If at first you don't succeed...

...try, try, try again. Or so the saying goes.

But sometimes, you really are better off giving up. Or calling it quits.

With two divorces under my belt, I'm afraid that maybe I give up too easily. Or at least it appears that way. To counteract that, sometimes I try too hard to make a bad relationship work. One example of this is my relationship with the Green-Eyed Dutchman.

I wrote last summer about how we met 12 years ago as well as how our relationship changed from friends to more 10 years ago and his visit last May. And then as we were talking about me moving over there, he disappeared on me. But I got sucked back in, after my friend and his friend passed away in November and we shared our grief. I visited GED for New Years and thought maybe it was finally the right time for us.

And then he disappears again. No contact. No replies to my emails or text messages. FOR TWO MONTHS.

I'm angry with him, but more angry with myself. You know, "First time, shame on you. Second time, shame on me." Third time? I'm just an idiot, hopeless romantic.

But I thought maybe this was my chance at Love. And I believed him when he said it would be different.

I did finally hear from him, and we had a brief telephone conversation. He apologized and said his world had gotten busy/stressful/crazy. He asked how I was. I was pleased that I was able to maintain my composure and told him his silence had devastated me but I was over it, moving on. (And I was pleased that this was true, not just words.) I was able to tell him that I wished he had had the balls to tell me how he felt about me, but from his actions, it was perfectly clear how [not] important I was. He denied that his actions reflected his feelings for me, but I reminded him it was him who told me, during my trip there in January, that he was the type of guy that didn't tell his feelings as much as demonstrate them through his actions.

He had called in the middle of my workday. The time zones is always a challenge, so he asked if he could call me on the weekend and explain more fully. That was two weeks ago. Still haven't heard that explanation, not that it matters at this point.