A Tangled Web

by Leslie Rule

  Once Dave had helped Liz with whatever thing she needed help with, she’d get back in his good graces by initiating sex, and the cycle would start all over again. Liz was an expert seductress, and she knew exactly what Dave liked. He was too nice of a guy to tell her to take a hike right afterward, so she would spend the night, the blowup all but forgotten.

  All humans are influenced by biology whether we’re aware of it or not, and studies have shown that a hormone released by the hypothalamus during sex can create such a physical high that both males and females are often confused by their feelings. Are those warm, fuzzy feelings a genuine indication of caring or are they a temporary rush of “feel good” chemicals? The answer is not always simple. Oxytocin, dubbed “the love hormone” and “the cuddle hormone,” fosters bonding in couples, and the natural high can be so powerful that it overrides common sense.

  Research continues on the sometimes controversial and debatable effects of human-generated chemicals and how they affect social interaction, but there is no denying the fact that sexual connections make it much more difficult to sever relationships. Dave did feel more fondly toward Liz because of their physical involvement. Sex relaxed him, numbing his concerns about her possessiveness. After their reunions, things would be peaceful for a couple of weeks, and then Liz would once again begin to pout and insinuate he had slept with Amy.

  Neither Amy nor Dave had any inclination to rekindle their romantic relationship, but Liz refused to believe that. It was exasperating, he recalls. “It was just nag, nag, nag, nag when I’d already told her a thousand times, ‘It’s none of your damn business. If I get back with Amy tomorrow, that’s none of your damn business.’”

  The longer he knew Liz, the less inclined she was to back down when he told her off. With each passing week, she kept count of the time she had “invested” in him since their first meeting, as if she were counting dollars deposited in the bank.

  “I would think you would give me a little more consideration with three months invested in this relationship,” she said in the middle of one of her snits over her suspicions that he was hooking up with Amy. Even the weeks they had spent apart counted as “time invested,” as far as Liz was concerned.

  Sometimes it was easier to ignore her than argue. As long as he steered clear of the subject of Amy, Dave and Liz got along fine. Sex between them continued to be good, and he didn’t mind falling asleep next to her. “I sleep like a brick.” Once he closed his eyes for the night, he was almost instantly in too deep of a sleep to be affected by whoever was resting next to him. Liz spent the night often.

  When she wasn’t obsessing over Amy, Liz was docile and agreeable. While she didn’t possess a quick wit or the ability to engage in fascinating conversation, she was okay company for those nights that would have been otherwise lonely. As long as she understood that he would never commit to her, he figured he could keep from breaking her heart, so he reminded her often that he wasn’t in love with her and never would be. His plan did not work. Liz didn’t get the hint, and she continued to push him to give her more. She sought him out constantly, often dropping by without warning. What was he supposed to do? Shut the door in her face? Shove her off when she climbed onto his lap and kissed him?

  Two things betrayed him: his body, too easily aroused when an attractive and sexually aggressive woman was insistent upon having him. And his conscience. “I didn’t want to be a dick. I’d already been a jerk on numerous occasions because she would push at me until I had to be. And I don’t want to be that guy, but sometimes you have to be.”

  Kindhearted people have a particularly tough time ending relationships, and though David wished Liz would quietly go away, he hoped that would happen without him having to be cruel. He doesn’t remember when Paul Simon’s sensation “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover” first hit the airwaves in late 1975, because he wasn’t born yet. In January 1976, right around the time he was conceived and just before his mother probably sensed the new life stirring within her, the song climbed to the top of the charts. The catchy tune with rhyming suggestions such as “Get on the bus, Gus,” and “Drop off the key, Lee,” listed various ways to dump a lover and “Get yourself free.”

  The song makes rejecting someone sound easy, but in reality, it can be just as painful for the dumper with a conscience as it is for the “dumpee.” Dave didn’t want to see Liz’s tears or feel the burden of her broken heart. People have been known to go so far as to fake their own deaths rather than see the pain of rejection in the eyes of their jilted lovers. The more common brush off, however, is used so often it has become a cliché.

