Two Princes

*sigh*

I don't even know where to start. That's the tricky thing about blogging with such irregularity... It would be easier if I could just psychically connect my emotions to this thing without having to type them.

(Also, I'm writing this in a strange state at an ungodly hour, so forgive anything that is too emotional to make sense.)



I'll start with the bullet points:

- Phil wants me back.
- I met someone else.

(I thought there would be more bullet points than that when I started the list, but that's pretty much all you need to know.)

Slight elaboration:

- Phil wants me back (and is now making a lot of earnest effort, and I still love him).
- I met someone else (who is terrific, and whom I have grown attached to very quickly).

Oh yeah, and also...

- Phil wants me back. He did a totally TERRIBLE job of winning me back at first. Then he realized that, started actually trying, but I'd already sort of had my "this isn't going to work and I should get over it because he's kind of a jerk to me" moment, but now he's trying SO HARD, and doing everything that I totally wanted him to do, and I still love him like crazy, and I don't want to throw this away or screw it up, but it might be too late.

- I met another guy 5 days before Phil dumped me (remember the Jewish guy in #7/#8 from the last post?), then he kind of took me on a non-date 6 days after the dumping, thinks I'm incredible, has been pursuing me hard despite me constantly talking about my ex AND attempting to dissuade him from pursuing me at a time when I am so clearly a mess, and calling him a masochist to his face because he won't give up, and he totally wore down my defenses, and I'm totally infatuated with him and having a wonderful time casually seeing him, but we have fundamental differences and I recognize that he's a rebound, and I don't want to delude myself into thinking otherwise.




And for those wild readers out there who actually want a full explanation (or as much of one as I'm up to giving you right now)... well, fine. Here you go.



Phil got to the USA on March 2nd. He dumped me on April 2nd. We started texting again on April 15th (purely for logistical "you have my slippers and owe me $100" sorts of reasons). And I didn't hear his voice until April 29th.

He'd had a horrible day, and wanted to talk to me about it. He called under the guise of needing a doctor recommendation because of a mysterious illness. He started crying and told me that he was worried he was going to die, and he realized that the person he cared most about is me, and he just wanted to be with me. (He's not going to die; he was suffering from exhaustion, according to the doctor.)

He spent nearly two hours crying, as I wondered what to do on the other end of the phone. Stay silent as he wept? Try to change the subject? Attempt to cheer him up, even though HE dumped ME and I owe him nothing?

I spent the next day completely messed up about the whole thing.

And on May 1st, I called him. And I said that I'd let him cry for two hours while being the strong one, but that now it was my turn to cry. And I told him how stupid I thought he must be for dumping me. And we rehashed (AGAIN) a minor fight we had in November, but this time, he finally understood where I was coming from (Note: I'm not the one who keeps revisiting this fight; that's all him). I was a complete wreck in my rehearsal that night.

And then that night, in a separate call (and technically after midnight), he said he wanted me back. He wants to try again.

March 2nd: arrive in America. April 2nd: Dump girlfriend. May 2nd: Try to win girlfriend back. Seriously?


I told him I needed a break from talking to him, as I was too emotional about the whole situation. I told him that my parents were coming into town the next day, and I was opening a show the day after, and that I couldn't be emotionally dealing with all of this during my opening weekend (based on how it had affected that one rehearsal). He agreed, but begged me to call him as soon as they were gone.


So I called that Sunday night. May 5th. He talked at me for 5 minutes about his career, and how important it was, and blamed that for being stressed out by being a real boyfriend (as opposed to a Skype-boyfriend who only needs to be caring and considerate for an hour a day, if that). Then he said we should get back together, but take things slow. And by that, I mean that he wanted to start by sitting down together and hashing out all the things we dislike about each other and the relationship. And then -- oh yeah -- he thought we should only see each other twice a week.

I told him how awful that all sounded. That he wanted to still fix me, and ALSO limit his interaction with me. Totally lame. And not enough.

We talked again later in the week. This time he said he wanted another chance. I said that there were twenty other guys asking me out on a date, and that I'd gotten pretty good at saying no to everyone, and I saw no good reason why I should say yes to him. He begged me for one date. Just one date. I said he could meet me for lunch the following Friday. He said he wanted to take me for dinner, because he had a whole very romantic evening planned. I said that he didn't have to wait until a date to be romantic (he could write me a poem, or send me flowers, or bring a f***ing mariachi band outside my house to serenade me). But he insisted.

He begged to come see my play. I said he could come the second weekend.

He came. He showed up more than half an hour early, and I saw him on my way into the theatre. I told my whole cast that he was there, and received a lot of, "Do you want me to beat him up?" reactions.

