Humanized, now what?

Most of it was in my head, but not all.

I wasn't about to initiate contact with College Ed after a horrible rejection experience, and we went on for a week without communicating. Agonizing, humiliating, want-to-crawl-into-hole demoralizing.

A week passed, and he contacted me. "I asked about dinner tonight last week, but just realized that I didn't follow up. Would you still be up for it?"

All conventional wisdom points to saying no, but I didn't. I dragged myself out, debated whether or not to have a "talk," any "talk," about how agonizing the last week had been for me. But this was two days before my thesis defense, and I really didn't need additional emotional turmoil.

Turns out, he tries to kiss me at the end of the night before we parted. I, not about to assume anything this time, stood stoically thinking he just wanted a hug. But he went in for the kiss and got the corner of my mouth (I didn't move, so did he change direction last minute when sensing my lack of movement?).

Oh, so he IS actually interested. I pulled him in for a second kiss, on the lips, but just a peck. Awkward.

That was last Tuesday night. He came to my thesis defense Thursday as well as part of the evening celebrations. We went on a proper date Saturday night, and I stayed over.

That's actually a lot of seeing each other over the course of one week. And he became humanized. He has a lot of problems.

He's another guy with anxiety issues, though not as clear and not as willing to admit to them. He is extremely passive and has a hard time talking about things explicitly, naming the elephant in the room so-to-speak. He seems really hesitant on relationships, and I don't get the sense that it's because of me.

But mostly, the anxiety is so obviously a part of him, a part that a regular once-a-week friend would have a hard time picking up. So he hides it well. But I'm intuitive, and I'm not afraid to call him out.

I emailed him Sunday about the next time we might hang out. No response.

Men.

crash & burn

We hung out last night: dinner, ice cream. As we were sitting in a street-corner park eating our ice cream, a group of people started an impromptu foursquare game nearby. So we joined in for a while.

At the end of the night, he hugged me goodbye. I leaned in for the kiss, but he turned so I got cheek instead.

"I don't want you to get sick! It's not worth it."

This one really did feel like an excuse. I don't know what happened. I thought we had a good time.

roller coasters

I still haven't seen College Ed. He canceled our "date" last Tuesday because he got sick (or "sick" depending on how cynical I'm feeling), and then had an insane week before heading out for a family wedding this weekend.

Email evidence for "he likes me and wants to date me":

"I'll tell you more when I see you" - when he canceled Tuesday afternoon, using "when" versus "if"

"I disappeared... sorry I went awol" - on Friday. Your guess is as good as mine for his motivations to apologize. I wouldn't have thought twice about it - seemed to me like a natural "wait period" in between dates.

"What does tomorrow night look like for you?" - tonight, presumably asking me to do something tomorrow night (Monday).

Evidence for "he might be just being nice and has second thoughts all the time":

He got sick, or "sick" and canceled our "date".

He sucks at responding to email. I emailed back within an hour tonight tonight saying that I am free anytime tomorrow. I heard nothing more.

He's picky. Why would he pick me?

----

When he canceled last Tuesday, I wasn't myself. The cancellation destroyed me for hours. All I could do was to sulk and to complain and rant to whomever would listen. Eventually, a friend had had enough.

"Seine. What the hell are you doing?" he said. "I have never seen you like this. Get your shit together."

"I haven't been like this for a long time. I don't overanalyze or overthink about boys. Boys are boys, and I thought I'd grown out of my crazy phase about boys. But it turns out that I'm still as crazy as ever. It's just that the crazy's had no chance to come out because it's been so long since I've liked a boy this much."

"Okay, I get that," he said, "but you've got a thesis to write. Get your shit together."

So I biked home from school to get some fresh air, and convinced myself down from the crazy ladder.

In the end, College Ed is just another boy. If he likes me, he likes me. If he wants to date me, he wants to date me. If he doesn't, he doesn't. No amount of craziness or overthinking on my part will change that about him.

So that's where I am now: cautiously progressing with no expectations, ready to pull back at any second and call it "just friends." We might see each other other tomorrow night, but I'm not holding my breath so that if we don't, I'm not destroyed again.

time for a jig

College Ed and I are hanging out again tomorrow night. We’ve been emailing back and forth since Sunday, after he volunteered some details regarding his weekend in Rhode Island in an email. I took that to mean he wanted to start a conversation and took things into my own hands.

