Even Dieters Hate Thin Seekers
Sorry you feel that way, [C].
I didn’t end things with [Ann] immediately, because I DID NOT know at the beginning that it wouldn’t work. In fact, at the very start last June, I was eager meet her again, and believed that it would indeed work. It took time to reach the conclusion that it wouldn’t with certainty. Once I was certain, I told her that I couldn’t go forward, without appreciable delay.
In writing you that voluminous email, I wasn’t trying to convince myself of anything. I wrote it because yours and Ellen’s friendship is important to me, and I wanted to preserve that, if possible. As I said, we from the school are part of a sort of extended family – a family that is dwindling in size with each passing year. So I don’t want to lose friends from that family if I can help it. Thus I offered you the explanation to preserve our friendship, not to bolster any sagging confidence in the “rightness” of my position that you’re suggesting I have.
No, I am not a good actor, and beyond telling you all about my interest in connecting with [Ann] last June, never said anything on the chat line or elsewhere that could rightly be construed as definite interest in a future with her. I avoided saying anything that others would take to mean commitment to [her]. You know this to be true. So please don’t act like I misled you about my intensions. It seems that you heard what you wanted to hear (just like [Ann] did) and not what was actually said. Why would I want to “act” and deny feelings of attraction for [her] if indeed I had them? I’ve looked for my special lady for a long time now. Have longed for her. Have cried myself to sleep on numerous occasions because she hasn’t come to me. Rest assured that if feelings had developed for [Ann], I’d be telling the word about them with my loudest voice. You’re finding underhanded secrecy where none exists.
I did tell [her] exactly how I felt (and did not feel) and the kinds of ladies that I found attractive, at the beginning as well as throughout our association. In fact, I saved all our emails, which confirm this. I told her then that I wasn’t sure if she and I could have a romantic relationship, but wanted to explore the possibility, because of our history and the childhood feelings I had for her. She agreed, seeming to understand the proviso. And on the phone, when she wanted to come visit me, I told her that I was not ready. This was before she invited me to come visit her. Yet she invited me nonetheless, knowing that I had denied her request to visit me, and that I was not looking to advance the relationship further at that time.
She said she accepted that. So I made the trip. She went into this with her eyes open, and there was never any intention or action by me for that matter, to obscure my feelings, which for almost three months, were uncertain. I told her repeatedly that they were uncertain. And she said that this was okay and that we could move slowly.
You know, it occurs to me that if I had rejected [Ann] after meeting her at the alumni convention (as you seem to be suggesting I should have done), you probably would have said I was shallow then, too, for not giving her a fair chance. Even she has said that – that I should have given her more time to see if things were really going to work out. I never knew for sure things would NOT work out, until a few days before this past Friday, when I told her.
Well, I gave it enough time, and it didn’t take off. That’s the way things go. Relationships are risky. You’re just lucky you found someone with whom you click so well with, and got to marry him. So lose the righteous attitude already. You’re no better at this than I. You just got very lucky and happened to find someone compatible.
Refuting another of your accusations: I was not looking for anyone else while talking to [Ann]. As I explained to her, I had emailed this new lady back in July, before there was even a good friendship established between [Ann] and me. This lady never responded until late September, a couple days prior to the alumni board meeting. Again, you can believe what you will about the timing of the events. But I was there. I know how it really happened, and my conscience is clear. I did not handle [Ann] dishonorably.
On [her] computer: I did not uninstall Internet Explorer. Who told you that?
Here’s what the deal is: There are some processes that start up when the computer boots that were preventing her from logging into AOL. I disabled them and she was then able to log in. However, one of them appears to involve Winsock (Windows Sockets) which IE needs to access the Internet. I believe this is why she can’t browse the web.
It is easily fixed by reactivating that process. In fact, I offered to fix it for her if she ships the CPU box to me. But on second thought, given all that has been said, that’s probably not such a good idea.