He sat front row center. He brought me a rose. He wrote me a letter saying that I was the best thing in his life, and that he'd made a huge mistake. He wrote me a poem. He took me out for frozen yogurt, and he cried, begging me to take him back.

And all I could think about was the fact that I had woken up in someone else's bed that morning.


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Phil dumped me on a Monday. I wrote an email to the director of the play I'm in saying I might have to drop out (and explained the whole dumping situation). I had been to only one rehearsal at that point. The director talked me into sticking with it, as he thought it would help me get through the break-up to put my focus into my art. I went to rehearsal on Saturday as a complete and total mess, but tried to hide it and be as professional as possible. That's where Gus comes in.

I'm not always great at knowing when guys are interested in me, but that first week post break-up, I kind of hated all men. I didn't want to talk to them. I definitely didn't want to flirt.

I am the ONLY new person to this theatre company who is in this play. The rest of them have worked together before. Some of them have known each other since high school (and the ones in that group also know an actress on the tv show I work on, who does not seem to care for them, and told me to drop out of the show). So as the ONLY new person, I hold a certain level of fascination for them. The first week, whenever I told a story, everyone would stop whatever side conversations they were having and listen. It was bizarre, but for a performer like me, totally great.

Gus came up to me at the rehearsal and started asking me questions. Not even a ton. Just getting-to-know-you stuff. But there was something about the way he asked that I found somehow flirty. And I said, "Why do you need to know?" rather combatively in response to one of the innocent questions. I acted like a total b****, to be honest with you. But I just couldn't handle it.

The following Monday, I got a text message from Gus (I don't remember giving him my number, but I think it's on facebook, and I accepted his friend request), saying that he was in my part of town for work that day, and asked if I wanted to hang out. I told him I was working on set, and didn't know when I'd be done. Maybe around 6pm, if they didn't use me to stand-in for someone in the final scene.

He said he had an ulterior motive. Gus is a playwright, and was holding a reading of a new play he had written the following Monday, and wanted to invite me to be a part of it, and talk to me about the role. So fine, I said I'd meet him.

I didn't get out of work until after 8pm. Meanwhile, he stuck around my part of town (he lives 40 minutes away, so this is noteworthy), sitting in a bar with a book for two hours.

I went to the bar, and very bluntly and sternly said: "Look, I'm not stupid. You just waited for me for over two hours. Now maybe you really, really want me to be in your play, but I suspect that you are for some reason intrigued by me and considering pursuing me romantically, but I just got dumped by my boyfriend of three years on Tuesday and nothing romantic is going to happen between us. So if you really want to discuss your play, great, but if you're here because you're interested in me, you should leave."

That's not far from verbatim. And it took a lot out of me to say all of that, because I don't think I've ever been quite that blunt and unfriendly to a guy who was interested in me before. I'm from the Midwest, so I'm generally pretty friendly, and find ways to let guys down gently. This was not my usual way of going about things.

He reacted by saying he didn't know (neither that I'd had a boyfriend when he met me at the first rehearsal, nor that I had been dumped and had such fresh wounds). I'd assumed that the director had told people, but no, he'd kept my business to himself. So poor Gus, who waited two hours in a bar to talk to me, got blindsided completely. And reacted by asking me to tell him about it. He wanted to be there for me to vent to. This guy who had just met me.

I was so guarded that night. I got angry at one point when he sat too close to me and made him move his chair away. I said, "I'm not hooking up with you, if you think that's going to happen. It's not. I'm not some vulnerable creature that you can pounce on." At times, I was just downright pointedly mean, I think. But he stayed. He let me vent to him for four hours. It was very healing.

I saw him at rehearsal over the weekend, at it was nice to feel like I had a friend there. I wasn't quite so much of an outsider in the super clique-y group, because I had Gus to talk to. Gus, in that one night, became one of the people who knew me best in all of Los Angeles.

The next week, Gus said he was staying at his parents' house for the night, and that it was right by where I live, and wanted to know if I wanted to hang out because he was bored. I remember thinking that I should say no, but being desperately lonely and wanting human interaction. He suggested that we meet at a family-friendly restaurant for pie (although I ended up ordering dinner instead). We ended up talking there until it closed. And then sitting in my car in the parking lot and talking some more. (This was the night I mentioned in #8 in the last post, where other men were texting me the whole time.) Despite my protestations, Gus paid. He remembered that Phil hadn't taken me on a date since he'd been in town, and he said that he thought someone should buy me dinner.

