Another Encounter with The Ex-Con
I’ve written before about being a nosy neighbor, being hit on by Brian, the strange man who lives around the corner, and feeling uncomfortable (at first) about saying no. See, I Turned Down a Dinner Date With An Ex-Con.
Recently, I saw Brian again. I’ve seen him, on and off, of course, from time to time, but since I’d turned him down he hadn’t stopped to talk or come by to borrow things.
I have creepy neighbors, but I also have “normal neighbors.” The kids and I help normal neighbors with their new puppy, Bailey. And by “the kids and I” — I mean, usually, me. When I was walking Bailey the other day, I found myself walking in Brian’s direction.
It was a deer in headlights situation. I was walking toward him. He was walking toward me.
Brian’s appearance has changed — again. It’s Winter now so he doesn’t go shirtless anymore. He’s cut his hair, which is a good thing, because he seemed disheveled before. I’d seen him on crutches a couple of weeks ago, but now the crutches are gone — as are his glasses. He looks different without his glasses. I wonder what happened to his glasses? But I digress . . .
Bailey the puppy is a bit timid, but once a stranger speaks nicely to her, she gets very excited and friendly.
She was terrified of Brian.
He tried to be nice to her. He did what you’re supposed to do — offered his closed fist, fingers down, for the pup to sniff, but Bailey was still afraid. She started to run (on the extendable leash) and when I pulled her back she was visibly shaking.
It begs the question: What does this dog sense about this man?
Brian said,
“Hello, Roxanne, I got your name right this time!”
“Yes, yes, you did.”
Brian has found at least two other names that sort of rhyme with Roxanne that he’s used. But on this particular day he got it right.
We exchanged the “How are you, blah blah blahs.”
“I saw your daughter the other day,” Brian added, “and I thought she was you. That just tells me how young you look. But you won’t tell me how old you are.”
“No, I won’t.” (Dude, will you please STOP asking how old I am. That is so not cool.)
A dog can be a nice distraction, and as I turned to calm the puppy and explained she wasn’t mine, Brian placed his hand on my back and slowly and deliberately caressed me with his thumb.
What the hell?
It was a move too “familiar” to be casual.
Why is he touching me?
I backed away, continuing the small talk, and making my excuses to leave. But then he put his arms out to hug me.
“Well, it’s good to see you,” he said.
It was a reflex really, but I allowed a hug. I don’t know why. I don’t know why. I DON’T KNOW WHY!
I immediately felt the “ick” and could smell the cigarettes.
Ah, maybe that’s why Bailey the puppy was so upset. Different smells bother dogs, and Bailey’s owners (normal neighbors) don’t smoke. Maybe that’s all it was. I hoped.
Feeling uncomfortable I said,
“Well, I gotta go,” and started to walk.
I was seconds from a (not completely) clean get-away when Brian asked,
“So when are we gonna get together?”
(Crap)
“Uh, I don’t know,” I said, while shaking my head no, and looking at the ground. I thought I was being dismissive.
“Still thinking about it, huh?” This was Brian’s response to my non-answer.
And in typical Roxanne fashion, I replied, “Yeah, I guess so.”
The voices in my head screamed, What are you saying? Shut up!
What Brian said next gave me the “ick” — again:
“Well, we live close to each other at least, so it would make it easy.”
It would make WHAT easy? The voices in my head screamed.
“Yeah, I guess.” I mumbled, this time, with an accompanying awkward laugh. “Okay, bye.”
Me to me, in my mind: Will you please just SHUT UP! NOW!!
Brian walked toward his house. I continued in the opposite direction until it was safe, then doubled back and went home.
Questions? Comments? Concerns?
What is wrong with me? Why can’t I just say, “Sorry not interested” when I need to? It’s a problem. There’s a pattern. And why did Brian touch me, why did he touch me like he was my boyfriend? Why did he hug me and why did I allow it? And most importantly, What does the dog instinctively know?
Conclusion
I’m never leaving the house again. Never.
Okay, I have to walk to the dog, and there’s my kids, and life . . . but shit . . .
Just Me With . . . a case of the “ICK”
Other posts when I couldn’t just say “NO!”:
Landscaper Guy — Not Digging Him, and
Landscaper Guy and The Female Chandler Bing, and
My Concrete Heart
Okay, bear with me. I don’t often speak in metaphors, or similes or whatever you call them, but I had a moment the other day.
