Thanks so much for your support and insight, ladies!!!
I have a question. Usually when I care about someone I ask them lots of questions to show that I care. But with B I am afraid that most of my Normal Friendly Questions would be too nosy or invasive. I am also sort of afraid to know the answers to some questions... like if I ask, "what did you do for thanksgiving?" (Normal Friendly Question) and he tells me, "I spent it with my new fiancee" or something!!
You worry too much! Darling trust yourself, you are an aware onto it person. If BF responds badly to a question and you pick up on the vibe that it was a bit personal, you can just laugh and say 'you don't have to answer that'. But in the meantime ask away - you will be able to judge how much he wants to open up. Try pushing the boundaries about the level of conversation - but mostly follow his lead.
Will you be OK if BF has a new fiancee, or has turned gay, or has just found out that he has a 2 year old son?? Of course you will be!
I think we have formulated a response to the above scenario before.. What would you say?
I'm sure you are thinking of something much more suitable, but here's my attempt to get you thinking
"Oh congratulations, that's great to hear you are in a wonderful relationship. I'm really happy that you've met someone special. Me on the other hand, I'm loving my life and being single, there's so many things to do and cool people to meet, I'm so grateful that I'm getting to experience so many fun things etc etc."
Maybe new fiancee would have a beard - or at least very thick unkissiable skin to want to kiss hairy monster AKA as BF!
You are hot and caring and warm and a wonderful person. BF is lucky to have a true friend like you.
I agree with the Future One! There's no need to worry about asking too many questions. Remember that B loved you for who you were for AGES before the bomb. CEO said to me once that men don't lose love- it just changes and gets internalised, and I've read that somewhere aswell. You just need to bring the love out again by being yourself. You're wonderful as you are!!
Would you be OK if B said he had a GF? Could you continue to DB? I think you'd be fine, and that you could easily continue to DB- it's not over until YOU decide it is....
You know, I don't think you give yourself enough credit. You are such a warm, interesting and fun person - that comes across a computer screen and across an ocean! When you talk to bf, you seem to get into the swing of it and relax into it and you have some really great conversations. I think you have just got to be braver about taking that first step.
I think some questions are good to start things off... although I did have a phone conversation once with a bloke and I ended up just asking continuous questions because he was just responding with one word answers. This is because he wasn't engaging in conversation and dialogue. It was soooo clear to me and it will be so clear to you if bf does not want to engage in something. If he doesn't, as Essie says drop it and move on. You can even take the spotlight off him by talking about you, or a friend or something. Just move right on.
I don't know about you but this whole thing with my h has knocked my confidence and I have quite a hard time believing that people would want to talk to me as my h takes such great lengths not to talk to me. Bf responds to you and has said that you help him with things etc and he finds talking to you helpful. He is telling you that he likes talking to you (and so he should!). You gave him space... now reward him with your lovely self, because that is what it is. Remember that he is privileged to have you calling him. What I am saying, in a very long winded fashion is, that have confidence in yourself. You have no reason not to.
Thank you SO MUCH for your supportive, loving words!!!
((essie)) thank you for being so reassuring and giving me a good script to follow in an emergency! and for making me laugh about a monster kissing the beard!
((lisa)) you are so loving and encouraging. I have really been thinking a lot about what you said CEO said too. Hmmm.....
((Julia)) thank you thank you thank you thank you!!!
Sooo.....
I just got off the phone with B!! We talked for about half an hour. I got a 97% on my sight singing final, and came home feeling too tired to get very stressed about calling him, so I called!!
When he picked up the phone I said I just wanted to call to say hello and see how he was doing. He said he was doing great and I said I was doing great and then he asked me how my recital went. I told him about how I was having breakthroughs right up to when I walked out on stage (and then gave some specifics) so I was a little unsure what to focus on in the performance. And then I told him how much the recording he sent me (after our last phone conversation) helped me. And also, how his idea to work with a recording (instead of the printed sheet music) inspired me to work with a bunch of other recordings, which REALLY helped my playing. How working with the recording helped me realize I had my own ideas, and also forced me to replicate a musical idea instead of getting tangled up in the physical demands of the cello.
I mentioned that I had a chance to play in a masterclass for XX XXXX, this really famous cellist, and how he talked about the same idea... and then we discussed the other really advanced idea (expressive intonation) that the really famous cellist talked about with me. B and I were both sort of perplexed by the concept... he shared some experiences with his quartet that were similar. I felt like I had a lot more that I wanted to tell him about my recital but I had been talking for a while so I excitedly asked, "what is going on in your world?"
