Wise Observations

My friend Kay recently sent me this note...


I looked at your blog last night for the first time in quite a while. I
didn't see any particularly new updates about science guy or muckraker,
which might be a good thing.

Last night, when I was reading the stuff you'd written about
him, I suddenly realized how similar he is to an ex of mine from almost five
years ago. English guy who I met right after arriving in Prague. Same snarky
personality, same affected air of mystery, same hot and cold attitude, even
the same propensity to use overly-intimate nicknames. We dated for about 8
months and it was very intense for most of that time, then he broke it off
in a REALLY weird, abrupt and unexplained manner. It bothered me for a long
time, just not understanding what had happened, until I started to see the
pattern.

Since then he sort of appears and disappears (via email mostly - we both
keep switching continents), usually in a harmless, seemingly-friendly way,
but once a year or so with sudden, urgent confessions of how much he misses
me and how he can't believe he let me get away, what terrible timing we (we?
I was there, where was he?) have, etc. There are also revelations about what
he was going through back then that, in retrospect, prevented him from
embracing his feelings, or whatever, etc. He just did this again a few weeks
ago after quite a long hiatus. It's really very disarming.

But there's something intrinsically... off... and conveniently ill-fated
about the whole thing, which is the same vibe I get from the muckraker
stories. Guys like this are more sinister than guys who are just players
because there actually is a connection, and there are brief moments that
seem (or genuinely are - haven't worked that out yet) intensely meaningful
to both parties. Then there's a whole lot of nothing in between after they
run away... Thinking about it, I have half a mind, next year when my ex
inevitably starts sending "maybe the responsible thing would be to contain
my feelings, but..." emails again, to announce my intention to get on a
plane and live happily ever after with him. I'm sure my next email would
bounce and he'd have moved flats out of fear. Sort of the way muckraker came
on so strong and then completely failed to act on it when you made it clear
you were interested too. I don't think they even do it by design - I think
they're just kind of broken. It probably isn't a coincidence that my ex was
significantly older than me, too, just like muckraker. A woman their own age
would probably see through the bullshit.

Anyway, this anecdote is just a long, rambling way of saying that I've just
noticed the parallels between these two situations and you really need to
ignore him until he thinks he's lost his effect on you. Otherwise, he'll
probably keep randomly calling you from Montana, so to speak, for a long
time.

Ok, that's my super-wise observation/advice...



Thanks, Kay! That IS super-wise advice!

And I have to say, my vacation seems to have provided much needed clarity and head-clearing! I can say, very truthfully, I am *SO* over muckraker. But that is another post...!