relationship dynamics

Caring about someone isn’t about words. You can use all the pretty words in the language you speak, in all the languages you speak, and it doesn’t mean anything if you don’t back them up with action.

I’ve dated those guys who know how to talk to you, talk around you, talk over you, talk at you. They don’t know how to talk WITH you though. And they never back up what they say.

I’m not worried that Isaac doesn’t care about me. I know he cares about me because he does things that show that he cares.

If I’m sad, he’ll make me laugh even if it means pulling over the car and tickling me until I give up. (Yes, it’s happened)

If I’m angry, he’ll sit and listen to me complain and he’ll give me advice.

I don’t like my job all the time, mostly because I don’t like the pay. He encourages me to stick with it, to work hard and get my national certification so I can work on base for a better pay. He wants me to be happy, but he wants me to do it on my own two feet because he knows that’s the only way to really achieve the stability that I desire, that I crave, so badly. I can’t depend on someone else to support me (I never really could with my family) and I can’t wait to be rescued because it won’t happen.

He pays for my food when we go out. He buys me things when we go shopping. I said last week that I was having a really bad day and I just wanted to go shopping but I didn’t have the money to go shopping. So he took me shopping. I didn’t spend a lot but that wasn’t the point; I got to go shopping and I had fun.

He will go places with me randomly that I want to go to, like the bazaar last weekend or the museums the weekend before that, and of course there was the zoo trip in the fall.

I know Isaac cares.

The uncertainty that I talked about in my last entry is not about him caring. The uncertainty lies in "does he care enough? does he care in the right way?" Does he see me as a close friend and lover? Or does he see me as something more? Are we really just dating? Is that all we’ll ever do?

It seems silly to some people that I’d worry about this. I’m young right? Yeah I am, I know that. But I’m not so young that I’m not looking for the person to spend the rest of my life with. Do I think it’s Isaac? Hell I don’t know. I thought it was Quinn. But that was a disaster. I’m not looking to be married in the next 6 months or even in the next year! I’m just looking to have it as an option down the road. I don’t want to ‘date’ for a year or 2 or 3! Only to find out that that’s all it will ever be. I’d like to be in love and married. I don’t want to miss that opportunity because I tied myself to someone who didn’t even see that as an option. Ok, really I don’t even care about the marriage. I could do the long-term committed relationship without the legality so long as I knew it was REAL.

The way that Isaac talks, on the occasions when we have discussed it seriously, has been that it’s not even an option. That it something he has no interest in pursuing. At the same time I know it’s something that he wants. It’s complicated. He wants that love and companionship, he wants the whole wife, dog, picket fence and 2.5 kids dream. Yet when we’ve talked about it, he makes it sound like it’s not an option.

I guess that’s what bothers me. If it’s something he wants, why is it not an option? Is it me? Am I why it’s not an option? Does he not feel even the slightest bit interested in me other than as a close friend and lover? Does he not see it lasting at all? Is that why it’s not an option? Does he see this as just temporary?

I love spending time with him, but how do I not let it bother me? I don’t know how to act around him now sometimes. I don’t joke about rings or long term plans. I don’t even mention them. He’ll ask me about making plans for next week and I hedge. I just don’t know how to be with him now. I don’t want to get hurt. It’ll already hurt so now it’s a matter of minimizing damage so that when the end comes I’m not as hurt as I would have been.

I don’t want May to ever come.