My Vaalie Windgat.

Avery and I have been dating for a decent amount of time, and I'm honestly shocked every time a month passes or what not because we are two absolutely different people in every respect. Those differences were never more apparent than this past weekend, and no I'm not talking about the fact that he was busy all weekend and had tons of plans and had no time for me anywhere in there, not even enough time to text me back. It's his birthday and his friends and family are in town from DC, so I shall let that one slide.

I'm talking about dinner on Thursday night at the second most expensive restaurant in all of Oregon, which, when you're an artist is a rather big deal seeing as I'm usually teetering right above the poverty stricken area of the financial continuum. I mean I absolutely love what I do, but you're insane if you think you can draw/make music for a living and come out of it with a ton of money unless you hit the mortal coil's jackpot. But! That's neither her nor there. I saved up, I made reservations a month in advance, I went out and got a darling little dress and spent the entire day trying to make myself look not so much like me, and then my perfectly planned evening, which I had to reschedule four times to accommodate birthday asshole's wishes, fell to complete shit.

While we were conversing, somehow the topic of aesthetic appearance came up before we even got our drinks {thank the lord for vodka}, and somehow the focus was on my own appearance. I think it got started because I made a comment about how he hated my hair coloring motif. Regardless, I tried not to let the words spewing forth from his mouth like tiny little daggers leech my mind and overall desire to make the night all about him, but I distinctly remember the words "ashamed" and "you" coming out from the landfill of his mouth in rapid succession and it wasn't until I had to excuse myself to go to the restroom because a bastard tear fell from my eye that he openly declared a cease fire denoted by a "sorry."

Now, to be fair, the tear was purely the result of PMS, which, I'm ashamed to admit, has the effect of making me much more emotional and leads to my crying that much more easily. Rephrase, it makes it that much harder for me to hold the tears back. I had no intention of letting that little bugger carve a path in my cheek, let alone while I was sitting in front of him, but I just couldn't keep it in. Why? 'Cause it hurt, that's why.

It hurts when someone you care about, whether they are serious or not, looks you right in the eyes and says that they are ashamed of you. It hurts even more when you've spent the entire week ensuring that the night would go perfectly, fine tuning the night to comply with that persons whims, and going out of your way to look cute and presentable for them, and then be told that the person you did all this for is ashamed of you.

In his defense, he said he was sorry and that he didn't mean it in that way. He simply meant that my look is very unorthodox which is something he has to take into consideration when he has business dinners or whatever. Also in his defense, he says a lot of stupid shit and has grown quite fond of the taste of his foot. He's even started using flavored moisturizer on his toes to make his foot go down easier. In my own stupidity, I dropped it and shoved it to the back of my mind, drank a few more martinis, felt righteous when the waiter said I had an absolutely adorable accent, and acted as if nothing had happened and let the good times roll.

I dropped it, which pretty much means I'm not allowed to bring it up again per the rules of our relationship and the unyielding female ability to not let things go and the deficient male ability to think things are over with when the female is simply saving grace at that moment, but it rather bothers me. I haven't met his friends, I haven't met his family, and though I haven't told my family about our liaison, I have good reason: My mother parents are nutty. They would demand to meet him, demand to know the details of our relationship, and every conversation from that point of divulging would go to my relationship with him. I perish to think how the conversations would go should they disapprove, which of course they will. Thus, my reason for not telling my parents is because it's not worth it unless it's something serious and by serious I mean there's the possibility of forever in the cards, which isn't to say that's not the case here, but I'm not going to be domkop enough to put my familial relations on the prospect just yet. He knows that, and he's met the majority of my friends. Now all I know is that he's ashamed of me, and coupled with the fact that he's fairly adamant about not intermixing me with his friends and family, I can't help but see a conjointment between reality and the lovely pink elephant that is now in the space between us.

I suppose I don't understand. I know I'm not traditional in any sense of the word when it comes to my appearance and style, and I know most people probably look at me and think I'm an absolute freak, but much like he insists on wearing polo's with the caveat of "It's my personality, and I like them," I feel it's a bit unfair that my insistence on dressing somewhat rockerish, having tattoos and piercings, and dying my hair random colors, though suiting my "personality", aren't acceptable representations of who I am because they fall short of societal dictate. It's especially unfair that the man I tried so hard not to fall in love with but failed miserably at is sitting across from me and wondering when I shall grow out of this apparent "rebellious" phase I'm in and be more presentable, a term that is seemingly defined as he sees fit. Unfortunately, I'm not in any phase, and I'm not trying to be something I'm not. I'm me. Me involves burgundy hair and visible tattoos. Sure I'm not the mean, but I'm not entirely far from it I'd say.

I don't know. He says he loves me and maybe he didn't mean what he said, but it's absolute bullshit I have to sit here with the equivalent of a divining rod to get at the verity of what he said and meant. Who would have ever thunk I'd end up with such a windgat?