Stay of Execution

Ways Happy Couples Have Met

Stepping over a chessboard at a party, he suggested a move over his shoulder and kept walking.  "What an arrogant prick," she thought.  Now, they're happily married.

His dad was an employee at her company, and he asked her out at a company party.  "Not my type," she thought.  "Definitely not my type."  But she decided there was no harm in going on one date, and it's been three years.

Match.com.  Who meets this way?  Lots of people.  A year long relationship, a four month breakup, and then a reconciliation and a wedding.  I was much slower to forgive him for the breakup period than she was, and gave him wary dirty looks for the first few months they were back together. 

8 Minute Dating.  When she proposed to him on a beach on New Year's morning, he told her he had to think about it.  He went home and called his dad, asking for his grandmother's wedding ring.  A few days later, he proposed to her, telling her how his grandparents had met at a "mixer," just like they had. 

There was a room for rent.  She came to look at it, and they started talking.  She didn't take the room, then, but now they are living together.

They were set up.  He asked his friends if they knew anyone, and they gave him her number, and let her know he would be calling.  They went out to dinner, and were surprised that it wasn't awkward at all. 

She was with friends, having coffee before going to meet her dad, a Democratic Congressman.  A handsome man who knew one of her friends came by to say hello, and they both noticed one another.  She asked her friend afterwards: "Was he really wearing a "W" hat?  Did it stand for what I think it does?"  The friend confirmed it, but suggested they might have a lot in common anyway, and invited them both to her next party, where they sought one another out.

He was at a party.  She had a boyfriend, but she sparkled when she talked to him.  He asked the hostess about her, and learned that the boyfriend was on the way out.  The next time he saw her, there was no boyfriend, and he drove her home after dinner.

There are more, but I'd like to hear yours.  I'm still a little sheepish that our story is, "She had a blog, and he read it."  But I'm not sure there's any 'right' way to meet someone.

All Requests: Why Is This Time Different?

The Weeble challenges me to explain why now, with NBT, I'm finding a way to drop my defense mechanisms and rules and stop hedging and just run with the relationship.  Is it because NBT is well matched for me?  Is it because something has changed inside of me?  Is it both?  Is it something else?

Hmmm.  Well, Weeble my friend, that is a good question.  It probably won't surprise anyone to know I've been asking it myself a fair amount, too.  I'll tell you as best I can what I know. 

A Quick Update

I'm here in Raleigh, and it's raining cats and dogs today.  Yesterday, though, I wore flip flops and a short sleeved shirt and read a book on a bench outside, with the sun warming my skin.  It felt terrific. 

I've seen cotton fields, which look like a thin coat of snow in November, brown and white, patchy.  I've tasted sweet tea, which is much much sweeter than I expected.  There are churches everywhere, and some of them are as big as high schools or auditoriums.  I've been not quite to the coast, but near enough so that I met a sailor and learned where to go to get a ride on a boat or to join in a local race.  Tomorrow we'll be on the coast, and next week in the mountains.  I'm going to see a lot of this state.

I'm inclined to agree with Ogged that good relationships make for crap blogging, and I'm up against my own rule against telling other people's stories if I were to make this a place to write about disagreements or doubts.  So I'll not dwell too much on things with me and Mr. NBT. 

I'm going to a book group meeting on Monday night.  They're reading The Female Brain, which I need to find a copy of and read.  I'll let you know what I think of it.

