SPEECHLESS

So A. comes back from Israel last week. He calls me right when he gets home because he wants to see me. I had plans Tuesday night and he was carless having dropped his car off on consignment prior to leaving. I had dinner with my friend and then took my leftovers to his house afterwards. He was very jetlagged from the 20 hours of flying and the 10 hour time difference. So I guess that's why he forgot to edit out the photos of the chick he hooked up with while he was there. Because as he's showing me the slide show of his parents house, his brothers and their families, the trip to Egypt, the people he recorded a song with for his brother's wedding, there were also pictures of this woman. In bed. Naked.

He freaked out, "Are you okay? Nothing happened. She was an unemotional person."

Um, whatever. She's also unattractive and you're not my boyfriend. This was the silent response in my head. I was aware however, that I was completely unphased by it although if she had been a hot chick I think I would've been. Because I'm shallow like that. I think I just assumed that he would hook up with someone when he was traveling because that's who he is.

But then.

The next two days are a total disconnect. I call him on Thursday to touch base thinking that he's back in the mire of work that he was freaking out about leaving, only to find that he's on his way to the ballet. And he made me ask who he was going with. If you make me ask it makes me think that you are hiding something. When I finally asked he said, "With my friend Emma." And that combined with the disconnect and what felt like deceptiveness pissed me off. So I very tersely told him that I'd let him go.

Yeah, so Friday he wants to have a "discussion" so that we can "figure things out" and in that discussion he told me that what he wants more than anything is to get married and have six children. Now he had told me this before he left, but I thought he was kidding. Not about the getting married and having a family bit - but the six kids part. What ride in fantasyland are you on to think about starting to have six kids when you're in your mid 40s? Not that I begrudge him that - he's middle eastern and I think that it's kind of the norm in those cultures for old men to have young children.

And I don't want six children. I don't even want one if I have to gestate it. I'd take gift with purchase kids, or I would adopt children, but I don't want to do pregnancy and labor. I'm too old and I'm already losing the battle against gravity. And if I did have kids I don't think I'd want them with A. While I completely enjoy him and really, really like him, his lifestyle doesn't really lend itself to parenting and I think that whoever ends up having his six kids will be tending the litter alone because he's a workaholic who doesn't seem to have the knack of balancing even a good night's sleep with all that he does.

But what pissed me off, or more honestly hurt me, was that he told me that I wanted the whole enchilada with him and that he would never marry me. Um, dude after three weeks of you giving me the full on rush, I was just settling into the idea that I really do like hanging with you, but I was also fully aware that it had literally only been weeks. I am a fickle female who tends to get bored after a few months with the same old same old - but I was willing to see where it might go. And marriage was never even on my radar. I was still having fun.

Now I'm just bummed out and exhausted.

And after his pre-emptive strike on Friday night, I don't know if I even want to see him again. I think that was the male version of the "freak out."

It's funny, usually I get there first.