Breaking Up is Hard to Do

So part of this starting over is Starting Over. I had "the talk" today with Sorta-boyfriend Guy. Now I have a headache that even large quantities of Diet Coke can't seem to cure.

About 12 years ago I was in a bar in Manchester, NH with my ex-boyfriend's sister (we're still good friends) and she introduced me to a guy she knew from high school. Hello! Tall, former football player, handsome, brown eyes -- all around dreamy. As another friend of mine said when she met him, "don't go for him - he's too good looking for you". Ouch. But, okay, there's some truth to that. I've never really felt like I deserved him -- even though besides looks he's never had all that much to bring to the party.

Back in the day when we 'dated' on and off for 5 years, he was always high and couldn't get it up. But did I mention he was hot? Eight years goes by and I see him in August at the most popular restaurant in Manchester. I'm having lunch on a Thursday with my mom and he's having lunch with his mom. It MUST be fate! I walk over - he's happy to see me -- he asks me three times if I'm married (my first two simple No's don't seem to satisfy him so I have to come clean - Divorced!) - then he takes my telephone number. Now I tell him that I left my phone at home that day so I won't get any phone messages. None the less by the time I get home at 9pm that night (after running my first 5k) he has called twice. So it begins . . . Again.

This time I have high hopes. He doesn't seem to smoke dope anymore. Can mostly get it up and calls me all the time. Except he's pretty clear that he doesn't want a girlfriend. Oh, and he lives at home with his mom, and he's in the middle of an awful custody battle for his 14-year old son, and he gets fired, and there's a bench warrant out for his dad due to all the back alimony he hasn't paid etc etc. Yeah, there's a lot going on. A lot. But for the first time in my life someone says to me, Thank you for being so patient.

Unfortunately my patience wore out. I'm 2 hours away now and I'm not sure what I'm holding on to. The dream of what could be? But it's just a dream. Mr. Sorta-boyfriend is never going to commit to me. I've never been The One for him. That's not an easy thing to think or say or type because I want to think I'm a great catch and I am but just not for him. Sure he said today that it's the timing and The One could walk by but he wouldn't reel her in but I don't buy it. It's that old line from When Harry Met Sally: "It's not that he didn't want to get married. It's that he didn't want to marry me." I have never been this guy's idea of Girlfriend.

So, finished that chapter and putting away that book. Again. Sure he said maybe we'd pick it back up in the future once things fall into place for him but come on - if we all waited til our lives were in order to fall in love we'd all be ordering personal size pan pizzas. And I'm really looking for someone who'll let me pick off their plate.