I shot back a quick email with some mundane details and ended it with “Sounds like a busy week for you too. Best of luck getting everything done, and let me know if you’ll have time to hang out :)”

His response: “Hanging out would be good. I have a dinner Tuesday night until 9 but nothing afterwards… other nights are shot with random events and/or work.”

I jumped up and danced a little jig in front of my mirror.

I’ve been walking around all day today wanting to jump up and click my heels out of joy, but then I remind myself that there’s nothing concrete to click my heels over. In fact, I don’t really know where he stands on me. Interest, yes, but as much as my interest in him?

Sigh, this could actually end very very badly…

The importance of timing?

College Ed and I have a mutual friend, Lee, who is visiting this weekend. His flight was to arrive in Boston late Thursday night, and we all planned to hang out together by going to a party at a club. The crowd: College Ed's business school friends.

College Ed invited me to come over and hang out at his place beforehand to wait for our mutual friend together. I didn't need a second invitation, ran to the liquor store for a 6 pack of good ale, hopped on the Red Line train, and was at his doorstep in 20 minutes.

Conversation always just flows with College Ed. We talked about summer travel plans, his upcoming internship in San Francisco, gossip at business school, how he trained for the marathon couple of years ago, how I volunteered at the Boston Marathon just last week. Every mundane detail he offered made me happy to be sitting there having a beer and talking to him. Not to mention that he approved of my beer choice.

Before long, our mutual friend Lee arrived from the airport, and we headed out to the club. A couple of drinks later, and it's loud in the club. Lee shouted to College Ed, "Are you single?" College Ed shouted back, "Yes."

Lee made a face of disbelief, "WHY???"

College Ed laughed, paused, and then offered, "I guess I'm picky."

A few more back and forths, and College Ed gave a list of standards he looks for in girls. I silently check them off against myself. She has to be smart. Check. Attractive. Check (I think). She has to, has to, has to be able to hold a conversation. Definitely check - our conversations are phenomenal. She has to be kind and caring. Check, but I don't know if College Ed necessarily knows me enough to know this.

So I fit the bill. Was he listing off criteria that he knew I'd meet? Am I drunk and reading too much into things?

Lee and I ended up talking a lot to each other because College Ed knew a lot of people there and constantly had people coming up to talk to him. His business school classmates, especially the girls, love him. Countless girls came up to hug him, kiss him on the cheek, talk to him animately... Like the girl that I am, I always knew where he was, who was around him, how he was reacting to other girls, all while deep in conversation with Lee.

And why wouldn't all these girls love him? He is smart, cute, incredibly nice, definitely can hold a conversation, kind, caring. I don't stand a chance against all these tall gorgeous business school girls. I wanted to stomp over and make him talk to me. I wanted to steal him away from all these women and have him pay attention to me. I was getting more and more drunk.

I was proud of what I wore: flirty but not revealing cute shirt, skinny jeans that accentuate my legs, and killer classy 4" neutral pumps. I felt good, I felt comfortable, and I knew that I looked good in a subtle low-key way. But I don't approach people. While I shout on the inside that I should talk to cute guys, and that more than anything, I should go talk to College Ed and pry him away from all these hot women, I stayed rooted to the ground on the outside.

Did he just glance back at me? He's talking to that super hot girl. Why would he glance back at me? She's so much prettier. There, he looked at me again. He caught my glance and smiled. I smiled back and held my drink up for a virtual cheers.

Suddenly I found myself talking to Kix, and Lee was nowhere to be seen. Kix is one of College Ed's business school friends. While he and I have been taking a class together all semester, we never spoke until a couple of weeks ago. He asked for my number to go out on a date sometime, which I gave him, but the exchanges were less than desirable, so I didn't push for anything. I thought I might run into Kix at the club, and so I looked for him when we first arrived. I didn't see him, so I assumed he didn't come.

He must have gotten there later, seen me standing by the bar and found his way over to talk.

The crowd at the club had thinned out significantly. College Ed saw me talking to Kix and joined the circle. I believe it was nearing closing time, and Kix was pushing for a trip to Chinatown afterwards. I'm very easily convinced. College Ed is usually easy going and will agree to most things. Lee put the stop on it all and asked us if we were all crazy.

