I told my friends about The Friend Saturday night. I'd been keeping it a secret from everyone but those who read my blog (isn't it strange how it's totally easy to divulge personal information to complete strangers but not to your best friends?). But Saturday night was: drinks, girls night with my best friends who I hadn't gone out with in ages, more drinks, dancing, more drinks, blabbing.

I believe the confessing/explaining started when The Friend texted me for the 2nd time that night. Because I'd been drinking, my censor was off and I exclaimed to my friend Leslie that I thought The Friend had a thing for me. She knew we had hung out recently just from casual conversation, but didn't know the extent of it. Neither did my best friend/roommate. So I let them in on the dinner, the sleeping over, the Valentine's Day dinner. I told them how I was feeling strange about everything since I'm not really interested in The Friend BUT he is SO nice and such a good guy and don't I finally deserve a guy who doesn't treat me like crap? (Reference: A or FFG). Of course they both agreed, especially Leslie, that I need someone to treat me the way I deserve to be treated. But does that mean I should date The Friend? Not necessarily says my best friend Jill. So what is a girl to do? Just keep being confused.

At this point, I feel like I've totally blown The Friend off, but I haven't really. There have just been other plans or no plans/staying in, so I've gone out with him in a couple weeks. And the next 2 weekends I will be out of town/very busy so I won't have to feel confused until at least St Patrick's Day is over.

a very long dinner

I walked into my apartment at 3:20am this morning.

I'll back up...

The Friend picked me up at 7:45. I had only 20 minutes to get ready and, knowing that we were just having dinner at his house, I didn't feel the need to get too dressed up. Besides, there is almost a foot of snow on the ground and I refuse to attempt cute shoe wearing in all of that snow.

The car ride is nice. We talk about our week, our day, the snow. I'm trying not to feel awkward. That is until I walk into his newly cleaned apartment where there is light music playing in the background and dinner is about to be made. I stand around awkwardly while he pours me a glass of chianti. I continue to stand around awkwardly while he makes dinner. I don't know what to do, where to go. The kitchen is small so it's not like I can be in there, so I stand just outside the kitchen, talking to him while he makes dinner. And it's good stuff: caprese salad, fish, sauteed veggies. He would have scored some major points if I was keeping track.

After we finished eating, we stayed at the table for awhile to finish the bottle of wine and talk (the wine increased my talking, as it always does). But in the midst of conversation I was yawning. He was yawning. A glance at my watch said 11:54. I had not planned on staying this long.

He suggested moving from the quite uncomfortable IKEA dining chairs to the much softer couch. I obliged, even though I knew this was just prolonging the evening. We kept talking. The music stayed on. And I found myself backing into the corner of the couch, obviously keeping my distance.

When the clock finally reached 3, I knew I had to go. But The Friend suggested that I just stay at his place. He could drive me home on his way to work. Or he would be fine just taking me home now. I knew I needed to leave. The last thing I needed to do was spend the night, confusing him and myself even more. So we bundled up and he drove me home, looking a bit dejected.

I am feeling all sorts of confused right now. I go back and forth and back and forth thinking about him. Thinking about dating him. Sometimes I think it's okay, it could work. Other times, it weirds me out. All day I kept thinking about how things were left last night after I asked to be taken home. Feeling bad, I sent him an upbeat thank you email this afternoon, but haven't heard back from him yet. And that's just confusing me even more.

you choo-choo-choose me?

Flowers? Nope. Candy? Just whatever my coworkers gave me. Sexy evening plans? Nope. Do I care? Nope.

