Love and Starbucks?

I have been frequenting a specific Starbucks location, most recently. And the Starbucks Barista (him) now knows me by name! As soon as I walk in, he smiles from ear to ear and greets me by name.

Do you know how special that makes people feel? It is such a welcoming environment. Well, I never thought much of it…until today.

You see, today, I walked in (as I would any other time) and he was not behind the counter as I am used to seeing him.  I engage in the expected pleasantries with the barista (her) who takes my order.  I see him out of the corner of my eye.  I look over and as usual, a see a welcoming smile from ear to ear and he says, “Hi Robert, how are you?” I replied with a smile. I asked him if he was starting his shift or ending it. His response is that he is there on his day off.

He is really a handsome guy, and the fact that he’s personable, helps!

On a side note, my friend, who accompanied me during my visit, literally slut shames me for engaging in conversation with him. She said she is noticed a bit of chemistry. I call bullshit.

In Absentia...

It has been a while since my last post and many things have happened in my life. Some good and some not so good.

Over the Christmas holiday, he came back with a vengeance asking for my hand in marriage. The proposal was rather unorthodox, not a fabled love story by any means. I am rather simple to please and do not require much. However, there are certain things that I will require. I require commitment and conviction. You do not have to be right so long as you believe it with every part of your being.

He called me on Christmas Eve and said, "I just called to ask you one thing. Will you marry me?"

My response was not ideal. I retorted, "Do you have a ring?" his response, "No." I continued on to say other things like, "how was your day? What are your plans for xmas? How did you spent your birthday?

The truth is, had he said, "Yes, I have a ring for you." My response would have been automatic and emphatically, "Yes!” But you see, his lack of commitment in getting a ring prior to asking made me believe that he was not serious about "US," and if he couldn't commit then why should I?

Now, it has been several weeks since that unfortunate day that I received a marriage proposal over the phone. We have gone out a couple of times, too. He, in fact, did change. He no longer drinks or smokes. Over the last outing, he bought me three drinks and I felt like such a lush since I was the only one drinking alcoholic beverages. Ironically, I do not need to drink to have a good time, but since he kept buying, I kept drinking. I felt utter disappointment in myself by continuing to drink in front of him. However, he took advantage of this opportunity by asking me direct questions about us. As they say, drunks and small children will tell you no lies. I told him everything that was weighing on my chest about our situation and I said this with his feelings in mind. I delivered the blows gently (or so I thought). After our night out, he took me to dinner/breakfast; at this point, my drunkenness got the better of me and started to sabotage our evening by making wry comments about what I want. Of course, he could not provide these things. Even more reasons why I knew that I was messing up.

Despite the circumstances, I am sure now that I do not want a relationship. Not with him, nor anyone else. I do not believe that I am physically or emotionally ready to take on a relationship. I must work out some critical issues before giving into a relationship. Recently, I went out with my longtime friend and she confirmed this thought.

I simply hope that I can work my issues out before it becomes too late.

Haunted by my past.

He appears as quickly as he vanished from my life, nearly four years ago. I still remember the actions that eventually caused me walk away. You see, we met under circumstances that were not ideal but whether it was intoxication or the whirlwind of newness that brought him into my life, the point is that he would become my boyfriend.

The relationship was lived rather shortly. In that time, he drank too much and I did not have the patience to be tied down. Unbeknownst to him, I was having a fling with a person who did not take me serious, but I would have given it all for him.

It happens to me all the time. When I find someone I can see myself with, I go and meet someone else who distracts me.

I called this man my boyfriend, but to him I was property. Short of having a GPS embedded in my skin, he needed to know where I was at all times. Personally, he says that he was intuitive and felt that someone else was winning me over. While I never confirmed it, he was right.

In the words of Jewel, “the heart can hallucinate when it is starved for love.” Four years later, he would come back into my life, asking to rekindle what was once a fire.

I just do not know how to let him back in. I have built walls so thick that no one would consider breaking through and now this man is asking for a piece of my heart and I just don’t know how to undo all of this work.

I said that I would be willing to get to know this version of him. The man I knew him to be was dark and hurt, and fragile. I too was damaged goods. I have changed from the person I used to be. He claims to have done the same. Now, he is asking me to get to know him all over again.

I just feel like I cannot allow myself to be invested this time around because I do not want to feel like I have become desperate for a relationship. I feel the emptiness and in my mind, I think that he is trying to exploit that in me. However, I will allow myself to get to know him and I will reintroduce myself to him. It always felt like our story was never complete. And while I do not expect to have a happy ending, I do expect to end this chapter.

I used to call her friend...

I do not know why I decided to do a name search for her... It has been so many years that I have put it behind me. I put all those unresolved issues far behind... where I would not be predisposed to stumble upon it. 

Nevertheless, you see... It was never my intention to look her up. It happened when my mind decided to play a trick on me and brought up a feeling that I once felt, long ago in the land of far away. 

