Lovesick Again

It's hard to convey just how bemused I am, on the virtual eve of my fifth decade, to find myself in the throes of a romantic obsession. Again. I'm pining. Yearning. Longing. Fantasizing. Indulging in magical thinking. Agonizing. Squirming with self-consciousness. Anticipating disappointment and the mortification of rejection. Hoping against hope. Feeling separation as physical discomfort.

Is there any difference between how I feel now and how I felt during my first crush, oh so long ago?

Yes. Now my preoccupation is well seeded with experiential knowledge of all the ways things can go horribly, hideously wrong. I am well acquainted with the varieties of romantic suffering.

How I wish I were more familiar with the joys.

Charm

It's killing me. Like a Roberta Flack song. Softly.

The man was all charm tonight. All eye contact, all flashing smile, all circling around, all returning again and again. We kept finding ourselves standing together off to the side somewhere having quick low-toned conversations about something (whatever). I felt like we were conspiring, constantly. If that man is not flirting with me, I have no idea what flirting looks like.

And neither do a bunch of other people: the group comments are starting to happen more overtly now. "Pascale and Mr. WPY, two peas in a pod," remarked one ~ slightly inebriated ~ player.

We keep having these stubs of fascinating talks, where we just get started on a topic, but then the break is over and the game starts up again. I want to sit in a coffee house, or on a sofa, and just have hours of conversation. I like this man a lot; I find him deeply appealing.

He had a great day's play, chopping first in one game and winning another outright. I shook his hand to congratulate him, and then he held out his hand again to say good night. It was all I could do not to fall into his arms. But I can't, and won't, do that in the poker context. It's just not right for the situation. The gossip mill has already started working overtime.

But, by god, when (if?) we are on our own together, I will find out what the hell is going on here. Maybe I'm insane. And maybe everyone else is just keying off my interest in him (and not the other way around). It sure doesn't feel like that, but I have been wrong before.

Meanwhile, I am in a state of heightened sensitivity, in terrible, agonizing suspense; I cannot emphasize enough how much he needs to call me.

One Must Have A Mind of Winter

I think I'm allergic to the thing with feathers.

Today there was a completely poker-related and utterly unsparkly exchange of emails (which I initiated). It gave me a chill blast of reality.

Just because one nosey and fun-loving woman has a bug up her butt DOES NOT IN FACT MEAN ANYTHING. Just because a nice guy is nice to me DOES NOT MEAN ANYTHING other than he's nice.

So far the reality of the matter is that there is no there there.

Until he calls me up and wants to do something NOT poker-related, there's no there there. And, friends, it has to be him. It can't be me.

To the best of my knowledge, this is a guy who recently broke up with his girlfriend of a year and half. I am not going to move in on this guy, for a myriad of very sensible reasons. The ball is in his court.

I'm just going to have to wait it out, one way or another. Which I hate. But there's no help for it.

Come and get me, baby. I'm right here.

More Discipline

Or maybe just obsessiveness, you be the judge.

My original deposit of $50 on Pokerstars is now over $200. Fifty of that is cleared bonus, so on my own efforts I have so far tripled my money. My current ROI, taking into account rake, is about 15%. It's taken me about 700 games to accomplish this, as it's been done almost entirely at $1+.20 10 person sit'n'goes.

I have battled through to this level despite 40- or 50-game downswings that made me want to scream with frustration. I have the resisted the temptation to take a stab at higher stakes in hopes of building my bankroll more quickly. I am now 4-tabling so as to keep myself from getting overly cranky over any one particular bad beat or loss.

My current goal is to get to $250 playing in these $1 games. At that point, I will move up in stakes to the $5 tables. Fifty buy-ins should be enough to make that reasonable, assuming (which I do), that I ought to be able to beat those games at about the same rate as the cheaper ones.

[No phone call. Agggh.]

The Insanity of Hope

(My apologies to Senator Obama.)

Tonight new player S. took me aside. "You know what I said the other night, when I asked if you and Mr. WPY were dating?" Um hmm, I said. "Well, you all said you weren't dating, but I am pretty sure that he likes you."

We had been playing a cash game together, three-handed.

"I felt like a third wheel," she said. "He keeps looking at you and talking to you. Even my husband thought the two of you were together."

"From your mouth to God's ear," I said to her. I gave her a little background. I told her about the kitchen situation. Her jaw actually dropped.

