Letting go, moving on

Hi all! It’s been a hot minute since I’ve written on this blog even though I resolved that I would. As I mentioned in my most previous posts, I got out of a 1.5 year relationship and have started a new one with a great guy. While things are going absolutely amazing in my love life now, it took a loooooong time for me to get to this happy place.

One of the reasons the breakup with my ex was so difficult was because we shared a friend group. I met ex only 3 months after moving to the new city, and his friends were pretty much the only friends I had. Once we broke up, I was extremely anxious about our shared friend situation. How would he act when we were out together?  Would he bring girls around? Would I stop getting invited places? Who else was I going to hang out with if everyone stopped hanging out with me?  I constantly had a huge knot in my stomach thinking about all the possible answers to these questions.

What happened was that my ex avoided going anywhere I was going to be. I was really shocked by how out of his way he went in order to avoid me. For example, at our mutual friend’s birthday celebration 2 weeks after we broke up, he came out to the area where we were (with a girl of course) but did not come hang out with the group. It’s now been 1 year since we’ve broken up and I’ve only seen him twice.

At first, I was super upset about how he avoided me at all costs. He was once the most important person in my life, and now he couldn’t even stand to be anywhere I was. I tried texting him twice- the first time, he just said that he had no interest in rehashing things but that maybe we could talk in the future. The second time I texted him he didn’t respond. So I didn’t contact him again. But it killed me. How could he suddenly stop caring about me? WHY did he stop caring? Even though it’s best for us to not be in a relationship, I still cared about him and how he was doing. I’ve never had a breakup where me and the person never talked again. It felt like a slap in the face. I doubted if he ever cared about me at all.

In retrospect, I guess going “cold turkey” with having no contact made the breakup easier. There was no back-and-forth, no guessing how he felt… he was completely done, no question about it. I had to accept that fact and move on. This was SO hard. Even made harder by having to hear about him through the some of our mutual friends. It was extremely difficult to talk to my friends about the breakup since they didn’t want to be in the middle of it all. I became so anxious that I had to see a therapist. The therapist helped me cope with the situation and also gave me an unbiased person to talk to. I’m thankful that I reached out to a professional because the anxiety was overwhelming at times. The constant stomach-flip feeling slowly started to dissipate. Moving on was hard, but after therapy, I slowly started feeling like I was on the right track.

Until next time,

Liz

 

 

When the love turns sour

As I mentioned, one of the reasons why I stopped posting on this blog is because I did really lost who I was in my previous relationship.

When I met my ex, I swear it felt like a movie. I was completely infatuated by his good looks, swagger (did I really just use that word?), confidence, and charm. Seriously – he is drop dead gorgeous. The first time I met him, I was with a group of friends. He tried to get my phone number, but an ex of his was there and circling him like a hawk. I, not wanting to get involved with a guy with ex drama, did not give him my phone number. Seems real mature of me, right?  I remember texting Clementine telling her how hot he was and how disappointed I was that he had ex drama.

Fast forward about 3 weeks to Halloween. He’s there again, and of course, we end up making out that night (and by making out all night, I really mean that I went home with him). It was all over from there – I was completely hooked.  The sex was amazing, he was smart, tall, educated, funny, and drop-dead gorgeous. I had never fallen this hard for someone before and overlooked many signs that the relationship was not all rainbows and glitter like I thought it was.

ahhhh, love.

I consider myself to have a pretty strong sense of identity and independence – which is why, looking back now, it surprises me how much I let this go when we were together. Ex works long hours and some weekends at his job, so without realizing it, I became available to him at all times.  For example, before we started dating, I got into the best shape of my life. However, spending time with ex (who is 30 years old and has never been to a gym by the way) definitely became a bigger priority than my own health. Along the same lines, another huge problem in the relationship (for me) was his eating and exercise habits.  Like I said – ex is extremely handsome, but he is one of those lucky people that don’t need to work for it. He can eat whatever he wants and sit around on the couch for hours without gaining a pound.  I am not one of these people. And he definitely takes advantage of that. His diet was absolutely horrible and mainly consisted of sandwiches, pizza, soda, and sweets.  He eats out every single meal. And exercise? Never happened. My gym was a 5 minute walk from his apartment and he refused to ever go with me. Even getting him to go for a walk with me was like pulling teeth. For Christmas, he bought me a bike, which was something I really wanted. I was able to convince him to go for a bike ride with me once. I asked him numerous times if we could cook together and exercise, but it never happened, because it was not a priority for him. As a result, I gained weight, was unhappy, and resented him.

Another thing I cannot believe I put up with?  My ex rarely told me that he loved me. I realized that I loved him very early on in the relationship. Being the little old fashioned girl that I am, I refused to say it first. When he hadn’t said it 9 months into the relationship, I was getting extremely antsy, and it was really starting to wear on me. He finally said it, which obviously felt great!  True, he was wasted when he said it, but that really didn’t take away anything from the moment from me.

However, this elated feeling was short-lived.  Ex never really told me he loved me much after that.  I expressed to him how much it bothered me, but nothing changed. I convinced myself that he just wasn’t the kind of person that likes to say that and I shouldn’t expect to hear it that much. But I just couldn’t get over not hearing it on the celebratory days – my birthday, Thanksgiving, Christmas, NYE, our 1 year anniversary… On our 1 year anniversary, I laid in bed with him and cried because he hadn’t said it to me. I woke him up and told him (again) how much it bothered me that he hadn’t told me that he loved me on such a special occasion. He promised to do better. Did he? No. The resentment kept building.

Thinking about all this makes my brain hurt. It’s really hard to think about how glaring obvious it is now that I wasn’t happy and how I should have moved on much earlier.

Where have I been?

I cannot believe it has been over 2 FREAKIN YEARS since I’ve posted on this site.  A whole lot has changed!

1. I graduated from grad school, was unemployed for 6 months, then got a job in my field. So, I guess you can say that I’m finally an adult – woo hoo!
2. I’m still living in the city, and within the past few months have moved into a new apartment. It’s the first time that I’m living by myself, and while I have random anxious moments when I think that someone’s going to break into my apartment and kill me, I love it.  I lived with 3 roommates for the past 2 years, and it’s such a welcome change.  Plus, the apartment is in an awesome location super close to bars, restaurants, shopping.
3. I fell in love.
4. I had my heart broken.
5. I’m in a new relationship.

(More on #3-5 to come!)

While in a relationship with my ex, I completely lost who I was. One of my goals for 2016 is to do more of what I love to do, which includes writing on this blog. Also, I hope that it will help me continue to process my feelings of the breakup and the new relationship. So expect to see many more posts coming!

Lotsa love,

Liz 🙂

Falling into Old Patterns

If you read my previous post, you know how I had an epiphany this summer. What exactly did I promise myself?

I really took away something valuable from the whole Spicoli experience: I need to stop going for the “safe” guys.  Maybe later on in my life, when I need more stability and consistency, will the safe guys be a better option for me.  For now, I need to stop getting sucked into relationships I’m not interested in just because there’s nothing wrong with the guy. I can’t get tied down, I have way too much craziness left in me! 

Guess what…. I almost fell back into the same habit!

get it together, Liz

I met this guy, let’s call him Julio, in the new city. He grew up here and knows a lot about the area and fun things to do. He also has a good job, is generally attractive, and a gentleman…. the only caveat was that he’s really short!  To sum him up in one word: SAFE.

He was a really nice guy and I enjoyed spending time with him.  The problem was that he didn’t give me butterflies. Unfortunately, it’s only in hindsight that I realized this. I was perfectly content seeing someone who I knew wasn’t right for me.  Deep down, I knew it wasn’t going to work out.  I was wasting both his and my time, just because I couldn’t find a big enough flaw to end it.  

 

So what finally brought me to my senses?  I met someone… and we had a magnetic connection.  I’m talking butterflies, giggling, nonstop smiling, the works.  After I met him, I never saw Julio again. 

On the one hand, I’m upset with myself for not recognizing how dating Julio went against the pattern I’m trying to break. If it wasn’t for meeting this new man, I may still be pursuing things with him.  If this were the case, I’d undoubtedly be miserable. On the other hand, I think that this taught me to be more aware of what I want and to really examine the feelings I have for somebody. 

My Whirlwind with Spicoli

I went to college. I drank a lot. And it got me into trouble.  Everyone loves the fun, sloppy drunk girl when you’re a college senior, but 3 years postgrad, it’s not so cute anymore.

This is why I pretty much stopped “going out to go out”. I still drink, but the goal and locations have changed.  Aka: it’s pretty rare now a days that I go out to get wasted and go to seedy college bars or clubs.  I’m more likely to go to cheap dive bars or just casually drink at friends’ apartments.

Moral of the story – I don’t go out drinking a lot anymore because I don’t trust myself not to do stupid things.  I also don’t enjoy clubs the way I used to. Well, guess what happened the one time I went out this summer??

I got sloppy drunk and had sex with a guy I met twice.  Typically, I would wake up hating myself, but you know what?

Here’s what happened: On a Tuesday night, I went out to dinner with my friend, Anne Marie, and her parents. Anne Marie has been one of my best friends since I was little, but we’ve drifted apart a little bit. She likes to party at the “cool bars” (aka ones flooded by losers we went to high school with and cost a ton of money), and I’m not into that scene anymore. Anyways, our server at this restaurant was one of her friends that she goes out with a lot.  I thought he was pretty cute. Not in a typically attractive way, but in a sexy-unemployed-haven’t-showered-grungy kind of way.  We will refer to him as Spicoli.

