the greatest gift of all

sometimes this thing happens where i have an experience and then i think about it so much that i get kind of fatigued and i don't want to write about it. but since part of the purpose of this blog is to help me remember things that happen and thoughts i have, because i usually have a lot of trouble with this, i'm writing about my birthday anyway.

so thursday night i went to a bonfire. it was at my friend's house and the only people there were me, my friend, her boyfriend, and some random dude who happened to be visiting when i arrived. i wanted him to leave but i didn't want to be rude, so he stayed. the reason i wanted him to leave was that he talks like if reddit were a person and explains things that don't need to be explained. i think after i started drinking i might have been kind of mean to him but he's the kind of person who can't tell the difference between playful bickering and actual irritation which is why he now thinks we're friends. anyway, i smoked a lot also, and my friend took my phone because i told her i was going to text everyone and tell them how pretty the bonfire was. i ate an indeterminate number of turkey dogs and marshmallows. i remember asking my friend if she'd gotten some kind of gourmet fancy turkey dogs for my birthday and she said, "no, these are the cheapest ones i could find in the store. they taste good because of fire and drugs." fire and drugs!
her boyfriend bought bourbon because i told him i liked it, and since i was the only one drinking it, i got to take most of the bottle home with me afterward. i don't know what i'll drink it with yet but i'm excited.

anyway, so then i went home and went to bed, and i didn't wake up until around 2. i went to the person i like's house to pick him up and then we went to dinner. i had pizza and a cocktail, which he paid for.

we debated going to a concert but ultimately decided against it because we thought most of the rest of the attendees would be awful and also i wasn't at all dressed for a concert. instead we went to dessert at the date-y dessert place and it was lovely. he got carrot cake and let me try some - he's really into me trying new foods - and i liked it except it had raisins in it and i hate raisins. i had another drink which was served hot with whipped cream and tasted just like mocha. the person i like paid for all of this too.

i keep mentioning the paying thing because i really do not know what to make of it. he also told me he bought the ingredients for my favorite drink in case i wanted one at his house later. in total he must have spent over $50 on me in one day and that doesn't seem like a normal friendly thing to do but i honestly can't tell. i'll get back to this later.

after dessert we went to a bar. this was the best part. the person i like used to be a bartender so he likes tasting different drinks and figuring out what makes them taste the way they do. i had a bunch of different shots, all of which he picked out, except for the first one, which i think was called pineapple upside down cake. when i told the bartender what i wanted, the person i like said, "i noticed you didn't read the whole menu before you ordered. that's pretty spontaneous for you." it is indeed.
since i wasn't either ordering or paying for my shots, and the bartender was being very generous because it was my birthday, i have no idea how much i had to drink. i know i drank something that tasted exactly like flat coke and another thing that was supposed to taste like a candy bar but all i could taste was caramel. i also know i sang a little and i have the impression that i was talking too loudly at people although the person i like said i wasn't. i know i saw a lot of people i know, including the person who used to be my best friend. he was nice, and kind of nervous, but i wasn't mean because i was having such a nice time. but i noted that he didn't remember that it was my birthday. oh well.

here is where it stopped being fun. the person i like made me drink a cup of water and then drove me back to his house. (i will talk about this thing later too.) he was tired and went to bed relatively early, but he put on netflix for me and poured me another glass of water first. i watched catching fire, which was great, but then things got unpleasant. i wasn't very tired, and i was lonely, and the house was cold, and i didn't like being so close to the person i like, and he lives in a sketchy neighborhood and i kept hearing people talking outside. but i couldn't leave because he took my keys so that i wouldn't think i was sober and try to drive home and get in trouble. so i just lay on the futon and cried and read on my phone until morning, when i finally dozed off a little. the main reason i was so sad is kind of complicated to explain without sounding like a crazy person (though i am well aware that ship sailed some time ago) but right before he went to bed we were talking about a movie and he was saying how he thought some actress in it was so pretty and then he got me a pillow and blanket and set up the futon and showed me how to use his netflix thing and when he left and shut the door to his room i thought, maybe if i were more like that actress and less like my own terrible self then i'd be on the other side of the door with him and not here by myself. i guess i was just sad that i wasn't a different sort of person and then there was the stress of not being able to get away from that feeling. i wanted to go home and be sad in my own house in my own bed but i couldn't.

