(Continued from Beef Cake: Part 1)

It was a beautiful winter day, driving towards the Berkshire Mountains.  The sun was out and the sky was crystal clear – not a cloud anywhere.  Everything looked pristine.  The sun was really warm and bright, hanging high in the sky – so much that I even cracked open Red Rocket’s sunroof.  Snow was still on the ground and blanketed the rolling hills that seemed to go on forever; it was truly a perfect day.

Once again, doubt and fear of being disappointed had made its way into  my thoughts.  Have I trumped up this image of Beef Cake in my head?  Am I getting my hopes up too high?  I’ve seen his pictures.  I’ve spent hours on the phone with him – but something is bothering me.  I’ve seen this scenario before…I’m scared this won’t work.  Is he too good to be true?

Over the last few years, I had become very conscious of who I let in my life. I’m not going to go for someone who doesn’t get me and I certainly am not going to date someone simply to have someone in my life.  Being single isn’t all that bad. I’d rather be single than date someone who is not right for me.  I’m trying to go for the right guy – and certainly Beef Cake treated me the way I deserve to be treated.

I’m determined to keep my eye on the prize. I’ve done everything right.  I’m taking my time, I’m staying focused. So then why, in God’s name, am I thinking about the texts I received two weeks ago from someone else?!

I clutch the steering wheel with both hands out of frustration.  I swear, I need my head examined.  I’m a horrible person for letting my thoughts stray.  I’m about to meet Beef Cake for the first time and yet here I am thinking about texts that I deliberately ignored…

Damn you, DC Dude!  You have horrible timing. What’s wrong with me?  More importantly, what’s wrong with DC Dude?  It’s February and we are still doing this.  We are still playing this stupid cat-and-mouse game.  We are pathetic!  I’m pathetic! Nine whole months went by before DC Dude decided to show up out of nowhere and ended up spending a night together.   Where did that come from?  I’m pretty sure he was just as surprised as I was that his friend’s parents who he was helping move, lived just up the street from me.

Yes, you read that right.  DC Dude lives 250 miles away in Washington, DC and he ends up a half mile away from my house.  Literally.  Up the street.

Coincidence?

My intuition says, “No.”

He shows up in the middle of the night, and we were so happy to see each other, but then what does he do?

He disappears….again!

No call.

No text.

No nothing.

Like Becky says, that’s bad form!  Thank God I didn’t have sex with him, because it would have made me feel like I was being used for a hook-up.

And, so my intuition was right.  I felt bad I didn’t hear from DC Dude after that night, but I would have felt worse had I given up my “Penis Free” status for him.  Worse?  Hell, I would have been pissed.

And, to continue on with the dysfunction that DC Dude and I are so good at (yes, I do take some of the blame) three weeks before his birthday in December he was once again on my mind as I wondered if I should call him on his birthday or not.

Do I call?

Do I not call?

Do I call?

Do I not call?

Birthdays are special – show him you care.  Don’t text, just call.  You would want him to call you on your birthday.

So, I called and he answered saying, “I was just recently thinking about you.”

It was good to hear his voice again.  We spoke for ten minutes and from there the conversations continued for about a week and a half; some by text, some by phone, but in the end I got the same result:

He disappeared.

Again.

And, again…I stopped trying.

With DC Dude, he makes me feel discouraged, disgusted, disappointed, sad and tired. It shouldn’t be this difficult. So, I inquired with a few  of the chicks in the Hen House that best know me and they agreed that I was still hung up on DC Dude because …and I quote, “He’s the guy you can’t have and you always like a challenge, Carrie.”

My response to that statement was that I like a guy that intrigues me…there’s a difference you know between a “challenge” and “intrigue.”  One is a lot healthier than the other, no?  I said it a long time ago, I’ll say it again, I need someone who has a little swagger.  I don’t think there is anything wrong with that.  Besides, there are definitely a few other guys that I couldn’t have (I know, hard to believe), but I never got hung up on them like this.

Jesus, I just admitted that I’m still hung up on DC Dude.