I was driving down a street near where I live. It was a block of row houses with very small front yards and a sidewalk in front of the homes. It’s a very walkable area, not just for residents from the block but for dog owners and people going to nearby restaurants. One of the block’s homeowners was replacing the sidewalk pavement. I could clearly see this as I drove by because every piece of porch and outdoor furniture available seemed to be propped around the drying cement. The owner clearly wanted to keep people off of it. Completely understandable.
Having gone to great expense to replace the sidewalk, he/she didn’t want some random person to come along and write his name in the cement. Because if someone did that, then the owner would be stuck with it. Clearly, the homeowner wanted a fresh start.
It got me to thinking, am I guarding my heart like the homeowner guarded his/her new cement sidewalk? And I trying to keep someone from coming and leaving their mark before it’s had a chance to harden?
Well, if I am, that’s okay. Everybody deserves a fresh new start. I don’t want someone else to mold me, write on me, make permanent markings on my facade. I’m still in the midst of fixing what had crumbled. I’m working on it.
In truth, I’m not really keeping people out, I’m preparing to let someone in. If I’m permitted the luxury of guarding my brand new concrete heart until it heals and hardens, then it will be open to someone coming by for a visit. It’ll be smooth and pretty and, yes — inviting. Moreover, it’ll be safe for visitors, who can come to my home without tripping and falling on the rubble of what happened before (and then suing me for their pain and suffering).
So yeah, like the homeowner, I’ll go to great lengths to protect my concrete heart, until I’m/it’s ready .
So keep off.
Actually, in the biz they call it “curing” —- concrete doesn’t harden, it “cures.” I like the sound of that. When my concrete heart has/is completely cured, I’ll move the blockade and invite someone to my porch for lemonade. The pathway to me will look good, it’ll be safe, and . . . I will have complied with Township Ordinances . . . but I digress.
Just Me With . . . my curing concrete heart.
Post script: I went back later to try to snap a picture, but the barriers had been removed and I’m not even sure which house it was.
Another Text From My Admirer
I’ve previously written that I Have An Admirer. Today I was experiencing some distress because of texts from my Ex, was feeling rather blue and overwhelmed, as is often the case. After my weekly therapy appointment I checked my phone and found the following text from the man I call “Rocky.”
Bright . . . like the morning sun.
Sweet as sweet can be.
Strong like a raging wind.
Yet tender as can be.
Hard like ice . . . wet like water.
Talent to the . . . extreme.
Mind so strong and yet so wise you solve problems at night in your dreams.
I’m proud to know you Roxanne.
I feel better now. Thanks, Rock.
Just Me With . . . a new text, and a smile.
He Lives With His Mother?

Carrie and “Power Lad” who lived with his parents in a New York classic six apartment on the Upper East Side with a terrace overlooking the park.
It’s sad but true, women will put up with a lot of crap. But it seems like one thing is very universally unacceptable — when an adult man lives with his mother.
Remember in Sex and The City when Carrie discovered that her latest guy shared a beautiful apartment with his parents?
Samantha: He lives with his parents?
Carrie: It’s their apartment.
Samantha: So not sexy honey. Dump him immediately. Here — use my cell phone.
Season Three, Episode 15.
Carrie didn’t dump him immediately, because she liked him, his parents were friendly and brought them food and he was a struggling business owner.
Once she realized, however, that Power Lad was still a child in the household, governed by his parents’ rules, and that he was not saving money but actually spending it on really good pot, well it eventually ended.
I haven’t had one of these, but this guy is just out of school, has his first real job or is looking for one. He’s recently discovered, “Dude, they want first and last month’s rent and security before I move in? That’s a lot of money.” Yeah dude, better get a bank account.
Acceptable: If he is saving for his own place.
Unacceptable : If his Mom still does all his laundry, cooks all his meals, he drives her car and he routinely buys rounds for everybody at the local bar.
2. Break Up Guy
So the marriage/relationship didn’t work and he moved out of the home, leaving the kids (if any) with their mother. Suddenly he’s homeless. You can’t sleep on somebody’s couch forever and his married buddies are not taking him in long-term . . . so . . . he moves in with his mom.
Acceptable: If he is providing financial support to his kids, someone has filed for divorce, and he is actively looking for his own place.
Unacceptable: If he visits the kids at the marital home “overnight.”
3. Norman? Older guy taking care of his elderly or sick mother.
This guy still lives in his home town, and may even have a good job and his own place. But his mother is getting older, or has taken ill. Maybe she’s widowed or divorced, either way she’s alone and probably should not live that way. So he, like a champ, gives up, sublets, or keeps his place — but he moves in with this mother. He is probably a good guy, but depending on his mother’s condition, this could go on indefinitely.
