Category: Lessons

Lumbersexual Therapy

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Apr-2016

You know those times when you’ve decided what you need is some self care but somehow something/someone else takes your attention? Generally it frustrates me, but when it’s a pretty hot lumbersexual I guess I can let it slide.

After the setback of Canadian DJ, I needed more than just a little time to get back into actively dating. Most of that time was filled by going to kickboxing. I’d started earlier in the year and found that the immense satisfaction from landing a good roundhouse kick or the aggression you can release with a swift jab-cross does wonders when you’re having a bad day, reliving all the WTF moments from the most recent dating trauma. Not to mention the between-rounds chat with a couple of great girlfriends I’d made at class.

What I didn’t realise would also help was a hookup with a lumbersexual.

Wikipedia’s definition – “A ‘lumbersexual’ or ‘urban lumberjack’ is a man who has adopted style traits typical of a traditional lumberjack, namely a beard, plaid shirt, and/or scruffy hair, substituting otherwise clean-cut and fashionable style choices.” Vancouver is filled with them and there’s fine line between a lumbersexual and a hipster but this guy was definitely a lumbersexual.

I’d been having drinks with a girlfriend whose husband plays rugby and it was their rugby club’s end of year awards that night. After making our way through a few bottles of wine she was trying to motivate herself to go the two blocks from my place to the bar where the event was being held. She suggested it would be much easier for her to leave if I was going too. Now “technically” I wasn’t invited but who’s ever let a technicality get in the way of a good night out?

So we finish up our wine and twenty minutes later we’re there chatting to her husband and our other friends that play at the club and their girlfriends. It was a fun night with plenty of drinks, pretty good music and it was a better alternative to the post-wine pity party I’d have had if my girlfriend left me at home.

The night, and the wine, was wearing on me but as I was sidling my way up to the bar to start goodbyes, my girlfriend was chatting to this one player who I’d never properly spoken to as he’d always seemed so quiet. He was tall and dark and brooding. Maybe it was the beard, or the fact he’s almost 6 and a half foot and built to all the right standards, but I’d always found him sort of intimidating. Unbeknownst to me my girlfriend had just been having the “so are you still single?” chat with him. When he confirmed he was, she didn’t waste a minute to say “well I have someone you should meet”.

Enter me.

Despite him seeming fairly quiet when you actually get him talking, especially after a few beers, he’s pretty chatty. We spent the rest of the night talking work, rugby, Vancouver and all with a side of flirting. He’s clearly a well liked member of the rugby team, as was proven by the near constant interruptions to our chats so I decided I was going to go home and leave him to enjoy the rest of his night with the guys. The flirtation had been fun and it was nice to feel a little bit of excitement again but I was ready for my bed.

Turns out so was he.

However it happened, and I don’t quite remember the details, not too long later we were on the way back to my place. We’d gone from having a fairly polite, friendly conversation at the bar to now making out in my elevator. It was a swift change of tempo.

Back in my apartment, clothes were all of a sudden surplus to requirements. At this point, all the right standards he’d been built to that I mentioned earlier were incredibly apparent. I realised fairly quickly, this was probably the (physically) fittest guy I’d ever been with. After a momentary crash of body confidence, I was just thankful all the kickboxing had started to make positive changes to my body and decided to enjoy it. He was a big guy in great shape, especially his arms, which I’ve since found (developed?) a real thing for as a male body part.

It was fun and easy, and with that very fit frame came an incredible amount of stamina, even after all the beer he’d consumed. Those arms were also delightful to fall asleep in afterwards. Though between being so unused to sharing a bed and the wine I’d had, I didn’t sleep all that well.

The morning after a one night stand is always… interesting. Does anyone have regrets? Who’s the most hungover? How quickly will the guest try to leave? Is there going to be a morning encore? Does the host feel obliged to make breakfast?

Thankfully, much like the sex, the morning after was void of any awkwardness and instead we lay in bed having open and honest discussions about our dating lives. He told me about a girl he had been seeing in LA that he still really liked and I gave him the story of Canadian DJ. It was the first time I woke up next to someone knowing there would be nothing more to it and was able to just enjoy it for the fun it had been.

