This is a story about #love, but it's not a love story (Part 8)

Apr 2

Dudes, I am having the most awesomely epic night ever. Straight up! I'm bartering a bed for tonight by dogsitting - and uuugghhhhhhhh these little munchkins are making my life. Seriously, we're having a ball. No, like literally - Molly has a ball, and I just ate it. It tasted super yummy.

Wonder what this is going to feel like coming out the other end ... ewe.

DUDE!!!! Nerd flash, my brother just called me - someone totally just tried mugging him tonight. Are you for REALS!??! He's kosher, home safe, but wow - that was a solid half hour out of my incredibly peaceful night that I did not anticipate. Life is short kiddies. Tell the ones you love that you love them. Wow, my heart is pounding. The lioness just came out. That was a very heated and intense conversation. How dare someone fuck with a cub - RAAWWRRRRRRRRR!!!!

K ... so if you're not caught up on what's goin down ... here's part one ... here's part one point five ... here's part two ... here's part three ... here's part four ... here's part five ... here's part six ... and here's part seven.

(Basically, I got my heart supremely broken a year and a half ago ... it actually was one of the reasons that I started this blessed little site. It's impairing my current OkCupid social experiment ... so I decided to grab this story by the balls and take ownership of it. These are a series of posts that I am doing to hash it out and make it tangible so I can move on since I can't afford therapy. FOR REALS!! That shit is expensive!!!)

HIT IT EM!

K - so here we go. Part 8. 8 is my favorite number - this may or may not be my favorite chapter, haha! I don't plan the posts - just type 'em as I go. Spit it out Jen!!!! Stop stalling!!!

All of these events actually happened over a very short period of time. It was literally the most intense couple of weeks I have ever had in my entire life. I just, wasn't there - I wasn't anywhere.

I was so frustrated with my life at that point. I had spent the entire summer/ fall isolated in the mentalist's apartment - the escape artist allowed me to escape inside love and gave me this new found identity. In his arms I laid, and all was well in the world.

Well, technically speaking, he wasn't much of a cuddler - so I didn't really lay in his arms, but that sounded good, right?

This guy wasn't even nice to me. This is all so frustrating to type out. He wasn't romantic, he never took me out on dates, he never anything. Everything was about him, and because my own self esteem was such shit, I placed my value in him and built him up to make myself feel better.

Crikey.

A couple days after my epic telephone conversation, I attended the #140Conf (November 3, 2009). I took a look around at what I saw and had this MASSIVE SHOT of just BAM; nerds are going to be hot. The writing was on the wall. This was a twitter conference based here in LA, and I sat and absorbed the space on that first day and completely freaked out. The time is now. The time is now. The time is now. All of the people at this conference were hot - and the fact that they were all talking tech was totally surreal. People in LA don't EVERRRRRRRRRRR talk tech. Like ever ever ever. I thought, I'm a nerd - dude, typing at age 2, on prodigy at 8, learning HTML to code my geocities site before I hit puberty - but I was also a model. If nerds are going to be hot, fuck man, I can rally the troops! No one can do this more than me. It was in THAT VERY MOMENT that I had this epiphany of, yes yes yes - let's do this. I'm going to launch a website. I'm going to launch a fucking website.

I went home, sat on my roommates bed - as mine was still in storage, and came up with the name Talk Nerdy To Me, Lover. I was playing around with "talk nerdy to me" since I thought that was cheeky, but the domains were taken. I wish I could say that there was a better story to this, but I literally went through my head and said, who do I want to talk nerdy to me ... who do I want to talk nerdy to me ... sure, my lovers!

I sat there that night and secured the domain, created the template - and BAM!

There I was sitting on that bed so angry at every.single.bit. of my life. HAHA!! Literally, I was like speed typing all of it out. Fuck you. Fuck you. Fuck you. If you don't think social media is going anywhere dear sweet mentalist, I'm going to fucking show you. Of course too, I had clients and what not, they weren't exactly letting me be creative - so being a lawyers daughter, I wanted to at least be able to predict the trends and have this shit timestamped so I can be like AH HA!!! TOLD YOUUUUUUUUUU!!!! And hope that that leads to something. I had no idea to be honest. I had just burried my old self, and was ready for a new me.

I didn't care if it was going to be successful, I just had an idea, and a whole shit ton of energy to devote to it. My family was still grieving over my grandmother, I hadn't spoken a word to my friends, and work was anything but satisfying.

