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I finally cut about 4 inches of my hair off on Friday, after 10 months of letting it grow and grow and grow until the weight of it on my head drove me crazy.

The cut is very modest -- essentially, it's the same shape, just shorter, so that I can twist it up neatly for graduation. After next week, I think I'll chop it up much shorter and dye it some crazy ass color. Just because.

The whole business of girls cutting their hair drastically after breakups is related to control, I think. And while I haven't broken up with Scientist, I'm feeling progressively worse about dating him. Yesterday afternoon, after five days of being incommunicado, I called him, and after some chitchat, I said, "So..." He said, "So..." And then: "I wanted to call you this week. But I didn't want to be selfish. I thought maybe I should deal with my own issues without complicating your life with them."

Whatever. I saw him a few hours later, for dinner, and the whole time, I felt like I was on the brink of tears. After dinner, we went on a whim to a nearby pond, and parked illegally at the shop for the national park, and walked down to the water. Amusingly, at the head of the trail down, we saw a minivan and a suburban mom-type waiting by the gate; she asked, "Are you guys going swimming?" "Uh, no, just for a walk." "If you see my daughter and her friend, tell them to come back here, will you?" "Sure! You know... you're a very understanding parent." "Well, this is better than them doing drugs."

The pond was still and quiet. I dipped my feet in the water. Then, nervous about the parking situation, we trotted back. Sure enough, a police car was hovering around Scientist's car, but the officer was more amused than anything.

That was pretty cool. But the whole time, Scientist didn't lay a finger on me. And I, inhibited by his lack of demonstrable affection, didn't touch him either. And that was depressing.

Driving back into town, Scientist asked if I had some time or if I had to go back home. Knowing that Mathgirl and her husband were entertaining guests, I said I had some time, so we went to his place and... you guessed it. We talked. And by "talking," I mean we did a lot of wordless staring at each other and I gave a lot of monosyllabic answers while resting my head on my arm on the back of the couch. "I can't tell you how much it exhausts me to be having this conversation," I told him, and it was true -- every word seemed to cost a huge amount of energy, and I considered and discarded a dozen thoughts I probably should have shared but felt unable to.

Hopeless. I told him I felt frustrated, angry, tired, and hopeless. He said he didn't feel that way and asked why I did. Because I didn't see any change, any progression in his ... voyage of emotional self discovery. "I'm so close to throwing in the towel on you and never seeing you again, and doing the same for trying to find funding. Just moving to New York and getting the hell out of here."

You know, he had the gall to ask, "What would you do if I asked you to stay?"? What fuckwittage. "I'm not going to answer that question unless it's really being asked," I told him. "And you're never going to ask."

"What makes you say that?"

"Because it would go against everything that you've been saying about yourself. You wouldn't ask that because it would mean that you're committing yourself to something. And I haven't seen any sign of you moving toward resolution on that issue."

He spoke my name, and paused. And then: "I still feel the same way about you. I think you're an amazing person. I enjoy spending time with you. Especially when you're happy. When you're sad, you tend not to say anything."

"What would you have me say?"

"Anything! Things you've heard about or seen. Just anything."

I took that in for a moment before answering resentfully, "If you want me to entertain you, I'm sorry I can't do that right now."

And on and on.

After an hour and a half, he took my hand in both of his, as he always does. I curled my fingers around his. "Why are you responding to affection now?" he asked. "Because it hurts me to reject affection," I said. "You're a very good person," he smiled. I didn't. "I think you're saying that sarcastically," I said, "but it does hurt me to reject people." He put his arms around me and held me for a while after that.

I must enjoy the drama, don't you think, to keep doing this? As I told Scientist, his behavior doesn't make me doubt my inherent worth as a person, or my attractiveness, or my desirability. I completely believe that the problems stem from him (and that fact that his confusion has caused me to be anxious, causing him to be anxious about him causing my anxiety -- barf-o-rama, because now somehow it's my fault that he's anxious and unhappy?). I believe that he's being truthful when he says he enjoys being with me, etcetera etcetera. But I ... I think I've stopped enjoying being with him.

And yet I call. Am I just afraid of being alone? I haven't had a boyfriend in four years; I'm used to being alone. I carry my own mini-fridges. Is it because I don't want to go back to that state that I'm not ending this exhausting, unhappy thing with Scientist? I spent most of last night trying not to cry -- what am I still doing here?