So instead, we all walked outside and hailed a cab together, Kix included. The route would hit College Ed's place first, dropping him and Lee off, and then head to Cambridge to drop me and Kix off. I'm starting to realize that once my friends leave, I will be in a cab with Kix by myself, Kix who had made it very clear up to this point that that he wanted to continue to hang out with me more after club closing. I need a strategy to get home, by myself, to MY home.

As I am scheming, the cab stops at College Ed's. I get out first to let my two friends out.

As we stood on the sidewalk next to the cab saying our goodbyes, I heard Lee insightfully say, "Quick, close the cab door!" He then skipped over, slammed the door shut, while College Ed grabbed my hand and shuffled me away from the cab. The cab drove away with Kix alone in the front seat. I didn't dare look back.

Instead I turned to my friends, laughed and said, "Wow, thanks for saving me guys. I guess I'll get another cab and get on my way"

"Yeah, no problem at all," said College Ed. "Well, you're more than welcome to come stay over since Lee is anyway. We can hang out some more, and there's plenty of couch space."

I looked off to the side, pretending to ponder the offer for the obligatory two seconds.

"Yeah, sure, okay. Sounds good."

And that's when I found myself in College Ed's apartment for the second time that night. To make a long story short, Lee eventually passed out on a futon, and College Ed started to say, "Well, it's entirely up to you..."

At which point, I'd already set my beer down on the windowsill. I walked closer to him, looked up, and he leaned in for the kiss. Before we knew it, we were in his room, making out on the bed with the door closed and the lights off.

There was plenty of nervous laughter, interspersed with "why are you laughing?", "why are YOU laughing?", followed by "why haven't we done this earlier?"

"You just told us you're picky! I didn't know if you'd be interested."

"But I'm sure you're picky too?"

"But you're so awesome College Ed."

"You're pretty awesome yourself."

College Ed didn't have class until 1pm, but has trouble sleeping in. So we were awake plenty early and spent the morning cuddling and making out in bed. In daylight, I saw how incredibly gorgeous his eyes are. I can't believe I've never even noticed them before.

The ice was broken, as they say, by alcohol. Oh, how I wish that alcohol had come earlier.

The timing is all off. I am in such stress writing my thesis right now, but I have now been distracted for two whole days unable to focus on work. College Ed leaves in mid-May for an internship in San Francisco all summer, and will be gone every weekend between now and then. In fact, he is gone this weekend, having left this morning for a business school outing in Rhode Island.

Yes, come September, I'll be working in Boston, and College Ed will be back to finish his second year at business school. But (yes, I know I'm getting way ahead of myself here), but he only has one more year of business school left, and I just can't see him staying in Boston afterwards.

I like him. I really really like him. I've not felt this way about a guy in a long time. I will be destroyed if all of this gets killed by timing.

some updates

1) Job – I accepted a job offer recently. What they say about these things really is true: when it rains, it pours. The job that I thought I got back in December ended up backing out. They never contacted me in January like they said they would, and when I asked for an update at the end of January, they replied very vaguely and said they would get back to me in two weeks time. End of February (4 weeks later), not having heard still, I contacted them again. Their response?

“We are no longer hiring.”

Well shit. I reported them to our Careers Office, through which they recruited, and careers was mortified. But that didn’t help my situation of no longer having a job that I thought I had.

Scrambling, I renewed my job search and sent out a ton more resumes and started networking and talking to people again. After a lot of agonizing because I hadn’t heard back from anyone, I heard back from everyone all at once. Within a two-week time frame, I interviewed at multiple companies for multiple rounds and ended up with three offers. In addition, the selection process for a government fellowship I applied for also finally concluded, and I got that too!

So the stress point shifted from sulking about not having a job to deciding which option to go with, how much to negotiate which offer, public or private sector, move to DC or stay in Boston, stay in science or switch to something different? There were so many forks in the road.

I ultimately decided to stay in Boston, but to switch fields. No more bench research, but still working with plenty of science in a science consulting role. I don’t start until September, so that leaves me the whole summer to scheme some fantastic adventures.

2) HB - I never mentioned the conclusion of HB. I went to Chicago at the beginning of March. I repeatedly told him my mind was made up about this being the end. It’d been over since mid-February, with no hopes for revitalizing. We weren’t exactly on good terms, and it was unclear what seeing each other would accomplish. But he insisted, and I already had the plane tickets booked and didn’t want to deal with hassle of trying to get a refund. But who am I kidding? It wasn’t very hard to convince me to go.