I've also been thinking lately about narrative structure.  That sounds really abstract and it is, I suppose, and since I haven't really figured it out I'm not ready to write about it yet.  But my most recent roommate, who just moved out, was a big fan of chick lit and trashy romance novels, and from her I acquired the habit of devouring a pink-covered paperback from time to time.  I read one on the plane down.  And as you know I just gobbled up the first season of Lost on DVD.  And both of those things made me think about storytelling: what makes a story satisfying and what creates tension or drama or a pull onward.  I wonder if music theory would teach me anything, because I think we are pattern-seeking creatures and I think there are cycles or arcs or sequences that are satisfying, just as there are series of notes or patterns of sounds that build tension until you come back to an original key.  Lost does a pretty good job getting that mix of backstory and forward motion and interpersonal drama right, although hearing people talk about the most recent season I hear frustration and irritation, as though they're violating some unwritten rule about the payoff and the clues a viewer deserves.  And the romance novel -- Welcome To Temptation, by Jennifer Crusie, was not particularly good, but it was very satisfying, partly because the characters were archetypes and partly because of the mix of armchair psychology backstory and partly because of the plot and the interpersonal drama.  And it's not fair to say that the characters are archetypes, just as they're not archetypes on Lost.  I think a successful story has characters that are archetypal but have surprises that make them individual.  It seems almost like a cheap formula, but it works in popular fiction and on Lost, I think -- we like to think we have someone pinned and then realize there's something more to them, and yet also feel confirmed that we've put them in the right category.  There's a formula, or an optimal blend, I think, that engages people in a story, and I've been thinking about what it might be.   Anyway, more on this as I sort it out.

Things I Intend To Do In North Carolina

1) Explore.
2) Make a new friend.
3) Learn to play bridge.
4) Try golfing.
5) Start swimming regularly.
6) Go to a rock gym with Mr. NBT.
7) Go to a professional football game.
8) Cook a lot.
9) Snuggle on the sofa watching movies.  Or television.  Or college basketball!
10) Go see live music.
11) Write every day, but maybe not on this weblog.
12) ??

All Requests: How Are Things With NBT?

Someone wants to know how things are with Mr. NBT.  For those of you new on the scene, Mr. NBT stands for Mr. "Next Big Thing," a new relationship I have with someone I met through this weblog.  It's all very meta and Web 2.0 and we could probably be a nice case study for someone's PhD thesis if anyone were still interested in blogs instead of v-logs or podcasts or MySpace or whatever you kids are into these days.

Anyway.  The question -- how are things?  Things are crappy.  He came to visit, and now he's gone home.  And the crappy part is that having him here was so good, and having him gone is really really hard.  It is much harder than when he was gone before, because I didn't know how nice it was to have him here.  It was normal to communicate by phone or email or text message.  Now I'd rather look at him and smile or raise my eyebrows, and I don't WANT to talk on the cell phone.  I don't want to have to tell him that it was so stormy last night that the windows rattled and I thought my boat blew over on the trailer.  He should just know because we would have both heard it.  So, I have this bad attitude about the distance between us.  Next up is my visit down there, which is being schemed and planned now.  You'll hear about it, I'm sure, in due time. 

Itinerary

Here's a sampling of what NBT and I have been doing.

Friday: burritos and beer
Saturday: long drive.  Day on a dock, a little bit chilly.  Seedy motel.
Sunday: Day on a dock, even chillier. Scenic drive. Oceanfront bed & breakfast, fireplace, wine.
Monday: Hike.  More scenic driving. Dinner with friends of his family.
Tuesday: Run. More driving. Pick up dog. Dinner with friend who is having personal crisis, who shows up at my place shellshocked from depression and lack of sleep, wearing a suit and a tie with tiny Santa Clauses flying tiny airplanes.  He didn't even look at it when he got dressed, and now Santa in a plane will forever be a symbol to me of what it means to hit rock bottom.  The friend sleeps on my sofa, while his girlfriend moves out of their place.
Wednesday: Walk around an island. To campus, for some work.  To practice.  Pizza and Dr. Zhivago. 
Thursday: Run. Campus. Practice. Brief appearance at a happy hour, but we show up late and can't stay.  Dinner with 517, Neighbor, and Turboglacier.
Friday: Dog park. LL Bean's. Campus. Practice. Dinner at my parents' place. 
Saturday: Race committee for a regatta we hosted at home.  Dinner at Fat Boy, a drive-in hamburger joint across from the naval air station.
Sunday: Race committee.  No wind in the morning; boat ride around Yarmouth Island.  Straight faced lies to an undergraduate that we went out to an apple orchard on the island and picked the apples we were eating out there.  Sea breeze comes up at noon for an afternoon of racing. 