At the end of dinner, he sat down and had a glass of wine with us.  We started talking and Spicoli and Anne Marie started telling me about a party the next day. Anne Marie, always the wingwoman (especially after 4 glasses of wine), said “Spicoli, take her number, maybe you can convince her to come out because I never can.”  So I did.

He texted me to come out to the party, but I didn’t go because I really didn’t want to I was super busy.  Then he asked me to get a drink the next Friday. Afterwards, Anne Marie was having people over for dinner and was going to go out.  So that was our plan.

I had a great time with him on our date.  He has very interesting qualities about him. I found conversation with him to flow easily, and he’s definitely one of the most open-minded guys I’ve ever met in my life.  He was so open with his emotions, which I found to be so attractive. He doesn’t have a degree or a steady job, but has traveled the world.  And his hair is about as long as mine. Basically, I’ve never really dated anyone like him. I typically go for “safe” guys – for example, the boyfriend I had senior year of college was athletic, handsome, came from the perfect family, went to grad school, and is the smartest person I’ve ever known (triple major, got a perfect score on his math GRE).  His “perfectness” freaked me out – and I ended up cheating on him with a guy who had a long-term girlfriend (and also had long hair now that I think about it.

Things just felt different with him. I told him up front about my relationship with Evelyn, which is something I don’t tell guys until we’ve been dating for a couple of months.  Spicoli didn’t blink an eye.  Open-mindedness is such a turn on for me.

Fast forward to the end of the night – we’re making out, at a club, between shots of fireball. I go back with him to his apartment, and have amazing sex.

I felt like I could be myself with someone for the first time… ever. He didn’t judge me; he completely accepted me for who I was. I left a week later, but we went out a few more times, and the sex got better and better each time.

I really took away something valuable from the whole Spicoli experience: I need to stop going for the “safe” guys.  Maybe later on in my life, when I need more stability and consistency, will the safe guys be a better option for me.  For now, I need to stop getting sucked into relationships I’m not interested in just because there’s nothing wrong with the guy. I can’t get tied down, I have way too much craziness left in me! Right, B?

My 5 days with Maverick

I’ve mentioned my “friend” Maverick a couple of times on this blog.

TL;DR: Maverick is one of my best friends from college who I’ve had an on-and-off again “relationship” with for the past almost 4 years.  I’ve always had really strong feelings for him, and I believe he has for me as well.  However, part of the reason we haven’t been together is that he’s in the military and we don’t get to see each other a lot.

Unfortunately, Maverick was deployed overseas mid-summer.  He was given two weeks off and drove to see me at home.  We had a great time together.  Lots of cuddling, drinking, and sex, as you may expect.  He was only able to stay two nights, because he had to go see his family (which live about 5 hours from my home).

It was super hard to say good-bye to him.  I feel so happy and comforted whenever I’m with him.  Throw in the fact that he was on his way to one of the most unsafe parts of the world, and I was a wreck.  The day that he left, I laid on my couch for about 5 hours and ate a disgusting amount of food.  Pancakes and chicken tacos, to be exact.

So, the next weekend I had plans to see my former roommate, Robin, who lives about 30 minutes from where Maverick lives (what a coincidence, huh?)  When I told Maverick about my plans, he asked me where I was staying. When I said that I was going to stay at Robin’s, he said, “I don’t approve of that. I think we should get a hotel room or something.”  Swoon.

I drove the 5 hours and met up with Maverick the next weekend.  Robin was working and had dinner plans, so I said I’d meet up with her later that night.

In the meantime, Maverick and I got lunch and drove around. I don’t know what it is, but to me there’s nothing sexier than having a guy drive me around while listening to music.  It reminds me of my first love, when we were too young to go out drinking & were stuck living at home with our parents.  We would drive around, windows down, not having a plan as to where we were going. It feels extremely relaxed to me; I don’t have a care in the world. This is exactly how I felt that day with Maverick.  I couldn’t have been any happier.

We ended up at two state parks right on the ocean that I had never been to.  We went exploring and it was absolutely beautiful.

After the exploring, we went to a gas station to get some drinks.  We started talking about where we were going to stay that night, and we decided to start calling hotels.  All hotels for that night were $400. Yikes. Turns out, this ridiculously overpriced room was…. worth every penny, ifyouknowwhatimean.

It was even harder to say good-bye to him the second time.  The 5 days that we spent together were absolutely perfect, and confirmed my thoughts that we could be happy together, if we were living near one another. Also, the fact that he was headed to the most dangerous part of the world didn’t help either.

