In which I do a little brain dump about relationships, the Wolf, and responsibility.

So, I did that most horrible of things: I broke up with somebody via text.

The Wolf is a nice guy, of course, but he… well. Let me put it this way: I can only tick off four items from this list of 30 things I’ve determined are true for me about potential partners. So it would never have worked out anyway, and I needed to stop it before he got any more involved. It was my duty as a decent human being to dump his ass sooner rather than later.

I don’t even want a boyfriend, and I can’t figure out how a few hot and friendly make-out sessions garnered me one. We went from barely knowing each other to saying “Love you, babe,” in the space of a few days, and the next thing I knew I was being introduced as his girlfriend. Suddenly the entire entourage thought we were practically engaged, I had a bunch of new friends I wanted to keep, thank you very much, and his nephew kept telling me that his uncle had “never been happier.”

Scylla and Charybdis. How do I get myself in these situations?

He was sending me anywhere from 3 to 20 texts a day, everything from silly observations to poetry to not-so-subtle demands for attention and compliance with his idea of the shape and size of the relationship. Since the majority of them didn’t require a response, I didn’t send one. Making me complicit, I see now, in his idea of how involved we were.

He’s a musician and he’s got great hair and he’s romantic. He’s generous, he’s intelligent, he’s loyal, and he’s really good at Jeopardy! and crossword puzzles: that’s what he’s got going for him. Against him is pretty much everything else: no job, no car, what appears to be a fairly uneven temper, bad diet, no exercise, significant baggage, too much TV and not enough reading. He’s never heard of Maharishi or Amma, and he doesn’t even know how to use a computer.

It’s not like I have a job or a car, either, I’m just describing those things symptomatically. The relationship, such as it was, was incapable of going anywhere. All we did was bar hop, go to the occasional afterhours poker game, and make out sometimes in his driveway. I’d told him I didn’t want anything else, but he kept offering me new levels of commitment and fidelity I wasn’t interested in. He had even begun to work on being jealous and protective. He told me he loved me all the time. He made some comment once about growing old together. He was in deeper than I was, and I had to end it.

The last time we’d been out together we’d had a bit of a tiff about the frequency, or rather lack thereof, of my texts to him. He claimed there were entire days when I didn’t respond to any of his texts. I said, “Bullshit. There’s never been a day since we started hanging out when you haven’t received at least one text from me.” He suggested that we pull out our phones and prove it, and I told him he was acting like a twelve-year-old.

“Dude,” I said, “first of all, you’re wrong. Second of all, the facts in this instance aren’t as relevant as the underlying emotionality, which is what I’m more interested in. I’ve told you repeatedly that I don’t want a relationship, because I don’t want to owe anybody anything. You said you understood the parameters, and now you’re giving me this quasi-ultimatum that I must text you daily and tell you I love you? Are you hearing yourself?” He backpedaled immediately and retracted nearly everything he’d said up to that point that evening, but his willingness to accommodate me irritated me even more. We remained an item, though, when I dropped him off and went home.

Gawd. What a coward I am. Are you counting these, my many flaws?

Obviously I had to man up and break up with him. I had had every intention of doing it in person, of course, but due to our gig schedules and my staying in more than going out, I hadn’t seen him in nearly a week. It just happened on its own: Sunday he texted: “I have just felt like… if I backed off, or didn’t express myself… we might just fade into non-being. You know?” And I replied: “I’m sorry, but we *will* fade. Whether it sucks or not, that’s up to you. I don’t want a relationship. I’m sorry, but I don’t.” Then: “I wanted fun and companionship. I said so. You turned it into something serious. I can’t hang. You’re wonderful, but I don’t want a great love.” And: “I love you, but not the way you seem to love me. It’s done. I’m sorry.”

And he replied: “Can we just go for fun? and companionship, then? I don’t REALLY love you. I just said that because you said it first. lol” I didn’t reply, because I was in bed, asleep, because it was the middle of the night.

And then the next day, some passively-aggressive texts about how I started it all, how I used the L-word first (I probably did, because I tell nearly everyone I love them within days, sometimes hours, of meeting them, and it’s not romantic) and used the boyfriend word first (which I most certainly did not). He says I asked him, that first week, not to break my heart. I don’t remember doing so, but I’m not calling him a liar. I’m certain I must have led him on to some degree by being who I am and communicating the way I do, but with my verbiage I was very clear about my non-availability for A Real Relationship. One happened anyway, to him. I have learned from this that speech isn’t enough, that I don’t get to make out with people more than once unless I’m prepared to have this experience, and that when someone says they’re recently broken up and are not looking for anything beyond friendship and some fun, it might just not be true.

I’d done it. I felt like a bitch, but better. Guilty, mainly about dumping him via text, but relieved overall.

And then I ran into him last night at the Peony, and he kissed my cheek (I ended up smelling like his cologne all night, which irritated me unduly), bought me a drink I didn’t want him to buy, sat next to me, and then followed me out to the truck when I left and more or less demanded a hug and a kiss.

In other words, he’s not acting like we’ve broken up. And he’s been texting me stuff all day long (where he’s at, what he’s doing, what’s going on with his mom), just like he did yesterday, and every day before that.

I was worried I was going to have to break up with him again until this evening when he texted an update about his mom (she’d doubled up her meds by accident, but is fine now): “I know this isn’t your department any more, but thanks for listening.”

Best case scenario, I’ll get to keep a friend. (Which would be nice, because my last ex-boyfriend? Still hasn’t approved my Facebook request, and has only talked to me two or three times since we broke up. I still haven’t gotten to hang out with him socially or meet his new girlfriend.) If the Wolf decides not to see me, I’ll lose not only his friendship but most of the dozen or so people I met through him.

I honestly thought that adults had their shit together, but now that I am one I perceive that it’s all the same story, over and over, variations on a theme. This whole thing, the sophomoric nature of it, pushes me to think that as an adult my duty lies in choosing adult themes. Instead of making out with boys in driveways, maybe I should be volunteering at a shelter. Maybe I should be looking to give of myself rather than looking to receive. It occurs to me that we remain children as long as we focus on ourselves and our pleasures, and that perhaps maturity is deliberately seeking more complex experiences and behaviors. My culture right now is fairly devoid of good examples of mature behavior because we’re all such hedonists and our country so rich that we can be children forever, and I’m wondering how stunted I might be.

Anyway. Having said all that, I think maybe I’ll go play pub trivia. Because I never promised any of you that I’d be any kind of internally consistent.