It's ten o'clock on a Saturday night and why am I not at either of the parties I was invited to?

Because I feel like shit. Physically, I feel really run-down (tired and a little stuffed up.) Emotionally, I am exhausted.

I just can't do it anymore. This thing with Mr Mature. Yes, we had agreed to be friends. Yes, he knew my feelings for him despite this. Yes, when we last met up and he made a move, I responded. Yes, I understood how we couldn't really be together--despite our mutual attraction--because of his residual feelings for his ex-girlfriend. But no, I don't regret what happened. I'm okay with all of that. I was okay--at least relatively so--with this undefined relationship (it really wasn't "friends with benefits"... It was in a weird and wonderful territory all its own.)

But then, when we were supposed to meet up again two weekends ago, Mr Mature called to cancel. But he didn't just do that. Mr Mature, the man who hates the phone, and I chatted for two hours! He said that it had been a while since he had talked to anyone on the phone for that length of time. We decided we'd try to get together the next evening (Saturday).

But we didn't. He lost track of time when he was out on his own after work and got home over an hour and a half later than he wanted. And he called to cancel. It was twenty to nine and he need to be asleep by eleven because he had to work at six-thirty the next morning. I understood. Things like that happen and everyone needs their sleep. We didn't reschedule this time. So instead of going out we had another one of our great conversations (this one being about forty-five minutes long.)

And, out of the blue, he called me the next day (two Sundays ago) and that's not something that he really did before. He always called when we had something planned, but never just to talk. We had another nice forty-five minute chat.

Each conversation that weekend was so warm, so personable. Like the conversations we have in person.

But when I called him on Tuesday, though we spoke for forty-five minutes, his tone was different. A little distant. Like how he was when we first started talking on the phone. At the time, I didn't analyze this, but now that I've started, I'm baffled. Especially since I didn't hear from him for the rest of the week. When my will to wait until he called me finally weakend last Sunday, I called. The tone was about the same. The conversation lasted for about an hour. He mentioned he was going to Stratford the next day to visit an aunt and uncle and some friends of his (I assume his ex-girlfriend, too.) And he mentioned something about maybe getting together this weekend. And I still haven't heard from him.

And this is what is exhausting me.

I don't know what's going on with him. It had seemed to me that maybe he had begun letting go of his emotional baggage. And perhaps I got my hopes up over nothing. Maybe he got what he wanted--the assurance that he was attractive, physically and intellectual desirable. An assurance that everyone, in all fairness, likes to get.

Every time my phone rings, like Pavlov's damn dogs, I think it will be him. I've even felt myself rushing conversations with my family and friends "just in case." How pathetic! I'm disgusted and angry with myself. My family and friends deserve better.

And I derserve better than what I'm doing to myself.

Yes, what I'm doing to myself. I'm dwelling on this. I wish I could let go, but I can't. I keep hoping.

I can't do this. Head games. He was up front at the beginning, he let me know what was going on. Now, I'm in the dark. And I'm confused. I hate this kind of vulnerability.

Take the taint of my own romantic feelings for Mr Mature away from this situation and we still have the fact that he said he wanted me as a friend. Friends try to stay in touch (whether it be via mail, e-mail, ICQ, MSN or the telephone) with one another (especially when they make plans--tentative or firm), in my experience. But I don't know. Maybe things are different when you're twenty-nine and out in the world of work.

Writing this post, I think what's upsetting me most about this situation is that I feel like such a child. "He didn't call! Wah! Boo-hoo!" I'm letting him ruin my mood--I'm relinquishing power over my own emotions. That's not something I want to do. Ever. I am in control of how I feel. Right? I'm twenty-one years old, not twelve! So why can't I let go?

I think--and this is based upon the feelings I own at the moment--that if I don't hear from him by this Wednesday, I'm going to call him and ask him to return my copy of The Little Prince (my favourite book along with Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar) via his sister. And I think I'll wash my hands of him. If he can't exert the effort to maintain a friendship. He can call me when he wants, but I won't worry myself over him. I can't allow myself to continue as I am now. It's making me miserable.

It's keeping me from parties like the one at which I met Mr Mature. It's keeping me from meeting people who may genuinely be interested in a new friend.