It was a good week, and very full.  I realized some things about how I live, having him here, quietly observing everything.  I rush around a lot.  I get impatient at predictable moments.  I pick objects up and put them down a lot, and then wonder where they've gone to.  I overplan and then avoid acknowledging that my plans were wildly optimistic.  I eat strange things for breakfast.  I get excited when I glimpse the ocean, even if it's a daily view for me.

Two things about the week felt hard for me.  I didn't read, hardly at all.  And I didn't write, hardly at all.  I didn't exercise as much as I usually do, but I did enough to keep from feeling all wonky and restless.  I didn't go for quite as many rambly walks as I usually do, but we spent some time in pretty outdoor surroundings together.  I couldn't go much longer without reading or writing, though. 

My Love Life Is None Of Your Business: An Internal Debate

How much, if anything, should I write about my relationship with Mr. NBT?

A friend of mine was once telling me about Linda Greenlaw's book, The Hungry Ocean, once, and said the whole book was a plaintive cry for a partner.  I remember hearing that and thinking, wow.  Yikes.  I hope my writing never sounds like that. 

But I sort of wonder if it has, on this blog.  And I wonder if that's all that bad. 

The reasons I don't want to write about my love life:
    1) I don't want to screw anything up.
    2) This weblog is public, and comes up when you Google my name, and who knows who's reading it?  I certainly don't.  I know some people who are reading it: my parents, some of my friends, an ex-boyfriend or two.  Mr. NBT, a couple of his friends.  A whole bunch of strangers.  Who knows who else?  My boss?  My students?  Who can say?  Hi folks.  All of these are different audiences, who would get differing amounts of information if the subject came up over a glass of wine.  I'm trying, when I write here, to write honestly, with a minimum of spin.  This seems a tricky topic for that aspiration. 
    3) Happiness is boring to read about.  Sadness, longing, pain: all of those things take courage to write about.  But contentment, well, where's the bravery there?  Am I artful enough to write about hope and expectation, comfort and trust, without sounding smug?
    4) If I admit I'm happy, or that I'm looking forward to something, and then it falls flat, I can't shake it off easily.  Everyone will know that I didn't get something I wanted.  Safer to play it cool.  Then if I get heartbroken, maybe nobody will know.  No big deal.
    5) I don't want to invite a bunch of strangers to advise, speculate, and comment on my love life.  That feels kind of tender.  I trust the crowd here at Stay of Execution: you're wise and warm and it generally feels like you're rooting for me.  But, yikes.  Sometimes a stray comment here has me doubting myself for days.  Am I a bad person, truly insufferable?  I don't want it to make me doubt someone else, or make him doubt me.

Here's why I'm tempted to write about it:

Tether

Having a new long-distance relationship in my life has given me a new relationship with my cell phone.  Mr. NBT and I send text messages frequently.  We also use the camera feature on our phones to snap pictures of our surroundings and send them off to each other.  Indeed, those pictures are worth 1000 words.  I'll snap a photo of sailboats at the dock and college students leaning against them, waiting for wind; he'll send back a picture of an empty coffee cup and a breakfast plate with a napkin crumpled up on it.  It's a great way to capture place and scene that you can't really do with a text message, or even with voice.  And it just takes a moment to send a reminder that I'm thinking of him, and that I want to show him the world I live in.  We talk on the phone, too, of course.  I'm not sure I've ever talked with someone daily like this.  If I did, it was a long time ago. 

So we got our cell phone bills the other day.  Oh my.  Besides the unexpected magnitude of the bills, there was verifiable, searchable documentation of our pattern of communication.  How often do we talk?  For how long?  Exactly how many text messages do we send and receive on a typical day?  I am too sheepish to report the results here. 

My Love Life Is None Of Your Business....Or Is It?

It is my general principle not to get too descriptive about my love life on this weblog, for a variety of sensible reasons.  The principle wavers a little bit right now, when I'm dating someone I met through and because of the weblog.  It feels like the relationship owes a lot to the weblog, and it seems only fair to fill y'all in a little bit.  I will be coy and sidestep and obscure some things, but he's part of this circle of friends who hangs out at Stay of Execution, and he chimes in now and then, so it seems a bit silly not to talk about it.  Plus, of course, I'm smiley and goofy a lot of the time now, and it's because of him.  No sense pretending to be all cool and self-contained. 