There was something incredibly liberating about that.

It was a conscious choice I’d made to sleep with him, I was comfortable with the fact it was only going to be a short lived coming together (pun fully intended), I knew what I wanted out of it and what it would provide me with. There’s a lot of judgement around one night stands, and I have definitely been on the judging end before. But judgements are a confession of character and society has made it appear that one night stands are understandable, necessary even, for men but somehow a sign of low self worth or “easiness” on the part of women.

It’s just another gender bias I was coming up against in the course of dating and one that couldn’t have been more different to my reality.

I’d also always previously needed some kind of emotional connection with a sexual partner, a basis of something more, something deeper. It had never occurred to me before that it could just be about sex, fulfilling those specific needs, and that there was nothing wrong with that. Provided both parties were on the same page.

These revelations were important lessons for me but I knew they weren’t opinions shared by all of society, including some of my friends, and this was probably the first dating story (sex dates still count) that I was a little more careful about who I shared the story with and what details were given. Having said that, most of my close friends loved every bit of the story and the girls that know Lumbersexual were especially excited to find out if all their fantasies about him were correct and the fact that I’d now slept with the guy they consider the hottest at the rugby club (their own partners aside, I’m sure). Do I get a medal?

We said our goodbyes after our morning in bed (to answer the earlier questions – neither of us had regrets, he was definitely the most hungover, he wasn’t too quick/slow to leave, there was indeed a morning encore and no I didn’t feel obliged to make breakfast) with no swap of numbers and a casual “see you around” and a hug.

As I was slowly getting my face prepared for the outside world and brunch with my girlfriend, who I’d gone to the party with, and her husband, I got a text from the husband “[Lumbersexual] has texted me asking for your number. He says he forgot something at yours. Can I give him your number?” I loved the fact he checked with me rather than giving it to him right away. I said yes and had a quick look round my place for what he might have left. My place isn’t huge and there’s not a whole lot of stuff in it so things don’t really get lost very easily. But I couldn’t see anything out of place so I started to panic that he’d lent me his jacket or something the night before and I’d left it in the bar… but I didn’t spend too much time worrying, there were mimosas waiting for me.

Walking to brunch my phone buzzed with a message from an unknown number “Hi, it’s [Lumbersexual], from last night. I had a lot of fun but I just wanted to check, when were you last tested? I know we were careful but I just like to make sure I’m being responsible.”

Wow. Way to kill my buzz big guy.

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Can You Say Whirlwind? – Part 3 of 3

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Apr-2016

It started just a bit before April 1st, but by May 1st it felt like it was done. Changed beyond recognition, with the first 2 weeks of fun first dates and romanticised Mexico plans a distant memory. It’s like that person left. Or he never really existed in the first place. Being someone he maybe wanted to be for just as long as he could keep the mask in place and while it met his needs.

After deciding not to go to Mexico (that’s a spoiler if you didn’t read part 1 and part 2), we endured the final 7 days of Canadian DJ’s trip away with lots of “if you’d come to Mexico we’d be doing [insert fun/drunk/sexual activity here]” texts but thankfully more “when you’re home we’re going to [insert fun/drunk/sexual activity here]” chats. The tension and excitement built in the days prior to his return and by the Friday we were both like kids at Christmas. It’s fair to say we had a lot of fun that night and dinner – at a Mexican restaurant “to make it seem like [I was] there” – seemed like nothing more than a distraction.

That night and the next few days were everything I thought they’d be. We hung out, we talked (at normal times of the day, for which my sleep schedule was thankful), we talked about all the things we were going to do and and places we wanted to go. He did mention it was coming into the busy season again with his work but it wasn’t a concern and said we’d figure it out.