  “It’s not you, it’s me.”

  In theory, the deserted partner is supposed to feel better about themselves when the one severing the ties takes responsibility for the failure of the relationship. Do those five monosyllable words really help rejected people salvage their egos? Perhaps in some cases, but most of the time the brokenhearted recognize a platitude when they hear one and end up feeling insulted and rejected.

  In September 2012, as the nights grew cold, and the deciduous trees were afire with autumn hues, Liz insisted on having serious talks with Dave about the direction of their relationship. He bristled, but she read that as a sign that he was afraid to show his feelings. She had so many questions for him. How did he really feel about her?

  Backed into a corner, he told her she was attractive and a great gal, and sure, he cared about her. Yeah, they had fun together. “But I’m never going to commit to you,” he added. How many times did they have to have this discussion? Dave was irritated.

  Liz, however, plucked out the parts of his response she liked the best and discarded the rest. Dave cared about her! She decided he might be more comfortable relaying his feelings in writing, and she began to send him long texts and emails, all built around a brilliant idea that had occurred to her. What if Dave committed to her for just four weeks? It would be “a fresh start” for them, and maybe it would “move their relationship forward.”

  He grimaced when he saw the text she’d sent him outlining her proposal. Why was she suggesting any kind of commitment when she knew he wanted his freedom? “I ignored it the first time,” he says. “Like it didn’t happen.”

  In another email she asked if he would rather that she just go away. Trying to soften the rejection, he repeated what he had told her from the beginning. As long as she didn’t expect anything from him, he didn’t mind hanging out with her.

  In one of the following emails she wrote, I know you have things to think over. Do you really not want to try? Stop overanalyzing everything. What did you feel? I got you to say a little bit today, which was nice to hear. That’s all I want, really, is for you to tell me how you feel honestly, and I know it’s hard for you. You’re very vague about things, and I wish you would open up.

  Dave didn’t think he was vague. Maybe he was a little vague when she put him on the spot and insisted that he tell her exactly what he thought of her. He had hemmed and hawed and tried to change the subject, so he wouldn’t say something mean. But he did not think he was vague when it came to where he stood on their future. There wasn’t one!

  He had once made the mistake of telling Liz about his past disappointments in failed romances. Almost everyone has had their heart broken at least once, and he was no exception. Liz concluded that his past pain was the main obstacle they had to overcome to find bliss. I know your past isn’t very good, and I’m sorry for that, she wrote. You’re a wonderful man and deserve someone who will respect you. I don’t want to be full of myself, but I am very good to the man I am seeing. Sorry, but I deserve someone like you, finally.

  The onslaught of words continued, and he responded with about one word for every hundred she expressed. In that September’s exhaustive email exchange, Liz continued to ask him for answers to questions he had already answered. Either you want me to stay, or you want me to go, she wrote, adding that she would not stop wanting more from Dave. I understand your position at the mome
nt, she stated. She ended that email saying he could expect her to continue to ask for a commitment from him in the following months.

  Liz was trying to pin Dave down, and it made him extremely uncomfortable. How could he make it clear that he absolutely did not want to be in a monogamous, permanent relationship with her? He didn’t want to hurt her feelings, and he wished she would drop the subject.

  Dave took a deep breath and typed a reply that he hoped would make her back off but not completely crush her. He wrote that he’d thought he’d made his position clear and added, “I’m prepared to understand that you want more and will ask again. That’s cool. Are you prepared to hear ‘no’ again?” How much more-blunt could he be? he wondered as he hit the send button.

  Maybe, Liz responded and pointed out that they’d been seeing each other for months, as if that gave her the right to demand more from him. She ended that email asking, What do I need to do to get you to take a chance? Seven minutes later, before he could respond, she sent another email. I guess hearing “no” isn’t that big of a deal. It does make me wonder what is wrong with me. Wonder if I’m just a rebound. I guess with almost four months invested, I figured I’d get more from you.

