penelope4

My parents are Italian but I was born in the States and grew up in Florida. I moved to New York City when I was 18 and became a journalist. I’ve lived abroad for the past 8 years. First in Japan, then in Ireland where I was doing my master’s in Creative Writing. I came to Italy after my last relationship ended (the reason I stayed in Japan for so long and ended up in Ireland). My parents have a house here in this small beach town (where they met as teenagers) and my original plan was to stay a few weeks, get some sun, work on my novel-in-progress, then head back to New York. I met him the second day of my time here – our meeting was ridiculously romantic. That was five years ago. So much for staying here just a few weeks.

I’m a freelance travel writer (CNN, Fodor’s) and teach ESL full-time (which I hate doing, but am good at). I finished my novel and (fiiiinaaallly!!!) found an agent this year; we’re working on getting it ready to send out to publishers.

I have to tell him everything. I want to. That was my plan up until two months ago. I thought, “tell him everything, he will laugh at you, and then you peace out, move to San Francisco or something.” I didn’t expect any of this.

Oh, something else – last night, there was no sign of HER. His coworkers’ girlfriends were all there all night long but she wasn’t. It was a big deal – his school’s end of year concert, held in the town square. I saw on her sl*tface sister’s instagram today that they’d been at some party last night.

My friend said to me: “Stop asking him questions to find out if they’re together. He invited you to dinner in his town, took you to a place where everyone knows him and probably her, too. There’s no way in hell he would have done that if he were still with her.”

If anything else, I’m at least glad that I didn’t give him the third degree last night and didn’t pay too much attention to other men: he always gets upset when I do that.

Another deflating encounter; another sleepless night. At my wits’ end.

Last night was the music school’s end of year concert. I was going to play in 2 numbers and was pissing myself; both for the performance and because I knew I’d see him. I wanted so much to try 1) being calm (i.e., not being up in his grill like last Saturday) 2) being attractive 3) showing him that I care 4) trying to bridge that physical gap that has always existed between us.

I think I succeeded in doing all of those things, but it was just another whirlwind of mixed signals from him; mostly neutral/negative. When I got to the concert, I was prepared to find him in tense “work” mode and I planned to give him space, but instead I saw that he was jolly. He greeted me with a big grin and an old inside joke; a little later I asked him if I could see the set list and asked teasingly if he’d be performing. He said, “I’ll be dancing!” I said, “Excellent. I’d pay money to see that.” He gave me a strange grin (confused? surprised? impulsive?) and said, “Let’s discuss that!” So I felt pretty good about the potential of the evening, but it just went downhill from there. After that, it seemed like he was trying his hardest to ignore me; he was laughing and joking with all of the students and people who came up to him, but, again, it was like I was a piece of furniture. I tried hard to catch his eye but couldn’t; when I finally did, he gave me a strange, conspiratorial grimace and went on his way. When it was my band’s turn to perform he gave me a very perfunctory, “Ready?” and then as I got on the stage he patted my back as though I were a horse. But after our number, nothing. No “well done,” nothing. I couldn’t even catch his eye. Not even once through 3 hours of performances.

After the concert, I talked a bit with some other students and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him head to the pizza joint on the corner and my heart sank: no opportunity to ask him to eat something with me. Finally, he came near to where I was and sat down in a chair a few feet away from me. I got up and went over to him. He looked at me and shook his head “no” as I approached!!! He continued to shake it “no” as I got closer.

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I’m tired,” he said, and then he switched to English (during our marathon, I had told him how much I like it when he speaks English): “It’s better you don’t stay near to me… I smell like an horse.”

“You smell fine,” I said (don’t know if he heard me). He tried to say some other things in English but then someone came and interrupted us. After they left, I tried to bring up something we’d talked about during our marathon (relating to his favorite movie of all time, The Bourne Identity). He said, “Yeah, that’s a great movie. One of my favorites. You saw it again? Or you just saw it? Oh. You saw it because I told you I liked it, because I told you to?” He looked at me strangely.

