Except my boss. This week, she has only one face and it is NOT pleasant. I have the emails to prove it! At the very least, jeez woman, don’t put that kind of stuff in writing! You should know better.

Oh! Received a follow-up email from Selfish Idiot after coffee:

It was nice seeing you. You seem to be doing very well. I’m happy for you.

Was it sarcasm? Who knows. More importantly, who gives a fuck. I replied:

Thanks.

Did I mention how much happier I am, now that it’s all finally OVER?!?!

It’s over! It’s finally over! I am finally, definitively over him.

Thank the Lord.

Don’t judge me. And stop rolling your eyes.

I can’t stop thinking about him, about the end of our relationship, about everything. I finally realized I had nothing to lose– could I become even MORE broken-hearted, if I asked him to meet and he said “No”? No, I could not be more broken-hearted. In fact, I was almost hoping he WOULD say “No,” so I could then close the book on things, say he doesn’t want to speak to me…  and just try to move on from there, from that point of blaming him.

I sent him a text that said, “I would like to see you.”

Self Idiot: Why?

Me: Because I would like to speak with you outside of email. And I haven’t seen you in a long time.

SI: OK. Where and when?

So, there you have it. We are meeting for coffee tomorrow night.

I have no agenda, nothing in particular to say to him. In fact, the very strange thing is that since we set up this meeting, I haven’t thought about him at all. Not a single time today.

Is that good?

Saw an old friend of mine. She’s older, like a mentor and friend in one. She is the most supportive person in my life, I have come to realize. She is so proud of me, thinks the world of me (even with knowing all this crap I blog about– and then some!), she can’t wait to tell everyone she knows about me and what I have achieved with my life. I can’t say I’ve ever known anyone else to feel about or act towards me in that way, to that extent. It’s very, very flattering.

Still find myself thinking about the Selfish Idiot. I can’t help myself. I wish I could stop. It’s like an addiction. I just can’t quit. I quit for a while, and then … it just came back to the forefront of my brain. Out of nowhere. It won’t stop.

I may have to take my feelings about the Selfish Idiot relationship (I still believe I do not have feelings for him personally, but for the better parts of our now-defunct relationship) and direct them towards someone else. It doesn’t really work, though. I already tried with Storyteller. I am this closeto trying to meet someone new online.

Lots of work with the Two Faced Smiling Liars lately, as well as some heavy emails to Out of Towner. Good lord, I hope he can help us.

I think I take work too seriously and personally. And for what? No big payoff in sight… no promotion, no IPO, no super-crazy bonus waiting in the wings. I should just do my forty hours and spend the rest of my time drunk or meditating.

I’ve been feeling forgetful and exhausted lately. Not myself.

But that was this morning. Last night I was up way too late (too much caffeine, I think). I feel “over” Idiot Selfish person, but not the relationship itself. It was really great early on in those first few months; It was everything I could have hoped for. I miss that. I want it back in my life. But how? With whom?

I meditated on this for LONG time. I landed on the resolution that I need to stop seeking out a solution to this problem, and instead let the answer work its way toward me. This isn’t usually how I deal with problems, so it’s something new. New is good, right? I’m giving this new approach until the end of the month.

THAT was my final thought before falling asleep. The next morning, I had voicemail from the Selfish Idiot. Go figure.

Out of Towner was back this week. Geez, I really like him. We went out with others and had a blast. I’m under the strange impression that he is particularly good and/or experienced in working with large groups of women. Not sure why I think that. Anyway, it was a fun couple of days, but with no random or romantic subtext to blog about.

One of the Two-Faced Smiling Liars at work took me aside this past week, and asked me for advice on dealing with the other Two-Faced Smiling Liar at work. How crazy is that?! Perhaps nobody is a liar and everyone has lousy communication skills at my company…. Anywho, I gave my two cents, which I should probably take under my own consideration!

I saw Storyteller briefly. I didn’t complain about the cancelation last week (reason was legit), but did joke about using that free time to search for new friends online. My joke seems to have hurt Storyteller’s feelings a bit. Oh well, I can’t control that. Anyway, we’re planning to get together later in the week.

I’m off the antidepressant herbs I was taking. They seem to have done their job, which was to throw me a ladder while I was stuck in such a deep hole I could not climb out myself. I didn’t need a chopper to airlift me out, just a ladder somewhat within reach. I can do the climbing myself.

So of course I called Idiot Selfish person. I called after-hours, left voicemail at the office. Very brief, just saying hi, etc.

Ugh, I feel like an idiot. I should refer to myself as Fucking Idiot from now on. I don’t REALLY want to speak to, much less see, Idiot Selfish person.

I think I need someone new in my life.

I think my problem is that I need someone to love. And since I don’t really have someone in my life to receive that, I’m finding myself subconsciously pretending to have very romantic feelings for whomever I am with. I have the energy and need a place to put it, I guess.

I’m having dinner with the Out of Towner next week (made sure to invite others). I think I’m developing what can only be described as a work-crush: A non-sexual, non-romantic, crush-like, professional and personal admiration for a coworker. This, too, is probably an extension of my having a certain kind of energy right now, but not having anywhere to properly put it.

And I hate to admit it, but I still think about Idiot Selfish person. This is annoying, because I did not think about this person AT ALL when we weren’t speaking, prior to all the emails and texts and such. I don’t miss or want to be with this person, but I think of Idiot Selfish person… getting hit by a car, bumping into me at a restaurant, showing up in the Gossip Column of the local paper. I don’t know why.

We had people from out of town in the office last week, though not THE “Out of Towner”. It went well enough. I put my foot down about losing yet another weekend to doing yet another “emergency” project… and guess what? The world didn’t come to an end. Everything is still standing. And I finished the project on Tuesday morning, just like I said I would.

I received at least a half-dozen texts, voicemails, and emails from Idiot Selfish person last week, all invites to lunch, dinner, or drinks. I finally left a voicemail on Idiot Selfish person’s work phone after-hours. It was along the lines of:

“I got your messages. Not free for lunch tomorrow, I have a meeting… But the truth is, I will never be free for lunch. Or drinks. Or dinner. I’m glad we’re on speaking terms and I dont’ mind catching up every now and then, but we are not ‘friends’ and I just don’t want to hang out with you. And to be honest, it’s kind of weird that we stopped seeing each other because you don’t have time for me, and now you seem to have all the free time in the world. If you really have all this free time, I suggest you find someone new to spend it with.”

It reads more harshly than (I believe) it sounded. I swear.

The next day, after Idiot Selfish person had already left me a text and a voicemail asking about drinks that night, I received an email thanking me for my honesty. And I haven’t heard from Idiot Selfish person since. (Which is exactly what I wanted!)

Oh, back to work. One of the people in town last week is also one of the Two-Faced Smiling Liars. I’ll spare the details, but yeah, his behavior was as expected. At least I didn’t take anything personally and I called him on his shit a couple of times.

I had lunch last week with a coworker of mine who works in a different division of the larger department we are both housed under. She confirmed that a lot of my compaints about my group are actually true for our entire department, and that the rest of our gigantic company knows we (our department) is generally fucked up. It was a comforting and distriburing conversation.

I also met with HR to chew the fat and revisit some of those same issues. Not sure they are really going to address anything. I’ve decided to just care less about work in general, and that seems to be working to save my sanity and minimize my stress.