I worked to pay rent at a place that apparently I was supposed to have, to put things in that apparently I needed, to "support" myself for this life that I didn't care anything about.

What does this all mean? Why are we here?

I literally had nothing. That's why our official hashtag became #nerdsunite - because I had no one, or nothing to hold on to. I wanted something so desperately ... but nothing was there. I did this to myself, mind you, actions have consequences; isolation leads to being well, isolated.

I had nothing to lose, and nothing mattered to me anymore. Suicide wasn't an option, as I had failed twice before - so fuck it. If I really really was going kill myself, why not go out with a bang? I made a conscious decision to start to only do things that felt good - since well, it fucking felt good!

Social media felt GREAT!!!!!!!! I didn't really know what I wanted to do in it, but I knew just talking about it totally got me off. Afterall, the mentalist made fun of me relentlessly for sitting on Mashable day and night.

(uuuhhhhh Pete Cashmore, want to touch the hiney)

If I was going to die, this was going to be it. So why not start to live?

It all sounded crazy to me at the time, but I very literally Just.Didnt.Care. People, places, things - all noise. The website it was. I finally found a place to put all of this energy that I had.

After staying up all night, my body finally succumbed to sleep. I was so excited, I had an idea, and I had something to do. This is going to be GREAT!

I woke up the next morning to my phone beeping - it was a text ... from the mentalist. He said he missed me. I took a deep breath, while I contemplated what to text back. Do I even text back? This whole thing, man - it's taken so much out of me.

Tears streamed down my face as I typed "my heart hurts. please, make my heart stop hurting."

I know, babe - I know, he texted back.

He told me to stop being silly, and to come over, as he had just come back from tour.

Come over? What was happening?! How can you text that to me?! I was so vulnerable, and wanting so much of all of this to just go away.

I did the only thing I knew how to do - I turned to work. A fellow SEO had emailed me overnight asking to meet up for lunch. An escape, YES!!!!! We went and had lunch - anything to keep me away from the mentalist.

We sat there and discussed at great lengths SEO and how social media is changing the game. Google wasn't pulling tweets in their searches yet, but it was worthy of noting that social media was becoming a place that people went to for information. The packaging of SEO and social media was going to be of the utmost importance in the future, as those were the two places people went to access information. If you could understand how to place information in those two places, you're golden.

Great lunch, nice dude - went home and drowned myself in work. I didn't want to think, I didn't want to feel, I didn't want to process ... I just wanted my social media, it was the only thing that made me feel good.

I kept my phone on my desk as I worked. I kept looking over at my phone. Did he text me? Did he text me? Wait, omg, was that the indicator light I saw? The sucky thing too about working in social media is that when you have a break up, it's super hard to not stalk the person you broke up with in social media.

Do I look at his twitter page? Or do I not look at his twitter page? Ugh. Facebook ... just go to Facebook ... no wait, I'm going to block him on Facebook. YES! YES! YES! Block him on Facebook!! Can I block his specific URL on twitter too?? How do I stop myself from looking at his twitter feed. Stop it, Jen! Stop it!!!!!!!

WWHHHHHYYYYYYYYYY did this have to happen, I thought!!! Can't I go back? Can't I PLEASEEE JUST GO BACK!!!!!!!!!!!!

I broke down and texted him. "I miss my best friend," I typed.

The mentalist and I had a very freaky bond. Again, I know it was potentially programmed, etc. But I loved this human being. I loved. loved. loved. this human being. I wanted to spend the rest of my life with this human being. I wanted to be the mother of this human being's children. I just ... wanted him. The emotional escape artist wanted her escape.

He texts me back, "come over. be here now."

I think about it ... and think about it ... grab my keys, and walk out the door.

I drive over to Hollywood, and I approach his parking garage. There it is, again. THAT garage. Stop it, Jen. Just do it. You miss him - talk to him.

I didn't go over there expecting anything; I didn't want to punch him, I didn't want to hurt him at all - I just wanted that same old feeling to come back. I wanted to be put under his spell once again, and to forget all about this world that was my new, sobering, reality.

I pulled into a parking spot, and sent him a text - "I'm here. Come down."

Alrite, el nerderinos - it's getting kinda late and this is a good place to stop for now. The next part makes me super sad. And oh yeah, brownie girl emails me. Fucking bat shit that chick is. BAHHHHHHHHH!!!

Thanks so so much for reading guys. Seriously - this is so unbelievably cathartic.