While I knew that the level of contact would change, it had to, he was no longer lying on a beach with nothing to do, what I hadn’t expected was that come the Monday he would almost instantly start to pull away. Texts would go unanswered for 10, 12 hours at a time, any suggestion of meeting up was met with him having a potential client meeting or an event he had to go to and would let me know, but never did. All the while Instagram and Facebook (god damn you social media and the ability you’ve provided to know far more than we need to about people) were telling me he was looking for someone to go on a bike ride with that day or that he’d been to the beach with his dog.

At the time all I could think was “well he’s not that fucking busy, is he?” but as I heard someone say recently, it’s not that he wasn’t busy. He was, he was busy with things he was prioritising over me. And that can be a hard fact to swallow. At this point, I feel it necessary to point out I’m fully aware that we’re still only 3 weeks into this thing and usually I wouldn’t expect anyone to be prioritising me over shit at that point. But the speed at which it had escalated and the things we’d talked about had, understandably, elevated my expectations. It’s not that I go into the first 3 weeks of dating just anyone and expect this same level of contact or time commitment. I’m not that not of touch with relationships and dating.

This was when I realised that consistency is probably one of the key things I look for from someone. Having had so much uncertainty previously in my life, and ultimately in my marriage, knowing where I am with someone and what I can expect of them is of huge importance. It helps with that fabulous anxiety I developed in the midst of my divorce. The only issue with having this need is that I also believe you should accept and not expect of people, so it’s a tricky balance. But all it takes is someone’s actions meeting their words – it sounds so simple…

In the midst of the growing weirdness, we finally managed to arrange a dinner, which felt like pulling teeth, especially when he bailed on the original time we’d set up approximately an hour before and only when I texted him for the final plans. I let it slide and having finally got another time arranged, we had a great meal on a gorgeous rooftop patio but there was definitely not the fun or ease or spark that we’d had previously. When he dropped me off after dinner I couldn’t tell if he just hadn’t wanted to kiss me for longer, or if he was in fact just worried about the traffic like he said… but it left me feeling confused and what had looked like maybe a distant red flag fluttering on the horizon was now a full on sea of red flags that I was drowning in.

We texted the next morning and again there was a lot of talk from him about being super busy and not sure when he’d next see me… I tried to maintain some dignity (let’s pretend I wasn’t checking Facebook on the hour, every hour, ok?) and decided I wasn’t going to reach out to him until I heard from him.

Well I got to Sunday and by then I was seething. Not even gonna lie, I had the rage. You know the kind that makes you send texts about it to your friends in FULL CAPS? Or requires a pint of gin before you can even start to spill your guts to the girls. Yup, that.

So as I headed out to a birthday brunch I decided to call him. Nothing like a Sunday morning call to put someone on the spot. Surprisingly he answered, I was fully expecting it to ring out and then get a “sorry was busy, will call later” text. Although before we’d even finished exchanging pleasantries he cut in with “I’m just about to go into Mother’s Day brunch, can I call you later, as soon as I’m done brunch?” Well, shit, what was I going to say? No, make your Mother wait and talk to me? Obviously not. Side note – why can’t Mother’s Day be celebrated on the same day everywhere to make it easier to keep track?!

After Birthday brunch we all ended up with in the park drinking beers in the beautiful May sunshine, all the while I’m thinking “well his brunch sure is taking a while…”. Cut to 7pm, the rage is bubbling to the surface, fuelled by a morning of mimosas and an afternoon of beers. No good can come of this. I pick up the phone to text him, I decided to lull him into a false sense of security so started with an easy “how was brunch?” to which he responded. Ok so his phone isn’t broken and unless he’s dictating to Siri, he hasn’t lost his opposable thumbs. Time for a call. (Actually, he had an Android not an iPhone but I’ll be damned if I know the Siri equivalent on Android.)

Despite a slight delay when he had to take the dog out for a walk and his phone apparently stopped working, (really? How many more ways was he going to try and dodge this call?) I finally got my chance. “Tell me if I’m wrong, but it seems like something’s changed and it feels like you don’t want to talk about it.” It was such a stark sentence and it kind of hung in a moment of silence before he made a joke about me being “very perceptive”. Very good jackass, just give me an answer.

