in which i want to be a spider plant

okay, so what's going on with me wrt john and heather and martin? why did john telling me he was seeing someone affect me so? why do i a damn about martin (who, btw, hasn't been in contact after he sent me a pretty lame email apologizing for not calling)?

laura and i had a long conversation the other day in which i pretty much figured it all out, and i wish i had just taped that conversation or something, but i didn't, so i'll try to reproduce the important conclusions here.

first of all, john. i had already figured out that the reason why john's news hurt--i felt replaceable. but why, exactly, did that bother me so much? *i* ended our relationship, after all. if it hadn't been for me, john and i would've celebrated our first wedding anniversary on 30 july 2001 (whoa). maybe i want him back? c'est possible. well, what are the reasons we broke up? (1) i wanted to live on my own for at least some time. (2) i hated living in the suburbs, far from my friends (who lived in philly) and his friends (who lived in newark, de). (3) i felt too young to be sure that this was the man with whom i wanted to share the rest of my life. (4) i wished he was more socially confident and outgoing. (5) i wanted to have, and wanted him to have, more experience before settling down. (6) i have a serious case of wanderlust, he doesn't. (7) our sex life had started to peeter.

'kay, so how do i feel now? (1) as for living on my own, i'm glad i've done it. i've enjoyed living on my own, and have learned lots of stuff about myself. for example, i miss having company, but i like being able to watch really bad t.v. with no one to snicker. i'm more motivated when i live with someone else, though. more motivated to actually get up in the morning, more motivated to eat right, more motivated to exercise. because there's someone there who knows when i just sit on the sofa all day in my pjs, watching talk shows and cartoons, eating whipped cream and chocolate sauce. shame is a great motivator.

(2) wrt living in the 'burbs, away from our friends--that would've been temporary. at the latest, we would've moved when john graduated and got a job. and i may have been able to convince him to get a job in philly or the surrounds, and we could've moved to philly. and even before then, i probably could have convinced him to move. if i had made it clear how unhappy living in wilmington, de made me, he probably would have agreed to move.

(3) re: being too young to get married. yeah, i think i probably was. too young. i wasn't ready for the responsibility of marriage, yet. but that, too, will change.

(4) about john being getting more socially confident/outgoing. he has. in the past year+ since i moved out, i've noticed the change in him. he's noticed it in himself, too. he's more comfortable talking to people at parties, and approaching strangers in general. he's got enough confidence to ask women who he's attracted to out. he's been taking dance classes, which require physical confidence (when *we* were taking swing dance lessons together, he often got very frustrated with his mistakes, even though he was actually one of the better dancers in the class. he hated going to dance class, and only went because *i* wanted to go. now, he's signed up for classes of his own accord, and has even started dating the friggin INSTRUCTOR.) point is, he's more self-confident now, and (guys, listen up) confidence is attractive.

(5) i wanted to have more sexual/romantic experience before settling down. i'm getting there. though i'd still like an *actual* relationship, and not just dates. and of course john is getting more experience. this is good.

(6) wanderlust. i've got it, he doesn't. however, i don't think that necessarily has to mean we can't have a successful relationship. for example, we could arrange our lives so that i travel (perhaps for business) and he doesn't. this accomplishes the me traveling thing and the him not traveling thing, and has the added benefit that we get to have time apart (absence makes the heart grow fonder). time spent away from each other allows us to maintain our individuality, and reunions allow us to re-realize how much we love each other.

(7) sexual compatability. towards the end of our relationship, we were only having sex once every 2 weeks. this was not enough for him, but i didn't want it more often than that. not good. i'm not sure what was going on with me. partly, i think that his sex drive is just higher than mine (he is a young man, after all). partly, i was stressed about the other parts of our relationship, and the stress was probably dampening my sex drive. partly, i'm pretty sure the pill was fucking with my hormone balance. partly, john and i really needed to just have a conversation about what we both wanted out of our sexual relationship. we needed to talk more about sex, both during and, well, not during sex.

so, there are the 7 reasons. some are no longer relevant. some have solutions. some still need work. so do i want him back? i still don't know, though i'm closer now to saying yes than i was when i moved out. laura said that if i told him now that i want him back, he'd take me back in a heartbeat. maybe, maybe not.

so it hurts that he's dating someone else. some part of me worries that he'll find, soon, his future wife. if he marries someone else, that means that someone else is at least as good as me in whatever ways are important to john. [aannnnhhht, aaannnnnnnhhhht! sound the alarm--freakout insecurity alert!]

so why do i feel the need to have a partner at all? why am i not just happy and satisfied with my own self? partly, i am. being partner-less has its benefits, the number one of which is that i don't have to answer to anyone. if i want to join the peace corps and move to south america, i can. if i want to move to humboldt county california and grow pot, i can. if i want to go to tahiti, tend bar at night and scuba dive during the day, i can. on the other hand, having a committed companion-lover is something i want. someone on whom to rely during the hard times, and someone with whom to celebrate the good times. friends are great, but they aren't necessarily permanently a local phone call away, especially for people like me (i.e. well-educated, upper middle class, ambitious) who tend to move around a lot. for the period of time when my life overlaps with, e.g., laura's, she's a great friend. but i don't expect our lives to overlap geographically forever. she's tied to the philadelphia area (kids and ex-husband, parents, hometown) and i'm not. i don't really see myself staying in this area after i get my ph.d. a spouse (or the equivalent) is the only person for whom i'd be willing to make compromises in life choices, just to stay together. and the only person who i'd expect to be willing to make such compromises for me. i want that kind of relationship.

and now, martin. so he emailed an explanation and apology for not calling last saturday. a friday night storm led to power outages, and the postponing of his friday night hockey game until saturday afternoon. after the game, he was too exhausted to do anything but crash on his couch. 'course, he COULD have called me, either before or after the game to let me know that he wasn't coming down to the city.

thing is, i like him. or rather, i'm intrigued enough to want to get to know him better. i know he's busy--he just moved to this country, and is at a new job (which, to hear him tell it, is taking over his life) and in a new apartment (gotta buy furniture, hook up utilities, etc) and trying to make new friends (hockey hockey hockey). there are a lot of demands on his time. however, if he were as interested in getting to know me as i am (was?) in getting to know *him*, he'd be *making* time. so i can only assume that he isn't as interested in me as i am in him. 'sokay, i can read between the lines. i'm the "steve" of this relationship--i'm on the shitty end of "sorry, but i'm just not interested." ah well, easy come, easy go.

all this worrying over john and martin is taking up a LOT of my energy. energy that could no doubt be better spent working on my research (hellooooo, do i EVER want that degree?), volunteering (i want to work with the spca, and also a literacy group), and whipping my body into better shape. plus, if i wasn't all evolutionarily concerned with reproducing and thus so wastefully interested in finding the right mate, i could move abroad, devote time to my music, try to publish some of my photography and photography journals, learn new languages, and generally indulge my non-reproductive interests. this is where being a spider plant comes in. spider plants can reproduce asexually, and are thus independent of other spider plants. i, too, want to be evolutionarily adapted to reproduce asexually. i want to be a spider plant.