Mind games.

You can always count on a guy to surprise you with his presence the very hot second you forcibly push him out of your mind and cease counting on him in general. If Dane Cook is allowed to call the entire female gender "brain ninjas," then I'm going to call the male gender "brain peeping-tom turned rapists." They wait and watch in the crevices of your mind until all traces of them disappear... and then they totally ambush you in your sleep or while you're in the shower.

Metaphorically.

Not saying that Dr. Shark hasn't been on my mind... He's been almost constantly on my mind for the past three months. But even I can recognize an obsession when it starts showing its ugly medusa head, so I'm making an active, conscious effort to only allot myself a certain amount of Dr. Shark thoughts each day. A brink-of-crazy girl's gotta do what a brink-of-crazy girl's gotta do!

He did call me as I was going to bed the night of my last post, just to say hello and to make sure I wasn't feeling ignored (which had been a consistent complaint of mine to him). He was tired after a long day and didn't have much to talk about, but I appreciated his effort. He also flirted with me a little bit by coyly and mischeviously saying that "a certain woman" makes him feel energized. That little, seemingly insignificant comment held me over from not hearing from him again till this afternoon.

He's spending the holiday weekend in another state for a friend's wedding, so he called me as he began his road trip alone. Again, he didn't have anything real particular to say, but just wanted to let me know that he was headed out and that he'll call me again on his way back in a few days.

It seems that Dr. Shark is "checking in" with me these days, doesn't it? And isn't that what a boyfriend or boyfriend-like-figure would do? And if it is, what does that mean for us? I just know that when Ace explained his pathetic reasons for not wanting a girlfriend, one of his main commitment turn-offs was having to "check in" everyday.

I'm sorry--I didn't think I was a hotel concierge but a person with whom you actually want to speak with on a semi-daily basis, if not to hear about my day but to at least hear my voice.

Boys are so weird.

Whatever is going on in his head though, I'm happy to hear his voice more often these days than ever. (Usually he texts. Don't even get me started on the foul form of communication that is the text message. Seriously. I will write a monster blog about it one day.) So happy in fact that after we hung up, I texted him to wish him a happy good time with his friends and an actual "I miss you." Yes, yes, with those three words I tore off some of my own power... But I've always been a girl who prioritized love and sex over power any day of the week!

A few minutes later my phone showed an "I miss you too!" Word for word, including the exclamation point, I swear. Boys don't seem to be much for punctuation in any written part of their lives aside from the office, so me being the over-analytical and eternally hopeful girl child I am, I am totally in love with that exclamation point.

(Also, received a text from Ace today. He wished me a good weekend and wanted to say that he had a good time with me earlier this week. No response will be sent.)

The-Day-After Analysis.

I've had an entire day to wonder about my actions with Ace yesterday. What's done is done and there's not a damn thing I can do to change it, so I didn't laboriously suffer with guilt or regret for too long. I just wanted to get to the bottom of my decision to actually say yes to him coming over after all these months of rejecting him.

When I texted him an a-okay to hang out after work, I was in the mindset that there actually might have been even the tiniest glimmer of hope that he was telling the truth; he had been trying to convince me to let him come over by saying that he wanted "to talk about us" and he "missed me" and even though he's been afraid to commit that he "really likes me a lot." I didn't feel the same way, which is surprising for me, but sometimes a girl likes to hear shit like that... even from a guy she doesn't see as worthy and especially when she's been feeling lonely and neglected.

Dr. Shark has been too preoccupied with work and wanting to be a loner to call or text me much this week, and when he has it's been half-assed and unemotional.

I don't condone what I've done. Technically I'm available to see whomever I please and to my knowledge so is Ace (although honestly I don't know much about him nor do I care to know), but in my heart I feel like I've done something wrong. There's no way I can tell Dr. Shark about it... Even though he wouldn't be able to justifiably "dump" me for that, I'm sure hurt feelings cannot be avoided.

And I'm terrified that those hurt feelings would be enough to alter my universe entirely.

I'm so angry at Ace for putting me in this situation and I know that even he feels that it wasn't right. Afterwards, he saw me blankly staring at the ceiling above my bed and he asked what was going through my mind. I must've looked really conflicted for a guy like that to want to know my inner thoughts!

Me: I don't know. I guess I'm feeling a little guilty.
Ace: Oh, because of your guy? There's no reason to feel guilty. Guilt's a stupid feeling.
Me: So you never feel guilty?
Ace: Sure, I do. Right now I feel guilty because I feel like I talked you into doing something you didn't want to do.

Gee, thanks. Thanks for acknowledging the fact that you went into this knowing that you'd basically be twisting my arm!

I can't blame him completely though. While the surface of my brain thought that we'd just chill and talk and catch up after all these months, a couple layers into this twisted mind and you'd find a girl who consciously jumps into the shower half an hour before his arrival to shave her legs and freshen her body. On this level she knew that he'd try to pull a move and she at least wanted to be prepared and presentable.

I never want to see Ace again.

On another note... Haven't heard from Dr. Shark in a couple of days and I'll be damned if I text or call first. Last week he mentioned maybe trying to hang out again before I leave the country for a couple of weeks, but there's less than a week for that to happen.

His birthday is in a few days and I ache to celebrate it with him. But all I can do is drop a humorous, casual card in the mail tomorrow so maybe it'll be delivered the day of. Even with our distance, both literal and this week's lack of communication, I want him to know that I care deeply for and about him but I want to appear that I'm still that cool, sexy chick that he met months ago. My biggest flaw is my tendency to need more than average attention... but I'm trying to fix that!

Virgin post of a devilette.

This was the first and only time that I actually didn't enjoy sex.

I may be a good sweet baby angel in my day-to-day life, but I'm also a girl who secretly almost constantly likes to get bad and freaky behind (semi)closed doors.

...but tonight was different.

Let's call him Ace. He's hot and I've slept with him before, and we've always had good times in bed (and on the couch, the floor, the chair..). But I met him when I was beginning my sex-volution many months ago after a bad break-up, and neither of us were looking for a committed thing, so I moved on and I'm sure he did too. We hooked up a few times and over time he's called and texted trying to allow visitation again, but I've said no the past couple of months. I've had other NSAships but he was a little different than the others--a little dirtier, a little grimier. Dirty can be good...but it can also leave you feeling disoriented, and in my case, soulfully empty.

Additionally, I've been falling for someone else since early summer. Someone that I could really give my all to, full body, full heart, full soul.

So I guess it shouldn't be a huge surprise that I burst into tears of guilt, and maybe a little shame, after he left with an arrogant smirk and wink. I then proceeded to trip down the stairs through my hot, self-loathing tears, which just added physical pain to the already metaphysical kind. What have I done? What the fuck have I done?


And thus begins my existential blogging journey.
Welcome to my life, Internetties.