The one who won't leave me alone, pt. 2: Firecrotch

Alright, so I have to finis this one, because there certainly is more to tell.

And I'm going to try something new; instead of calling my cast of characters random names that I have chosen for them like some terrible real life tragic story from Seventeen magazine, I will call them something personifying my image or association of them. So I will call the one who won't leave me alone "Redhead." Yes, it's simple, but I thought of calling him Fire Crotch, but that might get distracting...

Anyway, I had a conversation with Redhead last night and it seems that every time I talk to him now, I am overtly sarcastic, I make fun of him to his face and I am mean. I am not a mean person. I also take my sweet time calling him back, but so does he.

I know that he is not worth my time, but I wonder if I put up a wall because I still have feelings for him. For a long time I really pined for him, but I don't anymore. But I still obviously still have intense emotions, and it's really, really, really annoying.

I have to see Redhead at a wedding in June, with his new gorgeous thin Indian doctor girlfriend, and I really want it to be a good time. I don't want to feel awkward and frustrated.

Alright, let's backup a little bit shall we? I need to fill in the blanks of the last ten years or so.

Redhead and I never lived in the same city except for before we met each other at camp. Soon after I met him, his family moved to Vegas, to live among the many Mormans that live there (ironic that so many live in the vice capitol of the country) I saw him about twice a year when he came to town to visit cousins. We would go get food, drive around, whatever. I always looked forward to seeing him.

I tried to make quasi moves on him, like putting my legs up on his while watching movies, but it always seemed awkward for him. But I didn't really know how to do things like that, so I would try a little bit and then give up if I wasn't getting anything in response.

I do vividly remember having a conversation when I was about 16 or so about my eyes. I probably said something about how my glasses obscured them or how their color was really boring. He said something really nice like "getting lost" in them or something. I think I didn't know what to do with a comment like that.

I think I already mentioned in part 1 that Redhead is all about lists. How many girls he's kissed, how many countries he's been to, how many girls he's had sex with, etc.

Pretty quickly he came out of his shell and became bubbly, flirtatious, and outgoing. He told me that he liked to kiss girls simply to clear the air of sexual tension. But of course I was never one of those girls. I like to tell me all about it though. And like I mentioned previously, he liked and still likes to remind me that I was his first REAL kiss.

In my last year of college and his first year of med school he would call me at 2 in the morning, and I was okay with this. I don't even remember what we would talk about.

Except he never really told me much about the nice Jewish girl he fell in love with in college. That he kept quiet.

Redhead wanted to hear all about my love life, and when I started having sex, he wanted to give me tips. explicit ones.

So one summer we both went to Europe. Except that I went to Scotland and he had a EuroRail pass that didn't go to the UK. So I got pissed at him. Why wouldn't he come visit me? It was too expensive. Whatever.

Toward the middle of the summer I went to Denmark to visit a friend, and while in Copenhagen, guess who I run into?

Yup, the Redhead.

So I start freaking out and the rest of my summer is shot as far as trying to hook up with any Scots there, especially since I didn't know how to find the one that started it all. My poor friends in Scotland had to listen to me obsess about him and how it was so weird that I RAN INTO HIM ON THE STREETS OF COPENHAGEN. I thought it was a sign from the Gods or some crap.

Later that year back in the U.S. I saw him and told him that I had feelings for him. It was a super big deal for me to do this. All he said was "I'm flattered but.." and that's all I needed to hear, I changed the subject. It was bad. We never talked about it again.

The next summer I went back to Scotland, and he sends me an email saying that we should go somewhere together, on a trip. I wrote back, "how can you ask me a question like that when you know how I feel about you?" I didn't hear back, AT ALL. So I emailed him later sort of apologizing. Obviously since he didn't know how to react, he should just forget I said anything, or something like that.

So I've brought it up a couple times, granted it was 6 and 7 years ago.

Since then I've continued to see him about once or twice a year. While in med school he travelled around a lot moving to a different part of the country every time he changed rotations. I even went to New Orleans with him and some other Jews for Christmas one year including the girl he was fucking. It was awesome. I managed to have a good time though.

Redhead has friends, or acquaintances all around the country. After awhile I started feeling like I was part of his harem. How many other women around the country had crushes on him. I knew of a few. This made me feel pretty horrible and pathetic the more I thought about it.

And since then I've been backing away from him, and (hopefully) obsessing less.

During the last semester of grad school, I was mad at him for some reason I can't even remember and I avoided his calls for months. I just couldn't bring myself to deal with him. This was not a confrontation I wished to have.

Finally when I did talk to him and he asked me why I had been avoiding him, I apologized and said that I was angry with him for some stupid reason and I should have handled it better. He didn't press the subject further.

I feel that there's no point in bringing this stuff up anymore. But now I feel that I just want nothing to do with him and that maybe it's that I don't want anything to do with these feelings anymore, and it almost has nothing to do with him. He just happens to be the person that they are directed at. It has more to do with me and these bottled up emotions

But if I call him now and try to talk this out, I don't even know what I would say. The feelings go back 13 years!

I'm mad at him, but I don't even really care anymore.

I'm wondering that maybe I should force myself to talk to him about all of this just for the sake of the couple that's getting married in June. It's not going to be fun for anybody, especially for me if I can't enjoy myself because of him... But of course it will seem really fishy if I do this now because he's just gotten himself into a relationship, something that he's not had since college I think. He's not just fucking this girl, he's actually dating her. (Not that I really care, I don't want him anymore, I know that!)

Help? Why can't I just let this go? It's because I'm a girl dammit! And we don't readily do that.