What a couple of bastards.

So, I go through this emotionally gut churning experience of asking my best girl to come out to LA with me, get refused, and during that time a few people add me as favorites. I finally come to terms with that refusal, feel a little bit happy again, dole out some funny for you fine people, and experience the double heartbreak of those people de-listing me.

So, what kind of comment does that make? You only love me when I want to sit in the corner of a dark room, feeling like chain-smoking and lamenting over what could have been? It makes you happy to see me in pain?

You are some sick, sick puppies.

Well, if my torment gets them off, go and tell those people to come back. I'm going to lay all the cards on the table. I'm going to give you the full skinny on what FadeIn Historians will eventually call:

You have to laugh through the pain, people. Or at least try. The alternative is not attractive.

I'm writing this entry because, as of Friday, I decided I had to cut off all contact with Sally for at least a month.

Let's put it this way: You want the cliff notes version of this entry, of my life right now, go watch 'Swingers.'

Boy moves to Los Angeles to pursue his dream. Boy leaves amazingly fantastic girl back east. Boy has a tough time getting over girl, especially since girl jumps right into new relationship.

I admit, my version has less swing dancing.

And the girl in the movie sells scrap metal while the new guy drives a horse and buggy. Again, not exactly right.

Otherwise, though, I really wish that 'Swingers' had not yet been written, because if I wanted, I could have written that movie as an autobiograpy based on the last three or so months of my life.

The reasons I feel I have to not talk to Sally:

1: As you may already know, when I went home, I asked her to think about moving back out here with me. I didn't mention this before, but I went all out. I bought a scrapbook and filled it with photographs of Los Angeles, printed pictures from the internet, and text about why she should move out here.

2: She refused. She's taking the time to figure out what's going on with her own life. Think about things. Explore. Has to see if that Perfect Jewish Guy that her grandmother had implanted into her head actually existed.

How could I not respect and understand this? Of course, I do. I was asking another human to change the course of their entire life. I wanted her to take all the time she needed.

We decided at this point, though, to cut out all of the lovey dovey stuff we'd been doing the entire time I'd been gone. If she were going to be going her way, I was going to go mine. So, no more saying 'I love you,' no more saying 'I miss you,' no more gushy baby talk.

She went on her cruise, and we didn't talk for a week. She came back, and we talked every day, a lot, just about what was going on with the two of us, how we felt about everything, etc. etc. etc. We always made sure to stick to what we agreed to do, which was not say the stuff we always said before. The problem was, it wasn't helping either of us get over the other. Maybe it was naive to think that simply cutting out the words would change things.

OK, yeah, it seems pretty naive now.

So, the intention to get over one another was still there, but it wasn't taking hold. We were having a lot of fun talking to each other, as we always had. We were one of those couples that talked ten times a day, every day, for no reason other than it was so much fun. It had been a fantastic week of us on the phone, but around Thursday it sunk in that the weekend was coming.

I knew she was going to see the guy.

3: If she really needs to explore her life, and figure out what it is that she's doing, she needs to do that unfettered. Unfortunately for me, that means that she needs to do that with everything that implies.

Everything.

Seeing as how I couldn't really fairly ask "You know, take some time and figure your stuff out, but do me a favor and while you out there doing that, be a nun."

I had to make the choice I made.

I have to admit, I couldn't take it. I'm not sure what person could. I loved her. So much. Everytime I thought of her being with someone else, it was like a cold, black fist reached inside me, grabbed my stomach and twisted it sideways until I felt ill. There's no way I could be in love with a girl who's in a relationship in which she has the potential to sleep with someone else.

There is no pain on Earth like the pain that thought brings you.

Doing all this talking to her wasn't helping me get over her. She wasn't getting over me. "I love you" was always right there below the surface, in every word we said that week.

We talked for five days in a row, just as much as we did any other week these last three years. I wasn't going to face this weekend the same way. I couldn't call her and have her not answer the phone. I couldn't wait for her call back while wondering what she was doing.

I had to not think about her. I had to not talk to her. I had to cut her out of my life for awhile.

I told her that if what she really wanted was to figure out what she's supposed to do, and if she really didn't want to be with me, then she had to do it without my love. And if she were going to really go off and do this figuring, it would be best for me not to be in love with her.

I'm not trying to come off as a martyr here. I admit that I did this way more for myself than for her.

There had been far too much having your cake and eating it too going on these last few months. For both of us, I suppose, but especially for her.

She had this guy back in Chicago to distract her from missing me, and she had me on the phone telling her I loved her the entire time.

The thing that hits me the hardest is that she let me hang up that phone on Friday afternoon knowing that the next time I talked to her, I probably wouldn't be in love with her anymore.

Amazing. Amazing that she was able to make that choice, amazing how it felt.

I have to say that, because of that sacrifice, I respect her commitment to the idea of exploring and really needing to see what else is out there. I do wonder, though, if she can do that while being in a relationship with a guy who, as she has told me, would happily be her boyfriend. She's going from one guy who wanted everything from her and offered everything to her to another guy who wants a lot from her during a time when she isn't very sure at all what she wants.

It seems like driving 70 mph while trying to read a map.

The more I consider that, the more I begin, for the very first time in this situation, to feel sorry for him.

Though, I haven't talked to her since Friday. For all I know, she could have decided over the weekend to go it alone for a while. All I know is that I won't know for weeks.

And that's the way it has to be. Otherwise, I will go insane.

Pretty simple.

So. Yeah. That's my life.

How are all your lives?

So, that's that. Now you know the story. Your pal Bill is truly, for the first time in a long time, truly going it solo.

At least until Heather Graham pops up at the end of the screenplay.