He launched into a long travel saga of his airplane trip back to NYC from his parent's in CA. (this is unusual for him, ever since I've known him he'd never gone home to CA for thanksgiving.) He had an 8 am flight out of fresno back to NYC, and stayed up all night with his brother C the night before so he could sleep on the plane. Then his flight was delayed 9 hours... and then his he missed his connecting flight, and then when he got to NYC he had missed the shuttle reservation he had already paid for and needed to wait an hour for the shuttle to come. It was all very lighthearted storytelling, not really complaining. Then he said, "There's something I wanted to tell you..." and I got really nervous, but then, he said, "I met a lady on the super shuttle van who just came back from Bali!" (where I spent the summer of 2005) and before that the lady had lived in Atlanta (like me).
He said he wondered if she had some of the same experiences as I did when I was in Bali and it turned out that she did.. for example she was also in a motorcycle accident when she was there. I jokingly asked if she had the same scar (I have a tailpipe burn-roadrash scar on the back of my right knee) and he said laughing, "no, her scar is on her ankle!" I didn't say anything, but I thought it was nice that he was excited to meet someone who had similar experiences as me. It also made me happy that he remembered something specific about my body, like where my bali scar is, especially because it is almost invisible.
Throughout the story I laughed and made appropriate groaning noises.
Then he asked me how my thanksgiving was and how I got there. I told him that the traveling part was easy compared to his trip... direct flight to DC and my dad picked me up at the airport. I mentioned that things were going a lot better with me and my family, and how I ended up visiting them 4 times this past summer. I told B that I had been trying to connect to my family however they wanted to connect instead of trying to get them to connect the way *I* wanted them to connect. I mentioned that in the past when I tried to coach them on how to connect with me, my family would just get really discouraged and dejected, so I was trying something different so there would actually be a connection. I communicated all of this very *lightly*.
I said that this trip was more stressful than the visits over the summer, probably because I was actually trying to get work done. I explained that I had a sightsinging final today, and because I hadn't really been practicing my sightsinging during the semester, I decided to spend the thanksgiving break memorizing the two chapters of melodies that the test would be based on. B groaned sympathetically. And when I told him I got a 97 percent today he was excited!!
At two different points he got another call and switched over to take it. The first was from his friend J, his best guy friend from college. After that call when he clicked back over, I asked if I should let him go, and he said not at the moment but that "someone" was coming to pick him up soon and he'd need to go when "they" got there. Later on he got another call and when he switched back over he said he was still trying to figure out how to switch from call to call on his new phone, a blackberry which he bought secondhand from his friend H over the summer. I asked him if he was addicted to his blackberry (he used to joke about the violist in his quartet being addicted to his "crackberry") and he said no, but he'd rather have an Iphone, but he didn't want to switch providers. Then he said that he needed to go/simulatneously while I asked if he needed to go, and I said, OK, have a beautiful evening! He said that he would call me soon. And I said take care, and then we said bye and hung up.
Overall it was good. No real awkwardness, and it felt more "normal" than previous conversations, because he was telling me about everyday stuff in his life. It made me nervous that he didn't tell me who was picking him up or where he was going, but I guess that is normal. I felt like I talked more than previous conversations, which might have explained the lower awkwardness level, but was less of a 180 for me. I was hoping that I'd get a chance to casually mention I'd be in new york in december, so that in our next conversation he could either ask me when I'd be there, or I could ask him. I didn't get to mention it in this conversation, but that's OK... my plans are really flexible, and if need be I can even go to NYC in January if he's not there in December.
Since I'm going to be in NYC possibly as soon as the 15th, I think I'll wait a week and if B hasn't gotten back to me then, I will contact him to try to make plans.
What do you think?
thanks again for your loving, affirming encouragement!! thank you to anyone who actually read all of this!
the conversation felt less relaxed than our last one, I think because he was expecting to be picked up at any moment, and I wasn't sure how much I should get into anything if he might need to interrupt me. I think this brought back an old dynamic I've been trying to overcome--where I would launch into a story regardless of whether or not he was up for listening to it, and kind of try to squeeze attention out of him because, in the past, I felt like I needed it or he owed me. Instead of just letting him go.
I didn't do any 180s... in terms of flirting or asking a ton of questions... but I think it's good that I finally called him, and that we had another comfortable contact.
thank you thank you thank you!!!