Remember how a girl who works on my tv show went to high school with Gus? I worked with her the next day. She said, "GUS? NO! Avoid him like the plague!" I said, "He's actually really sweet. Although I'm worried he thought it was a date." I told her that we'd met up because he was staying at his parents' house. She said, "I've been to his childhood home. His parents live on a hill that it takes 20 minutes just to get down from. They don't live anywhere near you."

Okay, yes, I'd suspected that he was interested in me from the beginning. Yes, I knew when he waited for me for two hours at that stupid bar. But it wasn't until I found out that he had lied about how far away he was as an excuse to see me that it really hit me. (Yeah, he also wasn't working anywhere near me that first day... he exaggerated on that as an excuse to see me as well.)

One night after rehearsal, I was supposed to meet an acquaintance for karaoke in Burbank, but the guy had forgotten to tell me what karaoke venue he was going to. Gus lives in Burbank, and said he'd be happy to accompany me, so that I wouldn't be wandering around there alone. We went to three karaoke bars before giving up and ending up at Big Boy, where he again ordered pie. I ordered a milkshake, which the waiter brought with two straws. I remember being so careful to not be drinking out of it at the same time Gus was, so that he wouldn't think the moment was in any way flirty or romantic. I also (as I mentioned in the last post) had a whole conversation with him about Catholicism and popes and whatnot, because he's Jewish, and I figured that was a good way to show him that I was not long-term girlfriend material, without having to be quite as harsh as I had been previously.

After that, I don't know. Things get foggy. We went into tech for the play. I spent a lot of time with him, being closer to him than anyone else involved in the show. I vented to him about every Phil thing, and he didn't seem to mind.

May 9th. I'd had an insanely busy (and awesome, and frustrating, and emotional) day. Gus sent me a text message saying that he was house-sitting for his parents, and lonely, and asked if I wanted to come over and hang out for a bit. I said I'd visit after my final event of the night... which got out two hours later than I thought it would. But the place was on my way home, and I also kind of wanted to see for myself just how far from my house it was.

I remember doing a lot of Phil-related crying. And then I remember thinking at one point that Gus was going to try to kiss me, and telling him no. I said it wasn't because I didn't want to kiss him, but because I wasn't ready.

Wait, what?

I have no idea when that switch happened. None. I remember thinking I was going to be at his house for like 15 minutes and then leave. Just a quick hello to a friend who'd had a weird day and wanted company. Five hours later, I was still there, and telling him that I wasn't ready to kiss him, but that I wanted to do so. If something had changed within me before I got to his house that night, it was so gradual that I didn't notice it. Did it happen during the course of the night? I don't know.

What I do know is that I stayed entirely too late at his place that night. And then hung out at his apartment again the next night. And then crashed at his place the night after that, and we went out for pancakes in the morning. I used his shower, and we drove in separate cars to the theatre for the matinee (very good idea, as we don't want anyone in the cast to know we've started casually dating, especially because half the guys in the cast have crushes on me), and when I walked into the lobby with my hair still dripping wet, there was Phil.

And the first thing I did after I saw Phil was run backstage and look to Gus for comfort.


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After the show, Phil spent two hours with me, crying, saying he'd made a huge mistake, begging me to come back.

And I got in my car to leave, and called Gus. He asked if he could meet me at my place. A friend of his, just 24 years old, had unexpectedly died that day, and he had just found out. He didn't want to be alone.

I tried to help. To be there for him. I held him in my arms as he choked back tears. And then he said, "Tell me about you. How did things go with Phil?"

I told him it didn't seem important anymore. He said that our stories were not in a competition, and that he wanted to be there for me. I told him that I didn't want to hurt him, and he said he has mentally prepared for every possible outcome of us, and he's not going to be hurt.

I told him that Phil was great, and that I still love him, and that I'm not sure if we'll get back together.

And Gus somehow took this all in, and listened, and advised, as though he were some sort of impartial third party. Despite the fact that he is very clearly invested in the outcome. And he didn't seem hurt at all. He said something like, "I'm happy to be in the present with you. And if this only lasts a week, and you go back to him, I won't regret this for a second." He told me he looks forward to every moment that he gets to spend with me.

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I'm crazy about Gus. I know it's infatuation. I know it's because it's new and exciting and not tainted by years of tough situations and compromises. I know that the religion thing is big enough that I think it prevents this from being a permanent relationship. But he makes me feel great. So happy. And there's so much laughter. And somehow he can hold me while I'm crying about my ex, and not try to change who I am or what I'm going through in that moment.

I had a very weird moment yesterday. Gus knows that I'm planning on letting Phil take me out on a date and seeing how it goes. And I acknowledged that it would be unfair of me to either request or assume that Gus would not go on dates with other women. And I mentally freaked out.

I've gotten to a place where I'm more upset by the idea of Gus dating someone else than I am of Phil dating someone else.