I used to call her friend. She was such a big part of me that I could not muster the thought to do something without her. There is medical terminology for the type of relationship we had... it is called "co-dependent." Well, during our best of times, that is what our relationship was reduced to, co-dependency. However, towards the end, our relationship was virtually non-existent. I hated coming home because a part of me knew that she would be there. Therefore, I would rush home and run to my room and locked the door.  I really do not know what it was that made our friendship morph into something other than that. 

It has been many years since I locked out every part of her that remained. However, when I tell the story of my youth, I find that I have to edit her involvement in my story.  I do not hate her, not one bit. It just hurts me that our ending was so ugly. It had to be done. All things that begin must end.  The reality is that I stopped serving her purpose and she stopped serving mine. The only reason why we continued was that it was habit.  Living together made it harder to walk away.

Let us be clear. It is not my intention to depict a horrible friendship. However, like I said, we stopped serving each other’s purpose and we went our separate ways.

So eight years later, the name of her business came to mind and I wondered if she ever launched her business. This made me curious to look it up.  However, the name of her pseudo-business did not bring up any successful matches; I decided to look up her name.  

This brought up an article of her immigrant story on a social project blogspot. The entry was a few years old.

While, I do not miss her, I sincerely wish her a good life and continued blessings.

Respectfully,

Robert

Friendship Rings

This weekend, while working at my side job, a long time work friend approached me.

See, we have been working together for what seems like the longest time, nearly seven years. He and I have always had this off-the-wall relationship. We constantly flirt with each other. However, for various reasons, I have never taken him seriously with any of the things that he says to me. And so, because of this, we have gone through our phases of heated sexual-chemistry to cold nonchalant interactions.  

He makes public declarations to other work associates about how he is attracted to me. Further, he tells my boss all the time how he wants me to go over to his place of residence or how he wants to have a better relationship with me. 

I never know how to reply to these declarations because he never vocalizes these declarations to me in private. The reality is that the only declarations he tells me privately are how he wants to engage in a sexual relationship with me. I feel as though, because we work together, I would never engage in just a sexual relationship. I can only imagine how people at work will publicly criticize my character for allowing this to be made public.

So as we sit there, diagonally, across from each other. (I wear a ring on my right hand, with small diamonds encircling the ring, it's less than 1ct.) He sees my ring, shining in the light of the overhead lamp and says to me, "when am I going to get a ring just like yours?" as I looked up to his bright blue eyes, perplexed, I asked, "excuse me?!"

He again says to me that he wants a ring similar to mine. As I calculate my reaction, I simply smile and say that I could never give him a ring like mine because people often confuse it for a wedding band.

He says, "it's okay, we'll just tell people that it is a friendship ring."

Now, it has never occurred to me to have friendship rings with someone other than my best friends. It's really a hard concept for me to grasp; so as I sit there across from this man, I begin to think of how a ring will change the dynamic of our pseudo-relationship. Is this something that I could be prepared for?

Further, my heart tells me that his requests for a ring does not tell me of his true feelings for me. His request for a ring from me, is a materialistic requests for me to buy him something of worth. Which is why I hesitate. I smiled, and simplistically say...."maybe, when we're official."

Did he just say what I think I heard him say?

Sometimes, people are ignorant beyond measure. Sometimes, people are just bullies.

They say things to rile people and get under their skin.

On a high from a week long vacation, I arrived Friday morning and instead of staying home, I decided to go out and dance the night away with my favorite party buddy.

We arrived at my favorite establishment in the city of Long Beach, CA and headed upstairs to meet and say hi to my favorite bartender. He served our drinks and we continued towards a seating area overlooking the dance floor.

After realizing that my bartender was not on his game, as the drinks were relatively weak and not very flavorful either, we downed our drinks and headed back to him, in the hopes that his technique would improve, but to no avail. Again, my party buddy and I downed our drinks and headed to another bar downstairs to the second favorite bartender, a total hottie, who makes drinks especially strong.

While bantering with the bartender (in the downstairs bar) and taking shots with him and him preparing our drinks, a random stranger approaches us and wants to chat. After a brief conversation, he takes a seat next to me. He explains to me how he is 90 percent "hetero" and when he is highly intoxicated, he enjoys making out with guys but that he's never slept with another guy. I mockingly said, "oh how sweet, this straight boy is waiting for Mr. Right to sweep him off his feet and fuck the living shit out of him."

Fast forward an hour later, that same dude comes up to me on the dance floor and tries to dance with me and then he gravitated towards another guy on the dance floor.  I didn't think much of it because men are fickle this way.

I should note that because of inclement weather, I was wearing a light cardigan sweater. During the course of  dancing, I took off my sweater so that I was more comfortable and laid it on a booth where I was resting my drink.

