well), you really want him to know how seriously you take that. If you are still doing this "pretend it didn't happen" thing, that tells me that maybe you aren't really sure where he is at emotionally, and you aren't really too sure of how you feel about things either. This is one of those situations that you really have to be engaged emotionally, or it isn’t going to work. Think of driving a car. You get on the road, you line up the steering wheel so that the car is going straight, you put on the cruise control and you take a nap. Relationships are the same way. It doesn't work if you try this cruise control thing. There are many minuscule imperfections in any road, and you need your hands on the wheel so you know where you are going, or eventually your relationship is going to go off a cliff.

And he put me in my place.

I do wonder how often Scott has said it to other women. I guess it doesn't matter as long as his feelings for me are genuine. But if he's said it flippantly in the past, it could indicate that he's not as serious as I am about the "phrase that pays."

And where do I stand? I'm not entirely sure. I've written about my stance on love before:
What chance is there for me, someone who is wandering through life, not really feeling anything for anybody? I'm not even sure I believe in love. I've never been around it: my parents divorced when I was very young and I don't remember anything but them fighting, my mother remarried someone she didn't love just to give us a father figure, my father remarried his mistress and the first time he even told me he loved her was last month... and they've been married 17 years. I've never even had a roommate who was in a relationship. I've never seen it: love in action. The only things I know of love I've learned from sitcoms and movies, and let's face it, that isn't love.

I'm not sure what love is and what it's supposed to feel like. I've read before that a lot of people confuse love with infatuation. That people who think they're in love are actually heady on whatever chemicals are released when they're in lust. And the lust wears off around the three month mark, these couples who thought they were going to make it, didn't.

I've actually declared my love twice, but in hindsight, I think I only meant it once. The second relationship just seemed too convenient. I've been thinking back to the one time I did mean it and what that felt like. Scott reminds me a lot of that guy. How I felt with my first love is very similar to how I feel now.

I find myself wanting to say it. When he called me during his lunch break today, I opened my mouth to tell him, but then paused and closed it again. He's slipping it in other conversations; I would just be putting it out there. Do I really mean it, or am I just caught up with him saying it? Does he mean it?

Does he realize what he's doing to me?

12 comments:

Ayeshie said...

Wow she reacted great! You mentioned movies and sitcoms as your only experience with observing love. People in those shows and movies "put themselves out there", finding the perfect moment to grandly declare love. It really doesn't work that way. Every girl I know had "I love you" said to her in a covert sort of way. I was told on aol instant messenger thirty seconds before he had to leave, my father embedded it into my mother's high school graduation card, my friend was told while she was cleaning up after a fundraising dinner (her love interest was her co-chair for the dinner.)

Jessica said...

So he has said it twice in general conversation, I think guys do that so they can say it to you but they can also pass it off if it becomes a problem or makes the situation uncomfortable.

I think you need to figure out how you feel about him and if you want to say the phrase that pays back.

In these situations I like to think of a quote from one of my favourite movies
'Why is it that we don't always recognize the moment when love begins but we always know when it ends?'
It makes me try and look for the moment it begins..

dont eat the token said...

Are you a five?

In numerology, those of us ruled by the number five get a wake-up call by reading this entry from Linda Goodman.

"...possess a great deal of natural charm ... quick to spot mistakes ... incapable of ignoring them (their own, as well as others) ... change is a never-ending necessity ... strong tendency to overanalyze people and situations ..."

And the eye-opener:

"This obsession with analysis can ruin personal relationships ... Even love can wear out under such continual (and usually unnecessary) scrutiny. Love is made of instinct and feelings, not logic. 5 people tend to 'talk love to death' instead of just letting it be, allowing it to become part of them, without questioning its whys and wherefores."

And finally, in the words Hunzer advised me, "just say it."

J said...

I agree with Mike's advice. Do not continue to ignore. Talk to him about it...

Anonymous said...

The first time my husband (then boyfriend) said I love you to me, I said "awww, that's nice". He married me anyway :)

... said...

When Lover Boy first told me he loved me, it shocked the hell out of me, and I actually had to think about if I loved him back, because I had my wall up throughout the whole relationship (I thought it was going to be a short term thing).

If you love him, say it back. If you don't, don't.

Peach said...

I am with Mike, but feel a bit more sympathetic. I know I'm never one to take down the shields first... the only thing I disagree about is the talking about love thing - talk about the relationship sure, but epxressing love ideally comes out just when you feel it, that's the romantic part, it could (should?) be just whenever you feel it - at a gas station because he says something amusing, in bed, when you're just getting a beer, you know, whenever... I guess talk about things and then relax and you and he can keep falling in love together, safely and don't worry about when or if you say it yet?

www.womenclothesonline.info said...

I think you need to talk to him about it. Guys sometimes don't know what to say when they want to say it. I have found it very hard in the past to say it to a girl I very much loved because I did not want her to leave me. I found it very hard to say. So, I think it needs to be brought in both of you. I never got the chance to tell her how I really felt. I wish I could have.

Anonymous said...

I have been in you shoes. I know that feeling. I know the anxiety. I know the relief once it's said. I know the immense emotional flood it will invoke after it is verbalized. If you don't say it you are cheating yourself the next wonderful level you will take your relationship.

I promise you.

Drama Queen said...

I like Mike.

And if you find yourself wanting to say it then, babe, that's enough for now. It would be worse if you didn't want to say it. . .

general_boy said...

Wow. I clearly have much to catch up on in the wonderful world of Sarah's very own episode of Coupling.

I'm on it! ;)

Brooke said...

You and I have such eerily similar romantic lives, it's crazy. I just told my parents I was seeing someone this weekend, and I've been getting the l-bomb dropped on me a lot lately. Mostly when he's drunk, so I try not to take it seriously, but still...

Also, in response to your comment, everything is fine, now. We definitely hit a little snag, but we worked it out and things are great. Thanks for asking!

 

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