Exclusively Dating Other People Steadily

At some point in my early childhood, and we're talking diapers-and-an-enlarged-head-with-a-soft-spot early childhood here, I was deemed an old soul by someone very close to me. It was either my mother or a close friend of the family or maybe my aunt.

Anyway, it was a woman.

I guess this whole story would carry far more poeticism if it was my mother instead of some crackpot standing behind my mom in-line at the grocery store, so we'll go with my mother.

It was my mother who made this statement about me being an "old soul".

So what does it mean to be a twentysomething walking around with an old soul?

Beats me. My soul may be aged like fine wine, but I doubt it's ancient enough to have belonged to Confuscious, so your guess is as good as mine. I will say that I believe my soul has something to do with the characteristics of prudishness I find myself displaying from time-to-time.

Prudishness. Ugh. Even the word itself is ugly. The root of the word is ugly anyway. I guess I don't really have any problem with the "-ishness" so much as the "prude". At any rate, it's a word that I truly wish could not be in anyway attached to me.

I'd love to have the thought of coke lines being sniffed off a rattlesnake's back come to mind when someone bespeaks my name.
Midget clown sex.
Whitewater-innertube-hatchet-juggling.
Eating an entire bag of pretzels without the safety net of a nearby glass of water.

These are things I want people to think about when they hear my name. Instead, all's I get is the occasional moniker of "prude romantic" or perhaps "Laguna Beach viewer".

Either way, the desired effect is not forthwith.

I got dumped recently.
Yep. Dumped.
Recently.

I'm not good with exact dates, but rest assured my dumpage occured somewhere between last week and last April. And so what's the importance of me being dumped to any of you? Well, it isn't. Being dumped is rarely important to anyone but the dumpee. As someone who has ended more than his fair share of relationships, it sometimes doesn't even matter to the person doing the dumping.

But...

* * *

I imagine there is a moment, right after some unsuspecting insect slams into the windshield of a speeding car, that the insect thinks, "damn, I didn't think it'd get me. I'd heard of this thing happening to other bugs, but not to me. I'm shocked. Shocked, but enlightened. And now since my guts have fanned outwardly and I can see them, I guess I'll go ahead and die."

I'd like to think that bugs die in a very self-aware manner.

It's not the getting dumped that has solicited this particular entry, but my inability to comprehend why. Like a woman in labor giving birth to twins, our breakup was an arduous task that lasted for hours. There was no crying or yelling, it was like two little kids trading baseball cards:

"I'll give you two Don Mattingly's for your Kirby Puckett."
"I can't do that. I just can't do that, Mattingly plays for the Yankees, there are twice as many cards for him. Kirby is rare and I have those Mattingly cards already anyway."

"Look, I'll hang out with your friends more, but you've got to make more of an effort to stay at my place upon occasion."
"I can't do that. I just can't do that, my car is on it's last legs and you live a half-hour away. You said you like driving and you like my friends anyway."

I'm not sure if I'm trying to say the relationship with my ex was particularly juvenile or that our breakup was surprisingly diplomatic. Maybe I'm trying to say that baseball cards are a forgotten hobby.

At any rate, our breakup wasn't emotional. Which is good, because I pictured some sort of uber-angry blowout in which all my records ended up getting tossed three stories down onto the street. And because my records kick ass, passerbys would immediately start looting the heavenly gifts raining down upon them and I'd never again find those Lou Reed bootlegs anywhere else.

So we broke up. That's that. Other fish in the sea and so-on, blah-blah-blah. My problem is not my current relationship status. My problem is with the parting shots I received before the two of us were officially over. The conversation went something like this:

HER: "So we're not exclusive. Y'know, we can still go on dates though. Nothing really has to change."
ME: "Weren't we dating last week?"
HER: "No. Last week we were exclusive. Now, we're just dating."
Alright. Honestly, raise your hand if you thought these were one in the same. Tell me I'm not the only one!
ME: "So what's the difference? Do we still kiss an' stuff?"
It's a shame that no matter how many adventures I go on with a girl, no matter how many tumbles she and I take together, it really comes down to the rules of touching.
HER: "Maybe. I mean, we can."
ME: "Well if we're still 'dating', why wouldn't we?"
HER: "Because I might wanna kiss someone else."
ME: "So hypothetically you could kiss someone else, come back, tell me about it and I would have no call to get angry?"
HER: "In a perfect world, I guess. I don't know. I just wanna have fun. That's why I can't be exclusive."