This guy comes back around and (I believe that in his drunken stupor) comes to stand in front of the area where my drink and sweater were placed. Because you can never be safe with strangers around your drink. I inched closer to my drink and moved it out of his reach. He grabs my cardigan sweater from its resting spot and he was trying to make sense of the material. I moved towards him and said, "Yo, that's my sweater" and took it from his grasp. He turns to me and says, "are you sure that's your sweater?" I replied, "yes!" and he says to me, "that's too small for you...you need a larger size."

I said to him, "bless your heart, thanks and I wish you well."

I was stunned that someone, so rudely, would say a horrid thing like that.

I know I should pay no mind to ignorance in any way, shape, or form, but this guy takes the cake.

He Called...

He is nowhere near. In fact, he's 7052 miles away from me, on the other side of the world.

But he called me. Late for me, too early for him. but he left a voice mail message saying how much he missed me. This is why it is that I want to run to his arms every single time I see him. But my better judgement prohibits from reaching out to him. Strange Love.

So sick of this game. tired of the premise. no one ever wins.

I can't deny that I miss him most when he calls me and tells me that I am his.

But sadly, our story is one that cannot persist, at least not in this life time.

It reminds me of the scene from Memoirs of a Geisha, when Sayuri and the Chairman meet at the end and she says to him, "Can't you see? Every step I have taken, since I was that child on the bridge, has been to bring myself closer to you."

Well this is exactly how I feel when he is near.

Why does he have a hold on me?

I wanted to kiss him...

Friday Night.

More than enough reasons to celebrate. The end of a long week. Pay day. A friend's birthday festivities. 

After having dinner in the company of wonderful people. It was intended that I finish the night in Long Beach. I was accompanied by a party buddy (PB). After the pre-game and binging at the bar, we came across my friend, whose birthday we were celebrating. 

He was accompanied by many people, at least 10 other individuals. After the customary introductions, my PB and I settled and started dancing. While my PB and I danced, PB was busy checking out the individuals accompanying my friend. He was sizing them up and plotting a move on the hottest one of all. So this plan was unsuccessful because the hottest one there, left early with his boyfriend. PB was slightly disappointed, but as they say "on to the next." 

In the group, there was a boy, who was not attractive by conventional standards, but still rather "fuckable." Whether it was the alcohol talking or pure animalistic desire. I set out to make a move. I inched my way closer and made myself approachable for him but the hungry voltures were on the move, a lot faster than myself. In a blink of an eye, a short troll was already grinding on this guy. Since my motto is, "Thou shall not block the cock," I took a step back and let the troll proceed, occasionally yelling out, "get it girl, get it!!"

Since the troll was highly intoxicated, he was escorted off the dance floor fairly quickly. 

I, again, inched my way closer. getting his attention and having him fixate on the sway of my hips, back and forth, back and forth. PB gets between the two of us and before you knew it, I was party of one on the dance floor. 

Not one to compete against my PB, I took the hint and sat my happy ass down. The PB, obviously oblivious to our mating dance and I knew that PB was thirsty that night, I was over it. While I sat and drank my drink, I gleaned over the far distance to see security trying to move my friend, the birthday boy, and remove him from the club. 

Curious to know what was happening, I realized that my friend was virtually immobile from the alcohol, perhaps blacked out? All the while, security was trying to get him to leave the bar. 

As I turn to reach out to PB, I see him making out with the dude I was attracted to and while I was disappointed (not in them making out), but in that my party buddy/ friend was  after a guy i expressed interest in and he expressed NON-interest in the same guy. 

Whatever, #OverIt. 

but I thought, who does that? what kind of a friend would go after someone in whom you've expressed interest in? 

So the night is over. I walk out with my (drunken) friend and decide to take him back to the hotel where he decided to stay. 

I managed to sober up fairly quickly, but I come back to the scene of the crime to try and find the PB, so that we can go home and end this sordid night. 

I found him... and he was looking for the boy. Apparently, the boy left my friend in search of someone else. He was pretty popular that night, obviously making his rounds. 

Thank Goodness that it didn't work out for me. 

Guilt.

Sometimes, I feel so guilty to even want to seek him out. When he was in the picture, he did a lot of harm. Never satisfied with what he had in front of him, he was always looking for something better. I learned lessons with him being here that I would not have learned otherwise. I learned to be strong, to be independent. I learned to never accept less than what I deserve.

With all of that said, I can't help but miss him. And so I realize that its complete and utter torture, knowing that both he and I are better off with keeping him at a distance.

Just last night, on my way home from a night out, I realized that I have his number, I sent him a simple message... "Hello."

To my surprise, he replied instantly, "I miss you."

Love and I

Sometimes I think of my love life and begin to think that Love and I have not been the greatest of friends.

In the words of this song, "I want to love again."

It is interesting to me, how I am successful in other aspects of my life, yet this is the only one where I have shortcomings. And so I keep it moving, what else am I to do?

I am sure that I am not the only one out there who feels this way.