On Monday, I felt genuinely bad about having looked at Monsieur Lawyer's Facebook, and felt like I at least owed him an apology for the invasion of privacy. I grabbed my Blackberry and told him I was sorry for everything, that I shouldn't have read his messages. Then I was excruciatingly honest with him.
¨ I have to be frank with you in telling you that if I'm so...upset, it's because I'm someone who gets attached and I really started to get attached to you. If you don't want me to get attached, it's best I stop seeing you. That's all. Good night.¨
I expected him to say his goodbyes and run in the other direction. Instead, he responded:
¨Ma belle, don't apologize. I understand perfectly. I won't see anyone else but you. I really like you but it's impossible to know that will come of this in six months. If you want, we can talk about it in person.¨
We then set up a rendez-vous to see one another on Thursday, his birthday.
¨ If you still want to, of course!¨ he laughed.
¨ Yes, I still want to see you,¨ I replied. ¨But that applies to you too! If you don't want to see me anymore, just tell me. I'm very frank and what counts for me is honesty.¨
¨I still want to see you,¨ he shot back.
I saw him Thursday night and brought him a chocolate chip cookie for his birthday, since I am, after all, still an American. He kissed me tenderly and he called me his ¨belle Lindsay¨ and I want to trust him, but my guard is still up. He says he will only see me, but is he going to follow through? And if so, how can I ever be sure? I want so badly to just trust him fully right now but something is holding me back, and that something is the messages I saw that I shouldn't have seen...
It would be easier for me to run in the other direction and throw all my barriers up. This is what I have done up until this point: run in the other direction and dashed into my Ivory Tower where I'm safe with my books. I'm a romantic, eternal optimist who wants to see the best in everyone and wants to believe that people are genuine and sincere and good and will not hurt me, but that is what staying in an Ivory Tower will do: make you believe in idealized visions and beliefs.
I'm still an optimist, but I've learned the hard way that not everyone is as idealistic and principled and as optimistic as I am, that there are people who, despite being neither one hundred percent good or bad, black or white, will perceive my optimism as naivete and take advantage of it. The result? I have become slightly paranoid about protecting my heart, about drawing firm lines in the sand so my heart is not trampled upon.
Does this mean I should play the field too? Is seeing multiple people a way to protect myself? Will it prevent me from becoming too attached to any one person, thereby avoiding the burn? Maybe. But it's never worked for me in the long term...I find it selfish and cowardly.
I do not want to make someone attach, disappoint them, leave them for another and break their heart simply because I can't decide who interests me the most. I do not want to keep someone on the hook as a backup in the event that it doesn't work out with someone else. I find it cruel. This only hurts the person that attaches in the long run, and the attacher is me. I do not want to treat people in a way I would not want to be treated. I suppose again that the problem here is that I am too brave for that: what real relationships take is courage, the courage to invest oneself and the courage to trust and to leap. I thought I had the courage to attach...and now I'm not so sure.
Somedays I wish I wasn't so idealistic, that I didn't believe as strongly as I do in my principles...but then I wouldn't really be me either.
So we'll see what happens with Monsieur Lawyer. For now, I will keep my guard up. I need to protect my heart.
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