So I’m not ready. That’s right.  I’m not.  I’m not ready to be the man of my dreams.  When the REAL shit hits the road, when it comes time that I am faced with the moments that I want to be MY LIFE, I’m just not ready.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  I’m 100% better than I’ve ever felt.  I feel certainty.  I feel powerful.  I even feel connection in my life. But….BUT….BUT….I’m just not ready. Now…at this point I recall a post I once created titled “Never Ready,” the idea being that action and only action will lead to any genuine insight.

Well.  I’ve been taking action.  And my action is screaming at me: “you must take even more.”  But, I am confused.  Yup.  I am confused.  …and I’m sad.

See, tonight I went out.  I went out with a girl that I always wanted to go out with.  It was THE girl, the Ex. The one that started me on my AI journey.  She is a Playmate…yup, like a legit Playboy Playmate.  She’s beautiful.  She is smart.  Sharp. And she is simply cool.  We went out and she did her thing, which involves meeting and reminiscing with people she used to hang out with.  It’s awesome for her, I’m sure.  It’s good fun.  And, I’m so glad for her to meet people she may miss or people that she is simply happy to see again.

I noticed her standing alone and texting.   I went over to her and asked her: “so do you go to bars to just stand and text?” (which I meant as a kind of joke).  She took offense.  I could tell in the way she looked at me and the way she responded to me that she felt she was being “attacked.”  That she felt like somehow she was being judged.  She told me: “well, I just do what I want” (but with a sense of exasperation, of annoyance, her voice fast and high). To which I said, ” that is amazing, brilliant…good.  I was simply curious.  I was not judging you.”  But somehow its just seemed that my words fell on deaf ears, that her life, filled with needy and silly men, was just too much for her to look past.   Her look in my eyes and the stance of her body was one of “seriously? you are giving me shit?”

Here’s the thing guys, I was not giving her “shit” for texting.  I was just playing with her about it and curious about how she engages her world.

And that’s when I realized that this girl is NOT at a stage in life where my gifts of being me can be received and enjoyed.  She is not, right now, available as a comedy partner.  I’ll explain…

Recently I’ve been taking Improvisational comedy classes.  I was blown away when my first class went so incredibly well. Not only was I funny, but funny stuff was coming out of me with little to no awareness at all.  I had never done any acting or ever once thought about doing comedy, and yet, I was really flowing with my improv comedy group. They gave me gifts and I unpacked them into humor and my humor was likewise a gift to them which they enjoyed as they unpacked it and played with it…and so on, and on, and on…

Then it hit me: They are my partners.  We are on the “same page.”  There is simply no substitute for surrounding yourself with others who share your core desires and experience of the world. Or, more importantly, how you engage your world.

This girl is amazing and she is smart and she is living a fantastic life, one that I envy in many ways. And I support her till the very end and would never think twice about going into a battle with her. And we can connect at an abstract level of talk about life, love, relationships, you name it but how we ENGAGE our lives in the silence of our actions could not be more out of sync.  For me, she simply is not ready for my gifts….SHE IS NOT READY for me or my engagement with life.  She cannot be my comedy partner in any sense, right now.

And, moreover, I cannot accept the gifts of her world.  The views of people in her world are so foreign to me, a world where “love” means “depending on the other,” a world where “jealousy makes sense as a natural emotion,” a world where a playful comment is felt as a “judgment” because well, “that’s how guys/people are.” Pleasing others means alot to her.  And while she expresses awareness of feeling the limits of this engagement with the world, she continues to make a living in a world where the people around her actually take actions in accordance with those views.

It’s just not how I roll. It’s not my kind of engagement. Those are gifts I cannot enjoy…I can unpack them, and do often, but then I work to destroy them or transform them.

But these gifts are obviously fine for her. In fact, they are more than fine.

It has helped bring her to great point in her life…a point where she can awake on any given morning, step out, pick a fresh tangerine mere steps from her bed and enjoy it in that sun’s warmth.  She can do what she wants when she wants and at any given time have the experience she wants.  She feels gratitude for her life when she has so many conceivable reasons to be bitter, cynical, and angry…but NOT HER.  She is loving life. But, her pathway as I’m trying to express, is different than mine in some deep ways.  Not worse or better…just different.

So let me change this up a bit: Its NOT that I am not ready…Rather it is that: She is not ready….

Nonetheless, I found myself apologizing to her for my texting comment because for me it was the right thing to do.  She was annoyed.  And, well, we were at a bar and in a town where tons of people judge her.  And, though she is strong enough to take it, as a friend, I should not and do not want to contribute to that shit. Obviously.  So, I apologized to her for judging her.  I told her: “I apologize.  I meant it as something playful, but it came off as judgmental because well, I guess that is expected.  You know, like, ‘that’s how people/guys are.’ But, that’s not me.”

And with that I left the bar we were at.

As I walked home I felt sad.  I felt not so much anger or sad for myself, but just sad, like the way you feel when you watch a sad movie.

She is a great, great, amazing girl and I accept her completely. But, she is not at a place in her life where she can FEEL that gift, unpack it and enjoy it, much less be turned on or excited by that. Perhaps one day she may be able to unpack my gift fully.  But that is not MY problem.

My point is this:

She could never be MY partner in comedy, at least not now.

And once again, it’s not me.  In fact it’s not her either.  It just is what it is.  I accept that.