Mother…

What’s wrong with this picture?! Here I am on my way to meet wonderful Mr. Beef Cake, and I’m thinking about Mr. “Disappearing Act” DC Dude.

We clearly have unfinished business and it just frustrates the snot out of me!!!  I know this is life, but I just want to know, could we work or not?  But, how can I work with someone who doesn’t communicate with me anymore…and furthermore, do I want someone who disappears into his shell when the doggie poop hits the fan?

Only one person is allowed to hide in their shell when things go bad…

*pointing at herself*

…and that’s me.

So, even though I’ve done my best to move on and invest my time in someone who is willing to put in the effort into a relationship (uhmm, that would be Beef Cake) I couldn’t help but think of the last text DC Dude sent.

DC Dude:  We need a weekend together.  Miss ya.

Somebody shoot me, please!  I swear he’s trying to torture me.  Why does DC Dude do this?

Ignore!

Ignore!

Someone, please tell me, is this an innate thing that guys have or, is it in a guy’s handbook somewhere that tells you exactly when to disappear and then reappear at the EXACT right moment to drive the tall, red head nutty? I really don’t get it.  Why?  Why now?  No, DC Dude, you don’t get to chime in like that.  You want to see me and you miss me and you say this in a text?

Don’t I at least deserve a phone call? 

Beef Cake calls all the time…I’m sticking with Beef Cake!

Both hands still firmly on the steering wheel, I’m cruising along in 6^th gear through the rolling snow-covered hills,  trying to swallow the butterflies, which are still insisting on fluttering up into my throat.  I remind myself that I’m about to meet Beef Cake for the first time, but my mind still flip-flops.  On one hand, I have the wonderful Mr. Beef Cake, and on the other, I have DC Dude still lingering in my head.  It’s so wrong, so I reach over to turn up the music hoping to drown out the thoughts in my head. 

We are meeting Beef Cake – you CANNOT be thinking of DC Dude right now!

The drive seems to take forever.  I just need to know.  Is it Beef Cake, or not?  My gut intuition pipes in and I hear it say, “Just enjoy the next three days with him.”

Great! It’s never a good sign when your gut isn’t even giving you encouraging words.  Fine, I’m just going to go with it.  I’m Zen, dammit.  ZEN! 

Ommmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm……

Over the last couple of weeks there had been a slow, progressive build-up of sexual tension between me and Beef Cake.  Our conversations were all kept “PG,” but it did come up eventually how long it had been since we both had nookie.  I thought I had gone a long time, but he had gone even longer.  Once we had that conversation, talking about sex was no longer off the table.  We  joked about how obvious it was that people on Plenty of Crap just used the website to hook-up, and we were  both determined not be that couple.

So then why did we book a hotel room for the next three days?!

Beef Cake came out of the front doors and we walked towards each other with a smile on our faces – we were both laughing. He walked up to me and wrapped me in his arms and gave me a big hug.  FINALLY!

(If you have never been in this situation before, then it’s hard to explain how it feels meeting someone for the first time after corresponding with them for a long time.  I knew him, but I didn’t.  It was a little awkward.)

Hand-in-hand we walked inside together and when he opened the door to our candle-lit room, inside was a big, beautiful, pink bouquet of flowers.  “Oh my God, you got me flowers!”

We sat down on the couch and he handed me a pretty white bag filled with two more boxes of tea, a few more candles, a pair of earrings, lavender body oil, and a pretty heart-shaped bar of lavender soap all from the same boutique he had bought my care package from.  I was on cloud nine – from the candles, to the flowers – he had thought of everything to make this moment special.  It was perfect.  I was happy.  He had really put in a lot of effort to make sure our meeting didn’t feel like a hook-up.  There was no doubt that he was definitely into me.

It was so nice to finally be face-to-face with a guy that had intrigued me for the last six weeks…six weeks, which in reality felt like an eternity.

Before we met, Beef Cake made it crystal clear that he was off the market.  He even deleted his Plenty of Crap profile (which I never did) and told me that I was the only person he was interested in pursuing.  Big points for him, so being with him was really effortless.  I genuinely liked him.