Acceptable: If the mom is really sick.
Unacceptable: If the mom goes out more often than he does.
4. Ethnic/Large family/family business guy or filthy rich blue blood guy

From Moonstruck. The Italian American family kitchen in the large Brooklyn Heights home. Real estate.
This guy works in his family business. So does everybody else. They all live in the large family home. If you were to marry him, you might live there too for a bit.
Ironically, this also happens in blue blood very rich families or royalty, “Chad” (or William, or Harry) will move back to the main house while interning for “Daddy’s” company. Except in that case Chad’s bedroom could probably accommodate most of the ethnic guy’s family and their business.
Acceptable: If he wants to have his own family one day.
Unacceptable: If he buys a dog. (There’s no way he’s thinking about leaving if he’s recently acquired a dog.)
5. Grad school student guy.
This is a guy getting an advanced degree, perhaps a professional degree. He studies all the time. He lives with his parents because he can’t justify paying rent only to be conscious there only a couple of hours a day. He reasons, “Why pay for a city apartment just to study and occasionally sleep there?” — especially true for medical students or interns. This arrangement is almost always temporary, and, frankly, worth the investment. One day he’ll graduate — and probably get a damn good job.
Acceptable: If he is actually in school.
Unacceptable: If he is merely planning to get back to school. Look for that acceptance letter.
You see, a guy living with his momma should be given an opportunity to explain. It should not be a deal breaker– at least not until you know the underlying reasons and can access the likely duration of the living “arrangement.”
But here are the red flags I don’t believe anyone should ignore:
1. He has a basement “room” completely set up where he pursues his personal interests — music, computers, lifting weights. Yeah, this dude has set up house. He ain’t going nowhere.
2. He works from home, yet there is no home office, desk, or computer and he has no cell phone.
3. He’s mentioned that he hopes to inherit the house. He’s there for life, or at least his mother’s life.
4. He has never actually said he plans to move or has any interest in doing so. Pay attention to the silences. The silences are very important.
Just Me With . . . no momma dwellers at the moment: one is estranged, “If I’d Married My Stalker,” the other is a very special friend who defies any type of categorization, “We Thought You Were Dead, Mommy — Almost F*cked to Death”
See other types of dating fails:
The Perfect Man — or so I thought.
The Landscaper Guy: Not Digging Him — Part I
I Turned Down A Dinner Date With An Ex-Con
Facebook Mutual Friend with the Ex’s Girlfriend? – Part One
My Bucket List of Men To Do
I’ve known many different types of people in my life. But having been in a committed (ha!) relationship for most of my life, I was constrained from “knowing” in the biblical or romantic sense many different types of men. Still, in my now single state I think about men a lot and wonder what I missed, and whether I could still sow a few oats.
So, without further ado and in no particular order, here is my —
Bucket List of Men To Do:
1. Rich Guy — You know on those movies and sitcoms and women meet those guys who buy them a designer dress and fly them to Italy for dinner and crap. Yeah, that would be nice.
2. Too Young for Me Guy —
Let me first say this. I am not a pedophile. The boy-man must be legal and look like a man. That said, a boyish cutie pie would be nice. I just want a hint of immortality. I young man will never forget his first quality real grown-ass woman. Plus they have good music and not a lot to do.
3. Celebrity —
a. Actor— Preferably a screen actor so when a movie is rebroadcast on television or a TV show is put in syndication I can casually walk by the TV and say, smugly, “Yeah, I hit that.”
b. Musician– I am a musician. I would like to be able to hang out in a larger-than-life musician’s home studio and jam. I want to ride in the limo to concerts, and listen from backstage. I want him to play/sing, only for me a song that has made millions of other women swoon. And I want to play for him. And, Prince, if you are reading this, DM me.
4. Really smart guy — A scary smart guy. All he’ll have to do is talk to me or debate with others and I’ll be putty.
5. Country Guy— Okay, I cannot explain this. I’m black and not a southern woman. I don’t keep livestock or even go horseback riding. I don’t own a gun or a truck. I have a toy dog. But a good old boy would be fun for a minute. He must not call me ma’am, though.
6. A delivery guy. (I don’t know. I just don’t know.)
7. A man who does not speak English. I’m American. I only know a wee bit of French — wait, excuse me, un peu bit of French. I want to be required to communicate in other ways. I bet I could become bi- and tri-lingual given the right teacher. I’m a fast learner. Maybe it’s this WordPress Views by Country that has me on this.