I also told her that if that was not acceptable, that I’d work with you [C], to help her get it going again. No, I had no idea that I wouldn’t be returning to her house during my last visit. I did not purposely sabotage her computer as you seem to be suggesting, and if you believe I did, then you don’t know me very well, and perhaps friendship with you would be more of a liability than it’s worth, since you seem so quick to find sinister intent where there is none. But, whatever.
Wow, that’s a nasty thing to say to someone, [C], that you wish they were blind. I guess I didn’t know you as well as I thought. What malice.
Well, we could argue and argue about this and never change each other’s minds. So I won’t try again. You have your opinion and are certainly entitled to it, misinformed and judgmental as it is. I am sorry however, that you feel as you do. We seemed to work so well together helping Mike with his computer. We might have become consultants for others having problems with their PCs. Oh well. It was not to be.
I would caution you not to judge me so harshly. Someday, you may be in a position to make a similar choice yourself. You never know. Almost certainly in your past, there was at least one guy you rejected because you decided after a bit that you weren’t attracted to him. [Ann] has rejected her share of men as well. She told me about them. If you did this at any time, then your criticism of me loses some potency.
We all decide whether or not to get more involved with people using criteria that others would deem shallow. Some girls like guys who make lots of money or have accents. Some guys like thin girls, others like fat ones, and still others aren’t moved by physical attributes at all. They go for how he thinks.
But is how he thinks any less of a shallow motive than how he looks? I don’t think so, because how a person looks, speaks volumes about how they think, what their values and beliefs are, how they understand and prioritize healthy living, how long they might live and what their quality of life will be, and so on. [Much of] a person’s looks are the outgrowth of what’s in their head. You can’t separate the looks from the mind, as so many people (particularly heavy women, I’ve observed) attempt to do. Yes, [Ann's] weight was a concern for me. And I told her that in June. However, in June, I was not ready to summarily rule her out. At that time, I thought it likely that I’d discover some very nice things about her, that would offset her weight. So I stuck around, and looked. But I didn’t find anything, sorry to say.
Don’t get on me about placing a premium on fitness. You yourself have been engaged in a weight-loss program for some time now. Weight is obviously very important to you as well.
To your point about me, thinking a great deal about myself because I thought that [Ann] couldn’t get over me: Again, you’re doing a lot of premature, unfounded judging. I had good reason to be concerned that [she] had become unstable as a result of our talk on Friday. She sent me an email over the weekend, saying she was thinking about “doing something stupid.” She later confirmed that she meant taking an overdose of pills. Fortunately, she came to her senses and didn’t do it.
So yes, after she said she was contemplating doing something like this, I was concerned that she would have difficulty getting over our ended relationship. And that was not because I think of myself as God’s gift to women, because I don’t. I was very concerned about her after her comments.
Let me say for my last point that getting into relationships is like peeling onions. When you first encounter the onion, the only part you see is the outer skin. Then, with each story shared, with each argument had, with each new nice memory created with the other, the layers of the onion come away. Since people are so complex and changing, you never reach the center of the onion, no matter how long you’ve known the person.
Sometimes, if you’re very lucky, you don’t encounter any worms in the onion as you peel it. But sometimes, you learn things about the other in the course of peeling you didn’t know before, that you couldn’t have known before, that squelch your desire to continue peeling. The things learned that might make someone want to turn away vary, depending on the people involved, their upbringings, their genes, and so on. This was the case with [Ann].
My point is that it’s impossible to know every important thing about a person at the beginning. Sometimes, it takes years to learn enough to know for certain whether you want to move forward or retreat. With [Ann], it took about three months.
You slight me for talking to her on the phone so much. But there was no other way to peel the onion. How else would I learn about her, if not by talking at great length? I was intrigued by and curious about her, and before the alumni convention, indeed I was enthralled with the thought of she and I getting together. I wanted to peel that onion. But in the end, I had to stop.
I regret having lost you as a friend and that you seem too closed-minded to even acknowledge the truth in my side of the story. But since that’s not forthcoming, hey, life goes on. I’ll make new friends. That’s easy.
I’m glad however, that [Ann] has you to support her.
Later,
Tom Hesley
February 27th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
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