I'm not a Valentine's Day person, nor do I ever think I will be. I'm in the camp that believes this is a fake holiday dreamed up by marketing professionals looking to make some money on cards, flowers, chocolate, jewelry, and whatever else we are "supposed" to buy for our significant other.
So far, I've celebrated VDay loving myself, indulging in the things I love and not getting down on myself about anything. My new office has a lovely view of the Chicago River and, after the snow stopped falling this morning, I got to enjoy a beautifully sunny afternoon. I'm wearing one of my favorite outfits - all black from head to heels. On my feet are my ab fab favorite shoes, a pair of shiny green patent leather stilettos. They'd look like stripper shoes if I wasn't wearing them with black dress pants. I went to the gym this morning, even after completing yet another snowy hike through my neighborhood to the El stop.

Now, as the workday comes to a close, I reach a dilemma. Or maybe it's not a dilemma, but a problem. A sticky situation, perhaps. Ideally, I would leave work and go to my empty apartment (the benefit of having roommates with serious boyfriends and, therefore, VDay plans). I would lounge around, eat, and probably watch a movie or some generally bad television. Finally, around 10pm, I'd get into bed with my new issue of Real Simple and read until I was tired.

But....I've got plans.

Remember how I told you about my guy friend and the potential awkwardness? Yep, it's gotten more awkward. Emails and phone calls from him during the week last week. We made plans to hang out Saturday night at a party at a bar (happened to be A's favorite bar - lucky he wasn't there). After the drink special ended, we wound up just going to his place to hang out and have some beers. Nothing more. Being late, cold, and at least an $11 cab ride from my place, he suggested I just crash there and he would drive me home the next morning. I was game (although slightly skeptical). I slept in sweats and kept my distance when I crawled into bed. Nothing happened. Totally platonic sleepover. The next day I ended up hanging out at his place all day. By the time we woke up with our mini-hangovers, we didn't want to do anything except watch college basketball or anything else we found on TV. Before I knew it, it was 10:30 and the Grammys were over. Oops. The Friend drove me home and, as we got to my place, asked what I was doing Wednesday night (notice the lack of holiday mention).

At the time I thought it would be nice to have plans for VDay. I didn't want to spend it alone. But as the reality of what this might indicate to him sunk in, I began regretting my decision. Stupid Erin.

So now we've got plans to hang out, most likely just at his place (he offered to make me dinner since reservations and weather make going out a bit tricky). And while I appreciate all of this, I'm nervous as hell about what he is thinking and where this evening might go.

reaching for the kleenex...again

I think I have cried myself to sleep every night since last Wednesday. Well, give or take Friday night when I came home wasted and devoured greasy french fries, and Saturday where I spent the entire day in bed or in the bathroom regurgitating aforementioned fries. So that's still four nights' worth of crying.

It sucks. I have NO IDEA what A is doing. Where he is. Why he hasn't returned a phone call or text since we spoke late Wednesday night. Part of me is worried about him, thinking that there is something seriously wrong and that is the reason for him not getting back to me. The other part of me thinks this is somehow all my fault, that I've done something to make him not want to speak to me. I can't understand it.

And it's got me so upset.

One of the things I've learned recently is that I need some new friends. Not that the friends I currently have are bad or anything. It's just that they aren't really around for me. My roommates, which includes my BFF 4-EVA (joke, but seriously, it's been over 13 years of friendship), are never around. While they often have valid excuses for not being here, it's just made it hard when I'm upset. And seeing as I hate being emotional in front of people, it makes it that much harder to just let it all out when they are around. My other close friends are either busy like me or living out of state. As a result, I've found myself crying to no one but the mirror. Having no one to whine to or to express my utter confusion to than the small audience reading this blog. I apologize that every time you read this, I'm confused or sad about the boy. But lately I can't help. With school and work and family being crazy, having issues with him makes me want to crawl under a rock until January. And seeing as A has been one of the few people who has been there when I want to whine or complain about something, it sucks that he is totally MIA.

insecure, confused, misled - all of the above

Today was the kind of day where as soon as I got to work, all I wanted to do was go home, get in bed, and be all alone. I was slightly hungover and very tired, which explains the bed part. The all alone (and I will add wanting to just cry) was my confusion/frustration with A. There was just something in my mind all day keeping me from focusing on work; understanding the situation was all I could think about. Which is why being in my bed, alone, would have been preferable.