"Oh my god," she said, "I walked in on that? I'm so sorry." I assured her it wasn't a problem, although the timing of her question was a bit awkward. "I could just tell that something was up. And when I asked if you were a couple, neither one of you dismissed the idea, or said 'We're just friends.' The air was thick between the two of you."

My poker game went entirely to shit tonight.

It was all about a marked change of gears from Mr. WPY (and, hell, me too). He was so much more forthcoming; that man was turning on the charm. And yeah, I gave it right back. Yes I did. Hopefully, I did not make an ass of myself.

He brought up a business idea he's working on and started asking me about my skills. We also talked about getting together to work through Harrington on Cash. He told me about the new restaurant in his neighborhood, specifically mentioning vegetarian dishes. His phone rang a couple of times and I swear to God each time he found a way of making it clear that it was not a woman calling him.

He decided not to play the second game. They were hollering at me from the basement to come down. He was smiling at me like a thousand suns. "Call me," I said.

Good lord, how will I stand it if he doesn't?

No Sir

I am tall.
I have short hair.
I don't wear make-up.
I don't have long fingernails, nor do I use nail polish.
I frequently sport an oversized man's leather jacket with the too-long sleeves rolled up at the cuff.
I generally wear trousers, rather than dresses or skirts, when it's cold out.

But I am not a man. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)
And I don't think I look like a man. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.)

It shouldn't bother me, since I'm all anti-sex-stereotypes 'n' all.
But it does.
It bothers the HECK out of me.

STOP CALLING ME 'SIR,' DAMMIT!!!

I suppose I could wear some make-up and ditch the jacket.
But make-up always makes me feel like I'm playing dress-up.
And I like the jacket.

I will never be a girly-girl, that's for sure. But am I really that unfeminine?

Rattled

Here's how off kilter I was:

1. Sitting at the table with Mr. WPY, I was so distracted by my internal state that I misread the board, mucked my hand, and thereby shipped a giant pot to an opponent who did NOT have the flush to beat my two pair.

2. I then went on tilt and misplayed the following dozen hands.

3. In a funk and aggravated with myself for both my original mistake and the subsequent tilt, I failed to respond appropriately to distinctly friendly overtures from Mr. WPY.

Just paint the big "L" on my forehead, already. Gah!

Anxiety

It's our usual Tuesday night game tonight. And I'm approaching it with something close to dread. Am I afraid of losing? Of falling victim to a bad beat? Of failing to play my best?

No. All those things and more may very well come to pass. If they do, I'll deal with them just fine.

No.

What's tying my stomach up in knots is the prospect of seeing Mr. WPY and having to come to grips with the fact that nothing has changed. I would so like to think things will be different now. But they won't be.

And it's entirely possible, as several helpful friends have pointed out, that his conversation with me was a kind of rehearsal, that he was trying it on to see how it sounded. There may, in fact, have been no break-up at all, in the end. Ironically, if that's the case, I doubt if I'll hear about it right away.

Gah!

I want my safe & painless fantasy back, please.

Thinking of you

The penultimate conversation, just prior to the break-up revelation:

"So, how did your alumni event go?"

"Okay. They had these great vegetarian spring rolls they kept passing around. They kept passing them around, and I kept munching them down."

"And you didn't bring any back for me?" (Probably one of the most flirtatious and, needless to say, utterly and obviously silly things I've ever said to Mr. WPY.)

"No, but I did think of you while I was enjoying them."

People tell me things

Well.

That muffled thud you just heard was the sound of the other shoe dropping. The echoes are still reverberating in my head. Maybe telling you about it will help me understand it myself.

When our Tuesday night game gets down to the final table we take a break for five or ten minutes. I went up to the kitchen to snarf a few almonds from our host's cupboard (hey, I keep him supplied, it's cool). The kitchen light is off, so it's dim in there, with light coming in from the dining room and the basement stairwell.

Mr. WPY comes in. I ask how he's doing. "Do you mean in the game, or in life?" Either one, I guess.

"I'm breaking up with J."

He tells me that things have been difficult since Christmas, when she and her son went with him to his parents' place. Apparently they don't see eye to eye on key issues of child-rearing, and of course the child is hers, not his.

