DOMINOES

“Cause and effect, chain of events; All of this chaos makes perfect
sense. When you’re spinning ‘round, things come undone. Welcome
to Earth, Third Rock From the Sun.”
Joe Diffie, Third Rock From the
Sun

You know, it’s funny. Sometimes when I look back on my life I notice certain trends. Not over the course of my ENTIRE life so much as just small segments. For example, my trend this year has been what I like to call “Betting on the wrong horse”. I decide to stay with one job and pass up an opportunity that, while decent or better, still seems to lack something. Sometimes it’s pay. Sometimes it’s longevity. Sometimes I just don’t like how far away it is. In all the cases this year the same thing has happened… I end up making the wrong choice. I turn down a chance at a good paying teaching gig cause it was only confirmed for 12-18 months and the contract I was in was open-ended. Apparently, “open-ended” mainly means they aren’t sure WHEN they will cancel it. So, of course, they cancel it about a month and a half into it. AFTER the other opportunity is gone. For that matter, I took that open-ended gig, leaving a scoring position at Pearson because the scoring project was only confirmed through the first week of July. The so-called “open-ended” assignment ended mid-June.
But this trend goes well beyond work. It’s happening throughout my personal life, too. I chose one woman over another… sometimes over ALL others and get my heart stomped. Hell, that started off the year. I decide to watch one program over another only to have the one cancelled and the other so far into the season that I feel I can’t really get into it no matter how good people say it is. I pick the wrong movie to go see. I pick the wrong time to go see it. I pick the wrong restaurant. I decide to wait for someone to call me to avoid looking desperate or something and instead find out they saw me as not interested. I don’t just show up at Mom’s to help out believing it best to wait until they let me know they are ready to do the chores and end up having her and my sister mad at me for not showing up earlier. Basically, if I have a choice, I should be telling all my friends not to listen to MY opinion or just listen and do the opposite. Of course, with my luck that would simply be the wrong choice between telling them this and not telling them.
Quite a pickle.
So what does all that have to do with dominoes? Simple… just like in dominoes, one decision leads into another. Sometimes you don’t even realize one has affected another until much later. Me taking one job over another means I meet people who may or may not affect me. That’s fine. But it ALSO means I DON’T meet OTHER people. I could’ve taken a night job, which would mean no more Trivia on Wednesdays, which would’ve changed how my life has turned out because I wouldn’t be playing trivia and meeting certain people which would mean not doing some of the things I have done. If I never got to play Trivia as much as I did, I never would’ve found out about the hosting gig which resulted in me hosting trivia at Calico Jack’s in Baymeadows on Saturday nights at 7pm (bring your friends) which would have resulted in, again, me not meeting certain people. And that’s just going back a certain, small length of time. If I went back further, I could see how everything else was affected by one simple decision. So with my new trend of horse betting, I am worried. Not so much for the immediate problems but for the resulting situations a month from now. Or a year. Or five years. Or more.
Quite a BIGGER pickle.
But still, that isn’t why I titled this “Dominoes.” I titled it that way cause I wanted to talk about the dominoes that happen BECAUSE of other people. Relationship dominoes. Them’s a bitch, let me tell you. And it works like this:
Person A falls for another person but they can’t (or shouldn’t) have that person for whatever reason and become upset because of that which causes them to not notice someone else, Person B. But Person B DOES like Person A and now they are upset cause they can’t have them. This longing causes them to miss out on Person C. Person C decides it isn’t worth waiting for Person B or that Person B just isn’t interested though they might be and may even WILL be once they are done pursuing Person A. But it’s too late cause Person C is already thinking about someone else.
That is one set of dominoes. A set arranged in a line.
But let’s look at it a different way. Now Person A is upset about Person X but they still get together. But Person X is involved with someone else. So Person X won’t leave that other person. Now Person A feels like the world is ending since the love of their life is unavailable but they have already had a fling (cause Person X is basically a piece of crap… I’ll have to deal with infidelity some other time) so Person A is left in even MORE pain. Now even if Person B did manage to connect with Person A, the damage is done. Person A is left longing for Person X and any relationship to follow will be hampered by it. This will cause paranoia or lack of faith in Person B, which will affect any relationship with someone else. And so on. And so on. This is a more complicated arrangement. Like those sets of dominoes that do tricks and such.
But what if Persons X and A DID manage to get together. What if Person X left the marriage/serious relationship and tried to make it work with Person A. That’s a different set of dominoes, as well. Trust is destroyed. Person A will always wonder about the faithfulness of Person X and it will gnaw at them for a long time. It’s like a set of dominoes arranged in a circle.
Relationship dominoes are notoriously difficult to see when you are IN the arrangement. Whether you just don’t want to see them or can’t, they are there. When I felt burned by former girlfriends, I know that affects how I deal with future ones. It affects how much trust I freely give and how quickly. It affects how much I do for them and how often.
Looking back, I find myself wanting to apologize to all the people who I have wronged in any way because of these dominoes. And more importantly, to those I never met whom they affect. The guys who liked the girls who liked the guys who liked the girls I made second-guess their feelings cause of how I treated them. Or because of their time I wasted leading them on so they missed out on better guys. It’s part of the reason, I know, why I tend to not readily commit too quickly anymore or even give them a shot. I worry that I will keep them from meeting someone better. Isn’t it crappy… the one, BIG thing I held against Pam is the same thing I find myself doing.
Dominoes.
Just recently I found out a woman I was very interested in had chosen to go with a completely unavailable man. Well, unavailable for anything beyond fun. The wife tends to limit a man’s availability, I guess. She was completely taken with him. Lost to me. I had spent so much time holding off my meetings with other women. Making sure to always have the nights I knew I would see her open. I wouldn’t allow any of the other women to be around at that time; even one who is nice, funny and I have a blast with. I was left as that older guy who hangs around a younger woman but I wasn’t allowed to feel sorrow or pain or anything. She has shown she doesn’t like that. So I have to sit and suffer knowing my loss without being able to act on it. Even if I DID act on it, she is lost to the point where the married man and her strong sense of feelings for him would overshadow anything we might have. Still I wait just as she waits. So the fact that she is longing for an unavailable man has left me longing for an unavailable woman, which caused another who really wanted me to commit to her left longing for an unavailable man.
Dominoes.
Fucking dominoes.