People kept interrupting us and he got up and went to go deal with them. I was trying so hard to be calm and not panic like last Saturday, so I sat down with some friends and had pizza with them, telling jokes and acting like I hadn’t a care in the world. Another band member came over to try to hit on me and I made sure to be as neutral as possible. But it was almost 2 in the morning and I felt like I was getting nowhere. I kept thinking about how he had shaken his head “no” when I approached. I decided to call it a day. As I was leaving, I heard him call out, “Bye, penelope” and I went over to him. But he was sitting next to this crazy drummer guy, and every time I tried to talk to him, the crazy guy interrupted me to ask me about myself or flirt with me. I made my responses as brief as possible and focused on F, but it was getting damn near impossible. F complained that he was exhausted, that he’d been preparing the concert since 8 in the morning: “I’m absolutely cooked!” I poked him in the arm and said, “Yes, you’re cooked perfectly” – no response. His friend kept cockblocking. I looked over at F and he was smiling at me with a nice smile. I wanted to rub his shoulders, I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, something, anything, but that crazy jackhole wouldn’t quit interrupting me and there were too many people around so I gave up. I told him, “I hope you have a nice rest” and “thank you so much for everything. I’m so glad your coworkers pushed me to participate in this concert” and “I hope you feel satisfied. It was a beautiful event. You did something wonderful tonight.” I put my hand on his shoulder twice as I was speaking (something I’ve never done before). No response. I stammered, “i’ll see you… tomorrow… saturday… later… I don’t know. Good night.” He smiled nicely but said nothing. I went home, crestfallen.

He’s not being totally cold (I’ve seen him totally cold; it’s horrible); I’m still getting nice smiles and even unprompted inside jokes so I know that his feelings for me remain, but the wall is up again and it’s thick. My impression is that he’s trying extremely hard to push me away, to the point where he’s using a lot of energy to do so; for him to not even tell me “well done” on my performance is absolutely mental. Like I’m a total stranger! Just a week ago he wanted to invite me to dinner again after our marathon, two weeks ago we were together until 3 in the morning and just a week before that he was falling all over himself to get my attention. I know I panicked when he tried to ask me out again; I know I take huge steps forward and then steps back. I want so much to change and I’m trying but when he’s like this it brings all of my rejection trauma back and it’s like I can’t move.

Hi, Kaila! I think you’re right – consistency is the key, and while I was really confused after our encounter, I was, somehow, not upset. It just didn’t seem like the end. also… I’ve seen this before. How many times have I “rejected” his advances, his touches, his flirting, his attempts to get closer? Plus, this happens with us – I’ll hint at something and he doesn’t take the bait, and then later on, he will. A week ago he didn’t take the bait that I wanted to go eat something with him, and this week he did! Maybe it’s the same way with the hug… Sometimes I feel like he and I are communicating through Skype and there’s a 10-second delay… I only realize he’s reaching out after I go home, and I think it might be the same with him. And you’re right. If he’s back with whatserface, she’s not that important to him. There’s still something between us.

And last night confirmed this! I do have news. And my news is this:

I went to a concert with a (female) friend and he was there. I knew that even if him not returning the intensity of my hug was a real rejection, I had to be as normal, fun, and consistent as possible. On his way to the bar, he passed me and my friend, and we locked eyes and smiled at each othe. For a second, I thought he was going to pass by without talking to me, but he stopped, greeted me with the cheek kiss (we live in Italy) and we chatted for a few seconds. Then he said he was on his way to the bar to get some beer – “breakfast”, he called it. Throughout the concert, it was almost like last summer; he pretended not to see me, but then I’d catch him looking at me. I thought, “this is stupid. We’re not going back to that shit, not after Monday night!!!!” So when my friend went home, I went up to him. Unfortunately, he was talking to some guy who came on to me really strongly last summer (ugh) so that situation wasn’t optimal. But I got in there and started teasing him. He was a bit nervous at first but then he relaxed and we started laughing.

He said, “I haven’t eaten dinner. Have you eaten?” I said I hadn’t. We kept chatting and then he said, “I want to go say hi to Simone [his work partner; also my buddy]”. But still feeling nervous about his perceived rejection, I took his words to be the “brush off.” So I said, “Ah, okay. Well, i’ll say goodnight to you now, too – I need to head home.”

