This is a journaling entry. This week has two starting points, but one ending point, and I hope by sharing this journey, you will also understand how fabulous this woman Jackie is.
One starting point is of course a year ago when I met Jackie, and I will get to that perhaps, but the other starting point is Monday when I had another date with someone else entirely. That is where I will start. The date Monday is relevant, because after the pandemic I was very rusty socially, even after I brushed off the emotional fragility - that was the state I was in when I met Jackie - and I've journaled about the disasterous lack of success I was having on the social/ dating scene in the first six months of the year.
Monday I attended a regular monthly gathering, which happens to meet in the same hotel bar as our weekly writing get together, so the guy at the bar knows me very well. He wasn't there Monday, but a woman I know less well was. When I went to the bar for more wine, the organizer was chatting to a man not in our group, but they were both outgoing. Therefore, when the organizer left, the tall outgoing man started talking to me and was quite flirty. I felt a spark, but let him give me his card and promise to return later with chocolates for the group before doing anything. He did in fact return not too much longer later with chocolate truffles for our discussion table. At which point he made a strange joke about visiting my father, but not to ask him for my hand in marriage.
Anyway, then he went to dinner, and that was when I acted. Because I did not go out that evening expecting anything other than the usual, but decided disrupting my evening was worth taking this chance. Particularly since the previous two men I've met in person flaked out and did not help me get any practice or self-confidence on the dating scene again. I've had two obstacles. First, performance anxiety: I haven't had any confidence in meeting people I meet on dating apps because I am heavier than pre-pandemic. Therefore, it's much better for me to meet people in person so everyone knows that if they are interested, they know what they are getting. Second, I haven't had good sex really in four years. The last good sex I had was with a guy I caught feelings for, but then he went a bit nuts. We were talking about having a relationship and going to church and volunteering together. His downsides were smoking and having a daughter, because he hasn't figured out how NOT to put pressure on a woman about him having a daughter. I'm not really looking for a mother role, either, so it imploded.
That's why I decided Monday I needed to disrupt the regular scheduled programming and follow the cologne. I texted him asking how the food was. He responded pleased with his choice. Then I asked where he was and if I should join him, and that was a resounding YES. If you saw the drama last month with the guy who kept shutting me down every time I asked if he wanted to get together, that was a big win for me, and I just need some wins in my life. So I joined him, and he was funny, and we got it on, and it was good and nice. I was happy and had fun playing with him, and then he kind of ended things on a sour note, that had nothing to do with wanting anything more from the situation. Besides, that's when Jackie called.
Jackie didn't call. Jackie wrote an email asking if I wanted to get together Friday. So basically, then it was like "who was that guy Monday?" He pretty much ceased to exist for me, other than I had a happy, fun time for the first time in like four years, and had some self-esteem boost in the areas I was struggling.
But that brings me back to Jackie, and so that story starts a year ago, like I said. Last summer I was RAW and not doing that well. However, my friends who have an art space have regular events, and had a performance based on a workshop they were hosting, so I went to that. I took the pup with me.
And there was Jackie. It wasn't quite that dramatic. She was leading the performance art workshop, so she was front and centre. I noticed her less than in the moment than in the interactions that followed. When one event ended, and the other was to begin, she was meeting with the workshop participants and I happened in on them. Well, it was an outdoor space, so it's not like they were hidden. I could see them clearly, but I wasn't sure when the next peformance began, or actually I was also looking for my friend, the organiser, who was also doing her own performance art piece. So it was more that I wandered over to the outdoor space where Jackie was gathered with her group curious what was going on, when something started, and where I was supposed to go. And she invited me in, when I thought I was intruding since it was a pre-performance discussion. So it was a funny intro to Jackie. As for me, I was the strange woman standing alone in the back with a dog as the performance moved through the different areas of the space.
At some point at the end of the performance, I needed to find the toilet, and there was Jackie, somehow making sure I found the toilet, even though it's not a space she's familiar with. And then at some point when there was a section in an indoor space, where my friend was actually in a corner doing her moment, and was very tempted by the pup coming up behind her to break character. Then there was Jackie eating an apple, in front of the pup. And that was comical, because the pup doesn't like apples, but the pup's stance toward Jackie was to sit on the floor and wag her tail and look cute, which is her "please give me some of whatever you're eating" stance. So I was laughing and told Jackie that the pup was looking at her apple, and Jackie asked if she should give the pup some apple, and that was the joke that I tried to share with her as I laughed, that the pup doesn't like apples.
