Black Water

I have been trying to find a way to shape an entry to cover the past week, and each time I begin I end up trashing it because, frankly, I don't want to hear about it again. I'll try once more.

I learned, on Monday, through a bizarre set of coincidences, that Biff has been dating someone else nearly the entire time I've known him. I was, perhaps naively, under the impression that we were exclusive. He had not actually told me that, however, and now in retrospect I realize that he was simply keeping quiet about the other woman and letting me believe whatever I wanted.

Here's the bizarre set of circumstances:
Gray, who is also on Match.com, has recently started dating Bethany. Last weekend, while out with her, he casually mentioned that I was also on Match and had been dating Biff for a couple of months. Bethany then equally casually mentioned that she too had been dating Biff, but broke it off with him the week before to focus exclusively on Gray.

Gray knew that I was unaware of this, and sensed that I believed Biff and I were exclusive. I'm proud of him for having the courage to tell me what he had learned, because it couldn't have been very nice for him.

I came, quite frankly, unglued at the news. I called Biff and raked him viciously over the coals. Called him every name in the book, told him to fuck off and die, among other choice things. I cried myself to sleep. All the black water that I had been pushing away so successfully by focusing on Biff came rushing in over my head and I just sank.

He had never felt the way about me that I thought I did about him. He'd been lying to me the whole time. Nothing was what it had seemed and I'd been made a fool of.

I was absolutely crushed. I think everyone was afraid I would jump off the roof. Myself included. All the old wounds about my own self worth that had been inflicted by the divorce were ripped open.

It has been, in short, a shitty week.

I have come to my senses on some level, made my peace with Biff, though I am not seeing him anymore. I cried on the phone to my mother and my best friend. Even Gray has been concerned for me, calling and emailing to check in on me, telling me he's sorry he had to be the bearer of bad news, and he's sorry I got shit on so badly.

The lesson is that I must guard my heart more carefully. I cannot believe everything these guys tell me, and I must not want to love so much, must not be so willing to overlook the signs and believe in what I want to believe in.

What Biff did was heinous. But I set myself up for it in a way. I should have known, should have recognized the signs that he did not feel as strongly as I did. I should have known that I was only hungry for affection and wanting so badly to love someone that I was willing to push aside any obstacles to make it true. I should have listened to the little voice in my heart that said "he's just not that into you." I should have. But I didn't. I just tumbled headlong, taking whatever scraps were thrown my way like a starved puppy.

I suppose I am wiser. I suppose I will be stronger at the broken places. I suppose I'll be more careful, more canny, next time. I suppose so.

Meanwhile now I'm getting long rambling emails from Gray full of dating advice I neither need nor want, peppered with tales from his own recent experiences that definitely fall into the category of "Too Much Information." I don't know why he feels compelled to share his dating stories with me. Though I no longer want to be with him, I am still treating the scars left by the last year of our marriage and the more open wounds of the divorce. I do not want to hear about his frank pre-sex discussions about STDs with his Match girlfriend of three days. And while I appreciate his kindness to me during the Biff Debacle, I don't really need him to give me advice on navigating the emotional waters of my possible future liaisons, or his accounts of how he and his WOW girl in North Carolina have now gotten past their awkwardness over their Fling Week to get back to being online friends. He can discuss his sexual conquests with her. I don't need to know. My heart is broken. Again. And I don't want to hear how he's taken his Match profile down to focus exclusively on Bethany.

It gets better, a bit at a time. And I'm trolling Match again, looking for my next victim, my next ex. But my heart isn't in it. My heart is curled up tight in its shell, cringing, hoping noone will get in, praying that someone will.