Chemistry and Compatibility

Not everyone wants what I want.  It's nuts.  It's a difficult concept to grasp that other people may be seeking happiness through other channels than I am!  I feel like this is a straight forward concept when your friend picks chocolate ice cream and you pick mint chocolate chip.  That's fine.  It's so confusing when they date someone you find obnoxious, or they take a job you think is stepping backwards.

My run today was consumed by a conversation with my ex who I visited in Florida.  The one I dated in college, and was flat out crazy about.  As soon as I left his car at the airport I had a message from him.

"I want you to enjoy every moment of grad school.  When you're done though, I would love to see if (maybe) we can be more than friends.  No bullshit."

After a bad bad breakup, I feel like girls always imagine this scenario.  He was horrible to me, one day realized he still had feelings for me, and I told him off!  I yelled at him, told him I was the best thing that ever happened to him, and he should be so lucky to have another chance with me!  Except I didn't tell him off.  Maybe I grew up, or maybe I'm being stupid, but I've lost the desire to yell at him.  I'd rather think through this and realize on my own if he is or isn't right for me.  I'm not sure what will happen in school or with him, but I know that I don't want to fight anymore.  It was a week long argument that almost ended the trip for me to visit him over a terrible request on my part: I asked to go to the beach.  He's so stubborn when he's decided that something will be a certain way, that there is no way to talk about it without an argument.  I'm so much happier when I'm not fighting, or when I'm not forcing someone to do something they don't want to.  Now, it's not a matter of chemistry that I'm questioning, but a matter of compatibility.  We'd go out to dinner and he will only eat the five foods that enhance his running/lifting performance.  My dad taught me "Never cheat your stomach."  We would go out for ice cream, and he'd watch me eat it.  We'd get a glass of wine and he'd have two sips.  I feel like we are so different that either he's watching me do things I enjoy or I'm watching him do things he enjoys (shop ... ).  It may have taken me two years of dating, six years without him, and one weekend of reuniting to realize that I'm not sure he's someone I want to be with.

He got upset with his ex girlfriend because she let him work all the time.  She never "pressured" him to come home or go out to dinner.  I'm at a point in my life where I don't want to have to change someone.  If you don't want to be a workaholic, stop being a workaholic.  Don't rely on someone else to find out what will make you happy and wait for them to force you to do it.  I know you can't change people, and I know I don't want to fight with anyone again as much as I did with him.  So I think I'll just have to tell him, and let it be what it is.

153 Miles Down 162 Miles To Go