So after the pup and the apple, and the toilet, I was in front of the drink bar, and there was Jackie, and we started talking a bit more. Perhaps it was when she mentioned her mother, and perhaps it was a moment when I mentioned my mother's passing. However, I was emotional and about to cry, and it had everything to do with the raw emotional state I was in at the time post-pandemic. That's when she asked me to coffee. In fact, her exact words were "well, why not?" As if there had been some internal debate in her head "should I ask this woman out for coffee?"
We arranged a time and place that wound up being more drinks than coffee, because I asked what she wanted, since she doesn't know the town, and she said a garden. So I knew a beer garden near my house with a nice patio, and met her there, which was perfect and exactly what she asked for. She said it's a date. Things were never clearly platonic for me, and therefore, from that moment forward, my feelings for her never developed platonically, because of who she was. There was this deep warmth and acceptance that maybe comes with maturity and being older than me. Yes, she is most definitely an older woman. Yet, despite being older, I was still thinking of the things I wanted to do to her physically.
What was important were the details communicated about her potential intentions. Her mother was in Amsterdam, and getting older. Jackie had been living in Montreal for the past fifteen years, but was considering establishing a second European base here. It communicated some kind of semi-permanence, where I had hope, at least, of spending time with her and seeing where things might go. She planned to return in January as well as this summer.
She said we would see each other again, and had one performance I wanted to see but she didn't send me the details, but did have another performance. So I went to the opening night of that performance and brought flowers, because that's what you do when you are into someone and want to show up. A big sunflower, because that's what she felt like to me. The performance ended in shots, and she, again, walked me to find the toilets, but then took off. Then I left with her as we walked to catch the tram, and it came quickly, so my last memory of her was running from me to catch the tram.
Then she was too busy.
I thought well maybe she will be back in January. When I messaged her to ask her, she said she was not coming. After that, I thought, I wonder if it would make any difference if I started putting myself out there a bit more, discussing LGBTQ themes, telling her how I saw her. Little did I know the things that were happening in her life in the spring.
In a Spielplatz where I walk my dog, I was surprised by the prickly bushes exploding in fragrant yellow flowers that transformed the space, and it reminded me of her, so I took at picture to write a poem about her. Then the puppy arrived and took over my life for several months. It was in August I wrote her to ask her if she would be returning this year after all. I really had no idea if I would ever see her again, but the answer was yes, and my world exploded.
It felt like a second chance, and so I had to get my head in order. This week, in particular, when the reality of seeing her was here. Had I put myself out there enough? Did she understand I was into her? Had I connected with her in a real way where she might have a chance of seeing me in any kind of way?
There is the French girl from the party, who had me distracted by her dance moves. Once the party drama died down, I connected with her via text. We did, after all, clean up several litres of blood together. That counts for something. She never accepted an invitation from me for coffee. This week when I messaged her, she had gotten together with a new boyfriend. But here's the great part, and I'd like for this to come across as how adult women (not just teenagers) can communicate about dating without it being a BFD, when I told her there's this woman coming back to town I have strong feelings for. Here's what she did "Oh, that's lovely. You should have a real conversation with her."
That's it. There are a lot of depictions in film and books about a lot of other ways people respond to anything like "I might want to date someone that's not a man." She did none of those things. Because it's normal, and not a BFD. There was not even any discussion about whether she had dated women. There was zero discussion about whether either of us identified as anything or not. It was just here's my friend and she's into someone, and here's some advice to help her think about how to process her feelings and figure out how to handle the situation. You don't have to be LGBTQ really in order to have that normal conversation.
This was my journey. Thinking about where in my life I am, building stability is my goal. A new job, the transition of two dogs. And now I am definitely ready for a relationship, and with this second chance, I decide it was worth the investment, and that meant being able to ask for what I want. There were a few people wrestling with this with me. The French woman, my friend Sam, and my therapist.
The French woman, telling me to face having a real conversation with Jackie. This terrifies me. Back in my teen years when I felt isolated and alone, I didn't get to have any of these conversations. Then compound trauama and stalking certainly did not create any healthy situations where I had any good examples to build on of what that looked like. As I told her, I am not a "talk about my feelings" kind of person. For me the ideal dating scenario is actions speaking with clear signals. Ask me for my number. Ask me out. Ask me questions about myself and show interest. Allow me to give encouraging statements I'm comfortable with and don't require me to talk about how I feel about it. Much more actions oriented. Actions communicate interest or not for me, much more than words or feelings.
