Do you believe you have a type? You know, a type of guy or girl that you find yourself attracted to? The more I get to know DF, the more I realize I totally have a type. DF is my EB1 (Ex-boyfriend 1) in a different form.
My first boyfriend (EB1) was *gasp* a white guy, whom I met when I was a junior in high school. He was the first boy who held my hand. He was the first boy that kissed me. He made me feel like I was attractive, after all the years of being tormented in my little white town. He was brilliant. Without trying, he scored a perfect score on his SAT's. He was by all accounts a math genius. Yet at the same time he was a little bad ass. He claimed his roots in the Bronx and had an arrogant, cocky edge to his personality that he called "confidence." We stayed in touch through the rest of high school and we started a long-distance relationship when we were first-years in college. I was in Boston. He was in Atlanta. He dropped out of college after being stoned most of his first year. He was financially a mess. He was spontaneous. I could never count on him to be there for me, especially when he was high. Yet, he was exciting to me. My friends and family thought he was a loser. We soon became a co-dependent couple. It lasted six years, including a little over a year when we'd broken up during my senior year. I finally ended it for good, when I moved to DC. He didn't ever want to leave Georgia. And what finally ended it for good was that I realized that as my racial and political identity grew, he wasn't growing with me. He would never understand what I was doing and always unintentionally invalidated my perspectives as a woman of color, from his average white guy's viewpoint. That's when I also realized that I could never be with a white guy in a good long-term relationship, at least one where I could be allowed to grow and become myself. I'm not sure if EB1 ever finished college. It was something that he was always working on when we were together, knowing that I didn't like that he wasn't college educated. EB1 is married now, to the woman he dated right after me. I trained him really well. We haven't talked in over 6 years.
There have been other EB's since EB1, but maybe it's the whole "first love never dies" thing, but I still find myself having dreams about EB1 at least once a year and wondering how he is. I wonder how his family is, because they were my family for several years. Not only did I break up with EB1, but I also broke up with his family. His parents used to call me their daughter.
EB2 was my boyfriend during my senior year of college, when I had briefly broken up with EB1 the first time. He was the anti-EB1. He was in the same honors program I was at BC. He was driven. He had a plan for everything. Nothing was ever spontaneous. He was financially very very responsible. I called it cheap. He called it frugal. I got bored with him, and eventually went back to EB1.
EB3... the ex-fiance! He was also another anti-EB1. You know, when I really get honest with myself, I can admit to myself that I wasn't ever that excited by EB3. He just made sense. He was very good looking. He was Chinese American. He was wealthy. He was stable and dependable and showered attention on me at first. I initially thought he was clingy, and just did whatever I wanted him to do without a backbone to really challenge me and go toe to toe with me, but then friends told me that I should keep him around because it's so rare to find a guy that would be so attentive, patient, and there for me... Until I met his family, and realized that he was just a spineless guy, who needed a mother-figure in his life to get approval from, while his mama was 3,000 miles away. We all know how that ended... in a fiery ball of implosion with his psycho family setting off the inevitable end, 12/31/06. Thank goodness his mama hated me... otherwise I might have been sending out wedding invitations today for an August '08 wedding. When I'm REALLY honest with myself, I admit that during the engagement there were many times a little voice in my head was whispering, "I don't think I'm passionate about this guy." Even when he was proposing, I didn't feel a crazy rush of emotion. I just thought to myself, "Oh, so this is how it happens?" And who wants to marry someone you're not passionate about? I used to feel anxiety over the fact that I never felt the passion I used to feel with EB1 for EB3, and I was supposed to be marrying EB3.
DF reminds me A LOT of EB1, and I'm finding myself thinking too much about DF. DF is brilliant. He reads thinking books, critical and politically subversive books. He did really well in school without putting in much effort, and even in college he made it through for a few years with minimal effort. Like EB1, DF had a penchant for mj. Unlike EB1, DF was also politically active (EB1 never voted). Unlike EB1, and here's the big "unlike," DF let his entrepreneurial spirit get the best of him with his hobby in growing organic products for sale... and one day DF got caught and spent a night in jail. For the last 2 years, DF has been cleaning up his life. He moved back home and started school again. He plans on graduating next year, and is trying to figure out what his next step is. He's a really good student now, something he says is really weird for him. He's been through a lot, and I think it makes him really interesting, complex, intriguing.
T says I should just treat DF like a friend, and that he's trouble for me, because I've trained way too many boys before for marriage (EB1 and EB2 both married the first women they dated after me), and the last thing I need is another guy that needs extensive training, just so some other woman benefits from my hard work and investment. It all puts things in perspective... treat him like a friend, nothing more. We were supposed to go out tonight, but he called and said he was really tired. So he called and I treated him like a friend. We ended up talking for over an hour. I don't like talking on the phone, but before I knew it we'd been on the phone for 50 minutes. It was fun, but then I got to know him some more and he becomes even more interesting to me. He lost a bet we made on game 1 of the NBA finals. He says he's going to call me later this week to set up a time to cook dinner for me, his debt he owes me from losing the bet. So I'll probably see him next week, unless he punks out like the average LA wussy boy.
I think I might be hooked. Already, it's like a drug. Every text, facebook superpoke, call, and instant message is like a hit. I'm good for a while, and then a day or 2 passes and I'm jonesing for my next hit. I will keep looking for guys who are post-training and done putting their lives together.
He is just a friend. He is just a friend. He is just a friend. He is just a friend. He is just a friend. I will not become emotionally involved. I will not become emotionally involved. I will not become emotionally involved. He is not relationship material. He is not relationship material. He is not relationship material. I cannot invest emotionally in him. I do not have the energy. I do not have the patience anymore. I can change my type. I can change my type. I can change my type. There are boys out there with edge who are not a mess. There are boys out there with edge who are not a mess. I'm so done with it. Shift DF to the friend zone. SHIFT DAMMIT! SHIFT!
