Familiar

There is a familiar deer in a familiar forest eating familiar grass under a familiar blue sky. It dines with familiar squirrels and listens to familiar birds. It hears a familiar twig snap and recognizes the familiar smell of danger. And so it bolts, in a way familiar to us.

In the past few years, dating has become a cervine lifestyle: The moment I hear that familiar twig snap, I don't care if it's a mountain lion or a careless rabbit, I'm ready to get the hell out of there. It wasn't always this way. In fact, there was a time when I used to lie down and present my vulnerable underbelly to the mountain lions and say, "Here, this portion would be rather tasty, don't you think?" Unfortunately, when the mountain lions decided I didn't taste very good after all, I learned that self subjugation hurts worse than being disemboweled. Now, I'm not so much fleeing for fear of pain as for fear of shame.

I've broken things off with the Gentleman about five times now, but we're still dating. I attribute this to the fact that I haven't actually mentioned it to him. The past two weeks, the twigs have been snapping left and right, but I just can't tell if it's a mountain lion or a rabbit trying to mess with me. I madly want to know: Is he watching me? Is he interested? Why isn't he responding to me? Why doesn't he ask me about such and such? What is he doing messing around online at four in the morning when I sent him a text message question at two this afternoon? Shit, I'm out of here. Oh... There was a family feud... and he figured I was asleep by the time it was done... and he didn't get up until late. Okay, that's kind of considerate. Rabbit in lion's clothing.

Next time: Waiting late for a call to hang out. No call. Send passive-aggressive text about call. No answer. Find answer next morning: babysitting nephews. Respond. Nothing until later.

It's this crazy pinball track from fight to flight to collapse, and it's reawakening a side of me that I really hoped had been dragged away by the mountain lions. Now, every time there is no immediate response, I instantly develop a new scenario in which he is a combination of all of my exes: their journeys that I hinder, their secrets, their affairs, their lies, their patronizations. The psychosis takes less than five minutes to start and an hour to explode into this absurd, self-loathing, woe-is-me, screw-dating mentality, which, once the rabbit pulls off the lion's mask, leaves me ashamed again, yet insufficiently so to prevent another lapse the next time.

So basically, I am a familiar deer in a familiar meadow, waiting for the familiar snap of a familiar twig, but where it is snapping and where to run, remain unfamiliar. The more I run, the more exhausted I become. But what is the alternative? How does one face the lion's mask and still be happy after it's revealed to be a rabbit? Furthermore, how does one enjoy the meadow when there may be a lion nearby? This isn't one of nature's unavoidables; there are methods of defense, but what are they... in the world outside of simile?

Update
Now that he got back to me and very casually brushed me off on our evening plans without a "Sorry" or a "Wish you could be here," but a promise that he would send pictures from his imminent week-long trip, the decision is made. I'm not running; I'm kicking his ass out of the meadow. Positive attitudes aside, I think I have a right to be angry, and in response to the stereotype that people with Asperger's can't take social cues, I'm a hell of a lot more observant than he is. And here I am shaming myself for being pessimistic. You know what? It's better to be single and alone than involved and alone on a Saturday night. Central finger... salute!

The Gentleman

Old habits die hard, this one harder than the rest. It's cost me plenty over the years, and I've gone through all manners of counsel to be cured of it. It's left me sweating at night and cold in the morning, wealthy on Friday and broke by Sunday, on Cloud 9 at the start of the month and in Provo by the end. I've been "sober" for almost a year, but in the last few weeks, the great whirlpool has finally sucked me back into... dating.

Yup, I've been asked out. A couple of times in fact... And then I asked back... And so far, things have been going pretty darn well, and I'm terrified.

"Why, Kyle, would you be terrified of things going well?" might ask Hypothetical Post Viewer.

"Well, HPV," I would respond, "when things have started well in the past, they have ended very badly in the future."

"But you've made some major progress in the past few years," would retort the Hypothetical Post Viewer. "You've connected with yourself, learned how to subdue your impulses for control, and stopped idealizing other people."

"That may be so, HPV, but I have not yet tested my progress with another person. It's scary! Don't you know anything about testing?"

In any case, this particular fellow, who for now shall be known as The Gentleman, is diggable, i.e., I dig him. He's fun, creative, adventurous, and surprisingly chivalrous in a world of cads. I started off resisting the push of romance, but I think I've been won over. That makes me nervous.

While I'm constantly fighting off the old psychoses, not to mention the promise I made to myself that I would not date for a whole year from last December, there is still the strangest sense of impropriety to the whole thing, as if I shouldn't be dating again at all. It's this nagging little voice that says, "It's going to go exactly the same as before; why bother trying to stuff a sense of normalcy between cynicism and bitterness when you know how slippery it is?"

A lot of this is the past talking, coupled with advice from my elders that has stuck with me: "It is a naive infatuation." I can't have that be the case any longer; I need to know that I can feel real emotions for a real human being. The fact of the matter is that I enjoy spending time with The Gentleman more than I initially anticipated and that I want to have more adventures with him. In order to enjoy them more fully, however, I must learn to distinguish the emotions, both as I feel them and as others tell me I feel them. Then, maybe, I can get a grip on normalcy and maybe even enjoy guiltless dating. Inshallah...