500 Days Of...?

I am Summer Finn.
Ok, sorry, that sounded both conceited and a bit crazy. Let me digress and elaborate:
Summer Finn, from the movie 500 Days of Summer (played by the lovely and talented Zooey Deschanel) is quite possibly the most relatable fictional character that I have ever come across. I can draw more parallels between the personality and actions of Summer with my own than I can with any other fictional character, new or old.

Here are a few of those congruencies:
-Due to witnessing the failure of love, we are both wholeheartedly against the idea of its existence, though are willing to accept that fate may have other plans.
-We are both friendly and all, but incredibly guarded and lack the capacity to show a lot of real emotion, especially when it counts.
-Ringo is both of our favorite Beatle.
-When encountering an old flame, she and I both tend to air on the side of flirtation, despite any new commitments that may have arisen during the interim.
-She and I share an affect on boys which we are both fully aware of but pretend to be ignorant of for the sake of modesty and not using our power for the forces of evil.
-We are both in an undefined relationship. (bare with me on this one)

In almost every relationship I've had, life has eventually steered me away and things have ended, one way or another, with me being quietly hurt but eventually becoming more independent. The guy, in all cases save one, has always been left pining after me, like Tom does for Summer in the movie.

Even if I have been hurt, I've always moved right along and not let anyone really get to know me, except for the one time with Wsb. With Ex-not-Now, I dropped the L-word, but superficially, never really meaning it despite knowing that he definitely felt that way about me. Though I obviously had strong feelings towards Fsb, I never let him in like I did Wsb. Even with Wsb, though I let him see parts of my soul that I had previously kept secret from everyone else, we never said "love", not once.

I have always held, despite certain week-long lapses in judgement, to the idea that love is complete fantasy. I generally hold to this belief, even in the midst of relationships, because I feel that true love is the product of fiction and a society that has clung to, emulated, and idealized that fiction.

And, though I still hold this belief, I am once again careening towards a period of lapsed judgement due to the situation with a certain Technicolor Boy.

I went to go see him on Friday night because I wanted to iron out the kinks between us following his jealous freak-out over my camping trip. When I showed up at his house, he was in the process of getting hammered with his roommates, which initially frustrated the Hell out of me until I joined in.

I was annoyed at his lack of warning me of the state he was in and of the fact that he was now probably too preoccupied to carry out a serious conversation with me. I put my annoyances aside, for his sake and for the sake of not ruining my own night, and kept quiet.

I only drank a bit, but he out-did everyone. I've never seen him like that. He handled himself remarkably well considering that he had consumed an inordinate amount of alcohol.

Later, before we fell asleep for the night, he had this moment talking to me where I could see his guard had fallen completely down. He told me numerous things, the summary of which was that his emotions regarding me were getting the best of him and that he felt like a mess because he couldn't control his possessive urges when I went on the camping trip.

I don't know how much of what he told me was true and how much of it was the alcohol talking, but what was said cannot be taken back now, and the fact that he even said it all shows that at least some part of it was honest.

I don't know, I think I'm just going to leave that where it lies. If he ever decides that he actually wants to talk to me about his feelings (fat fucking chance, but a girl can dream). All I know is that he and I are okay for right now and we're back to being cute with each other.

Here's where my current concerns are rising from:

I've noticed that we've begun saying "I like you" as if we were saying "I love you"

We've got the same tone of voice and all that, same casual facade forcing the words to be cute as opposed to heartfelt. He'll whisper it sometimes when it's dark and I'm falling asleep. I'll tell him it quite curtly mid conversation. We both say it quite a lot... I hope he means it.

It goes unsaid that dropping the L-word is completely out of the question. In fact, whenever one of us accidentally drops it, even when talking about something that is completely unrelated, we both get incredibly awkward and try to skate past it as quickly as possible.

I know that I am not in love. Love is such shit, I don't think I could handle falling into it right now. Also, our non-relationship hasn't been long nor intense enough to constitute love.

But there's definitely something more substantial than just 'like'

I think we both know that we more than like each other; his jealousy and my over-analyzation are proof of this. We are steadily becoming closer and closer and are already far too comfortable with each other (which terrifies me to no end, but that is beside the point) From the random, deeply emotional instances that we awkwardly find ourselves having, it is clear that we more than like one another,  although, we can't say it, because that's a bit of a mouthful; "I more-than-like-but-don't-quite-love you."

I don't know.

I'm talking in circles, dithering and spiraling when I know that I really need only to be patient and see where the tides of life deliver us. My problem is that I have never been good with patience (a trait that has damned me as often as it has granted me fortune) and I know that one of these days, my curiosity will get the best of me.

This is where my Summer-ness chimes in and tells me to distance myself from him, stat. But at the same time, (and this is the part that is really, really fucking my brain because I have never felt like this before) I'm beginning to understand Tom's side of things.

In all honesty, I just want him to define the relationship. Just give me a definition of what the fuck we are doing and I will be satisfied, because I cannot come up with one on my own. "Fuck buddies" is too shallow, "lovers" implies that which we have not attained, and "girlfriend/boyfriend" would do, except that it is simply too serious and committal to be acceptable.

Maybe I should look to Summer Finn and use her definition for a non-relationship, because I feel as if the non-relationship that I am in the middle of is quite like the quirky romance between Tom and Summer, though that may come back to haunt me...

Maybe he and I are just "happy"

Hmm.
Julia