She said something that rings so true:
"Well I think as girls it's very easy to interpret everything coming from another girl as "friendship". Even compliments that would normally seem obvious that you're into the person. But I don't really know you, nor I know your friend. So the best is to tell her directly that you've feeling for her and asking what she feels."
If I do have to put feelings into words, writing is much easier for me, so I found a compromise which I felt was action oriented but communicated my intentions. I told her I was excited to see her because I had been attracted to her from when we had drinks, and I would like to take her on a real date. Her response was confusing that what about a walk instead of a date. Then I supposed she thought I meant to change the agreed upon meeting today, so I didn't mean to cause confusion.
This week I have both overslept to clear my head and calm down my excited state, as well as lost sleep with nerves and anxiety. I am so good at showing up and performing, and being so easy, and not necessarily finding a way to get out what I want, and I knew all of the things I would want to reconnect with her about, and not necessarily finding a way to work in a big reveal that was outside my comfort zone, so it really had to be done before, so it was on the table, or it wouldn't be.
At the same time, my therapist has been talking to me about my past dating history, and being a giver, and burning out because the taker feels good when I am giving what they want or need, but when I stop, there is no reciprocity. Here I had been trying to show this woman how I felt, and the strengths I saw in her for the past six months, and didn't want to continue or fall into a role of just giving without anything in return.
I lost sleep last night because of the confusion that she thought we might move it to Monday, and then confirmed that tomorrow was on rather late. So I thought ok, I made myself uncomfortable, and it didn't work out, so I have the weekend to recover. Maybe take some new found confidence and meet some people from Tinder. Originally, I had planned to bring her a rose when we met, but I hadn't worked that into my schedule with the confusion. She wanted to see a dog, and she hadn't met the puppy, so I planned to take him. In the end, I took the puppy, with a muzzle, and left early enough to run the required errands to get the rose, and still showed up to the meeting place early to read while I waited for her.
Then so many facts were revealed to me about her life in the last year that change things drastically. She had planned to come in January, but tested positive for COVID, so cancelled the whole trip. Then she visited her mother in March and made her plans for the summer to celebrate her mother's birthday and her summer stint in Europe, and now you will see how and why this woman is so amazing, and it is so easy for me to be taken in by her, when you see where our conversation ended up. She thought I was spoiling her with the rose, and the compliments.
Her mother died in April, and that changes everything about the parameters of her life, and her previous reasons for seeking to establish a European base. She found herself clinging to the familiar in her established support in Montreal. Which changes everything for the hopes I had in spending time with her to see where things might lead. It changed everything for me when I thought about my thoughts toward her during that time, having no idea what she was experiencing.
For two hours, we walked and talked, and I collected a lot of data, listening to her thoughts about her age, her cats, her processing of the events following her mother's death. Our mothers, and my mother's death was one of the first things we had discussed the first time we got together. She shared with me how she was not planning to have more cats, until a friend plied her with wine and made the decision for her about taking two foster cats. Which sounded very much to me like "I can be convinced even if I'm resigned in my life." Except I couldn't digest or process her change in future plans in not being here on a more semi-permanent basis, and the hopes I had to spend time with her. Even in her current trip, I learned she had been in town two weeks already before seeing me, thereby not capitalizing on opportunities I could have seen her during that time. It chipped away at the motivation I had built up during the week to show up for this second chance. It distracted me when I delivered the information that I'd like to get away before starting my new job, found out she had been in Prague and tried to discuss it with her, as in wishing that I could explore Prague together with her. Nothing synching up at all in our wavelengths of the ideas I had in my head of spending time together romantically to build a relationship. She encompassed me together with all of the "sweet friends" she had to contact and meet up with in Europe, either to friend zone me or make me feel included and not excluded from her cherished relationships. However, from the moment she met me, I have never been one of her "sweet" straight friends like the one she's staying with now who had a baby.
There was one moment where she referenced the discipline and a bit of being mean required to train a dog, and why cats were easier, and it raised one of the points I wanted her to know. That I recognize that her approach to the world is a bit softer than mine, and I am drawn to that because it is so different than me. Her response was kind of cute, because she wanted me to know that she was tough or hard sometimes. Indeed, in her current piece she has two new dancers who were trying to bring the wrong kind of energy and she needed to push them a little harder to build the right emotion in the moment. Something she is very good at with her art is editing and knowing how to sit in the moment. It was kind of cute, though, that she wanted to tell me she was fierce. Indeed, her voice as an artist is total fierceness. But her energy is not the same hard, defensive, stubborn energy that I can bring, and it's attractive. I like her energy being different than mine, though she herself as a person is self-possessed and individualistic.
