Woke up by 5 a.m. on my day off, ugh. So I finished watching the rest of the weekend's new Hallmark:

The Santa Stakeout: Tanya is a "rookie" detective (Tamara of the twins fame) assigned to work with Paul Campbell, a cranky Scrooge-y guy, on staking out a potential robber. Specifically, a "Mr. Christmas" Santa type who once was a criminal but has been a model citizen for decades. I will note that Tanya brings an entire suitcase of decorations to decorate the stakeout house. Only in Hallmark, y'all. He raids her advent calendar candy. I note that Ryan wants to buy his niece a pink Taser for Christmas. Or maybe it's pepper spray. Either way, weird. And pink. I note that Tanya has rosy red shiny cheeks throughout the entire thing. I note that there's a random gay couple at the potluck. "Christmas cheese doodle?" "You do NOT want to start a tinsel war with me." Obviously, Mr. Christmas is not the thief--it turns out to be a former actress lady who supposedly helps out ex-cons. Aw man! I dunno if hooking up with your coworker is the best thing jobwise, but hey, it worked on Brooklyn 99!

Boyfriends of Christmas Past: this appears to be one of those "the heroine will end up with her best guy friend" movies. Guy friend is indeed hot, so I'm down with this. Nate is a former foster kid turned social worker and has been adopted by Lauren's family. Dad would happily fix them up, I see. "I decided to commit a crime against pizza." Lauren works in marketing and has to market some kitchen...thing...even though she is Not Into Cooking. So....how did her high school sk8terboi boyfriend Tyler suddenly showed up in her house in the middle of the night? Btdubs, he says she'll be visited by 3 more ex-boyfriends, who will.... "help you see a pattern of behavior in past relationships." He then skateboards out.

The next morning when she wakes up, Lauren does a search on grownup Tyler (married with babies) and clearly he is not frozen in time at age 15. "Oh, I didn't know it was romantic," poor Nate says when he tries to ask Chloe out for a fancy lasagna dinner and she deems the place he suggests as such. Ouch. Boyfriend #2: Jake the guitarist. "I haven't seen you since college! Which is why you look so...young!" (He doesn't.) Lauren disses her college bangs, but I actually think she looks quite cute. I mean, large wig, but she's still gorgeous as heck. After a year of dating, she wouldn't say the L-word or go to his house for Christmas, and she immediately freaks and dumps him. OUCH. I like how this movie features an Asian family and talks about their foodstuffs. I guess the mom ran off ages ago and now there's a stepmom who actually likes baking? Awwww. I note that there is a cute girl who is clearly interested in Nate.

Next boyfriend, Henry the architect. This is their Christmas two years into the relationship. Poor Henry thought she could be the one. Henry hints about remodeling the closet for her and this flies over her head. She's all "You were rushing things!" and I'm all "it's been two years?" She insta-dumps again, claiming she wasn't ready. Henry is all "You're missing the point here, and you don't have much time to figure it out." Chloe's primary objection to dating Nate: "He's not a morning person." Her lady friend says, "most people aren't." BULLSHIT, MOST PEOPLE ARE EARLY BIRDS, LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT THIS MY ENTIRE LIFE.

Finally, Chloe sleeps without an ex invading her dreams! She has the winning proposal at work, forgets to go to some party of Nate's, and he's all "you put up walls left and right," and then confesses his love, and then says "I deserve better than that, I can't spend Christmas with you." Good job, Nate. Hi Logan, Ex-Fiance! Awkwardness ensues! Oops, never mind, she wasn't ready to get married! "This is always your first reaction when you get outside your comfort zone!" Logan points out. "If you're not ready now" after nearly 3 years, "then when?" Good point, sir. She "wakes up" and...ALL THE DUDES ARE IN HER HOUSE, being all "You didn't learn anything?" Also, you're a Christmas dumper. Also, what did you mean by "too late?" The guys take her to the "too romantic" restaurant, that Nate is now going to with Lily in the future....to propose to his "best friend." Which ain't Lauren. HINT HINT GIRL. Chloe LOSES HER SHIT. Chloe starts having a revelation DURING HER PRESENTATION TO THE CLIENT AND THEN RUNS OUT. Good lord, girl. Like...wait a few minutes? "I felt it was more important to be at this party...I left in the middle of it?" Anyway, suffice it to say, Nate comes to Christmas after all. "It's Christmas, let the man have his rice cake."

