Thursday, April 19, 2012

Desk: Redux. Redexsk?

That's hard to say... redex-sk. But fun!

Right, so. A while back - I think a few months now, but I'm not sure - Desk was back at my office, building more desks with his company. I honestly didn't know they were here and went up to talk to the receptionist about something, and saw him. Almost didn't recognize him because he was wearing a hat and had grown quite the face full of beard, but he waved and smiled sort of shyly at me and it clicked.

The weird part is how long it took me to realize it was the insane amounts of facial hair that made me not recognize him, not the hat. He was very clean-shaven when we dated, and now he was a fuckin' mountain man, but yeah... that ballcap REALLY changes everything.

Later that night, or maybe the next, I was at the grocery store. I was feeling a little... lonely? nostalgic? forgiving? All those things, I suppose. So I sent him a text asking if he'd like to grab a drink sometime and catch up. I honestly didn't have any ulterior motives - as amazing as we were in bed together, I didn't want to go back to that. Especially not with the mountain-man-thing going on. Oh, yeah, and the whole really awful email thing, too.

Anyway, he texted back saying he was pleasantly surprised by my offer, but that he was planning to move to Portland in just a couple of weeks, so was a bit overwhelmed with planning and packing and such. We text-chatted a little back and forth that evening, and that was it.

Until yesterday.

Yesterday I worked from home, and as I was in the kitchen fixing lunch, I heard my phone buzzing in the living room. And again. And again. Damn, I thought, something at work must be blowing up. I scampered in to check, and saw I had 3 new texts, which added up to one really long message from a phone number I didn't have in my contacts.

Within the first sentence, I knew it was Desk. The gist of it was that he'd walked past my place a few days ago, and wondered if I'd still like to catch up sometime, as his move had been put off for the time being. I considered for a while before responding. This week I've been really extra cranky, and I didn't want to see anyone, so it wasn't really fair to judge whether or not I wanted to see him specifically based on that. I mean, that's why I was working from home - I told my boss I was full of ennui. (no, really, that's what I said to him, and he said okay. my boss is rad.)

After some mulling, I decided to go for it. I have no interest in exploring a physical relationship with him again, and I really don't feel like I'll be tempted to change my mind on that, despite my unusually dry year thus far. Or maybe because of it? I think I've made it over the hump (see what I did there?) and am now in "it's okay that I'm not having sex" mode. We'll see how long that lasts... but for now, I feel pretty confident that there will be no back-tracking with him, and I don't think he's the kind of guy who would try, either.

Somehow our plans to "grab a drink" turned into "dinner." We're meeting tonight for sushi and chatting, and I'm looking forward to it. Despite that awful email - which he did apologize for - I feel like he's someone I can trust. He definitely always speaks his mind, and I feel like I can do the same with him. Also, I believe he honestly, genuinely cared about me and cared about getting to the heart of me. That was what made him so frustrated with me, actually, and caused a lot of friction with us: he really wanted to know the reality of me, and I was keeping him at bay with my jokes and misdirections. What with all the ennui weighing me down lately, he might just be the exact right person that I need to talk to for a while, and I think this time? This time I'll be open about everything. I don't do that with ... well, almost anyone.

Maybe it will go great and we'll have some good talks and a few laughs and delicious sushi; maybe it will be horrible and I will walk out of there angry and frustrated all over again; maybe we'll cause a scene by yelling and throwing things and I'll be arrested for stabbing a guy in the knee (which will be my 2nd time doing that - stabbing, not getting arrested)! Who knows! Oh, the suspense....

4 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Yeah, it was actually really great. We talked for about 3 hours, until the restaurant closed, and we hung out again last night. He seems more laid back and less angry about everything now, and less eager to jump to judgment. He also seems honestly embarrassed by that email, and we've had some pretty good talks. I think we'll be good friends.

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    2. Cool. I was hoping that didn't turn into a shit storm.

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    3. Oh, in case you were curious... after we hung out a few times, it turned out he did, in fact, think I had gotten back in touch for some unf-unf action. I was honestly completely surprised when he mentioned that, and he seemed completely surprised that wasn't the case. He took the news gracefully, but we only hung out once after that. As far as I know, he's moved away by now. Nothing gained, nothing lost.

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