2 months later, and I still miss him like hell.  But I’m so thankful for the amazing 5 days that we were able to spend together.

Did ya miss me?

Hello all, 

It’s been a while since I’ve posted – my apologies! As is typical for me, a lot has changed in the past month.  I’ll be binge-writing blog posts within the next week or so!

First and foremost, I’ve moved 800 miles away to a big city! I’m absolutely LOVING it.  I’ve always wanted to live in a city, and I’ve finally done it.  I was nervous about meeting people, but it’s slowly but surely happening.  I even have 2 dates this week – thank you for finally giving me some luck, online dating!  (Hope I didn’t just jinx myself).  All in all, Liz is one happy camper. 

 

 

 

Liz Goes Online

Against my better judgement, I decided to give online dating another shot.  I tried this a little over a year ago, and it did not turn out well for me.  I went on to meet women, and ended up chatting with this super cute, blonde doctor.  She was a little older than me and was super artsy.  I was SO into her.  She was sexy, smart, and creative. Swoon.

I thought that the feelings were mutual, and so I slept with her after only a few dates.  After that, I ended up going home for a month over winter vacation and we didn’t keep in touch.  Not really sure what happened, but whatever.  I chalked it up to her being too busy saving lives.

So, this was my only experience with online dating— until now!

This time, I decided to go on to meet men.  This experience has been way different.  Men are way creepier.

Here are some highlights from my 1 week online—-

…. this was the FIRST MESSAGE THIS GUY SENT ME. CREEP.

No, thanks.  

(Also worth mentioning that on his profile, under the “what I’m doing with my life section” this guy wrote “recovering heroin and painkiller addict”)

And my personal favorite—–

???

Ok, so maybe this will end up being another failure.  I’ve been chatting with two cute guys that seem normal– let’s see how long this lasts!

Liz

 

 

Aftermath Part II

So after all of the snooping/texting/large eggplant emoji drama, things went back to normal with Robert(1) and I.  Except for the fact that he became really jealous (big surprise).  He was super needy and was accusing me of things for no reason – other than the fact that his trust in me was nonexistent.  This is normally the kind of behavior I would not put up with, but I was still feeling EXTREMELY guilty from the whole ordeal.  

 

Robert(1) and I were fighting and he was getting emotional, asking me to be his girlfriend.  On the third time this happened in 2 weeks, I agreed.  It didn’t feel real to me, as I knew I was doing it just to make him happy.  I only told one of my friends about it.

maybe it won’t have to deal with reality if I don’t tell anyone!

10 days later, we broke up.  Turns out, it doesn’t work when you agree to be in a relationship out of guilt.  The real question is——- why did I let him influence me into doing something I had no desire to do?  This is extremely out of character for me and makes me angry at myself.  

Here’s the lesson kids: Listen to your gut.

The Aftermath

Hi everyone,

Last time I posted, I told you all that Robert(1) read my text messages without me knowing. I had also started dating another guy behind his back & was pretty confused about what I wanted.

When Robert(1) told me that he read my texts, I was in shock.  My mind was spinning and I was desperately trying to remember what I had said in my texts.  Not surprisingly, I severely underestimated what he read.

I admitted to going on a date with another guy, saying that I had been friends with him for a while and we just went out to dinner. I stressed that it wasn’t a big deal, and we had only kissed. He asked me some more questions about Robert(2), and I answered honestly.

To my surprise, Robert(1) wasn’t satisfied with this information.  He then something else that shocked me-

“What about your texts to Maverick?”

??!!??!!??!!

(Read about my relationship with my ex, Maverick, here and here).

I couldn’t believe that he was actually talking about my texts to Maverick! I instantly remembered that I had texted him saying that I missed him, as well as saying how cute he looked in a snapchat that he sent me. I. Was. Mortified.

But my nightmare didn’t stop there!! Robert(1) informed me that he saw a graphic text that I sent my best friend, Chrysanthemum.  While Robert(2) and I were making out one night, I had done some over the clothes exploring with my hands.  Three words: It Was Huge. Naturally, I texted Chrysanthemum telling her about this and used emojis in a very tasteful way—

 

Our conversation was horribly awkward and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.  The most shocking thing that was said was by Robert.  He told me that he was going to get over what happened and hoped that we could move on from this.  I think that most guys would be totally done with a girl that pulled shit like this & I couldn’t believe how well Rob handled it all.  Why is he still into me? If the situation was reversed, I wouldn’t have admitted to snooping would have dumped him in a heartbeat.

One issue with this situation is the fact that Robert was snooping.  First of all, Rob is NOT by boyfriend and we never decided to not see other people.  Is he entitled to be this pissed off about what I was doing with Robert(2)?  I am conflicted and would love to hear opinions from others!

Until next time,
Liz