repeating itself… repeating itself…
I should have realized it as soon as I looked at him. I should have felt it. That distinct sensation… creeping up my spine, my neck, entering my brain, making me lick my lips. This is where my mind goes ‘hummm…’ and my body goes ‘ooohh…’ and I take a step forward. I should have seen this for what it was, again, and I should have turned around and walked out of that bar.
Jump in my time machine. Let’s go back a few years… no… many years. He was sexy and I was shy. He was older. He was bad. He was not someone who would ever look my way… not seriously. He had all the girls he needed and wanted. He was perfect… perfectly unattainable. He’d never want me, see me, pursue me. I had my barrier in place. I could lust him from a distance.
I’d set my sights on him whom I couldn’t have. The problem was, I got him (whom I shouldn’t have). Guess what? He broke my heart. Took me spinning and spitting in every direction. Playing me and leading me down every road I was supposedly trying to avoid. The sad part is: I’d seen it coming all along. The pathetic part is: that was the attraction.
Let’s go back further. I had done this before: set myself up to fail. I chose to become engrossed with someone whom I could never call my own. He was in love but not with me. It didn’t matter: he was out of my league anyway. Even if he knew I existed - which he did not - I would be nothing more than a silly young girl in his eyes.
… and then we were kissing.
Fuck.
I definitely thought the girlfriend was a strong enough barrier. Now he’s an asshole and I’m a whore.
Move ahead to my true love. It ended, after years, with both of us in tears: My heart broken and his just starting to emerge. He was, in the beginning, the furthest flutter from my cardiac muscle. He loved the ladies and enjoyed them, at times, in two’s and three’s. His sexual exploits were like story lines for Califonication. He didn’t love; he fucked, “Sorry babe, but call me next weekend when you want to fuck again.”
I’d seen them come and go and cum and go. He only accepted the cream of the crop and didn’t mind harshly rejecting those who did not fit, fuck, fully. He didn’t have a heart or possibly a soul. This was perfect. Behind my intensely fortified barrier I went in for the kill, knowing I’d miss.
I got him. Damnit.
We fucked. Damnit.
‘It’s okay’ I mused, shakily to myself ‘He’ll kick me out any minute now.’
He cooked me breakfast. DAMNIT.
Three years later: I’m sitting alone in the middle of an empty room holding a mirror. I stare into it and the girl reflected back mocks, ‘I told you so!’
He had tried to love me, but love wasn’t in his bodily ability (and I’d known it all along.) It was a self-fulfilling prophecy. I’d gone in looking to fail, and fail I had. There was no reason to be hurt, but I was.
Back to the original story: I should have turned around and walked out of that bar. I could feel the illogic crawling up my neck. There were so many reasons why I couldn’t have him, why I shouldn’t have him, why he wouldn’t want me. I confidently walked forward and set myself on a stool beside him (with the barriers firmly in place between us.)
Those beautiful eyes sparkled and he pulled me in. He told me he was only in town for the weekend. Brilliant, another barrier! That sold me and I took him back to my place. The kisses were intense, and the more I got the more I wanted. In the morning he left without my number in hand. I tried to accept that I’d caused my own demise, but I still felt like shit.
Always preventing even the possibility of love by strategically positioning myself to be disappointed and heartbroken. Every time. Every fucking time.