He gave me a startled look! He said, “Where are you going?”
I said, “I left my cat outside all day today and she hasn’t eaten anything… I feel terrible.” (100% true)
He said, “Cats are auto-sufficient!”
I said, “She’s a kitten!”
He said, “You got a kitten! How old, 2 months?”
I said, “Yes… otherwise I would stay, I really would. But she’s been out all day and it’s dark now and she’s so little… too bad. I’d like to say hi to Simone, too.”
He said, “He’s over there!”
I said, “He doesn’t see me!”
And then he was making more jokes, and I was laughing at them. He said he’d see me Saturday at band practice and he wanted to see my “Rock and roll side.” I told him he’ll see my rock and roll side, my pop side, my country side… (he cracked up). We were both dragging out the goodbye (a welcome change from this past month’s weird goodbyes). And as he was heading over to say hi to Simone, he reached out to squeeze my arm. And as he did that, I grabbed his wrist. We kind of pulled at each other for a few seconds, grinning, and then we both parted and I left the bar.

… and as I was walking, I said to myself…. “was…. was he trying to get me to stay? was… was he going to ask me out again, to eat? he looked startled when I said I was going… I was sure he was brushing me off but his reaction was totally unexpected….”

I did have to go home and feed the kitten (poor thing; I found her crying in a bush when I got home). But…

… am I just jumping to conclusions? Or can I have him?

Dear Kaila,
Thank you for being so thoughtful with your responses. Your words: “I don’t think you get it” and “I don’t know where you got the idea [he has to make moves]” have really resonated with me. You made me realize that I need to stop acting like I’m some girl he met just a few weeks ago and take responsibility for my actions in the past. I made up my mind that our next interaction would be focused on talking about the past.

So…. big news!

Last night I saw him at school. To make a long story short: we spent 6 hours together. A LOT of mixed signals from him, but I really tried to stick to the program: I tried to find out about his relationship, I tried to lay the groundwork for talking seriously about the past, and I told him I love him. I think I did anyway! Not in words but I’m sure he understood….

So let me back up. First, when I saw him at school we were joking around as usual and at one point while I was talking to someone (someone from my country; we were speaking in our native language) I noticed him looking at me with this pure, lovely expression – like admiration or affection. After my lesson, we talked for 3 hours at the school and it was a parade of mixed signals.

Negative signals:
-at points, it seemed like he was stopping just short of emotional intimacy. Like he was holding back.
-seemingly brushed off my attempts to allude to the time we dated
-said some decidedly unsexy things (talked about his body functions… apparently, eating garlic gives him extremely stinky poop. Thank god he told me; I’ve always wanted to know!)
-the big thing, which I’ll save for the last

Positive signals:
-when he let his guard down we joked and laughed like idiots. Main topics: the things he’s invented, the things I will buy him when I sell my novel and make millions, ways we can become rich together
-at one point, I said his name in a scolding way and he lost it. he cracked up and reached out to pinch my calf. For once, I didn’t miss a beat. I retaliated by reaching out and nudging his thigh.
-I told him he looks good in a beard!
-as school was closing, HE INVITED ME TO COME EAT SOMETHING WITH HIM!!!!!!! He tried to be casual about it. Just like last week, I asked him if he’d eaten and I said I hadn’t eaten either. But unlike last week, he said, “I’ll be going to X pub. If you want you can come with me.” I thought I was hearing things!!!! I said, “Who…. me?” He said, “Yeah. Anyway, I’m going there. if you want you can come.” I said, “Well, of course. How lovely.”

You know that scene in Love Actually where Laura Linney gets kissed by Rodrigo Santoro and she says, “I need a minute” and hides behind a wall and starts jumping up and down and squealing? I absolutely did that!!!!!!!!!!