And then we talked about her art. It actually started with wanting to shared some of the reactions to my writing which are on the more surreal side, because her art dives into the surreal. That was the place I started, was to ask her about surreal elements in her art. We had covered the piece she is here doing, which I saw last year. We covered her fellowship in Prague where she participated in some performances in front of the Russian embassy about the barbaric rape used as a weapon of war in Ukraine, so we discussed that. From my classics background, my frame of reference was Rome and Greece did this milennia ago, and someone things it's appropriate in 2022? Then she dove into one of her more recent pieces titled Femicide, and this took us on rabbit holes. She used her personal experience for the piece about her 13 year old friend's father touching her and blaming her because she flirted with him. She mentioned the same moment of being frozen that women have commented about in my short story that no one ever describes as well as I did. The engagement she includes with the audience, and the pieces she weaves together with the reasoning, are as mesmerizing as she always is. There are not words even if I were to write the same things she said to me, perhaps without the energy of the moment, to feel the same power they had, I fear.
I mentioned some of my stalking experience, and the lesson I finally realized on the third go around that men view public spaces with women in them that the women are there for their pleasure, and they are not.
And then the tram came again. At that point, I knew what I wanted and why. I wanted her to be the one coming home to me to keep these conversations going into the night and there waking up in the morning with the conversations going. And I didn't want the conversations to end. I envied the friend who plied her with wine to persuade her to take the cats. So you see, when I texted my French friend who thought "sweet friend" sounded like a no, and I thought it sounded like a diversion, and she thought anything that wasn't a "yes" was a "no." Well, the problem is what if my answer is also "no" to "sweet friend?"
This week before meeting, and yet again in the face of her busy schedule, I thought when does she take time for her. She revealed to me today that she is alone and has no partner, and isn't it nice to have the beating heart of a cat to keep you company in the world. But not mine? A cat but not me? That sounds ridiculous, frankly, though a choice she is thoroughly entitled to make. But honestly, I also wondered if being resigned to no cats was the same to being resigned to no romance in her life. Would it only take plying her with some wine and showing her a picture of a cute girl who admires her spirit and telling her that she was going to have a girlfriend?
So that was my well considered answer. After the one moments after she pulled away, and I wrote "I am jealous of your friends who can keep the conversations going with you into the night plying you with wine."
After that initial response, then I wrote to her about processing a lot of data from today, and the news about her changed circumstances and plans. I wrote to her about the energy. And I wrote to her about not wanting the conversations to end, and while her changing circumstances complicated them continuing, that [NO] those feelings would not go back in a box. [Just in case she wants to ask me to be resigned or relegated to her company of "sweet friends" she might collect. That the answer is that it's not possible. Whatever she wishes to do with that.]
As I told my friends, there are only two people in my life who I have written a poem for, and they are not parents or siblings.
And that is my masterclass in how not to be friendzoned.
As I ruminated on the situation, grief is something I can understand the vast complexity behind. However, I also considered it was her mother who brought her here, and the intended plans for that reason, that we met. It is only up to her now as she forges a new path forward to consider what motivations might appear to pursue that are their own entirely. But only she can know.
Updated: She responded this morning that the rose is beautiful, the walk was wonderful, her performance went well, and life was good.
I woke up thinking about the way her blouse opened up down to her chest and the thoughts that provoked, and how having her in my arms could allow her to fell my heart beat.
I also struggled about what strategy to use. However, after some back and forth that was still kind of confusing with the French woman, she made the point that Jackie had lost her mum and was perhaps in a confused state herself with no mindset to think about relationships properly, and I could relate. I remember the state after my mother died, but it was expected, and an end to the traumatic illness for months and years before. However, personally, there was one guy who didn't show up who should have, so I cut him lose. There was another guy who had been interested but not connected, and I wanted to connect with him. We had an opportunity being at the same place at the same time. Except he was impatient and couldn't wait for me to be available or ready to see him and left. What I did need at that time was someone to show up and be patient and understanding that I was a mess. And so not clear answers, but better perspective not to make those mistakes of impatience.
