Flirting With Reality

Tonight, flirting ensued. Weird feeling, but welcome.

I went out with the 17-year-old across the street, Bianca. Me, her, two of her girlfriends, her boyfriend, and two other guy friends all hung out for a few hours.

Bianca and Amir (or maybe Armir...?) are really sweet together, and he's hilarious. Her two girlfriends I met before, Nelly and Laura. They're cool, too. One of the other guys - Peter - I met last time, and he hasn't said one word to me, and I haven't said one word to him. It's a mutual lack of talking. He reminds me a bit of my cousin Alex actually. Nice, but doesn't say much, at least around me.

And the other guy is named Adam, and I just met him tonight.

Now, before Adam showed up to hang out with the rest of us, Bianca and her friends explained to me that Adam has been dealing with his ex-girlfriend lately, who left him for another guy, and now that hasn't worked out, so she wants Adam back. But he doesn't want her back.

"Good for him!" I exclaimed as they were explaining everything.

So Adam is a bit down on love, but they made sure I knew not to mention to Adam that they'd been talking about him and everything with me, because I guess he's really shy, and really still a bit upset by the whole situation.

Fine for me. I hardly speak any German anyway. It was an easy thing to promise!

I wasn't sure what to expect this evening, because last time I hung out with this group, we just chilled out at the playground with a bit of alcohol and juice and a lot of cigarettes, and I couldn't understand hardly anything they said. It was nice to get out, but I found myself thinking of Tom a lot, and how different it was just "hanging out" with him, and how much I wanted that, over any other type of hanging out with other random people.

But this time, it was actually really, really fun. We stopped at the Penny Markt store to get the requisite juice and vodka, and then we really just chilled at the playground all evening, for like 4 hours. But it was great. We laughed and joked, they taught me less than savory German words, Armir told me that he's getting his license in January (you don't get your license till you're at least 18 here), and then he'll take all of us to the nearest castle ruins, because I had said that was something I was interested in. And the girls and I realized we all like to ski, so later this winter, we'll all go together to the ski place that they like the best. We may even take a few days or a week and visit the apartment that Bianca's parents have in the Alps, and go skiing there!

That would be pretty much awesome!

So, anyway, we had a really good time. I had a really good time. And it was even better after Adam got there. Everyone introduced us, and he was nice, although he didn't say much, not at first. He's really cute: very tall, nice eyes, broad shoulders, full lips, the whole shebang. He's not quite 19, which is - let's face it - a bit young for me, but we had a lot of fun flirting. It was easy, easier than I thought it would be. I had thought that after everything with Tom, I'd be...I don't know...rusty. Or maybe not interested. Or maybe be undesirable to other guys somehow. Like they could sense that someone else already threw me away, so why should they even be interested?

But it wasn't like that at all. Adam was just Adam, and I was just me, and we spent the evening together, and we enjoyed easy flirting. I have no idea if or when I'll see him again, but just having tonight with him made me feel a lot better about a lot of things, most of which have nothing to do with Adam himself.

Tonight I realized that I'm gonna come through this whole messed-up situation with Tom. I'm going to get over this and move on. I'm the winner here, because I don't have problems when it comes to relationships - Tom has problems. I'm not the one who spit on our relationship and ruined everything - Tom did. I'm not the one who bailed and ran away from something real, and emotional, and important - Tom is. And I'm not the one who's a fucked up asshole - that would be Tom (his own words, by the way).

I will have a successful relationship in my life, because it's important to me. I proved to myself when I was with Tom that I am capable of heartfelt, supporting love. I shared everything with him. I didn't hold back. I wasn't selfish. I wasn't self-involved. I gave and gave and gave, because I'd have given anything to see him happy. He truly became the most important thing in my life - I put him first. He - and our happiness together - was my priority.

I've seen what I'm capable of: I am capable of loving. And there is someone out there who will accept my love, and love me wholeheartedly in return, as I deserve. I'm going to have that.

I can't say the same for Tom.

So, I'm so very happy that I went out this evening. I'm so very happy I met Adam. I'm so very happy that I've reassured myself that I'm still ME, still Nicole, and I'm someone worthy of knowing, someone worthy of respecting, and someone worthy of loving.

I deserve to be happy, and tonight I realized that I WILL be again. I deserve to have someone in my life who loves me, and tonight I realized that I WILL have someone in my life who loves me again. It was a good thing to discover, a good thing to realize.

And it snowed.

All in all, a beautiful night.