So we went to the pub where we went for our first date! (a coincidence; I think it was the only one open at the hour and he knows the owner). I was overwhelmed being there with him… I hadn’t been there since our last date, nearly 5 years ago. He introduced me to everyone there as though I were important. He told me about some event that is happening there tonight. Over dinner he was much more relaxed; we were being silly and maybe even flirting at one point. When the pub closed, we stayed outside on the porch talking until 3 in the morning! But, just like earlier in the evening, he deflected my attempts to talk about the time we dated. I said, “I haven’t been here since I came with you” – nothing. We were talking about movies and he asked if I had any recommendations for him. I gave him a few and asked if he had some for me. I then asked if he had a copy of the movie he had recommended. He said, no. I said, “Well, you’d better not lend me any movies… I still have tons of yours that you lent me years ago.” He tried to ignore that, too, but I said, “Did you hear what I said, F?” He said, “Yes.” I said, “How come you never asked me for those movies back?” He hesitated and said, smiling, “when it’s been 10 years I’ll have you sign a contract.” and then he changed the subject.

The really important part of the evening came from that conversation. We started talking about fears, then about fear versus instinct. I asked him if he trusted his instincts. He said he did, and asked if I trusted mine… if I’m afraid of myself. I told him that my biggest terrors have always been rejection and love. It was so hard to say the word “love” in front of him. I told him that both of my ex partners had been men who I wasn’t crazy about, because there was less chance of being hurt, but I’ve never been with someone I was really nuts about because in those few cases, I haven’t had the courage to tell them how I felt and instead I suffered. He said, grinning, “well, that’s what you can write about for your next book. A writer has to suffer…” Then he said, “it’s important to say these things out loud. The times that I behaved properly and said the things I needed to, I felt so much better after. The times I didn’t I ended up devastated and it took me months to get over it.” I said, “Years….”

Then his voice changed. He said, “You don’t breathe. You have breathing problems. I’ve always noticed that about you. You talk and you talk and you forget to breathe. You are very anxious.”

He said that to me on our first date!! And that’s what I said. I said, “You said that to me on our first date.” and then I said, “Maybe it’s your fault. It’s your effect on me. You take my breath away!” and he laughed.

I said, “Many years ago you told me that I am not generous. That you are capable of giving up to a 10 and I am only capable of giving up to a 6. Do you remember?” He said he didn’t. I said, “We were in my kitchen… you don’t remember?” He said no. So I continued: “It made me think so much. Because you were right. And in the intervening years I have tried so hard to change. Because I am afraid of the life not lived. The emotions not felt. The hugs not given.” The air was starting to get a bit intense so I pulled back a bit: “…. but not the food not eaten! I eat everything….” And we laughed.

It was three in the morning and he was yawning. He said, “okay, to bed” and he walked me to my car. And as we got to my car he started to put his arm around me to hug me goodnight (unusual for him) and I did it – I grabbed him. I wrapped him in my arms and I hugged him tight. I don’t know how long I held him against me but at one point I realized that he wasn’t returning the hug with the same level of intensity so I thought, “oh god. He doesn’t want this” and I let go. When I let go, he laughed and said, “Breathe! Breathe! Relax!” I thanked him for treating me to dinner. I thanked him for inviting me to eat with him. And I said I’d see him Saturday for the next band practice. He said, “Yes, it’s an important one. See you then!” And he took off.

I feel a mix of many different things right now: shock, confusion, satisfaction, dissatisfaction, pride. I’m proud that I tried so hard to tell him the things that were important to me. I’m absolutely thrilled that we spent so much time together; that he invited me to have dinner with him!! It was definitely a game changer for us. But I’m confused about his mixed signals…. he clearly wanted to spend a vast amount of time with me but he kept pulling back. Naturally, I wish he’d have returned the intensity of my hug. Is this how he felt when we were dating?

Running to work now…. looking very much forward to anyone’s thoughts!!!

Re: the ex-GF [?]

-I asked him where he is going to the beach this summer (his ex [?] runs a beach club. He said he’d “surely be going to his male friend’s beach club called X.” His ex [?] runs a beach club called Y.
– He was telling me about a female friend of his whose dog farts a lot. I said, “What kind of dog?” and he said, “A rottweiler”. His ex [?] has a dachsund.
-At one point, an hour into our conversation, his phone rang. He answered it and said, “Oi! Can’t talk. I’ll call you back in a bit.” I heard a woman’s voice on the other end: “oh…. ok.” He didn’t look at his phone once for the next 5 hours.

hmmm….

!!!!!

No, I don’t have any more insight into his having potentially gotten back with his ex. I know that they were serious for at least a year, invested in each other’s families. That’s very painful for me.

