Jade

So, here's one.

Kind of a big day, a big week really. I just came in from outside, I spent some time out there walking around, thinking. The cold is still in my fingers, and it makes it hard to type.

I said it's been a big day/week, not a good one, although it has honestly been great. Also, given the choice I may prefer to do without it.

I met this girl. Really she met me. I didn't have a whole lot to do with the proceedings, although I was certainly a willing participant. I'm going to call this girl Jade in this post, for the sake of anonymity.

So, Jade came up to me, we were talking, she told me some pretty personal things. Things you wouldn't normally share with people, but she said she really liked me. I liked her, too. This was all last Monday. It's Friday now, early Friday. Late Thursday really.

We went out with a bunch of friends, to Denny's. Just to hang out really. No one was hungry. Jade asked me If I liked her. If I wanted to go out with her. The idea intrigued me. No one has ever liked me like that before, and I had seen her before, and thought she was pretty cute. Different from the others I see around church too. I drove her home that night. I went home feeling like I had won the lottery.

Jade has one screwed up life. I really feel bad for her, and I know I can't ever really understand where she is coming from.

She seems to have some kind of problems with dependency. Maybe that's all she saw in me, someone to love so she can feel whole. I wish I could help her with that. She seems so strong in so many other ways, but she constantly asked me if I loved her, and was always telling me that she gave me her heart, and that she would love me forever.

I can't cope with that.

Maybe it's just that Jade is too much younger than I am. There is a bit of a gap, and although I don't doubt her sincerity when she says she loves me, I can't believe that she understands what she is saying.

It's too cold in here. I can't type right. Shivering too much.

Okay, back with coat. I think I was out too long. I wanted to feel the cold, to feel something, but It just wasn't hitting me. It's hitting me now.

Anyway, The day after Denny's, she called me. She wanted to know if I wanted to go hang out at her house. It was great. We just hung around for a while, talked. I met her brother, he's a putz. But he's just at that age. Her mother came home. Her mother is short, skinny, missing a couple of teeth, and has a mullet going on. Jade doesn't especially get along with her mother. She gets along with her father, step-father, okay, but he's in jail for some DUI sort of thing.

After a while, we started watching a movie. Waterworld. I like that movie. It just has a cool style to it. Normally when I say a movie has a cool style, it's a Tim Burton movie, but this one has a totally different feel. Jade likes the movie alright too. We were sitting by each other of course, and she put her hand on my chest. There was a time not too long ago, when I thought that would be just about the perfect way to watch a movie, and it turns out it was. As I left that night, we were saying goodbye, and she kissed me. I've never done that before. It was really nice.

I don't think we have too much in common though. I'm working on getting a couple more technical certifications to go with the CCNA I already have, and Jade hates computers. She wants to be either a nurse, a veterinarian, or a cosmetologist. I thought the first two were cool, but it turns out, Jade has a thing against gross things (the scenes from Waterworld were a bit much for her), and science (It came up a couple of times, and she just changed the subject, and said she didn't like that sort of thing). Understandable, but not exactly something I find desirable. Jade is not without her good points. She has a sort of goth-punk thing going, which I really kind of like, and she doesn't let it get so harsh that it gets annoying, She's into rodeo, and knows stuff about cows and horses. Not an interest I share, but it's nice to talk about briefly.

Anyway, I kept hoping there would be something we would have in common that would come up. We had only known each other for a couple of days, so there was a lot we didn't know about each other.

The thing that bugged me I think was the dependency. I was thinking maybe that was just an initial thing, maybe it would mellow out in a bit. Tuesday, Jade must have called me like four or five times. She kind of wanted me to go over again. We were already planning on me going down there on Friday. I don't know much about relationships, but I'm thinking that can't be right. She called me as much on Wednesday too. It was nice talking to her both days, just a bit overwhelming. She did it again today. She always wants to know if I love her, I thought I was clear that I didn't know yet. She told me she had given me her heart, that I knew that, and today, she said I was ripping it up and throwing it away.

I can't deal with that.

We were standing around at church today, talking with a bunch of friends. I find them to be friends. I thought she liked them. She apparently hates the guy I was talking to. She says he really frustrates her. She walked up to him, and hugged him a couple of times, seemed to me that she liked him okay. He made a couple of cracks about how women were nothing but trouble, I laughed, she got pissed.

Women are nothing but trouble.

Jade started doing things like pulling the hair on the back of my head, smacking my arms, pinching my back. None of which are too unpleasant, but I have to wonder where she is going with this. She's had a few, maybe more than a few boyfriends who were abusive. I'm not saying she did anything on the level of what she's told me about, but this was a sudden change that I don't like.

The guy she says she hates asked why I was getting punished for what he said. Shortly after that she went outside and told me to follow her. I left them to go talk. That was when she said I'm ripping her heart up. She asked me again if I even want to keep dating her. She asks me so much I wonder what she wants. I think I'm done now. We're going to talk tomorrow. I've got to say something about this all, I just don't know what. I'm just pretty sure this is over now.

That was when I started walking around. I cut up my fists a bit on a brick wall, I ran a little, the cold air made my lungs hurt. I laid on the grass (the areas that had no snow) for a while to think. And I walked around some more. Then I put my coat back on, got in the car, and drove home. I'm sure there are better ways to deal with stress, but I don't know them.

So, one girlfriend for almost a week. That's like a record. Anyway, I'm still cold, and I'm tired, and I've had about enough of this for now.