I just went from "Girlfriend" to "Slut" in, like half a conversation! "I just wanna have fun?" Fun with me and others. Fun with men's body parts that aren't mine. This is fun? I'm supposed to be cool with this? I went from the sounds of settling to backstage at a Skid Row concert in less than two minutes.

And so let's think about this, let's break this down a bit.

Who is my ex is not dating.

If dating is: 1) kissing someone or 2) not kissing someone, 3) there is no real attachment, and 4) each individual is, in no way, responsible to answer to any other person; then how does the relationship end? Or start for that matter.
I mean, going by these parameters, I'm dating you.

Yup. Right now you're reading my blog and we are dating.

HaHA. Gotcha sucker.

You think that's messed up, imagine when you find someone that you like better than me. God forbid they want an exclusive relationship, you'll never be able to give it to them because, again - according to the parameters of my ex-girlfriend's new dating desires - we will forever be dating, whether you like it or not. We don't have to be kissin', we don't even have to talk anymore. If we've met, we're dating.

This is really messing with my head. I already admitted to being a prude, I already admitted that my ex is not the least slutty girl I've been with (to put it nicely), but is this mentality too progressive?

Who knew there was a difference between "dating" and "exclusive". Is that like having a girlfriend and a "premium girlfriend". This sounds a little too much like the wife/ gumar dynamic found in 'The Sopranos'.

Sorry, "new girlfriend", I'd like to be exclusive, but under the rules and regulations of this 21st century ideal of "dating freedom" not only will I continue to date my ex, but I think you've been dating her for several months as well.
Which, I guess would make my ex a lesbian slut, and I'm really not ready to dive into that mosh pit just now.
My old soul is about to have a heart attack.

So what's the problem here? Wouldn't most guys love to hear from a girlfriend that going off and exploring the great wide open is not only okay, but hoped for? Shouldn't my mind be blown apart and oozing out the holes in my ears from flabbergasted excitment? Shouldn't I have bolted out the door before she put the period on her final sentence?

Most twenty-somethings wish for this more than most else in this world (with the exception of maybe unlimited free hotdogs at a Cubs game*); a girlfriend who is okay with hanging out casually, making out casually, doing everything casually; without thought.
Without consequence.
Isn't that the definition of "living the dream"?
Isn't this a boon?
A miracle?
The silver lining on a golden cloud?
A beautiful butterfly emerging from a sparkling cocoon?
I've gone too far, I'll refocus.

The answer, for me, is no. This bites, blows, sucks, stinks, and strikes me as too pat. Old souls don't work this way. Old souls know that real emotions aren't carefree. They're quite the opposite actually.

So what we're left with is a big pink dancing elephant in the middle of the room. And no matter how desperately I try to ignore it, it seems more than possible that somewhere along the line, my ex decided that the grass was greener somewhere else, and that she's just not that into me.

I know, I know. It's impossible for me to believe as well.

But to be honest, my ex growing bored in our relationship and wanting to remove herself from it without much ill-will or confrontation is a more hopeful answer than the one she tried to pass off on me. This dating-other-people-while-still-messing-around-with-me-thing was wierd.

It's more confusing than the definition of "hooking up". **

I hope my ex just wants to hook up with someone else and didn't want to make me cry (I cry easy, I cried at the end of 'Coyote Ugly'). I hope she made up her slutty desires in a misguided attempt to make things more comfortable for the both of us. Because if she didn't, then I've got to reassess things about my future in the dating world. I don't need to marry the next girl I see, but I don't really want to run the risk of touching some guy's butt because we're both kissing the same girl, either.

Old souls don't roll like that.

=========================

* maybe that's just me.

** What exactly is hooking up anyway? Depending on who you're talking to, it can mean anything from meeting for dinner to handcuffs 'n' whips. Ask your friends, I promise none of you will have the same definition.
For the record, I define "hooking up" as kissing. That being said, I also define "sex" as kissing too, so my definition shouldn't carry much weight.