Gracias for the big show of solidarity, as well as the nice things you said about my rockingness. (And let’s have a moment of goodwill for the girl, who was seriously awesome to a)tip me off and b)side with me against him.) I am trying hard to be as ice-queeny and breezy (tm Monica from Friends) 24 hours a day as I was able to be for those few minutes at the coffee shop. But it’s definitely a little blow to my ego to know that a relationship that I thought was working pretty well was actually a sham, and that my partner-in-crime was out shopping around for a new model before he felt comfortable enough dropping his current one.

I mean, I did have some issues with how things were going. When does anyone not? I was in the midst of weighing whether or not they were deal-breakers for me when all this went down, so I guess he had found some deal-breakers in me at the same time. My main issue with Manfriend boiled down to the fact that when we got together, he had been pursuing me for a while (as we’d run into each other around town sporadically for the past six months or so), so I thought he was the one more into it than I, but as soon as we started regularly going out, and established that it was monogamous, he really quickly seemed to take everything (and me) for granted.

You know how in every relationship there’s one side that seems to be more “into it” than the other? Sometimes it flip-flops as time goes on, but (I think) one can always sense that they are more the chaser or the pursued. Personally, I feel most comfortable being the pursued one, at least in the early stages. I am not a girl to take the guy’s number when first we meet; I want him to take mine, to see if he likes me enough to call. And I’m not one to make the first move, or to call twice in a row (until things become more relationshippy and then of course I’m fine doing this).

I like to be assured that the guy is actively trying to spend time with me, and I try very hard not to get all shmoopy in my head about any guy until I have some confidence that he’s not just trying for a one-night-stand (an ONS, as Dane Cook would say), or that I am the punchline of a bet, a la She’s All That.

Which, yes, I am actually a little wary about.

So things with Manfriend had gone “comfortable” a little earlier than I had hoped. He’d stopped really asking me questions about myself, or doing little considerate things, or even willingly spending more than like five frickin minutes making out before trying to take my frickin clothes off.

Which, let’s be honest, is my main complaint in the whole “taking-me-for-granted” realm of behavior.

But, I was trying to be honest and open and discuss things with him when I got annoyed, instead of stewing in my own pissed-off juices like a pot roast, as is my natural tendency. I thought things were progressing in a nice, steady, open way. On paper he was great: creative job, good at managing money, clean apartment/bathroom/person, desiring to live in Savannah for the forseeable future, a good age gap from me, good at cooking.

From the beginning, I knew we weren’t “soulmates” or anything. We didn’t have endless talks that spiral around and cover every subject and are peppered with “me too!"s and “oh my god, that’s so funny!"s. Which, I know, is how things should be if you’re expecting to have a long-term thing with someone, but I sort of have given up on that.

Not that I’m going to settle for just any old stable guy who comes around and wants to be with me, just…there’s this one scene from Sex and the City (and at this point I know every male reader is checking his watch and clicking over to, like, espn.com, so…sorry) where they decide that maybe it’s too much to expect to find a man who you’re compatible with romatically AND is also your best friend. So they decide to be each others’ soulmates and to just let men be “great guys to have a fun time with,” or something to that effect.

I guess I can see where that idea could be interpreted as a sad statement on the status of male-female relationships in this society, but I’m getting to the point where it seems like maybe that really is as good as one can expect. So, long story short (hi Jennie!), I had decided that what I had with Manfriend was the basis of a possible long-term match. And it’s hard to have that fantasy, even if it was in just the early stages, ripped away so suddenly and shockingly.

What does he want with a random blond girl he met in a bar anyway?? Aren’t I a good catch? Damn, he really sucks.