Breakups and Shakeups

Hear that sound? That's the sound of the final nail being hammered into the coffin known as McAbs.

I don't know how to explain it. I still, sometimes, get this feeling in the pit of my stomach when he's around. He's attractive yes. His muscles are firm yes. And I'm a girl who happens to take notice of these attributes on him.

But when I think really hard on our relationship, it's very surface level. In fact we don't really have much to talk about at all. While Josh, Matti, and some of the other guys are easy to talk to, my conversations with McAbs are so forced it hurts. Because I don't know what to talk to him about he thinks I'm boring. And because he only wants to be overly flirtatious, I find him inappropriate.

Our conversations begin and end with him touching my shoulder or the small of my back and then me....whacking him in response to the invasion. Today, I was zoning the romance aisle and he came over to ask what was up. I explained what I was doing and then talked about my excitement over being able to take some of the returns home to read (hey, it's free romance. sue me).

Instead of engaging in conversation he placed his hand on my shoulder. and then squeezed it, in a massage sort of way. So I shrugged him off and then...well, whacked him in the stomach. It's my only response to him. It's like when I fly is in your face, and you swing in response to how frustrating and exasperating it is. Sometimes I want to say 'really. must you really place your hands on my shoulder or back'. He got really angry after i hit him and pulled away yelling "your so weird!" he then walked away from me and added "like really weird".

I don't know why this hurt my feelings. The way he said it, and the way he bounded up the stairs afterward bothered me. He said it like a jock who has just been caught by his friends talking to the unattractive girl from science class. As if, hurling the classic 'you're weird' insult would establish himself separate from the odd girl. Except we were the only ones present.

I immediately checked out after this exchange. I kept mulling over the word 'weird' and defining it in relation to me. So I don't like to be touched by a guy who has a girlfriend, so I playfully smack and shove dudes that I know. But where does the weird come in? It doesn't help that our 'whatever you call it' has been strained these last months. And that we are hanging on to a thread here even in the associates department.

But after years of being deemed weird, I don't need him (of all people) to affirm any of my fears. Someone who I am not all the comfortable around anyway. I have moved on from McAbs. In the crush department, in the friend department, and even the associates department. Nail in Coffin. Done Deal.

I feel so done with my time at the bookstore. I feel so done with the state of my life these days. I am so done with people's assumption of me and of my own fears of stagnation. I didn't make it to that party last night ( I heard it was a bore). But to everyone who did go it didn't matter that I didn't want to hang out because of my 12-8 shift the next morning. It was just another case of me bailing on them. When Matti came in I asked him if he was mad at me for not going. He said that he wasn't mad, but that he doesn't understand why I don't want to hang out. He knows about my anxiety, and said that he gets anxious too but that he pushes past it. But for me it's not that easy.

But then while joking around at customer service I said 'you know. one day i am going to do something extraordinary', and he laughed, not cruelly I know, and said 'we will all be waiting for that day'. When I asked him what he meant by that he referred to me leading a 'uneventful life'. I mean he's been to Paris and London. He flies to California every month or so to visit friends. This week him and Josh are going on a road trip to a music festival in Tennessee.

I can't even attend a party after work.

I on the other hand saw some dinosaurs a few weeks ago and bought two slices of pizza today which I ate while watching the MTV movie awards. THIS comment made me think of the time my mom said I don't make any waves. That I am just a bystander. I hate feeling like a bystander.

So in one night I have been deemed uneventful and weird.

Damn my life.

But (don't tell anyone)...I am going to be extraordinary one day. I don't care what anyone says.