In the end, I’m glad I visited. Things really are different in person. Despite still being 100% certain that this is not the relationship that I want, it was much nicer to say goodbye in person. It gave me good parts to hold on to as I move away from this relationship, and it gave him some better characteristics of me to remember too. Very bittersweet, actually. Sometimes two people just don’t work, no matter how much they try.

3) Dating - As I mentioned in the last post, I now finally feel ready for a relationship. I want that support and that intimacy, and I don’t really want hook-up buddies like Special Friend anymore. It worked for the state I was in last fall and even in January, but it feels so empty now. All of this feeds into the loneliness factor, of course. It seems that if I want a hook-up buddy, I can find them around every corner, but where is that perfect connection for something deeper, more permanent?

I’ve started to put myself out there, without much success. How do you broach the subject with a friend you’re interested in as more than a friend? It’s almost easier with strangers – getting rejected is a hit on my pride, but there’s nothing at stake. I won’t ever see him again. Not true with friends – it all comes down to subtle hints, and maybe a joint drinking session when both people feel more courageous.

But things with friends just aren’t two-sided right now. I feel attraction from a couple of guy friends toward me (though I guess you never can be 100% sure), but I repeatedly send “friends-only” signals to diffuse because I am not interested in more. On the other hand, I have a couple of friends (like college Ed) whom I’d like to be more than friends, yet they send me “friends-only” signals.

Seems like the whole world is full of wasted emotions.

loneliness

Over the last year or so, I’ve developed an exceptionally hard exterior shell. It’s sourced from my innate independence and the “I don’t need someone else to help me” mentality that I’ve always had, but also definitely from secret insecurities: an irrational lurking fear that without this hard exterior shell, I will appear vulnerable, and people will take advantage of me.

Some of that may be true, and I see it in friends of mine who try but aren’t as successful as I am in exuding this hard exterior shell. One friend specifically, she gets taken advantage of all the time. Her problem though is different than mine. Her problem is that she tries too hard to be everyone’s friend and ends up with everyone rolling right over her and no assertiveness of her own to fight back.

My problem trends the other direction – I’m too straightforward and assertive. I didn’t used to be like this. I was passive, timid, indirect, but after experiencing how easy things are when I just tell people what I’m thinking and what I want, I have few fears anymore. (Talking to a cute guy while sober is one of the remaining fears).

But I feel I might be alienating people with my directness. We live in a society where people want criticism delivered between flourish, to temper the harshness. I deliver the criticism as is – I’m not mean, but I’m direct, and I get caught up in it. I derive energy from the directness, so the more direct I am, the more direct I get, and the more direct I continue to be until the person finally collapses in a heap in a corner willing me to just stop talking.

When really, I feel so vulnerable. I come home at the end of the day, and I feel so lonely. I want a shoulder to lay on. I want someone to hold my face and tell me everything in the world is okay. I want someone who will wipe my tears away when I talk about how harsh it is out there (ironic since I often deliver the harshness to others). I want someone whom I can touch gently just by holding my arms out, for no reason other than to know that he’s there, that I’m not alone.

I had no respect for HB whom I thought to be the antithesis of analytical. Broadway exemplified analytical and intelligence, but made me sad with his sadness and cynicism. The Doctor was sexually manipulative but too timid out in the world. The Ex was too perfect, too happy, and too optimistic.

I’ve had four bowls of porridge already, and none of them are just right. There’s not even a fifth bowl to try. Where is my perfect bowl?

And when is the problem me? HB was not smart enough. Broadway was too smart that he made me feel inadequate. Broadway was too depressed, but the Ex was too optimistic that I depressed him in the same way Broadway depressed me. There is such a narrow range of “just right” for me that I have to wonder if I’m just really difficult to get along with.

I’m ready for another relationship, because I want that someone who looks up at me from the couch with the happiest most affectionate smile at the end of the day. But I’m scared of the investment. Connection takes time to build – I had 3 years with Broadway, a tumultuous maybe year with HB, 6 months with the Doctor, and 2 years and 7 months with the Ex. I don’t want another 2-year investment that ends in yet another heartbreak.

So I’m back to the beginning. All I want is to have that perfect person so that I can be as vulnerable externally as I feel internally, but I’m afraid of giving up my hard exterior shell because then I will be vulnerable.