Monday night I was resolved to ask him, “So how’s life? Work? Friends? Family? Girlfriend?” but when I saw that he was behaving only professionally with me, I chickened out.

I realized last night that for the past month (ever since I brought up the past and he was so shocked/moved) our goodbyes have been weird. Ever since we connected again 2 years ago, our goodbyes had been friendly or had featured that split second of hesitation. But in the past month, no matter how warm and flirtatious our interactions might have been, his goodbyes to me are cold. Even that night when he was flirting so heavily with me… as soon as it was time to say good night, he practically ignored me. Monday night, too. I wonder if there’s anything to that?

But I need a goal. So I’ve chosen these three:

1) find out if he’s really back together with her
2) touch him/tell him something that takes our interaction in a different direction
3) and, finally, tell him I love him.

On number 2: maybe he doesn’t know how I feel. I’m not overtly flirtatious in the traditional sense and of course our history is so layered and my usual fear of physical intimacy. When he and I were dating, it was lovely that he used to tell me that I was intelligent and had a beautiful mind, but I was waiting for the moment when he would take me in his arms, say, “you’re beautiful,” and give me a kiss that made me glad I’d been born a woman.

I dress up for him (not that he’d know it), I’m feminine, and widely perceived in our town as being attractive (and he still finds me physically attractive as well) but I never touch him. I gave him some compliments on his looks but that was 5 years ago, and never since. Maybe I need to do something that will make him look at me in a different way?

what do you think?

dear @kaila,

thank you so much for your thoughtful response. don’t worry about making me feel bad about myself – my therapist has been saying the same things for years now and I completely agree with the both of you.

One of my biggest problems is gauging how he actually feels about me. I can never tell for sure because sometimes he seems SO open and warm and even flirtatious and other times I get a wall. i can’t tell if he just finds me physically attractive because key fits lock, or if he still has feelings for me. Nine times out of ten, he won’t come near me when I’m with other men, and in the past he has reacted crankily when he sees me talking to them (a couple of years ago, he even threw a tantrum; I was so surprised. It was the first and last time i’ve ever heard him raise his voice). I can never tell if he’s acting cold because of something I did or something that has nothing to do with me. I’m extremely sensitive to his moods and expressions; if I feel any sort of hesitation on his part, I tend to abandon all my plans and run.

Like tonight. It wasn’t a negative encounter but it wasn’t one of our best. I had planned to do three things tonight: 1) follow up on something he’d offered to do for me last Saturday 2) find out for sure if he was back with his girlfriend 3) give him a compliment on his looks. I only did one of those things. He was very tired and stressed out, hadn’t eaten all day. As I approached the school I saw that he gave me the up-and-down with his eyes but he greeted me only professionally: “Good evening.” I wasn’t satisfied with our greeting; about ten minutes into my lesson I took a trip to the bathroom and as I was going back to the lesson, I took the opportunity to try to ask him about that thing he had brought up a couple of days ago (lending me a keyboard). He was polite but professional – nothing like two days ago when he was clowning around so much and seeking attention. I asked him if he was okay and he said he was tired, that he had been doing construction work all morning on the school. He got up and led me into the construction area and showed me what they were doing. I tried to tease him and he eventually cracked a few smiles. We chatted for about ten minutes; he wasn’t trying to get rid of me, we were enjoying ourselves, but my piano teacher came looking for me and so I went back to my lesson. He was still there when I came back out at the end, and I could see that he was pinching the bridge of his nose and looking very stressed and in pain; I wanted so much to go over and hug him but with his coworkers around, I settled for offering him an aspirin from my purse. He said very gently, “No, no, thank you, you’re so kind… but I think this will just go away when I eat something.” I loftily said, “I haven’t eaten anything either… I’ve been at work all day.” But he didn’t bite. So I left. And as I was pulling out of the lot, I saw that he was getting into his car, too. He could have walked out with me. Or said, “Let’s get something to eat together.” But he didn’t.

I never know where his head is. I never know if I’ve done something wrong, or if it has nothing to do with me, if I’m just seeing things that aren’t there. How the hell am I going to tell him everything if I never get him really alone without the fear of his coworkers walking in at any time?