I tell him I'm sorry, it's always sad when something ends, even if you know it's for the best. It feels like a failure and a loss. People can disagree on politics, but shared interpersonal values are absolutely essential to the success of a relationship. He says he's going to miss just hanging out with her.

In the midst of this conversation, new player S. ~ a woman ~ comes into the kitchen. There's definitely something in the air and she can feel it. She's also an extremely forthright person: "Are you two dating?" she asks.

There is a pause. "No," I say. Pause. "No," he says.

"Because you always seem to be together," she says.

"We're conspiring," says Mr. WPY. We return to the basement for the rest of the game.

Mr. WPY busts out about half an hour later. I ask if he's going to stay for the second game. "No," he says with a wry smile, "I have to go break up with my girlfriend."

"You mean, right now?" I thought he had been talking about a fait accompli. Apparently not.

"Yes."

"Well, I hope it goes as well as these things can go."

"Thanks." And he left.

*Head asplode.*

I do believe that Mr. WPY just told me that he was breaking up with his girlfriend before he told her. WTF?? Who does that? And why?

Okay, people. Here's the thing. I knew something was different. I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. It's nice to have one's intuitions validated.

But the real problem is that this changes NOTHING. He's still too young. Now, however, I will no longer be able to ascribe the lack of a more intimate relationship to him having a girlfriend. Now, I'll have to face the reality that it's just really not on. So, the break-up of their relationship basically spells the death of my fantasy-life.

Great. It's a win-win! :P

Such a coincidence

There's the other story I haven't told you. The one that involves me and Mr. WPY on Saturday afternoon.

I'm in Arlington, after having had an afternoon meeting with a prospective client (not gonna happen), with an hour and a half or so to kill before my Saturday night game. I head to the public library to read a book or something, but they decide to close at 5 pm, and I'm at loose ends.

I sit in my car with the windows fogging up and text Mr. WPY, asking if he's planning to play. The answer comes back almost immediately: yes. A few more messages back and forth. He mentions being in a mall, where he may catch a bite to eat, if the electricity comes back on.

Electricity? I just passed through an intersection where the power was out. That's interesting.

Which mall? I ask him.
Ballston Mall.

Now I'm very amused. I am three blocks away from Ballston Mall, around the corner from the restaurant we had dinner at the other week. I do not ask him what he's doing at the mall.

A few minutes later my phone rings and we arrange to meet up for a bite to eat before playing. We have an engaging poker chat. And then head off to the game.

I notice that, when we arrive at the venue, Mr. WPY lingers upstairs for an extra minute as I make my way to the basement where we play. He's done this before. He does not want to be seen arriving with me, I surmise. We don't make much of a display of friendship when we've got our game faces on.

The funny thing, though, is that during the second game that night, after he'd left, someone made a teasing comment about how Mr. WPY and I had left "practically arm in arm" the previous evening. (It is true that I busted out right after he did, and that we left the premises together and talked in the driveway for a couple of minutes.) Someone made a joking reference to his girlfriend being out of town.

Excuse me, but if poker players are passing comment.... Well, let's just say I was surprised.

Cougar Magnet

Oh dear.

So I'm playing poker with Mr. Unbelievably Cute and he starts telling this long story about this older woman who wanted him to be a sperm donor. And then he's confessing to having obliged... all weekend. After which he's explaining that it's weird, because he broke up with his girlfriend because she lied about her age, and she was younger than this other woman, who is at least forty. And gorgeous. But now she keeps texting him and he doesn't know what to do.

He goes for the older women, he informs me.

And I'm sitting there and thinking to myself: "Dude! What am I, chopped liver?" If he's gotta get himself in these fixes, why the hell doesn't he get in a fix with ME?

Stupid boy.

Mending

Wow, that was awful.

I was so feeble I could hardly stand, and everything HURT. I think I slept 20 of the last 24 hours. Every time I woke up I was stunned by how much pain I was in.

Right now I'm cooking up some tortellini soup. That's about the mildest, blandest food I can think of, and it'll be the only nourishment I've had in almost two days. I hope it goes down easy and stays down easy.

Really sick

I've got some kind of stomach thing, or a flu, or something. My entire body aches and I'm as weak as a newborn kitten. I feel like DEATH.

I had horrible indigestion all night, and the mere thought of eating is nauseating. I can barely take a sip of water.

This one is nasty, folks. I hope you don't get it.