Finally, after many pauses and deep breaths and ifs, ands and buts, he admitted that when we’d gone out for the last dinner it had felt “forced” and like he had to put on an act. Ouch. And that he was feeling like his last relationship (his marriage) had just continued. Ouch ouch. Ok, we’re going to need some gin for this pain. He concluded he didn’t think he could give me what I wanted, which was funny because I felt like we’d both escalated together and then when he got cold feet somehow it was me who’d gone too far too fast. I told him I needed consistency, which he obviously couldn’t offer so all I wanted now was closure. And with that the conversation was done.

Pursuing the conversation with him, knowing that the likely outcome would be him agreeing that things had changed and he didn’t feel the same anymore, is something I’m proud I did. I could have buried my head in the sand, appreciated the few texts I did get from him and just let it fizzle on/out. But I didn’t, I knew I had to get clarity, draw a line under it and hoped it would let me move on.

I’ve since found out that I can’t let things like that lie. I always want an explanation, the last conversation, the chance to call them out on their shit. Actions have consequences and if the only consequence is that they have to squirm for a 5 minute phone call then so be it.

The hardest thing was that, despite how poorly he ended up treating me, I never wanted him out of my life but other than dating him I didn’t know how he fitted into my life or me into his. So was that the only option? That he disappear as quickly as he came in? That made me really really sad.

And I couldn’t connect how I felt at the end to how I’d been feeling in those first days. It’s like thinking of completely different situations, and their proximity in time only made it harder to understand.

Did he never really feel like that in the first place? Can those sorts of feelings really change that quickly? Is that just who he is, talking a big game and then running the other direction? The confusion was insurmountable. He had been a genuine ray of light, he made me laugh like I’d never laughed in years and he made me feel incredible. But timing is a bitch.

I knew going in that anything with someone as fresh into divorce proceedings as he was, could make for slightly tricky times. I guess I thought as long as he was ok with it, so was I. Turns out he wasn’t ok with it and as much as that hurts, I always said I wanted him to make the best decisions for himself.

But in the end I had to make the best decision for myself and pushing to have that conversation and get him to actually admit that he was feeling different was key to that. If he couldn’t provide the consistency I need in a relationship, then clarity and closure were the next best things.

Him saying he felt like he’d been acting on our last date, and that it felt like a continuation of his marriage, those things stung. Like, really stung. Knowing he was feeling overwhelmed and couldn’t get his head together is one thing, but feeling like at any point he’d been inauthentic with me was hard to hear. I’d hoped I’d made it clear that honesty was my only policy and I know it’s not a fun conversation to have but I didn’t want to have to be the one to go looking for the answers when he already had them.

Whether he was struggling with everything that was going on in his life or not, there’s still things he did and ways he acted that just weren’t right or proper. I know had had a lot going on and he was coming at it from a shitty place but we’ve all got a lot going on and we’ve all been in shitty places. That doesn’t make him special and it doesn’t get him special allowances.

I’d love to say I came off the call, threw back a gin and chalked it up to experience but this was the first time I’d actually liked anyone since my ex-husband, this had been huge for me. There were tears before bedtime. And actually during bedtime. And the next day… I was questioning everything – all of our interactions, my own self-worth, whether here was the right place for me to be living, if I could have done something different. All the unhealthy stuff that you hope as a grown woman you’d be confident in.

The following day brought with it a realisation. Nothing will ever feel like my divorce. I don’t know that anything could be that harrowing and that traumatising ever again. It’s not to say that terrible, bad things won’t happen. They will. But even though this felt like it hit me hard, I still went into the situation with my eyes more open and with a whole lot more emotional experience than I’d ever had before.

Comments of “but it was only a month!” or “just delete him?” weren’t particularly helpful, that month had been a whirlwind of emotions and unfortunately you can’t just delete someone from your memory bank. But while on a day to day level I missed him in my life, I knew in the grand scheme of things this just wasn’t that big a deal. I just had to get my head and my heart aligned on that… it’s fair to say it took some time.

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