anyway the next morning he borrowed my car to do laundry and then we went for breakfast which wasn't very good. he asked me if i was hungover and i said, "no, it's just bright out here and i'm hungry and i hate everyone," and he said, "all of the things you're describing sound like a hangover."
over breakfast we talked about the upcoming spring semester and how i need to start working on the paperwork for that. i told him, "i know i need to work on it but just thinking about it makes me want to go take a nap." he kept saying that i should be in school and that he'd be upset if i didn't at least look for my paperwork this week. i promised i would and then i took him home and then i went home. when i had parked in my driveway i thought the weather was so nice that i let down my car windows and just slept there until it got too cold and i had to go indoors. i like sleeping and eating in my car more than anyone else i've ever met, honestly.

one more thing before i get to the other stuff - the guy from the mall called me once on my birthday right when we were getting in the car to go to the dessert place, and then twice the next day, and he's called twice today. it's annoying and i wish he would stop. okay.

so it frustrates me not being able to tell the difference between normal friendly behavior and what you'd do for someone you're interested in romantically. and i think part of the reason i can't tell is because i really don't believe anyone would ever me interested in me for real. yeah, i know i just wrote about a guy calling me 4 times with no response (i picked up the first time on my birthday to tell him i was busy) because he wants to go on a date with me. the way i explain this to myself is that this person knows nothing about me except for what i look like. you can like anyone if all you know is that they're cute even if they're garbage on the inside. the most upsetting thing about this situation is that i have a feeling that the easiest way to get this person to stop calling me would be to go on a date with him and just behave like i normally would. i'm sure he'd lose my number pretty quickly after that.

the other thing is that i realized on my birthday that my favorite thing about the person i like is how he takes care of me. when we were at the bar and he was picking out shots for me he was so careful about it because he wanted me to like them. i like that he's always encouraging me to eat new things because i never do it on my own. he says, "i can understand why you wouldn't want to pay for something you probably won't like." he says someday he will cook for me and i hope this happens. he made me drink water and go home earlier than i wanted to because he was worried i would get sick and he wanted me to have a good time. he not only remembers my favorite drink but he went out of his way to get the stuff to make it just on the off chance i wanted it. he worries so much about my education. he worries about me in general and it makes me so happy. i've wanted to be cared for before but i don't think i realized how happy it makes me because it hasn't happened to me that often. normally i don't ask for or receive care unless i'm in some kind of serious crisis; i'm not used to someone wanting to look after me in general.

i like it so much i think there may be something sort of sexual about it. and what's interesting to me is that there are so many ways of thinking about the desire to be cared for and how i might relate to the person caring for me. i could say: i don't know how to do this thing, so i'm going to make you do it for me because i have power over you. or i could say: i don't know how to do this thing, so i am dependent on you and i need you to help me. i'm more interested in the second thing than the first. my thoughts on this aren't fully-formed yet but i do wonder if what i'm doing is eroticizing my own illness. i feel anxious and incompetent most of the time so it makes sense that i'd fantasize about a person who makes it so i don't have to feel that way. it feels a little like i've decided not to get better and now i'm looking at what my life might be like if i didn't. that's scary enough, but suppose i did make that decision and i went to look for a partner - think about what kinds of people usually seek out partners who view themselves as useless, helpless, and eager to please other people in exchange for love. i'll have to think about this some more.

despite everything, i did have a good birthday: nothing that occurred on the actual date of my birthday was bad in any way. i didn't realize that until just now, but it's pretty funny, i guess.