  Dave felt bad that Liz felt bad. Why couldn’t she grasp that the fact that he wanted his freedom wasn’t a rejection of her? There was so much that she didn’t seem to get. When he read her next words, he realized how true that was. Liz wrote, I always feel we take a small step forward, then you go to Amy, then we take ten steps backward. Am I really always going to have to play this tug of war for you to drop the damn past?

  Once again, he tried to explain that the mother of his children wasn’t the issue. Well, I hardly talk to Amy, and I never see her, so it’s not that. He hit send, and a reply appeared almost immediately.

  Are you scared of me? Liz asked. Do you think I will cheat on you? Do you think you’re not good enough?

  He’d rather put the blame on himself than hurt her feelings and was glad she’d steered the discussion in that direction. Elaborating on the standard rejection, “It’s not you, it’s me,” he typed, I’m not good enough for you. Just because you have low standards, obviously, since you like me, doesn’t mean I’m good for you.

  A flurry of emails flew back and forth, and then Liz got right to the point. Answer the stupid question. Do you want to keep going with us or not? Not that hard, stay or go. There it was again. The ultimatum.

  If she would just stop nagging him to commit and give him room to breathe, they could hang out, but if she vanished from his life forever, he would not shed any tears. “I didn’t care if she came or went,” he admits, but he was trying hard to be tactful. He typed, I said “stay” 27 emails ago. But maybe we should back off again. Emotions getting high and all

  Oh my fucking God! Liz shot back. Whatever. As always, I bring something up, and Dave runs for the hills! You’re the only one that has a problem here. It’s always easier to run. She was needling him, calling him a coward for refusing to face a love she was certain he’d see if he weren’t so afraid. He did not take the bait.

  The most irritating part of their exchanges was her persistence about the four-week commitment. He could hardly believe she’d suggest such a thing, and he was frustrated when he read, I guess at the end of four weeks this is what I’m hoping for. Maybe persuade you to move a little forward with us. LOL. Laughing out loud? She obviously wasn’t joking, and the use of the Internet abbreviation for laughter ironically came off like a nervous giggle. Dave wished she were joking, because the suggestion was truly laughable to him.

  Liz stressed in that email, I’d like a guy who was kind of like mine, someone I could go out with, have fun with, or sit at home with and enjoy playing PS3, cards or whatever. She added that she was as afraid of a commitment as he was, but a few sentences later she wrote that she was “asking for constants.” She rattled on, basically repeating what she had already said, and then ended with, Does that make sense, or did I just make it worse?

  What did Liz think a one-month commitment would accomplish? Did she believe he’d realize he was hopelessly in love with her after thirty days of an exclusive arrangement? “She was dumb to think that would be the case.” He shakes his head. The first time she’d suggested the four-week commitment, he ignored her, hoping she’d drop it, but she asked again. “I just shut her down. And then she asked again, and I shut her down. She just wouldn’t let it go. Finally, I’m like, ‘okay, whatever.’ By then I was already talking to Cari.”

  Cari. Incredibly smart, funny, and sexy, she was the only woman he had met organically since his breakup with Amy. While all the others had stepped into his world through his computer screen, Cari was the only one he had met the old-fashioned way, face-to-face in a chance encounter. “She was a customer, and it was purely professional,” Dave stresses, recalling the day the vivacious Cari Farver brought her Ford Explorer into Hyatt Tire for a minor repair.

  He was instantly attracted to the tall, slender lady with the smiling hazel eyes. A powerful energy crackled between them as they met each other’s gaze, and Dave sensed she felt it, too. Should he ask her out? No. He was at work, and she was a client. Asking her for a date would be inappropriate, he told himself. Besides, he couldn’t be certain she’d be receptive. Her eyes seemed to say she was interested, but maybe he had misread her. If she said no, it would be embarrassing and awkward.

  About two weeks later while perusing the Plenty of Fish dating site, Dave was pleasantly surprised to see Cari’s profile pop up on the screen. He sent her a message: Hi! I know you! “It was a chance to say hello without being too creepy.”