Not to get into to many details as I haven't really had a chance to talk to A yet, but I feel like I've been betrayed. I feel foolish. Naive. Insecure.

And this is after I thought things were going so well just 48 hours ago. You see, we didn't get to hang out all weekend because he was at his mom's house in the suburbs. But because he was bored in the 'burbs, we spent a lot of hours chatting on the phone. This is something we used to do all the time when we started dating, but haven't really done much of lately. It was nice, just talking about random things (we call these conversations "5th Grade Sleepovers" - sometimes we have them in bed). After our chat on Sunday night, I thought things were going well. We were both booked solid for the week so there was no chance we were getting together before the weekend. No sweat. We even had a cute chat via text message Wednesday night when I was out for work. I was happy.

Then I got these feelings of betrayal. This sense that something wasn't right. To make matters worse, I was drunk and it was 2am. To make it further frustrating, A hasn't returned my calls or texts today. Is it because he forgot or lost his phone or it isn't working? Or maybe he doesn't want to talk to me? But in less than 12 hours, could he have really changed his mind about me?

It hurts thinking about it; I was halfway in tears when walking home from the bus tonight (refraining from full crying because my face would probably freeze). I'm calling it a night because I've got a looooong day ahead of me tomorrow, but I'm hoping this can be resolved soon.

holding my hand would have been nice

I've been unexplainably irrational lately. I pride myself on being practical, but when it comes to my love life, all rational thought disappears. Combined with potentially PMS-induced moodiness, it's becoming troublesom.....

Monday night was terrific. For our date A had chosen a cute wine bar which, when I looked it up on Metromix, had multiple reviews about its romantic setting. Perfect! Dinner was excellent. We ordered too much food (as usual) and I had one too many glasses of wine (as usual). Conversation was excellent. We ordered dessert (or rather, he ordered dessert because there was a raspberry/dark chocolate item and he knows that those are two of my favorite things in the world and even though I wasn't hungry for dessert and he doesn't really like raspberries or dark chocolate, he ordered it for us to share). After dinner, we went back to his place and watched TV before finally falling asleep some time around 3 am. It was a struggle for both of us to wake up Tuesday morning.

During dinner I mentioned that I had two free passes to a screening of Stranger Than Fiction for Tuesday night. He looked at me as if he were shocked that I hadn't already invited him. So we made plans for Tuesday night to meet after work and, again, I was really looking forward to it.

But then this is where he got weird and I started being irrational.....

The entire night - no touching, no handholding, no kissing until our goodbye. Not saying that I'm a PDA kind of girl (I'm not. I'm very non-touchy. I don't cuddle, I don't really do hugs, and kissing in public has always been awkward for me). Even so, I would have liked some showing of affection at some point during the night. It was as though we hadn't ever dated and he was a boy I liked and he was totally giving me the "let's just be friends" vibe. After the movie, we grabbed drinks and some dinner and, again, totally weird. He walked me to my bus stop, giving me a quick kiss before I boarded, and then continued walking down Chicago Avenue, checking his phone messages (I could see him from the bus).

Twenty minutes later when I stepped off the bus and started walking home, I started to feel really sad. Confused. Two nights, two completely different vibes. It's not that I started to doubt A's interest in me, but I did begin questioning where I stand with him. And this isn't really a conversation I want to have.

go back to the bootyshakin'

did someone tell beyonce that she can dance? i mean, aside from that butt-shake-hip-jiggle she did in the "crazy in love" video? because these jerky, awkward moves she does in her most recent videos look more like jazzy seizures to me.

what was britney thinking?

i think it's clear who she should have stayed with....

just asking

Have you ever seen a black minivan? Do they not exist? And why not? I've got my thoughts but I'd like to hear what other people think.

This question came up during our recent road trip to Michigan and we've yet to get a solid answer.....