So let me tell you about Mr. Next Big Thing.  (To those who would quibble with this name: I run this weblog, and I get to make up the names.  Yes, I am aware that the word "next" makes it sound temporary and like one in a series.  I'm still the boss around here.  He gets to retaliate by saying that I'm the "first of his girlfriends to be a coach" or the "first of his girlfriends to ever make special podcasts for him".)  He's a dozen things I thought I would never date.  He's within a year of my age, and I always date older men.  He's a lawyer, who loves his job.  Worse, a litigator!  I would certainly not date a lawyer.  He's a bad speller.  He's a golfer.  He lives 800 miles away, in a town that's 2 hours from the coast.  He's a southern gentleman.  Worst of all: he's a Duke basketball fan. 

You can see how this could never work.  And yet, and yet.  He's terrific.  I'm delighted by him.  He's smart, and he's kind, and he's quiet and unflappable, and he's funny, and he's a cool glass of water right when I need it.  I won't tell you how often we talk on the phone because it would make you throw up a little bit.  It's a lot.  I look forward to every time, and I linger a little bit, resisting hanging up each time.  Luckily there are text messages and the phone camera and email and chat and mp3 files for the times when we can't talk.  When I'm driving to work I record a daily podcast for him, that I upload to a little password protected website where I put pictures and things I want to share with him.  I'm impatient for him to come here so I can show him my world; I'm eager to go down and see his. 

I don't know how to do this, a long distance relationship.  Every time I've tried it before it hasn't worked.  But I want this one to work.  I really do. 

All Requests: Deep Thoughts About Unrequited Love

An anonymous reader asks for deep thoughts about unrequited love:

That is, other than 'move on, keep busy, date others, etc,'' any thoughts on how to let go, and not feel inadequate and undesirable, when the one you love loves someone else??

Well this is a tough one.  You've taken away the easy answers: eyes on the horizon, keep moving, there are other fish in the sea. 

When I sat down here I was planning to be all worldly-wise, and say, "we've all experienced unrequited love, and I know I've had my share."  But the truth is, I'm not sure I have.  I've been disappointed, for sure.  I've built up expectations based on the most optimistic interpretations of someone else's behavior, and then been crushed to realize I was reading it all wrong.  I've fallen for men who never really opened up to me.  But is this unrequited love?  I don't really know.

I think I've protected myself against unrequited love by holding a part of myself in reserve.  I want the other person to go first.  Once upon a time I wasn't afraid to go first, to be the person who liked the other person more.  Because what are the chances you're both going to have your feelings deepen in exact synchronicity?  People open up at a different pace.  Time was, I was able to be brave.  And then I got damaged, and I wouldn't go first anymore.  So I stayed aloof, kept a part of me separate, and always watched the other person for signs that would let me cut and run away.  It did protect me from unrequited love.  But I think it protected me from real love, too. 

Something is different with Mr. Next Big Thing.  I don't know why, but I'm not afraid.  I have some theories (he met me through this blog, for one, so I felt like he'd seen a lot of my most vulnerable self already, and I couldn't really pretend or project something stronger than I really am.  Or I didn't have the energy to be elusive and reserved.  I dunno.).  In any event, it's an unfamiliar sensation, this enthusiastic, sappy, opening up, and it's made me see just how much I held back in prior relationships.  It feels really, really good.

So I don't know if I have much to offer to you.  I do think that timing is so much of connection.  I know you know that just because a particular person doesn't love you back, at the same time you are able to love him/her, it doesn't mean you're unloveable.  It really doesn't.  It's okay to feel sad, though.  It 's okay to long for something.  But all that other stuff that I'm not allowed to advise is not eye-rolling pablum.  It's real, and I think it's the only thing besides time that can heal the ache of wanting something you can't have: take care of yourself, date other people, be kind to the people around you, do something that makes you happy and do something that makes you feel beautiful, like your best self, once a day if you can.