The worst of days

I’m not really a depressive kind of person, but if I were to be completely honest I’d have to say that today was a fucking lousy day. Not that it’s the first, nor will it be the last, I’ve no doubt. But that doesn’t really make it any easier.

GG was in Spain until Monday night (she’d been there for a week) and we’d been in contact through email and text while she was away. We spoke on Monday night, and as always were on the phone for some time, and everything appeared to be like it usually was… she did mention, as she’d done previously in an email, that she wanted to talk to me about something, but she said it could wait until the weekend when we saw each other. Anyway, I came off the phone realising that I’d really missed her, as I always have when she’s been away on one of her trips.

Last night, around 9.30 or so, I got a text – from GG – asking me if I was at home on my own. She said she needed to talk to me. I called her pretty much straight away, and asked her what was wrong, but I must admit what came next was a bit of a bombshell. She said she wasn’t going to see me again. I won’t bore you with the details, or rather I’ll keep that bit just a little more private than this blog allows, but it was even more of a surprise than it might have been considering that the day before she left she told me how frightened she was at the degree of attachment she felt. I’d almost thought she was going to say something else for a moment.

So, essentially it’s beginning to look as if this relationship has followed pretty much the same pattern as all the others since I’ve been single. It goes something like this, although the chronology can sometimes vary a little…

1. I meet someone, and we start to “see” each other.
2. Before long, she expresses, in some way or other, that she’s becoming very “attached” to me.
3. Around that time, I convince myself that there’s something not quite right about it.
4. I begin to back off, either emotionally or physically, or both.
5. I get a call, or maybe an email, telling me that I’m in some way “the most wonderful person” but “it isn’t working”.

Yeah, I must be really wonderful!

Anyone who’s read my blog will know that I’m pretty self aware, and it probably won’t come as a surprise if I tell you that I know this happens, and I know why it happens… or rather, there are a couple of reasons why I think I behave like I do. The first is that I’m not prepared to take chances with something that isn’t right, because I’m not going to risk bringing people (women) into the children’s lives and then stand by whilst they see those women disappear again. I suppose I’m more cautious than I might otherwise be, but it’s a price I’m prepared to pay. The second reason is that I’ve come to value the time I spend on my own, and it needs to be something very special, or someone very special, to break me out of that mould.

So, was GG special? Yes, she was… in a whole load of ways. In fact, sitting here reading through her emails, it’s fair to say that I haven’t really met anyone quite like her before. Was it perfect? No, not really… but is anything perfect? I don’t think it is, and when we pretend we’re looking for perfection what we’re really doing most of the time is looking for excuses. So GG’s sense that I was becoming slightly distant, somehow not allowing her to become close enough to me, rang true. I can’t really say that she’s wrong, but it wasn’t a conscious decision on my part either. Maybe it was just my response to all the things I’ve written about in the past, but more of a subconscious response than anything I was in any kind of control over.

Whatever the answer, today I’ve been feeling like shit. As I said, I’ve been reading over all of our emails (as if it doesn’t hurt enough), and now I feel like shit even more. And I think I’m just going to take a break from the dating game, concentrate on the new business and the children, and just accept that I might just go through life without meeting my soulmate, the woman of my dreams. I’m not sure that I like that scenario, but I also know that it’s realistic. Which brings me back to that eternal question… what is it that we want, and how much of that can we forgo without it meaning that we’ve settled for something that’s… well, less.

I wish I knew the answer to that question today. Maybe I will tomorrow.

Late night edit: Thank you, guys, for all your comments - which I particularly appreciate today. I've never been one to dwell on negatives for too long, but the truth is that I'm not in my usual frame of mind this evening and will be giving HNT a miss this week. I can't be arsed, if you'll excuse the pun. As for what happens next, I can be a bit too hard for my own good at times, and despite a couple of messages received this afteroon from GG I'm just going to put this one down to experience... c'est la vie. I think intuition is usually dependable, and her intuition seems to have given her a pretty strong steer, despite any misgivings she might have as reality hits home.