Premonition?

My friend Cassandra tells me that the dream I had last night is a premonition that "Karen's" lifestyle of taking men's hearts and breaking them is about to catch up to her. I don't see how even if Karen is about to go down (not by my hand) I would find out about it, but I guess we'll see. The dream shook me so that I had to call Cassandra when I woke up even though she was in the middle of getting ready to go to work. I had Karen on my mind because Sunday night she updated her Yahoo profile with the notice that she "got a new tattoo...pics to come later in the week." My current dilemma makes it more pathetic than ever that I'm checking up on Karen, but I'll talk about that shortly.

In the dream, I'm still working at the Chicago Board Options Exchange, which gave me the opportunity to read the newspaper every day because I didn't have to pay for it. I don't read the paper now. But I was reading the paper in the dream, and I read one day about a murder in Milwaukee. Didn't think anything of the person arrested for it because I had never heard of her. Then the next day, I read that a second person has been arrested in the murder: Karen. I was shocked. That night, a phone call came at 3A, but it was a co-worker that I had fooled around with before. I figured she maybe wanted to talk about Karen, but true to her real-life nature, the co-worker wanted to talk about herself and some problem she was having. I hung up. The next day I knew I wanted to find Access Hollywood or some tabloid show so that I could make some cash from this. "Yeah, the Milwaukee killers...I know one of them, very intimately. I'll talk for $20,000, take it or leave it." But before I left home, I saw the film of the arrest of Karen on the news. She didn't look like herself. She had lost a considerable amount of weight, and she had straight black hair, which may have been a wig because Karen once told me about getting drunk on a cruise and putting on a wig as part of the drinking. But she was harried and didn't look like the Karen I had been with. I remember getting so close to the TV to check the area codes on the phone numbers on the signs of the surrounding businesses because I couldn't believe they were in Milwaukee arresting Karen because it didn't look like her at all. And then I got too close, and all of a sudden I was part of the arrest. Yes, I became one of the arresting officers. And I got off a zinger worthy of Law & Order before I woke up. I was putting the cuffs on her, and she said that I was hurting her wrists, to which I responded: "Come on baby, you and I both know that this ain't the first time you've been in handcuffs, so just relax like you do with your other niggers, and it won't hurt so much." Then while I read her her Miranda rights, I woke up with chills.

Cassandra says that I became part of the arrest because I was so eager to be a part of the downfall of Karen that I put myself on the scene, "like Fat Albert going into the TV in the movie," she said. I don't know how I'm going to see this supposed fall from grace of Karen, but boy, if it does happen anything like I dreamed, then I will never doubt spirituality or karma again. I hate dreaming about people that I want to see but I can't. And I don't even want to see Karen to be with her again, just to see her, just to see that she's still alive so that I don't happen to miss her eventual demise, which would be one of the best days of my life. Apparently I'll see her new tattoo soon, so that will have to do. When I was dating her, she mentioned wanting to get something Chinese to signify sisterhood as a tribute to her sister. Since I found out about her lies, I've vowed to someday get something in Chinese that says the equivalent of "Karen sucks dick" or, if they don't have a translation of Karen, just "K sucks" or "K is bad." Scar my body with the memory of a whore? Why not? She scarred my heart forever.

And yet I am getting better. Doesn't seem like it I know, but I am. For one, I am now about 95% sure that I'm going to be a mouse and never go up to Milwaukee or Brown Deer or Lake Geneva or wherever this bitch lives and get my revenge. I've discovered that most of my hurt from what happened does not come from Karen herself betraying me. It comes from being betrayed by my first white lover, which is what Karen was; I met "Sarah" a few weeks after I first slept with Karen. You see, after not dating at all for six years after breaking up with "Giselle," my high school girlfriend and the first and so far last black woman I've ever had sex with, when I got up the guts to meet Karen I thought that she was the exact woman that I was looking for when I decided to date a white woman. She didn't give me any lip, she didn't have an attitude, she was loving, caring, and she seemed to think that I was the shit. Yes, the lack of communication and sometimes distant behavior from Karen were red flags, as was the DUI. But those I ignored in order to keep my fantasy alive. And when she asked me to move up there with her after I told her that I was soon losing my job, I was in heaven. I thought this woman was going to take care of me, welcome me into her family (she said she was gonig to introduce me to her parents several times, but never did), show me a peaceful, serene way of living, and most of all, would never hurt me or belittle me like Giselle and just about all other black females in my past did. I mean, for God's sakes, I gave Karen a cheesy poem I had written, and she acted like it was the most profound piece of literature she had ever received. She kept telling me every time I did something small, like bring her roses or a birthday present or a poem, that she wasn't used to being treated so well, or that no one had ever done that for her before. So I thought that I was going to be the big black man in her life, her king, not ruling over her but the object of her innermost desires and wishes, and she my white queen, the center of my world. And when I found out that it was all a mirage and everything she had ever told me was a fucking lie, I lost it. Not just my sanity, but my hopes and dreams and, most importantly, my ability to trust. It's not Karen that I miss. It's the first white woman to treat me like a king that I miss. But realizing that made me see that I can't make Karen pay for doing that to me. It's not her fault that I picked her as the first white woman I loved and trusted. It's my fault. Karen is not attractive. Karen does not have a great personality. Losing Karen was not a great loss to me. Losing that dream was.

