Why Do I Feel Like I've Been Stood Up?

Okay - sick at home yesterday and couldn't work up the energy to write anything.  Today, I'm somewhat better but still coughing so much I wet my pants and now to add to the little formula of sexiness and high self esteem - diarrhea.


So that once again puts me on the downward side of divorce - it's pathetic how much our outlook on life is colored by our physical well-being.  It makes me understand ex - who was always depressed - a little better.  I know he couldn't help it - but I don't know that it would have made any difference if I had been nicer to him about it.  He'd still be depressed - it was a clinical thing.


But anyway - today I've been thinking about a high school friend that I just don't get what's going on with him.  He was one of my best friends in high school - never romantically involved although I'm pretty sure he wanted to be.  I had no physical attraction to him at all and in high school that's much more important than it is later in life.  We kind of went our separate ways in college mainly because any time I saw him he was drunk.  I got over the major partying phase pretty quickly in college - and I got tired of never having a conversation with him when he wasn't drunk.  He became a Dr. and moved to the larger town an hour from where I live now.  We ran into each other twice when we were both out and about and saw each other at a reunion - but that was it.  He was married, but his wife was never with him when I saw him nor did she come to the reunion.  So fast forward to November, 2010 when I changed my Facebook status to "It's complicated".  I get a private message from him - "what's going on?  your status change raised the red flag" - so I told him and he tells me he's in the middle of a nasty divorce.  So we talk back and forth for a while and we'd chat some on-line - every time he was the one that instigated it.  Pretty much commiserating together.  Then he says, "we live so close it's ridiculous we don't get together some time for drinks."  "Sure", I say, "let me know when a good time for you is".  "Sure", he says.  Then hear from again from time to time - he says the same things but never any specific plans.


This goes on until January.  Finally - I text him - "I'm shopping in town today - you want to meet for dinner?" Don't hear from him until really late and he says his daughter is still home for winter break and he's spending time with her.  "Okay - y'all have fun" I say - "some other time".


 My parents join Facebook and he befriends them and sends them this really sweet e-mail about me.  So right before I went on my cruise, I was up shopping again and text him.  Don't hear anything. Text him again - don't hear anything.  So finally I called him and got his voice mail, "R, I don't know what's going on with you - I don't know if you're afraid of me or really this busy - but give me a call"  So he texts me 5 minutes later - "I'm on a date, I'll call you tomorrow" I text back "LOL - have a good time!"


And.... I haven't heard from him since.  So what is up with that?  It really pisses me off.  I wasn't trying to be his next wife, I wasn't even trying to have a "real" date - I was following up on what HE started.  I really looked forward to seeing him and commiserating our new lives together.  I think the thing that pisses me off the most is it makes me feel like HE thinks I was trying to start something with him and he's not interested.  But HE started it, he kept talking about meeting for dinner and talking, he e-mailed my PARENTS.  So now I feel like this desperate, divorced loser.  And once again, I'm sitting home all day on a Saturday.  I can justify some of it with the fact that I'm sick - but it's not like I'd be doing anything different if I wasn't sick. (literally had to stop typing to go throw up phlegm I was coughing so hard -YUCK!)


I guess what really pisses me off is that I thought that at least I had R as someone to "fall" back on. Someone to DO something with - and now I feel that's not going to happen.  Was that selfish of me?  I wasn't trying to make something out of nothing, I didn't plan to lead him on - I just wanted a FRIEND that could go out on a Saturday night without having to check with husbands, kids, etc.  Someone that I thought was in the same boat as me.  

I'm really impressed with how much I'm enjoying my blog. I guess until you just sit down and free form your innermost thoughts - you don't actually listen to them.  I have e-mailed with a man who is in the first stages of break-up and I think we've both given each other something to think about.


One of the things he talked about was how he thinks men compartmentalize things they aren't happy about - that way they don't have to deal with it. I think women compartmentalize as well - but in a different way.  Men file away and forgot about it when things aren't good and figure as long as no one's crying or yelling about it - things are good.  Women also file things away -  but we pull it out and go through the files trying to figure things out.  Men like to "fix" things - but they like to use duct tape and it doesn't stay fixed. Women know that even after you "fix" it - it can break again.  Marriages would have a lot better chance if we were assigned a counselor from the very beginning!  By the time most of the people I know go to counseling - it's too far gone.


I knew I wasn't happy with our marriage, but I would have stuck it out because I thought it was my duty - I'd married for better or worse, right?  I had made the choice to live my life pretty much together but separate - more like roommates then a married couple.  I can look back now with a pretty undetached eye and see all sorts of signs leading to our divorce - signs from even before we married.  If I had known that he had a mental illness back then - would I still have married him?  Probably so - for reasons I said in an earlier post.


 But as crazy as he is - he was the one that had to courage to say divorce.  And for him - it really was a very courageous act.  He is terrified of confrontation and he told me later he thought I was going to scream and yell and pitch a fit.  Which tells you how clueless he was to where I was in our marriage!  I don't think I ever would have had the courage to pull the trigger.  We both still have our parents and they've been married 52 and 68 years respectively!  Divorce just wasn't an option in my mind.  Everyone goes through a "rough" patch, right?  But damn - when the whole marriage is one giant mine field - it seems kind of stupid to keep walking through it!


So thank you ex for finally being the one with the balls in the family and calling it a game.  I did have a lot of good times and happiness and we have the MOST incredible daughter.  So to answer my earlier question - yes, I would have done it anyway because I would not have wanted to miss out on her.  She would not be the person she is if things had been different.