8. Too Old For Me Rich Guy – At this point in life this is my only route if I want to be photographed as the pretty young thing on someone’s arm. I mean Dick Van Dyke (86) just married a 40-year-old. That’s all I have to say about that –except that I love Dick Van Dyke, so I ain’t mad at her, or him.
9. The Dangerous Guy — “Sir, he drove off the building.” I don’t have a death or prison wish, I just like the Bourne movies. I could live off the grid for a while, with my five kids, and my minivan . . .
Anyway, I reserve the right to edit the above list. I also reserve the right to tick some of them off as — done!!
Oh,I forgot the most important one of all —
10. Really Nice Guy (Perhaps one day I’ll be able to insert his picture here.)
Just Me With . . . things to do.
Timing Is Everything, “Undateable,” Part Two.
I’ve established that I’m not ready to date, or at least I’m not ready to make a sport or hobby out of it. UnDateable, Part I.
But as I was writing about it, I heard from the TV in the background,
Matt to thirty-year-old New Christine: “You met him when you were 26. Now you’re 30. Trust me, from a guy’s perspective, that’s depreciation.” The New Adventures of Old Christine.
Scary statement. And the statement was to New Christine, the younger, shiny replacement model. That statement drove her to drink.

New Christine, after being informed that she has depreciated, having wasted her good years on a man.
Imagine how scary it is if you a woman who is neither 26 or 30. Imagine if you are Old Christine, which is who I’d be in that scenario. Hmmm. Talk about depreciation.
So while I’m not dating, taking care of me, getting myself together, climbing out of the hole of depression and debt, yada yada yada, I hear something– tick-tock, tick-tock — no, it’s not that biological clock ticking — I have enough kids thank you — no, I hear another clock . A clock that (in my mind) will sound a silent alarm which will summon (in my mind) a giant iron hand from our misogynistic -youth-obsessed-paternal-madonna-whore- heaven to snatch me up and drop me straight into Old-Lady-Ville where all mothers or non-mothers over a certain age apparently belong, according to decent society (in my mind). I’ll be forcibly taken to a place where women are always covered from head to toe in solid colors, no one has sex, discussion is only about women’s health or lack thereof, and no one is ever seen again in public — well, not until the woman becomes a grandmother. Grandmothers can leave Old-Lady-Ville on holidays if they come bearing cookies and something made from yarn.
Old-Lady-Ville is a scary place. It’s a place where women are not supposed to wear, say, do, want or feel “that” anymore. (i.e. the people who criticize Madonna) “That” being anything that men like seeing women not in Old-Lady-Ville wear, say, do, want or feel. Where sexuality is either non-existent or the butt of a joke (i.e. Betty White). I’m not ready for that place. I can still pull off some looks and still want to be able to do — stuff. But that won’t last forever. Or at least that won’t be socially acceptable forever.
So I don’t feel like I can take my time. I don’t have years. Not in this market.
Okay, that tick-tock — that iron hand taking me to Old-Lady-Ville — is horrifying, but I know it’s in my head. I’m mean I’m not crazy. (Insert laughter here) But the calendar? That’s real — and worse. The calendar says that if I wait too long, I’ll have to check a different age box on the online profiles which will, effectively, make me ineligible for yet another whole generation of men, if I wasn’t out of the running already. Or, the horror, if I wait too, too long, I’ll have to go to the sites for . . . (gasp) seniors !!!!!! (Insert scary movie music.) And where it used to be completely socially acceptable for a woman’s age to have a fluid quality to it, in order to avoid the abduction to Old-Lady-Ville, the internet has taken this option from us.
Bottom line. It could take years for me to get myself together. In the meantime, I will have depreciated. So whatever it is, my imaginary iron hand or the real calendar, it scares the crap outta me. Clearly. It almost scares me enough to create yet another online dating profile, even though I’m not ready. But it’s do or die — or be put out to pasture, or Old-Lady-Ville.
(I know how paranoid I sound, trust me.)
I just don’t want to be the dude who dutifully, painstakingly, and slowly restores a previously neglected Victorian home with plans to sell, but by the time it is perfect and ready to go on the market, well, the neighborhood has gone to crap and no one will even drive by — except, of course, as a short cut to the “new construction” in the next subdivision. Five years earlier, the home would not have been perfect but he could still unload it. Five years earlier, it could stop traffic, or at least slow it down. Wait too long? Not so much. People just drive by.
Depreciation.
Timing. It’s all about timing. And it’s not the same for guys, not in the open market.
I blame the economy.
Just Me With . . . fears, needs and more than a little paranoia. Shhhh. Did you hear something?