Another deflating encounter; another sleepless night. At my wits’ end.
Last night was the music school’s end of year concert. I was going to play in 2 numbers and was pissing myself; both for the performance and because I knew I’d see him. I wanted so much to try 1) being calm (i.e., not being up in his grill like last Saturday) 2) being attractive 3) showing him that I care 4) trying to bridge that physical gap that has always existed between us.
I think I succeeded in doing all of those things, but it was just another whirlwind of mixed signals from him; mostly neutral/negative. When I got to the concert, I was prepared to find him in tense “work” mode and I planned to give him space, but instead I saw that he was jolly. He greeted me with a big grin and an old inside joke; a little later I asked him if I could see the set list and asked teasingly if he’d be performing. He said, “I’ll be dancing!” I said, “Excellent. I’d pay money to see that.” He gave me a strange grin (confused? surprised? impulsive?) and said, “Let’s discuss that!” So I felt pretty good about the potential of the evening, but it just went downhill from there. After that, it seemed like he was trying his hardest to ignore me; he was laughing and joking with all of the students and people who came up to him, but, again, it was like I was a piece of furniture. I tried hard to catch his eye but couldn’t; when I finally did, he gave me a strange, conspiratorial grimace and went on his way. When it was my band’s turn to perform he gave me a very perfunctory, “Ready?” and then as I got on the stage he patted my back as though I were a horse. But after our number, nothing. No “well done,” nothing. I couldn’t even catch his eye. Not even once through 3 hours of performances.
After the concert, I talked a bit with some other students and out of the corner of my eye, I saw him head to the pizza joint on the corner and my heart sank: no opportunity to ask him to eat something with me. Finally, he came near to where I was and sat down in a chair a few feet away from me. I got up and went over to him. He looked at me and shook his head “no” as I approached!!! He continued to shake it “no” as I got closer.
“What do you mean?” I said.
“I’m tired,” he said, and then he switched to English (during our marathon, I had told him how much I like it when he speaks English): “It’s better you don’t stay near to me… I smell like an horse.”
“You smell fine,” I said (don’t know if he heard me). He tried to say some other things in English but then someone came and interrupted us. After they left, I tried to bring up something we’d talked about during our marathon (relating to his favorite movie of all time, The Bourne Identity). He said, “Yeah, that’s a great movie. One of my favorites. You saw it again? Or you just saw it? Oh. You saw it because I told you I liked it, because I told you to?” He looked at me strangely.
People kept interrupting us and he got up and went to go deal with them. I was trying so hard to be calm and not panic like last Saturday, so I sat down with some friends and had pizza with them, telling jokes and acting like I hadn’t a care in the world. Another band member came over to try to hit on me and I made sure to be as neutral as possible. But it was almost 2 in the morning and I felt like I was getting nowhere. I kept thinking about how he had shaken his head “no” when I approached. I decided to call it a day. As I was leaving, I heard him call out, “Bye, penelope” and I went over to him. But he was sitting next to this crazy drummer guy, and every time I tried to talk to him, the crazy guy interrupted me to ask me about myself or flirt with me. I made my responses as brief as possible and focused on F, but it was getting damn near impossible. F complained that he was exhausted, that he’d been preparing the concert since 8 in the morning: “I’m absolutely cooked!” I poked him in the arm and said, “Yes, you’re cooked perfectly” - no response. His friend kept cockblocking. I looked over at F and he was smiling at me with a nice smile. I wanted to rub his shoulders, I wanted to kiss him on the cheek, something, anything, but that crazy jackhole wouldn’t quit interrupting me and there were too many people around so I gave up. I told him, “I hope you have a nice rest” and “thank you so much for everything. I’m so glad your coworkers pushed me to participate in this concert” and “I hope you feel satisfied. It was a beautiful event. You did something wonderful tonight.” I put my hand on his shoulder twice as I was speaking (something I’ve never done before). No response. I stammered, “i’ll see you… tomorrow… saturday… later… I don’t know. Good night.” He smiled nicely but said nothing. I went home, crestfallen.
He’s not being totally cold (I’ve seen him totally cold; it’s horrible); I’m still getting nice smiles and even unprompted inside jokes so I know that his feelings for me remain, but the wall is up again and it’s thick. My impression is that he’s trying extremely hard to push me away, to the point where he’s using a lot of energy to do so; for him to not even tell me “well done” on my performance is absolutely mental. Like I’m a total stranger! Just a week ago he wanted to invite me to dinner again after our marathon, two weeks ago we were together until 3 in the morning and just a week before that he was falling all over himself to get my attention. I know I panicked when he tried to ask me out again; I know I take huge steps forward and then steps back. I want so much to change and I’m trying but when he’s like this it brings all of my rejection trauma back and it’s like I can’t move.
How long have you been in Italy? I was gonna ask how come your english is so perfect, but now I know. I would loooove to live in the States. I was just thinking about it yesterday. Ahhhh one can dream.