I said that my relationship issues highlight how little Karen means to me currently, because she has nothing to do with the decisions I am going to have to make. The "white queen" in my life right now is "Torrie." Why? Um, I don't know, because she doesn't go running when I approach like everyone else does? Seriously, I've known for the duration of our "relationship" that Torrie and I aren't very alike. She's a smoking, drinking, bisexual freak who happened to flirt with me in an online group, and after being screwed by "Jane," I called her flirt and, without knowing what her deal was, raised her and dared her to meet me for a weekend of no-strings sex. And because we haven't had any friction between us, despite her attempt to dump me once because she didn't know if she could commit the time to me, we've stayed together, despite never once actually committing ourselves exclusively to each other. I stepped up the intensity by inserting love into the equation, but did I do that because I really felt it for her or because my insecurities made me believe that I had to do so in order to keep her interested? Or maybe it was to keep myself interested? So anyway, that's where I stand, in a long-distance relationship not because I sincerely want forever with Torrie, but because I don't want to be alone, even though I am alone, waiting for her call every other day or so, talking about nothing because we don't have anything to talk about. Even when we talk for two hours like we did Saturday, I come away feeling like she's just trying to justify herself to me so that she doesn't look like the desperate, lonely woman that she is. And still no love back to me, even as a friend.

Enter "Laurie."

Laurie is a lady on the very same site where I met Torrie that I have been chatting with for a few weeks. She has been trying to convince me that I am a "damn good man" and that I should want the world for myself because I deserve it. She also has insisted that she will make the trip to Chicago to spend time with me when she gets the free time and the money. And she thinks I am attractive, and she says that she needs a "teddy bear" to make her feel safe and comfortable, and she wants to get physical with me. I have a hard time believing in her and trusting her. Why? It's simple: She's slender, blonde, and attractive. In what alternative universe would a slender, blonde, attractive woman have any desire to fly to Chicago to meet a fat black dude with no money? But she says that she feels like we could be soulmates, based on our similar histories dealing with the loss of our parents, and our similar histories dealing with lack of self-esteem, and our similar histories dealing with lying, backstabbing ex-lovers. (At least I don't have to work with mine; Laurie had an affair with her married black supervisor, and despite the affair being over she's still at the same job, fueling her desire to go away somewhere when she can afford to, somewhere like Chicago, for instance.) We chat every day, and every time we chat I feel something pulling me toward her, as if she possesses that love and caring and nurturing that I have been looking for all my life. Personality-wise, I can't remember feeling so strongly about someone. She has such a strong spirit, and she's such an optimist. It couldn't help but rub off on me if we were to spend time together, and goodness knows I need a positive person in my life. But it's too much to spend time with her and not become physical; I just can't imagine seeing someone so attractive sitting across from me, and she thinks that I am special, and I can't take it to the next level. I bet we would be great lovers too. My dilemma is that Torrie hasn't done anything to deserve me cheating on her and lying to her, but she hasn't done anything to deserve being dumped either. If I look at the raw situation and take out my feelings of a deeper connection between me and Laurie, what I would be doing is taking what Torrie and I have, a great sex life but a lot of distance, and trading it for what might be a great sex life but might not, and a lot of distance. Doesn't seem to make much sense. My deeper dilemma is that fate has not been on my side for the first 30 years of my life. I haven't been very lucky with my decisions. Simply put, it's a "seems to good to be true" situation. Without doing anything to improve myself, except going to school but I didn't meet Laurie in school, I have met the woman that can take on the task of making me feel good about myself, nurturing me, building me up, making love to me and not just having sex with me, thinks that I will be the man that she wants in her life, and she's attractive, and she's not over 200 lbs, and she's not already married or a parent, and she can actually have kids, which Torrie cannot. Oh, and she loves the same smooth jazz artists that I do, and she wants to start a fantasy football league with me. Come on. If I start seeing Laurie and let Torrie go, all I can see in the future is a line of excuses sometime next year as to why she can't see me, work, money, etc, while she starts spending more and more time up there in Detroit, where she lives, with someone else, someone more like a real man than me, someone actually in shape, someone with, you know, a job. And finally, a big break-up as she explains to me how fate simply said that she and I weren't meant to me, but she just knows I will recover from this to see my real potential and never settle in a relationship again. Meanwhile, she's off to be with her new soulmate, and I'm all alone. Again.

The funny part is, there is nothing she can say to guarantee that it won't shake down that way. All the spiritual feelings she has, all the good feelings she has about me and how I can be the man that I want to be, all of that doesn't guarantee that she won't someday wake up and look at my love handles and my pot belly and my breasts and think, "Wow, I can do much better than this." Hell, she might say that the first time we sleep together. And what I have now with Torrie may not seem like much, but at least she accepts me in her life and in her bed, and that's better than what I have with Laurie right now. I have nothing with Laurie right now. But I do fear that I could be passing up something with Laurie that would be more special than Torrie, or Sarah, or Giselle, or obviously Karen, or anyone else that I could ever hope to convince to be with me romantically. Basically, if I let Torrie go to give Laurie a shot, I will be unleashing the love and trust that I have held back ever since I let it go onto Karen and got burned for it. Can Laurie handle that? What if she can't? Then what do I do? Why do I almost come to tears every time I chat with Laurie, as if I have never chatted with someone who knows me so well? What if I never meet anyone as special as Laurie again? If I stay loyal to Torrie, what if Torrie lets me go after a while because she finds her soulmate? Hell, what if I'm just a man-ho and I get with Laurie and meet someone else that thinks I'm a damn good man? What if I can't trust anyone deep enough to commit to her monogamously? I haven't been sleeping well lately with all these questions swirling in my already mixed-up mind. I'm going to have to step up and be a man and make some hard decisions real soon, and whether they are the right decisions or not I'm afraid I won't know until it's too late to do anything about it.