  Cari wrote back, and the exchange was friendly but brief. About two weeks later, she came back to the shop with her Explorer. Dave went with her to the parking lot to check out one of the vehicle’s windows that had been sticking. This time they were both acutely aware that the other was single and looking to date. “Sparks kind of flew,” Dave remembers. “We weren’t making out in the parking lot, but right then and there we exchanged phone numbers and expressed our interest in each other.”

  He hadn’t dated anyone but Liz in the past month, the month she had insisted should belong exclusively to the two of them. While Liz seemed to be desperately holding onto the idea that the monogamous month would seal them as a couple, he didn’t pay much attention to it. He’d gotten very tired of Liz nagging him about it, and had half-heartedly agreed to shut her up.

  No, he had not dated anyone else in the last weeks, but not because of a sense of obligation. He’d been busy. Between work, his kids, and the hours Liz gobbled up, there wasn’t time for much else. Their exclusive month was almost up, and if she thought he was going to drop to one knee and profess his undying devotion toward her, she was about to be very disappointed.

  Dave was excited about Cari and was looking forward to seeing her, but he did have an obligation to Liz. It was not a commitment to a lifetime together but a promise of a date Liz had made with him weeks earlier when she got tickets to the Freaker’s Ball. Hosted by Z-92s Todd N Tyler Radio Empire, the Freaker’s Ball was a big Halloween bash at Harrah’s Council Bluffs Casino and Hotel. The doors opened at 7:30 P.M. on Friday, October 26, 2012, and partygoers danced to music played by the band, The Vybe, “bobbed for bullets,” and competed for best costume in a contest sponsored by Coors Light Beer. The generous prizes included a thousand-dollar award for the best costumed pair.

  Liz fashioned their costumes, togas made partly from white sheets. Dave wore a gold armband, gold sash, and incongruous blue tennis shoes that peeked out beneath his floor-length getup in a snapshot. “We handed our cell phones to someone and asked them to take pictures of us,” Dave remembers. The pair, with Liz cuddled close to Dave, are forever frozen in that instant. Liz’s chest looks so huge she’s top heavy, and her toga is strategically draped to show off her high heels with the long, gold straps crisscrossing up her shapely calves.

  The costumes weren’t authentic, and they didn’t wi
n any prizes, but if Liz’s goal was to present herself and Dave as a couple, she succeeded. The Roman themed outfits left no question that they were a matched set. At least for the night of the Freaker’s Ball, Liz got what she wanted. But just as Cinderella’s magic night at the ball ended when her magnificent coach morphed back into a pumpkin, Liz’s ball, too, came to a disappointing end. As the night wound down, Dave did not exactly behave like a besotted Prince Charming. Sure, he was as into the sex as he always was. She knew just how to touch him to drive him wild, and at the end of their date, she made sure he was satiated. But afterward he seemed more distracted than usual. If Liz suspected he had another woman on his mind, she was right.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MONDAY NIGHT, three nights after The Freaker’s Ball, Dave and Cari had their first date. They met at Applebee’s Bar & Grill at Omaha’s Oak View Mall. It was fun from the moment Dave sat down across the table from Cari. She was witty, and she not only made him laugh, she laughed at his quips, too. They ordered drinks, and as they sipped, conversation flowed naturally.

  He learned that she was a computer programmer with an expertise in coding. She worked for West Corporation, a developer of technology-enabled communication, with offices less than half a mile from his apartment. She had been hired in May, so it was still relatively new to her. She was twice divorced, thirty-seven, and lived with her teenage son, Maxwell, in Macedonia, Iowa, a small country town where she had grown up, about thirty miles east of Omaha. It was a long commute to work, she told him, but she enjoyed her job.

  They had an excellent rapport, and the more Dave got to know Cari, the better he liked her. “Then my phone started blowing up with texts and phone calls.” He tried to ignore the distraction, but in a ten-minute period, he received about twenty texts and calls. He glanced at his phone and saw Liz’s number. He wasn’t going to answer her in the middle of a date. “That would have been rude! I was giving Cari my attention. But it continued until I assumed something very serious was going on, and I excused myself and went to the bathroom.” Dave called Liz and asked her what she wanted.