Conversations, Periods, Apostrophes and Ending Things

     My writing, like my life, has been here and there and everywhere, in one messy jumble. I can't keep up with it all. Sometimes I write, and sometimes I don't. Sometimes I don't have time to write.

(That's a lie. You have time for anything until you're six feet under, and until then it's about making the time. Accept that as my small apology for coping out and not making the time to write).

       But the difference between writing and life is that in writing, especially fiction, you have to know your ending. In most good story work, you know your ending before you know or craft anything else. You build everything up until that ending...whereas in dating, there is no such thing.

       So what happens when you need to put an Ending on something that isn't even really a Thing? What if what you need to figure out how to end doesn't have much of a beginning either? What if it floats around in this culture of ambiguity we call dating in the twenty-first century?

         Relationships, I have come to believe, are like conversations...and good relationships are like good conversations: interesting and forthcoming, full of respect for the other person involved, and above all, fierce and transparent.

          But our culture of conversation is changing. We let text messages fall through the cracks, leave the other person hanging. Texts come out of no where at any time from anyone at any point, sometimes without so much as a hello and not always so much as a goodbye, or any sort of indicator that the conversation is over, rather the implication that it is....the same can be said of any instant messaging device on the web. People sign off chat rooms or on Facebook leaving the other party dangling. Even I am guilty. Even I walk away from my computer and leave conversations unfinished. Hanging. Ambiguous.

             Is our culture of conversation becoming our culture of dating?

             In the past few weeks, I have felt like things with This One were left hanging like a text message. I have wondered if I should just go for a Phase Out and slowly back away and let things end that way, because he sure does seem to like my attention but not seem to really want to give a lot in return. I've also asked myself if I should axe it directly, go for the fearless and fierce and say ¨Look, it's been nice getting to know you, but I'm going to do my own thing. Take care!¨

              But that doesn't seem quite right either.

              Every time I go for the Phase Out, he pops back up.

              Don't get me wrong. I know what I'm worth. If he doesn't want to abide by my rules and expectations (news flash: asking to see someone for more than two hours a week after you've been dating for three months does not make a girl high maintenance), then he can ship out.

               He doesn't quite seem to want to do that either. The Shipping Out part, that is. In fact, he doesn't seem to know just what he wants. And it's not making my job of doing that any easier.

               I can't figure out if this conversation has a period at the end of it (unlikely), or if there's an apostrophe, and if there is one, just how things should End.