Irene From a Therepy Group

So back in the day, I was seeing a woman named Lauren. Now Lauren felt that I ought to learn to be more assertive, and being the dutiful boyfriend that I was, I decided to take a course that was being offered by the CSU East Bay Counseling and Psychological Services center that promised to deal with, among other things, assertiveness. As fate would have it, Lauren dumped me the night before the group was going to go over assertiveness. I went anyway, because it was better than crying into my pillow, and because, while originally I made it sound otherwise, Lauren wasn't my sole inspiration for joining the group (I'm bitter you see.).

At any rate, in the group, I met a woman named Irene. Irene seemed to still be finding herself after a huge breakup of her own, and neither of us were ready to date during the time while the group sessions were going on, However, both having come out of similar dark place, we had kind of a connection, and after the last meeting she gave me her phone number, telling me to call if I ever needed someone to talk to. I called her once or twice, because there were many points in the following months that I did in fact need someone to talk to, and I liked Irene.

Lauren and I broke up about six months ago. I got a call from Irene the other day asking how I was doing. I called her back yesterday afternoon, telling her I was doing fine and I was over Lauren and I was moving on with my life. She said she was glad to hear that. We chatted, and I asked her about her life. She said she was busy but otherwise doing well. We talked about relationships for a bit, and I asked her if she'd started dating again. She said that she was really not looking to start dating, not because she wasn't over her ex, but because she was enjoying being single and wanted to keep it that way. Bummer-o-rama.

I guess it's okay that this happened, because while she seems sort of interesting, I get the feeling that Irene, like Lauren, is just interesting enough for me to want to get involved, and then once the relationship starts to get serious, things begin falling apart. I'm really making a concerned effort to stay away from women who aren't weird enough to get me. Y'know, so that I hopefully don't get hurt so often.

Of course, if Irene called me right now and said she wanted to go out for coffee, 'I can't. You're normal.' would be the last thing I'd say.