I Need Psychiatric Help

I am having my monthly episode of the Bad JooJoo.

I seriously don’t know what causes it.

I make excuses for people.  I still make excuses for my ex-wife.

I’ve been to a couple of relationship counselors.  I’ve probably had a total of 3 months of professional counseling.  Sometimes when I get into strange social situations something one of them said will jump into my head uninvited.

Boundaries was the word for this weekend.  My first counselor had a couple of sessions with me about setting my boundaries.  She said my boundaries were not solid.  That I tend to move them to fit the situation.  This is both good and bad.  It causes me to make excuses for people and it causes me to blame myself for everything that happens.

My 2nd counselor told me that I’ll be a lot happier once I realize that it’s not always my fault.  That’s not the way she phrased it.  She said something along the lines of: “People that cheat are going to cheat and there’s not really anything you can do about it.  You just need to focus on things that make you happy.”

I have a boundary now.  It’s called the “don’t mess with my kids” boundary.  I adopted it when my ex-wife got remarried.  And I carved it in stone. 

On Friday I went out with a friend of mine and his girlfriend.  It had been a long time since we’d been out together.  I met him at 5 for happy hour and we were supposed to meet her at an eatery down the street at 6.

My daughter called (shortly after my friend called) and asked when I was coming over to pick them up.  I told her about my dinner plans and said it would have to be afterwards so maybe 8 or so.  She said okay and that was that.  The conversation becomes important later so bear with me if you can.

The happy hour at 5 was cool.  My waitress there was very entertaining.  She was quite intelligent and had an uncanny ability for entertaining dialog.  I don’t dialog well, but she had me comfortably dialoging.  It was refreshing.  It reminded me of Ed.  She opened up by describing the daily beer special as, “a melee of fantastic flavors” to which I replied, “I can honestly say I’ve never heard anyone use the word melee to casually describe a beer or, in fact, a beverage of any kind”.  It went on from there.  We talked about vampires, the show Castle, which lead to the show Firefly and on and on.  This is a place called Tilted Kilt.  I’d tell you my waitresses name, but I’m not sure I’m allowed.  You could request the intelligent one.  I wonder how that would go over.

At 6 we went down the street to meet the girlfriend.  That was cool too.  This restaurant we go to maybe once every 6 months or so.  It is Fireside Pies.  And I think 3 out of 4 times we go we have this same waitress.  This time we sat down and here she came.  “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” she asked.  I fell into my experimentation mode and started naming off adult entertainment facilities in the area.  Fun was had by all.  I didn’t really do that.

At 7 my friend started telling me that it had been too long since we all went out for karaoke so I should call my daughter and tell her I’d pick her up Saturday morning.  I really don’t like putting my kids off, but it had been a long time since we had all been out together so I fought it a bit, but after some pleading I gave in.

He went to the restroom and his girlfriend had this brilliant idea that she was going to tell him that she was tired and just wanted to go home.  I thought it would be funny so I said I’d go along with it the best I could.

Well, for some reason, this little prank turned my friend into a rotten tomato.  If I stretch the logic and put on my “pissy little bitch” hat, I can sort of see why he was irritated.  Sort of.

Anyway, we all left to go do the karaoke evening.  On my way to do karaoke I get two messages.  One from the girlfriend.  Followed quickly by his message.  They have cancelled.  I’ve already cancelled my plans with my kids and possibly disappointed them because perhaps they had plans and now he’s blowing off his plans with me.

Ballistic would be a mild explanation of my feelings.  You can mess up my plans all you want.  I don’t care (too much).  But you don’t talk me into messing with my kid’s plans and then back out.  I already felt guilty about changing my kid’s plans.  I did it because a friend asked me to go out and spend some time with him and his girlfriend.

But, now I am back to making excuses.  I know I should have been stronger and not backed out on my kids to begin with.  Is it my fault?  Am I overreacting?

I miss Ed.