So before I get started with today's post, a PSA. I have finally bowed to peer pressure and put together a Facebook profile. It's pretty much surrounding the book and related events that are coming up (which I haven't told you about yet, but trust me, it's all very exciting), but I figure it'll be a simple way for everyone to keep tabs on what's going on where. So feel free to send me a friend request here!
So today's post is a continuation of the Finland story, which started here (and then got derailed as we launched the fundraiser... which reminds me, don't forget to donate to RAINN. But instead of putting GBBMC2008: and the name of my blog, please choose one of the names from the participants list and give them some love instead.)
read more ↓Martin was a man that I fell for hook, line and sinker. Martin knew all the right things to say. Martin found me after I'd had my heart ripped out of my chest, and the wound it had left was still fresh and bleeding all over the floor, leaving a trail behind me wherever I went. He followed that trail and sucked me in, but what's more, I wanted him to. I wanted to believe the things he told me when he said that he was leaving his wife for me, and he would talk me into doing things I didn't want to do. Martin controlled me. And I'd let him.
Of course once he'd had me, it was over. And though I'd convinced myself otherwise for a time, I admitted to myself that what I had shared with him wasn't love, it was a conquest. It took me a little digging to discover the game he had played with me was not only a game he had played with countless women before me, but also one that he was playing with two other women in addition to me. He had sniffed out my low self esteem, my desperate need to be and feel loved, and he exploited it wholeheartedly in a destructive hope to leave me devastated. It was his way of hunting and killing, then hanging a severed animal head over the mantle of his fireplace. Breaking women's hearts was his sport.
But while I momentarily felt destroyed by the Martin situation, it also woke me up in a way that previous experiences with men had not. Namely, that I had to stop jumping into things with both arms and both feet in an effort to get to the "I love you" at warp speed. I had to start getting to know who I was getting into relationships with. I had to start listening to my gut, which I'd ignored when it came to him. And when Joe said the line about seeing the hurt in my eyes, my gut screamed, "RED FLAG!"
While in the past I would've heard that line and thought, "Oh my god, he understands! He will love and cherish me because he knows I've been hurt!", I now thought, that is the biggest bunch of bullshit I have ever heard - absolutely everyone on the planet has experienced hurt! - and he's telling it to me because he thinks it's something I want to hear. But I also knew that what was mildly attracting me to him, and him to me, was the old programming I'd been working through - the stuff that told me I wasn't whole without someone to love me, that I had to give all of myself away to make that happen, that I had to make a man the center of my universe in order to feel worthwhile. And I knew that how I behaved tonight would tell me if that programming was really ripped up for good.
The cat and mouse game continued throughout the night. He'd continually ask me questions in an effort to get inside my head and understand my past relationship blunders so he could use them against me, and I'd answer, but wouldn't fall completely into the trap. He'd ask me to go for a walk with him so we could talk, and I'd tell him we could talk right there, in the throng of people dancing under a sun that hadn't set at 1:30am. He begged Colleen to take several pictures of the two of us together, which she did. As we looked at them on the screen of her digital camera I realized the looks on our faces belied an attraction, but there was something else. As much as I was enjoying the somewhat flirtatious exchange, I was enjoying the fact that I wasn't falling for his ruse even more.
Finally, he cornered me by the ice bar when I was going for a refresher on my drink - a concoction of fresh muddled berries, mint, soda water and Finlandia berry vodka, mixed for me by the top mixologist in Hungary.
"Answer me one question," Joe asked, inches away from my face.
I laughed. "I've answered several of your 'one questions,' Joe."
"You're telling me there's nobody here that you're interested in?"
I smiled. And as I did, that low down, deep dark part of me said, yes. I'm interested in you. I'm interested in you because you're charming and say things that are lovely, and flirting with you is a lot of fun. I'm interested in you because you're sexy, and the fact that you're older makes me want to believe that you're over your nonsense and ready to be a man about things. I'm interested in you because you make me feel attractive, too. And because I believe these things, I want you to take me to bed and kiss me for hours, peel off my clothes, touch and taste me everywhere until I can't take it anymore. Because it has been so long... so, so long. And I want to feel good again.
But instead, I told him, "Joe, if you're asking me if I find you attractive, I do. But I don't want to get hurt."
"I'm not going to hurt you," he insisted.
"I also don't go for other women's men," I added.
"I'm nobody else's," he said.
I rolled my eyes. "The bottom line is I'm not interested in leaping into strange men's beds anymore. I really need to spend my time with me, sorting out what it means to me to be with someone else. And in the times that I have had my heart broken, I have come to learn a very valuable lesson."
"What's that," Joe asked, slipping his arm around me.
"Latin men are full of shit."
As he began to laugh, I walked away. And as I did, I felt just a little bit triumphant.
After hours of dancing, eating reindeer burgers, doing shots right out of the bottles we'd stolen from the ice-carved bars and watched the lake set aflame in celebration, we finally boarded the bus back to the hotel at 3:30am, with the sun still blazing bright. Joe stood by the driver's seat as everyone walked past, muttering his "one question" line again as I walked past. I took my seat at the back of the bus and ignored him. When we got to the hotel, he sidled up to me as I was walking back to my room.
"What room are you in?" he asked.
I looked around and noticed Karen and Colleen were busy helping one of our crew, who had had more than too much to drink. "911," I told him.
He laughed. "Emergency, huh? Who are you rooming with?"
"Myself," I said, and as soon as I had, I regretted it. Because I knew this was Old Me answering, and New Me didn't want Joe to knock on my door. So before he could say another word, I told him goodnight and took off to my room, where I stripped down to my underwear and prepared to hop into bed.
That's when the knock at my door came.
New Me thought it was Colleen.
Old Me prayed it was Joe.
With no peephole to check through, the only way I'd know was opening the door.
"What can I help you with, Joe," I sighed after I'd opened the door just a crack. I was in nothing but white lace. I gave idle thought to covering up. I couldn't decide if New Me just didn't give a shit, or if Old Me wanted to send a very available message.
"Why don't we talk a little," he said, pressing forward ever so slightly.
I planted my hand in his chest and gently pushed him back. "There's nothing to talk about, Joe. Goodnight."
"What do you mean, there's nothing to talk about?" he asked.
"Go bug Karen."
I shut the door, locked it and went to bed.
Alone.
And for the first time in a long time, happy about it.
The third and final part coming soon...
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Good for you, sticking to your guns. Sometimes I fall into old habits, too, even though I know better. Humans, we're a faulty lot.
