Despertar

it never makes sense

Totals are in. Jenn's and mine aren't quite as simpatico as Mary's and mine were, but that's the idea, isn't it? Two completely different sets of eyes is a fairer forum than a single, unilateral one.

I am unsurprised by the winners, excited to start a new round and (moderately) apologetic, because I have no intentions of censoring contest complaints in this journal going forward. With the exception of my Leading entries, no one is really compelled to read this thing, anyway. So.

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Yesterday, for the first time, Chris bitched about me in his blog, albeit minorly. This is what I was afraid of. Some commenter issued a blanket statement that "no man, married or single, ever turns down free sex," and Chris took offense, countering that he, just a couple weeks ago, turned down a no-strings-attached lay from some hot Brazilian girl he met at a club somewhere. He did this, supposedly, "because [he's] dating a girl who isn't even sure she wants to be exclusive with [him]." Conclusion: he is the noblest, most principled man alive, and should be rewarded for that.

Except...no. First off, I didn't say I wasn't sure I wanted to be exclusive with him. Bouncing around in the marshmallowy swirl of everything I'm not sure about is one nugget of absolute surety: I do not want to be exclusive with him. If I did, we would be dating now. No intelligent girl my age passes up a chance to grab a commitment from someone she's seriously interested in. I told him, point-blank, weeks ago (shortly before the Brazilian incident, so it seems), that I did not want him assuming exclusivity, and that I did not want him referring to me as his "girlfriend," as the term implies exclusivity, which we don't have. I furthermore told him to feel free to date anyone he wanted, and I was clear on the point that I would certainly do the same.

Then, a few days later, following a slightly less minor thing about something he wrote that was incredibly obnoxious and insensitive, I told him we probably shouldn't be dating at all, excusively or otherwise. He got sullen and sulky on the phone, but seemed to understand. Then he texted me two hours later, drunk, using language and tones that would only have been appropriate had we never had that conversation at all. Something is wrong with him.

And also, who does that? Who turns down sex in deference to someone who isn't his girlflriend, keeps it secret for weeks and then announces it publicly to a several thousand-person blog audience, painting it as some shining act of self-controlled morality? Knowing I was going to see it the second he said it? Even the other commenters couldn't help pointing out his douchey stupidity. I told him I didn't care if he got or gave attention from or to other women, and that if he met someone he liked better, who wanted the commitment he seemed so eager to form, he should go for it. He didn't like that, but he accepted it. Given those agreed-upon terms, in the Brazilian situation, he had three possible, intelligent choices:

1. Fuck her and say nothing. She was hot and he hasn't had sex in a long time. I'm not his girlfriend, so he didn't owe me the courtesy of not going home with a hot girl, if he was interested in doing so for his own reasons, which his verbiage suggests he was. I wouldn't have ever known, even. It would have had no bearing on the health or mechanics of our non-relationship.

2. Fuck her and say something. My feelings wouldn't have been hurt, and as an added bonus to him, there is the tiniest, most remote chance that learning he had moved on with his dating life would make me a little jealous. Not that that's the most mature way to get my attention, but at this point, he seems to be resorting to mind games, anyway.

3. Not fuck her and say nothing. If it was a matter of principle, for him, if he is really the only straight man alive who takes moral issue with the possibility of a consensual sexual encounter with an attractive woman, then that's totally his business, and doesn't warrant sharing with the group.

Instead, he chose the Sniveler's Option, the worst possible one:

4. Not fuck her and say something. Why did he have to say anything? He had already missed out on free sex. If he wanted the consolation prize, peace with his principles, he should have kept it to himself. If he wanted some sort of Shannon-delivered reward, he picked the wrong door. All he did, by calling it to my attention that he passed up a good time for no reason, was make me feel even guiltier, which I shouldn't, at this point, because I told him weeks ago that this isn't going to work, that he's free to do what he wants.

And now I'm going to have to tell him, again, and in the harsher terms I wanted to avoid using, that I don't want his loyalty, unfaltering though it seemingly is, and that all his spun and twisted rhetoric is the counterexample to his belief that he is the saving grace of manhood.

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It isn't even about Justin, at this point. For a long time, it was, which is why I was bad, I delayed pushing Chris away because I thought maybe if I gave myself time, I'd grow some feelings.

And I appreciate his surface-level good qualities, all the things that make him a catch and a better partner, in the immediate sense, than Justin is. But you can't fake passion, and besides that, you can't declare yourself above the Dating Game just because you've never learned to play.