Short sleep, but it was sleep. It was short because I went dancing and then I decided to get up early to catch the earlier train. The previous days I'd been catching the later train, arriving a little after 9AM. I went not so much dancing as practicing. By the time evening had arrived I was already feeling depressed. It was difficult trying to practice and not sink behind that curtain I spoke of in the last entry.
On my desktop is a picture I downloaded from the New York Times. I've mentioned this. It is the picture of the George Washington Bridge, sunset, before the the hurricane. It was the first time I was invited to her castle overnight. It was one of the many signs I took as an encouragement that this relationship might just work, might be different from the previous. I think I need to put this picture away, as a compromise between leaving it there as a tormenting reminder or deleting it with fury and resignation.
Because she hadn't ever stayed at my place, there isn't any memorabilia from her I can bump into there. But my computer is full of her stuff. It is a sign of connection, I guess, one that has ceased to exist.
Or perhaps not. She wrote to me. I found myself neither excited nor fearful. My only feeling was caution.
At the practica last night I didn't want to think about what had happened on Sunday. But my mouth was bigger than my heart sometimes. I asked one of the people if she thought I felt different on Sunday when we had last danced. She said I was softer, and asked me why. She showed me her sympathy when she found out; I wasn't sure if I felt more sympathized; I am not sure why I told yet another person. I had spent the evening alone before the practica. I had the opportunity to meet my tango buddy, who offered to have tea. But I felt I needed to be alone. It's great to have friends and a sister who opened their hearts and offered their company, but at some point, I have to stand up alone.
It didn't help, of course, seeing couples around. One of the teachers there to help with the practices was with his long term girlfriend. As I was leaving I saw him give her a little kiss on the cheeks. It stung me; just a few days ago I was giving someone I liked a lot a kiss on one of her cheeks. It didn't help that the French girl was there with her guy, whose relationship together is becoming less and less discreet. They were leaving together, and I didn't want to have anything to do with them. I didn't want to be rude to her because she has been one of the most important elements of my support group, and without a doubt the one who had given me the most attention in terms of time. I wanted to leave earlier so I didn't have to see them leave together, but that was not meant to be. My consolation prize was not to see them walking alone outside.
I was happy to see one of my New York friends who had been away (with her boyfriend) on vacation in Cyprus. I didn't have time to chat with her because of my back-to-back practices. Right now I just want to be surrounded by supporting faces, even if they don't know what happened.
Despite all this, it couldn't have been so bad. I slept without interruption. I slept peacefully even after getting that email from the pianist. She mentioned nothing of Sunday, and the closest reference was the subject of "How are you?" I wanted to sound upbeat while being careful not to seem to be attempting to reach over into her space. I am not certain that I have accomplished the latter part of this goal. I realized my uncertainty is a sign that I wasn't ready to talk to her normally. She simply gave me an update on what was happening to her since Sunday (we really have just missed each other two days). She thanked me for the few things I did that Sunday before we parted.
I have memories of visions and thoughts from the experience with the India girl because there are some similarities between the two breakups that reflect problems with how I handle such breakups. It's hard to describe because I haven't fully figured out the problems. I remember, just as with the pianist, how the India girl was so sad but determined about stop dating me. That mixture of sadness and determination frustrated me. And soon after the breakup, she wrote to me, asking how I was doing. And then after some unnecessary drama, or perhaps necessary for this next step to happen, we stopped talking completely, during which time I was very depressed. Back then I didn't really have a big support group. Really just my best friend, who was in England and who probably had a hard time being supportive to a man whom she finally wanted after many years of rejecting him, but only to find him running for someone else (different story, not going to go into it now). And there was my Italian friend, the one who is about to move here in just over a week.
And after that respite of a few months, the India girl wrote to me and started talking to me. I guess the problem is that she couldn't take my attention, which sometimes felt like intrusion, or too much love. I don't know. But once she got away from it, she missed it. I was her best friend, on par with her mother, who was probably her only other person in her lonesome life that she had felt free to turn to. She was writing to me as if we hadn't broken up. She was looking into cheap tickets to Hawaii and had thought about me as company. In retrospect, I don't think she was thinking about the trip as something romantic.
Sometimes I feel I am so disarming for a woman that she gets confused about her feeling of attachment to me. And even after she vows to stop dating me, there's a big part of her that wants to be with me. Often times she calls it friendship. Of course, I call it cowardice. And I understand why now: I didn't "disarm" you on purpose; it is my personality to make you feel comfortable being with me, being in your own skin. But intention is unrelated to this disarmament; I do the same with someone I want to be friends with or want to date. And you should know better because ever since my ex-best friend from high school, I always make it very clear my intentions, and it is not up to you to decide that we are now going to be friends.
All these women have put up a fight to convert me into a friend, but it's harder than converting me into some religious person. All but one have given up and they are no longer people I talk to. The exception is the French girl, who still insists and is very patient and optimistic about it. So despite showing off more than more that she's in a relationship, she is still chasing after my friendship. I don't know where this friendship will go. Often times my feelings are embittered by the knowledge, forget the actual witness, of her relationship. And I can only get more frustrated and upset if their relationship becomes more open.
She knew I was feeling sad last night and tried to comfort me. But I told her, indirectly, that she could tell me that because she was, unlike me, not going home alone. The memory is still quite fresh: the memory of hoping she would be my New York girlfriend after I moved to New York, that we would be coming home from milongas together. When I was looking for an apartment I had her in my mind, in my plans. It is no surprise that I almost didn't shake the hand of her guy last night when he offered it before taking her home.
I don't know if it was a mistake to write back to the pianist. I don't want her to think now we can be friends. We weren't together long enough for me to be her best friend, but there was a lot of connection that I am sure she, just as I, didn't want to lose. Nevertheless, it would be another example of selfishness if she wants to pick and choose, pick the connections for a friendship without having to date me. The French girl did the exact same thing and I want that to be the last time to happen in my life. I may not be able to choose the kind of relationship with a woman, but I can choose not to have certain kinds of relationship. The veto is always within me.
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