I talked to Robert today, explained the whole crush situation to him (he remained mum as to whether or not he guessed/suspected on this topic) and the whole shunning thing and now I'm not sure how to address this with him.

Robert said he really hasn't had much contact with Scott except for this last month when they all started playing a game together online. He has also noticed that Scott goes radio silent--one time in particular stood out to him and made him wonder if he'd done something wrong, and then Scott was fine again after a few days to a week. He's also had Scott stop talking, but he didn't take it personally except that one time.
Given how infrequently everyone's seen each other in the last 2 years, who knows what's going on because we're not having sustained interaction.
Maybe he didn't find it weird and it was an anomaly. Everybody has different modes of interaction.
How much of this is just him having pandemic/fire trauma?
"I definitely had to initiate a couple of times" before it got regular, he likened it to jump starting a car. "I was the one that resurfaced in his life."
Robert said that the house the family was renting "got sold out from under them" around a few months ago and they had to suddenly move, and something happened with stolen property. He said he was surprised that Scott was so chipper at Rocky.
"If you tell him, he would be very surprised and probably feel very bad.
Maybe he wasn't aware on that particular day.
"I don't think that you're not friends with him...."
He says he's socially awkward, maybe it's a confluence of things.
Talking with him about it would clear the air.
He doesn't want to hurt anybody.
Approach from a place of understanding.
Do you want to maintain an interaction at this point? (Still trying to re-figure this out, I said, after deciding otherwise).
Scott hasn't talked about this to Robert whatsoever (didn't think so).
If he values it as much as you do--if you're honest about it--What would happen if he said this to you, that he was worried about being too much/contacting you? I said I'd say it was fine by me, but I think we're probably different on that score.
I have value in the relationship if it affected me enough to disengage.
Scott has said in the past it's really difficult for him to recognize flirting and also difficult for him to figure out how. Therefore, Robert doesn't think Scott knows about the crush, unless I spell it out for him. I was all "uh, yeah, he knows." "Did you kiss him?" "Yes, but not on the mouth...." He doesn't know for sure if Scott is not interested or not. "If there are any lingering feelings, would that complicate the situation?" What if it was mutual on his side?
Re: Robert commenting on us not seeing each other for very long, he said he hadn't seen Scott since his birthday either.
When wondering if it's me or if it's circumstantial--90% of the time it's circumstantial.
It's a fair ask to let me know if he's having an issue.
All dynamics are different now in pandemic. It's gonna take time to go back to how things were. Robert has immunocompromised people in his life.
There's a whole host of reasons that it might have happened that don't involve you.
He asked what I ultimately want out of all of this--I don't know. We both figured out that I want clarity on this whole thing, and he said to be honest if clarity was my goal. The relationship that I want to have with him is something I have to evaluate regularly. Figuring out how to move forward without anyone being uncomfortable.

"Timing is everything with Scott." Also, "he doesn't work all the time." "Maybe he's better at direct communication." "I wouldn't bet my life or anyone else's that he knows about" the crush--he wouldn't even bet a donut. "I don't think that he thinks that way."

After that, I went over to Dawn's house to hang out in her garage while she had a repair guy over. She gifted me with some stuff--a tie-dyed towel, pens, an adorable kawaii crochet book--and we're going to do those fancy gem painting things they do at craft fairs at some point. She said she's been depressed for months--health stuff, her husband losing his memory and NOT getting the point when she pointed out that if he doesn't shape up he'll lose more of his health--and trying to figure out where to move. Finally her landlady actually took DOWN the rent by $300 when Dawn pointed out that the entire reason they were moving was the giant rent increase, so she's not moving! Huzzah!!!!

She apologized for disappearing, and I said hey, at least you let me know what's going on and resurfaced occasionally, which is a lot better than some people.

Anyway, we hung out, I told her all the dish of the last few weeks/months, and we agreed to get together on my next day off to tool around Sacramento with Loretta--both of them have some errands to do but after that, will do some other stuff like go to the fancy art store.

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