And that was a very strange realization. And made me feel super clingy. I only acknowledged -- even to myself -- that I had feelings for Gus four days before that.

But see, this is how messed up I am right now. Because of Phil leaving me so abruptly before, I suddenly have these major abandonment issues popping up. And trust issues, I guess.

We went to see a play last night that a guy from our theatre company is in. And I sat next to Gus, but surrounded by other people in our show. We didn't flirt, or touch. We didn't even share an armrest. When we were hanging out with the group after the show, we talked in different circles. We left in different times, in different cars, texting each other that we were going to meet up later. (This is my preference; I've never been in a so-called "show-mance" before, and I really don't want things to get weird with the rest of our cast-mates... especially since, as I've said before, I suspect that some of them are interested in me and would get crazy jealous).

The sneaking-around thing is a little bit exciting. Am I just being taken in by that?

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Phil asked to see me as soon as possible. I told him that, even though I got off of work early today, I was super busy with errands and reading a play that I was participating in a workshop of tonight. Phil asked if he could either go on my errands with me, or read the play aloud with me. I acquiesced to the latter.

He came over. He brought a bunch of little love notes and asked permission to hide them around my apartment (I said no, as I didn't want to be surprised by them, so he left them in a stack on my desk). And he said some of the most lovely things he's ever said to me. And he played his cards completely right. And he charmed me. And he made me love him all over again. But the whole time, I just kept thinking about how I wanted to call Gus and talk the whole thing out with him. And then I felt terrible. Because here's Phil, sitting on my bed, doing everything right, and he doesn't know that on Saturday, I pulled Gus into a vacant dressing room to give him a quick kiss during the second act.

I told my mother about this whole situation. She said she thought it was unfair to Phil to not tell him I was seeing someone else. And it did seem like Gus had the upper hand because of it. And it felt like I was being dishonest to Phil by not disclosing it. And also, even though I'm single at the moment, it felt like I was doing something wrong. Like cheating. On my ex-boyfriend, who desperately wants to get rid of the "ex" part of that title.

I told him, "I started dating." I didn't say it's one guy. I didn't say that I've spent the night at his place. Or that Phil had seen him in the play. Or that this guy, too, is a screenwriter and a playwright (and, in fact, the two of them have the same agent). I didn't say anything but the bare minimum that I felt was necessary, as it would have hurt both of us too much.

I watched Phil clutch at his chest when I told him. He looked as though he were enduring physical pain. He said he knew it was all his fault, and that this wasn't going to stop him from fighting to win me back. But then about an hour later, he changed his tune. He said that he didn't think it was fair for me to only be putting forth a partial effort into trying to put the pieces of our relationship back together. He asked that I not date anyone else while trying to rekindle our relationship.

Phil also admitted that he's been on a couple of dates with other girls since our break-up, but that he didn't even kiss them, because he wished they were me. That's part of the reason he came back. Because, "those girls weren't fit to tie your shoe."

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Someone told me today that I should try to imagine that my (hypothetical future) daughter is in the situation that I'm in now. She said, "What advice would you give your daughter? Because that's the advice you should give yourself." And that messed me up. Because I think the advice I'd give my daughter is, "If you can't decide between them, it might be because neither is right."

And maybe neither is. But I don't want to go there right now. I can't. I'm too selfish for that, I guess.

Part of me thinks that I should go on some dates with some other guys, who are neither of them. Just to figure out if my fondness of Gus is real or circumstantially based. And also a little so it feels less like I'm misleading Phil (who assumed that me "dating" meant going on first dates with a few guys, as opposed to spending a lot of time with one).

I just... I need Gus right now. I can't tell you how much he's helped me. And how great I feel when I'm with him. And how positive he makes me feel about myself and life in general.

But I also don't want to hurt Phil. And I don't want to prioritize a rebound over a three-year relationship to the man I had planned to spend the rest of my life with.



*exhale*

I only just understood while typing this that my reaction was not, "I don't want to lose Phil." Maybe that's because I'd already reconciled myself to the fact that I had lost him. I started moving on.

Phil said that breaking up with me made him realize how much he loved me and wanted to be with me. But him breaking up with me caused me to spend a month trying to get over him. Trying to fall out of love. Focus on the negative.




But when he was here in person today, so sweet, and making an effort for the first time in a long time, and crying over me... In those moments, I really wanted it to work. I wanted for him to be THE guy again.



And then I felt like I was cheating on Gus. Which made me feel like I had been cheating on Phil.



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I don't remember ever being this confused over guys before. I don't like it. I don't think they do, either.

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May you know which road to follow so that you will have the fewest possible regrets.

~A~