Monday, July 21, 2003

9:32 PM: 

Love Letter

confused. too many options. saw an old co-worker this weekend; an old co-worker with an old crush on me. wow, he could get in line with the other ex-coworkers who've crushed on me, and are still crushing on me now, making a certain part of my life delicate territory, like a valley full of landmines. it was a party weekend for him; i was down in san diego for the day and he'd been there half the week, hotel room and everything. he was looking for some fun and pretty much made that clear. but i don't believe that sex can ever be casual. you can only fool yourself that it is.

the weekend may be over now, but that just means that, now, he is in santa monica and i am in santa monica, and i know that if i just gave him a call, we might be able to get something going. he's a good guy. he'd care for any girlfriend of his with his whole heart, i know that. but.

...but don't all the guys have buts? they'd all be perfect, but... for one, the dogged social climbing... for the other, the snotty rich friends... for another, the apathy and hidden insecurity i can't get past... and in this one's case, the conviction that the world splits into black and white. not races, but "us" and "them", rebels and the establishment, fringe culture and the normals. of course he is on the fringe side. i used to be, too. i used to worship before the altar of the counter-culture. and he's somehow scented my former life and is chasing after it, chasing after a shadow of a phantom of a memory of mine. i'm not really that person anymore. he still is, and he's looking for himself in me. back when we worked together, the more i edged away from his interest the more, i think, he became convinced that the inexplicable that he couldn't understand about me (that i wasn't like him!) would be really fantastic once he got hold of it. he doesn't understand me. i'm not the rebel anymore. i'm not the nice girl. i'm rarely what anyone who doesn't know me thinks i am. this doesn't bother me. i'm happy to just exist; i'm living outside the borders and the labels, and he-- he needs to know that he needs to give up his borders and labels. i'd much rather meet him out where we can be free.