Unrequited Love Blog

Well, I have, actually.  I have emailed a couple of friends, who don’t live in the area.  But I don’t talk with anyone locally about my feelings or my blog.  For one thing, it just feels too risky to me, I can’t have anything getting around about “Professor {my name} really wanted this student, she tried to talk to her but the student wasn’t interested” — basically gaining me a negative and predatory reputation, even if that wasn’t the intent of the gossipers.  For another thing, after a while people just don’t want to hear about this stuff.  I don’t mention too much in my emails anymore, at least not about Jessica or this blog.  I do still talk about my marriage/divorce, of course.

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I have really thin skin today.  I keep calling myself an idiot about the whole thing with Jessica, and generally feeling like a socially awkward, well, idiot. It’s funny how this cycle of self-criticism:realistic analysis:overinflated hopeful evaluation:self-criticism keeps looping around and around.  The intensity levels may vary a bit, bit it’s essentially the same stuff.

Today, a self-critical thin-skinned day, I realize how geeky I tend to come across, and I wish I were smoother.  I want better clothes, more money, more youth, more chances to start over again.  Have you seen the movie “Adaptation” with Nicolas Cage and Meryl Streep?  Charlie Kaufman is such a good writer, poignant and universal.  Toward the end of the movie, after the orchid hunter is killed, Meryl Streep’s character cries, eventually saying “I want to be a baby again, I want to start over, I want to do the whole thing over, I want to be a baby again.”  That’s kind of how I feel today.  Maybe this is tied to my feelings about my mother, and my associations between feelings about Jessica and feelings about my mother (see “Later in September Month 16″).

Also in this movie, Charlie Kaufman and his fictional twin brother Donald are talking, Charlie is telling Donald that Donald was laughed at by the girl he was in love with in high school.  Donald (the life-affirming, out-going twin) says yes, he knew that, he heard her talking about him as he walked away.  But it was his love, and no one was going to take it away from him, not even the girl he was in love with.  I also feel like this at times.  It’s my love, even if I’m the only one who feels it or even sees it as legitimate or “real” or…I don’t know…noble or something, the kinds of things love should be.  Hmmm, maybe I’ll write a film review of Adaptation for the website.

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I’ve been reading back over my own blog, trying to get a sense of how I felt over time, as well as how I come across on the blog.  One thing that occurs to me is how incredibly cliche I am for falling for a younger student when I’m just pushing middle-aged.  Also, how incredibly cliche (or typical, to be kinder) I am in my general reactions — jealous, possessive, obsessive, writing bad poetry (see “Unrequited” on Musings page of website), insecure, self-critical.  Really, I’m not usually so neurotic.  It’s love that has made me neurotic !   Or, the unrequited variety of love, at least.

I’m typically not a poetry writer.  But this is often something people do when in love — write poetry or love notes even if they have never done so before.  It’s so embarrassingly adolescent.  The whole website/blog thing is a little embarrassingly adolescent.  But it’s been helpful, nonetheless, to be able to express some of this stuff.  Anonymously.  Thank God.

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I’m not sure why, but I’m feeling more self-critical today regarding the whole thing with Jessica.  The “whole thing” being, I suppose, our interactions, how I perceived/misperceived our interactions, my feelings about her and in general, my obsessive behaviors post-contact.  When I’m feeling this way, which has come in waves throughout this process, I torture myself with these types of automatic thoughts:

“This is ridiculous.  You’re acting nowhere near your age.  You aren’t in love with her, you don’t even know her.  You’re in complete denial about your creepy behaviors and how most people would respond to them.  You’ve been incredibly obsessive and bad. You probably freaked her out (and embarrassed yourself) by sort of pursuing her via email contact after the end of class.  She was being nice to you, there is NO WAY she would ever have been interested in you, even if she WERE bisexual/gay (which she isn’t, you idiot).  You’re always overshooting when it comes to attraction.  You’re basically a geek, and like most geeks, just not that sexually attractive or charismatic.  Students at the university now know you as “that professor who had a crush on Jessica Smith” or even worse, “that professor who comes onto students.”  Why the hell are you still thinking about her?  It’s pathetic.”

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Just thought I’d share that I’m feeling sad again today. Depressed, really. I think it’s related to my upcoming divorce and feeling unattractive and alone. I’m thinking a little about Jessica and trying not to. I’m more aware she is likely starting a family, she will be pregnant any day now (if she’s hasn’t already had a baby) and really moving forward with her life, and I really need to not be thinking about her. Even my thinking about her feels intrusive (towards her, I mean).  I really need to not be thinking about a pregnant, married woman.

And I can feel depression on the heels of love, I can feel it coming. It’s partly wrapped up in not being able to be with or get to know Jessica, but bigger than that, too. The bone-weary, depleted, tears-in-my-throat sort of feeling of being disappointed in life, disappointed in myself, having the veils of self-delusion ripped away by reality. “What? Romance? Listen, you’re not that hot. Face it, you’re middle-aged. You really should of just kept what you had. You can’t afford a decent place in the city, anyway. Your dog is a huge problem (and certainly doesn’t win you friends). You’ll be poor and alone, instead of just poor.”

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