Our first night together was fun.   I couldn’t remember when the last time I could just really enjoy myself without having to worry about what drove a guy’s motivation to be with me.  He was just as nervous as I was and before our meeting I remember him joking, “Sex is just like riding a bike, right?”  Yes, just like riding a bike, Beef Cake.   And, because we had built our relationship on a foundation of friendship and trust, sex was all that much better.

Ah, buh-bye Penis Free status!!!

Beef Cake made himself transparent and emotionally available, on every level. He was sweet, kind, considerate, attentive and fun.  Things were going great!

Then it happened…and we were only on day two.  I was feeling loved, appreciated and totally comfortable with Beef Cake and thinking this could really work with him…until his ex-girlfriend, who is the mother of his 8-year old daughter, called and reality quickly set in.

Beef Cake had serious baby mamma drama!

The volume on his cell phone was up, so I could hear everything the ex-girlfriend (of 10 years) was saying yelling.  And by the sound of it, man was she pissed off!

I knew the back-story on his ex-girlfriend. In my humble opinion, she was a nut job and there was no doubt in my mind that she was a jealous, self-centered, conniving, ignorant, selfish, possibly bi-polar, twit.

For example, one day she asked him to do her a favor and drop off her Vicodin prescription at the drug store.   She claimed she couldn’t manage to get to the drug store herself after going to the ER for a “toothache.”   So he went, because he’s such a sweet guy.  But, when Beef Cake got to the pharmacy and handed the prescription to the pharmacist the woman stopped him from leaving the pharmacy citing that the prescription was fraudulent.

You know this is going to be good….

Yup!  His awesome ex-girlfriend changed the dosage on the piece of paper from a “1” to a “7”.

Can you imagine?!  If someone had done that to me, that would have been the end of that relationship and I wouldn’t have cared if we shared a kid or not.  It would be OVER!

But for whatever reason, Beef Cake was tied to this crazy twit.  I sat on the bed trying to watch a movie, but instead watch Beef Cake pace the room as he tried dealing with her.  She was being a twat, because I could hear everything she was saying to him loud and clear.  He was trying to stay calm, but it was obvious that he was agitated and upset.    I had warned him that this sort of thing would happen.  I knew full she was going eventually going to catch on that he took off for three days to see me and obvious she would be calling at some point with some sort of “emergency” about his daughter.

Beef Cake was trying hard to not make a scene.  He didn’t say much because  she was yelling so much, he couldn’t even get a word in – and then like the nut job that she is, she hung up on him! Who does that?  And trust me, this was not some 30-something year old twit.  This was coming from a 45-year old twit!

Oh, and it gets better…

The following morning, his 8-year old daughter did the same thing.

Called, yelled at her father, and then hung up on him.

And, later that night, his mother – his own mother, did the same thing to him.

Called, yelled and hung up.

And much to my chagrin, he took it.

And each time I witnessed one of them hanging up on him, my heart sank.

I tried to talk to Beef Cake about his situation, trying to point out to him that all three women in his life had no boundaries and were treating him like he was their door mat.

“Don’t worry about it. I’ll just deal with it when I get home.”

*Sweeping it under the rug*

Even though his 8-year old daughter hung up on him the night before, dutifully he called the following morning to wish her a good day at school.  It was like her hanging up on him never happened.  And when he finally did get home a day later he never brought it up with her  or discussed her bad behavior about hanging up on daddy, because, naturally, I asked.

I was starting to realize that he was the parent who didn’t want to rock the boat with their own child.  Being liked was more important than being respected.  No discipline, because that might upset her – a recipe for disaster.

I adored Beef Cake, but now I had no respect for him.

Houston, we have a problem…

I’m thinking about all of this as I stood there in my kitchen a few days after I had gotten home from staying with Beef Cake for those three days.  On the radio,  John Mayer started to sing a song I was very familiar with…and then, my mind started to wander.

Again.

Not caring about the consequences and just going with my heart, I grabbed my cell phone, took a quick swig of my coffee, scrolled through my texts, until I found the message I received three weeks before and typed up my response to DC Dude.

Then, without any hesitation, I pushed the send button…