Unrequited . . . feelings

Today I watched one of my all time favorite movies. On VHS. Yes, I still have a VCR. I know you're giggling . . . you can stop now. I do own a DVD player - two in fact. The regular one I've had for nearly 10 years and the Blu-Ray I got this year. But I still own my first VCR, because it still works, and I still have movies on VHS because I never went and bought them on DVD. It's a rare day that I watch one of those movies . . . I mean, I actually have to check to see if I rewound it the last time I watched it.

The movie is "While You Were Sleeping" with Sandra Bullock and Bill Pullman. I hadn't seen it in a few years, but I found that I still know every single word of that movie by heart. But there is one part of that movie that resonates with me, because, well, the description fits me. Good, bad, or indifferent, it does. If you haven't seen the movie, here's the premise: Sandra Bullock plays Lucy, a girl who is all alone. She saves a guy's life at Christmas and the family believes she's their sons fiancee, even though she's never actually met him. I found a clip on YouTube, that has the scene to which I'm saying that fits me. Unfortunately it's like a 10 minute clip, but if you go to 7:00 it cues it up nicely - "Lucy" is visiting her "fiancee" in the hospital:

The part where she starts her little monologue about where she had "planned" to be versus where she is now. How she states "that I have a cat . . . I have an apartment . . . sole possession of the remote control . . ." That is me. I'm not where I thought I'd be. Growing up, girls like to plan things out - what a good age to get married might be, and if that happens, the age they'd like to start having kids. Owning their first home. I'm still not there. All the ages that I thought things would be perfect have come and gone. And I'm left with "I have a cat, an apartment, and sole possession of the remote control." Now, I'm not alone in the world; I have my friends and family, without whom I'm probably be completely lost.

I thought about this movie today on my way home from my volunteer gig at the horse place today, being that I made a pit stop before I got home. This pit stop made me think of this moment in this movie (minus the bit about someone being in a coma). I mentioned in an earlier blog about a guy that I went to dinner with a few months ago. From this point, he shall be called WB - only a total of four people in this world know what that those initials actually stand for, and it's not his name. I stopped by his house today to drop off some beer that I had originally purchased for him to have with dinner I made one night. He's never been back to my place (and no, it wasn't my food! lol), and I don't drink beer. I'm not much of a drinker to begin with, and I've never acquired the taste for beer. So, a few months after not seeing him anymore, I finally emailed him and asked him if I could stop by to drop it off for him. I felt a little silly (okay, a lot silly) for driving thirty minutes out of my way to drop off four bottles of beer. But he said I was welcome to stop by, so I decided to just do it. Now, he and I have still talked on Facebook once in awhile, but we don't chat/talk/text like we did this last spring - which seemed like tons. I got to his house and meets me outside with his dogs gives me a hug and asks how I've been. He puts the beer in his fridge and asks me to come see the work he's been doing on his and his friends trucks (apparently his friend was there to learn from WB). He's restoring a 1950 dump truck for himself, and he's helping a friend work on a 1950 flatbed truck. Both trucks looked awesome, by the way. I chatted with WB and his friend for a good twenty minutes or so, with the conversation going smoothly. I threw the ball for his dog a few times. Shared a few laughs. When the conversation started to lag, I finally said that I should let them get back to work on their toys. WB walked me out, and I teased him about the way his house looks (he has about a dozen projects going, so it looks like a construction zone), and we shared some more laughs out front. And we hugged goodbye.

The thing about WB is that, from what I've seen and heard, he is what I've been looking for in a man. The only fault I can find with him is his apparent lack of romantic interest in me. He prefers country life to city life, his family owns a ranch, he has a college degree, a good stable job that he enjoys, and he's a perfect gentleman. He offered to kick my ex's ass for breaking my heart, having never met me nor my ex (who was a marine and could probably kill anyone with his pinkie finger). He's restoring the dump truck alone - that takes a lot of talent in my book. He has a house, dogs, has a great sense of humor, has a laid-back personality, is just the right height, has blue eyes that I could dive into, and to round out the whole shebang, he's handsome. I rarely say a guy my age is handsome, but he is. He's cute, good looking, but there's something about him that makes him handsome. And in some ways, I guess is the guy that most resembles my dad, and my dad is one of two men I compare all boyfriends (or potentials) to. Because I want a man like my dad.

For what seems like an eternity in my mind, I've thought him perfect for me. But I realize I can't make him like me. I can't continue to beat my head against a wall to see what else I can do for him to realize "that if he only knew me, he would (of course, dump the perfect model they were with) and realize that you were the person that they wanted to just grow old with". But, though I know I can't make WB do anything (Read: fall in love with me), and I can't stop thinking about him. It's like he's gotten under my skin. Why am I drawn to a person who doesn't like me romantically for whatever his reason(s)? I drove all the way out to his house to deliver four bottles of beer that reminded me of him every time I opened the fridge. I wanted to see him again, as three months of not seeing him was aggravating. I left his house hating him for being so nice and wonderful and handsome and funny. But I felt welcome, even though I felt silly for being there. He never made me feel like he didn't want to see me or talk to me, or introduce me to his friend. He never forced me out of his house to get back to work on the truck.

I remember the day I realized just how "not interested" in me he was. I was visiting my parents for the weekend, and I came out of the computer room and sat with my mom on the couch in the back of the great room. I laid down and put my head her lap, and cried. We talked about it. Mostly her talking and me whimpering, because as we all very well know - mom's are psychic like that. It's scary. I felt silly - 30 years old and crying over a boy with my head in my mother's lap.

And this would just be another reason why I hate boys (yet not really) and dating. Oh the vicious cycle.