Not willing to put up with her capriciousness (she cancelled on me twice in two weeks), I cut things off with my
girlfriend of several months the week before last. Time isn't standing still, though, so there is no time to lose.
To illustrate the
conception of alphaness I'm working under in attempting to gauge it, I'll pull from very recent personal experience. The first block of communication is pretty beta. It's all text--the less urgent the response required, the more humble and thoughtful I'm able to be.
My new primary focus is "dream girl". She just turned eighteen and is enrolled in an online, accredited high school completion program so she can work during the day (this girl has already grown up too fast and wants to speed up the process even more).
Last week, I happen to run into her at a restaurant near her house (that I know she regularly goes to on her lunch break, the time of which I know, as well as that she's working today) as I'm getting lunch. I'm alone and dressed business formal, something she's not accustomed to seeing me in. We eat together, but quickly because I need to get a haircut before meeting someone at one. I relentlessly tease her in a playful way, par for my course. She hugs me twice.
Afterwards, I go to get a haircut and get gas in the same shopping center. By chance (for real this time) I run into her again as she's airing up her tires. I return her favors, for the my first time ever with her, it's a full body lift (where I lean backwards and in so doing lift her off her feet). In the past she's complained about how I always push her away whenever she embraces me. Rather than say "duh, I don't want to get arrested", I've said "just giving my self-control a chance". She said my haircut made me look handsome.
AE being "beta":
(Tuesday, as I leave after seeing her for the second time)
DG: You really did look rather handsome. ;)
AE: I try to be when you're around.
DG: Three hugs. :) That never happens. Must be my lucky day. :)
AE: Seeing you on two separate occasions. It's somebody's lucky day, anyway.
DG: Awhh. :)
(Wednesday, starting at 10:30pm)
DG: Audacious!! I miss you already. :(
AE: Out of sight but on your mind--there is no place I'd rather be.
DG: You wouldn't rather be both?!?!
AE: Ha, I realized you might take it that way after sending. You don't miss a thing, dreamgirl. I meant on your mind, period, of course.
DG: Oh, well you're always on my mind. :) That's a given.
AE: I'll draw on that whenever I need inspiration. Sweet dreams, sweet lady.
DG: Of course, darling. Of you. ;) Good night, handsome.
AE: :)
(Fifteen minutes or so pass. I'm now in bed)
DG: My status is for you, sir.
I hop on the computer and check facebook. Her status reads: "caught by a wave, my back to the ocean. it knocks me off my feet, and just as i find my footing, here you come again. dreamgirl, dreamgirl, dreamgirl..." only one can understand. :)
AE: So is mine, madam.
DG: You don't have one!
AE: Au contrare. Look again.
My fb status now reads: I mean to tell you all the things I've been thinking deep inside my friend. With each moment, the more I adore you.
DG: Awh. :) You're QUITE adorable.
AE: True. But I'm still a distant second to the princess of adorability (you expected some awkwardness [inside joke] soon, I know) :)
DG: Sweet dreams (for real this time.) :) Now to bed with you.
(Thursday after practice I get on facebook to loaf around socially. It's rapid fire here, plus I'm still wound up, so I'm trending a lot more "alpha")
DG: Come here often? :)
Her status is now lyrics to a song about leaving for a place where palm trees grow or something. I finish commenting on it right after she messages me: "Booked two tickets on Delta, Hawaii-bound. Leaving monday morning, early. We'll arrive on the main island and then ferry to Laysan. It's a mile round, sparsely populated, lots of sand, more than a few seals and sea turtles. Pack your bags."
AE: I know you'd skuttle everything next week if I was being serious.
DG: In a heartbeat [she makes a heart, but as an emoticon--it screws with blogger's code to do it here]
AE: After getting out of the shower this morning I was making eggs and listening to Dreamgirl, imagining myself with Boyd's physique (Julia Roberts stares at him in the kitchen). It was the shit.
DG: That means... I'M JULIA ROBERTS!! I love Steel Magnolias, sleeping with the enemy, My best friend's wedding, Runaway bride.
DG: I didn't realize how much I love her.
AE: Maybe it's suggestive. I didn't realize how much I like the song until recently ;)
DG: Maybe :)
DG: I'm watching the video for the first time now.
AE: Dave looking up at the movie screen in awe. If I wasn't already Boyd, that would be me.
DG: haha, yeah you
really look like boyd alright! [at 3:05 in the video]
AE: Obviously I didn't mean skin pigmentation.
DG: :P
AE: The shirts I wear hide a lot. I'm a modest guy.
DG: haha and I'm a daddy's girl [she hasn't seen her dad since she was two--I'm at a loss on responding here, so I just keep quiet and hope she'll move on, which she does]
DG: I'm listening to crash into me now :)
AE: I'm the king of the castle. You know what that makes you.
DG: oh i'm the dirty rascal am i?
AE: You obviously can't be king.
DG: Trying to hold me down. Typical male.
DG: Just kidding! :)
AE: When they play it live, they add "I will be your dixie chicken, if you'll be my tennessee lamb, and we can walk together, down in dixieland." I want to fly so I'm the chicken.
DG: You don't want me to fly? YOU'RE the one who needs to be grounded.
AE: What are you talking about? We're going to be 15000 feet over the Pacific in three days.
DG: :) awh if only
DG: WAIT, chickens can't fly. they can only flutter a few feet!
AE: That's all it'll take to fly up on your back and get tangled up in your wool.
DG: I want to be the chicken and the king :)
AE: Fine. The greedy king will eat the chicken and the rascal will ride in on the lamb to take the castle by force. Looks like you're my servant ;)
DG: what if i'm the king AND the lamb?
AE: Then I'm calling reinforcements. [I make like 30 shark emoticons] Now you're fucked.
DG: JAWS! SAVE ME!!
AE: Sorry, this is the only way you'll learn.
DG: Pleeeeeease ;)
AE: I would slay jaws and a dragon at the same time to save the princess on those river rocks though. [One of her profile pictures]
DG: that is an awesome picture.
AE: In the literal sense of the word.
DG: "Awe inspiring"
DG: haha, you're a creeper
AE: Right.
AE: lol damn timing. I meant that about the awe inspiring.
DG: haha i know
AE: With that affront, I'm going to bed. Sweet dreams.
DG: Boi noite :) :) :)
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If you're still with me, here's the picture I was referring to: