“Picking up the Pattern”
Back home, back to work, and back to my struggle to find lasting love. Just my luck that I’m attracted to a commitment-phobe.
Back in Hong Kong, the pattern starts again: the over-promising, the seeking, the whining, and the overthinking about my great date drought. It’s been easy to slip back into this crazed pattern as I slip back into the city; this place is on speed anyway. The escalators are twice as fast, the people walk twice as fast, and as a friend observes, there is almost a squirrel-like energy to the place. Maybe most people here are ADHD, who knows?
Outside of the white noise I’m standing at a crossroads professionally and personally. Professionally I’ve been on this false high, brainwashing myself into thinking, “Hey, even if there’s no man, at least there’s work, and because there’s no man I should work twice as hard, like go into the office on weekends, and tell the boss, ‘Yes, give me more.'” And he has given me more…more projects, more responsibility, and more freedom to make my own decisions. When he asks if I can take something else on, I leap to yes before I actually know what I am yessing. Sheesh. So the colleagues have accepted that this eccentric, somewhat awkward, intense, but sometimes humorous woman – me – is here to stay for now. All peaceful on the work front for the time being.
But then there’s the personal side, my Achilles heel. An old work friend and I reconnected. He’s always shown some feelings for me, has called me his “soul-mate” a few times. Our pattern as friends has been to gripe about work, but it’s never really moved too much beyond that; it strikes me now that he’s viewed me as a free shrink. Still, I’ve become attracted to him. (Maybe it’s simply that there’s no one else on the radar screen.)
He knows I’m interested in him, and says things like, “Well, I like you, and if we were on the same continent maybe we could see where it leads.” But that response is never a good sign. If a man isn’t interested, he isn’t interested. No one can be coerced into this. He still sends a short e-mail every day saying, “Morning,” but it feels like an insult considering what I’d really like.
I want a full-fledged relationship, which means I need to look elsewhere. I keep thinking that it’s just my luck that someone I like really doesn’t like me that way. Plus, he’s been divorced three years now, and he’s the ultimate commitment-phobe. Having been through the divorce mill, he’s a scarred specimen. I’m equally as scarred in other ways, so it would just take forever to get together.
Dating is the one area where I’m gravely upset and totally stumped. Why do I have no dates and no suitors? What’s wrong with me? I keep thinking there are so many wonderful things about me, so why can’t most people see this, especially those with a Y chromosome?
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