I have two dates that I'm supposed to be completing today. One is a first date with Iowa. One is a...oh hell i'm losing count...fourth date, I guess, with Stage 5 Clinger.
I want to do the first, and I"m trying to get out of the second.
I also just bought a book on my Nook called "Kiss and Run: The Single, Picky and Indecisive Girl's Guide to Overcoming Her Fear of Commitment"
I am THAT girl. Self help books. On the Nook.
I only downloaded the free sample until I read the checklist of "you're a commitment phobic if..." and matched like 75% of the criteria. I'm planning to re-read "Sex and the Single Mom" in conjunction.
I looked at my best friends over lunch this week and said, semi-seriously, "I mean, you do wonder at some point if you have a fatal flaw that you're terribly unaware of...you'd tell me if I had a fatal dating flaw, right?" They both paused and had the exact same expressions on their face before quickly placating me.
I'm not self-conscious - I'm pretty confident in my abilities and where my life is at - but either their expressions meant I SHOULD be more self-conscious because I have some fatal dating flaw that is terribly apparent to everyone else and not me, or I have subconscious self-doubt.
OR, as one of them did point out, the fatal flaw may be linked to this self-preserving WALL that friends keep hinting at - and this blog has been accused of being a face for.
I told a boyfriend once that I was a very astute observer of symptoms with a not-so-great success rate at diagnosis of illness. That is to say that I can sit here and say things that I feel and mean them but have no flippin', friggin' clue what they mean. How can I be SO good at knowing OTHER people, and so stupid about knowing myself?
...you may find I have more self-reflective, moody posts once a month...
On a lighter note, Stage 5 Clinger is officially Stage 5 clinging. I'm going to hang out with him at least once more so that I have a chance to fully disclaim things i like and don't like with a bit more...ah...candor. I think I just need to feel comfortable enough saying "dude, a smiley text if I don't text back in two hours just is not my life" because either he'll say "sorry, i don't need to do it I just wanted you to know I was interested in" or he'll get defensive because that's the kind of guy he is.
I said to another friend today who I would MUCH rather be trading an evening out at a gay club with than a night out with Stage 5 Clinger (ALERT! ALERT!) that when it comes down to it you MAKE time for people you definitely want to see again. He happened to have a man friend that is wishy washy (and which I feel like today) and I said "don't waste your time waiting on him. I know he likes you and you have fun when you're together, but if he REALLY wanted to be with you, he would find a way to make it happen."
I believe this. I LEARNED this with my last boyfriend who complained in our Sonic Happy Hour Drink break-up that he would like to be a bigger priority in his girlfriend's life next go round. And I thought, internally, that I had never been accused of not my significant other a priority...in fact, in the one time I've been in love, I was the one accused of being the Clinger.
I'm going to chart my dating growth and development at some point. Or maybe that the title of a book: "The Road from Clinger to..." I don't know the second word will need to be an alliteration and something witty relating to my current commitment issues.
I WANT a boyfriend. I wouldn't be on this little dating endeavor if I didn't. And it's totally made me open myself back up to realizing there's girl, sex kitten, non-mom parts of me that live and breathe and were waiting to be let loose again.
I may be putting too much pressure on these dudes to make sparks fly though. They're just dudes.
So, bottom line is that I'm going to go to a movie called "No Strings Attached" today which may or may not help or hinder today's quest. Hopefully, with all the sex taking place in the movie, it will spur my butt to at LEAST think about going to a STRAIGHT club tonight where I have more than a snowball's chance in hell of turning a flirty eye on someone that bats for the same team as me. I think I will definitely still have coffee with Iowa - who I am definitely interested in meeting (Kiss and Run says that I'm commitment phobic if first dates are exciting but subsequent dates I get wishy washy about. I'm holding on to the hope that I'm only wishy washy about s5c because he almost burned down my house and because of all the smiley face texts). And maybe I'll invite S5C to come out with me and my friend. I suggested this already to my young gay friend who I know will be brutally honest about my prospects. He was brutally honest about the last boyfriend who he said three weeks in was not someone who was going to be a good for match for me (yes who I proceeded to date for SEVEN MORE MONTHS)
Also, I took the advice of my friend in Albany and took a more aggressive role on match. I.e. I have been letting them to come to me for the winking, and then I wink back. But this week I have been winking at boys and feeling totally saucy about it.
Except then nobody winked back at me for a few days - coinciding with my "do i have a fatal flaw?" question to my friends.
But then - ray of sunshine! - the cutest and most interesting of this week's wink victims just winked back at me.
And just like that - with the email announcing a little technological wink - my faith in dating and hopes for the future are temporarily restored.
More tomorrow after I try and juggle three social outings, two with dates, tonight. With my luck, something that will make at LEAST a few of you smile is bound to occur.
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