Dating and Gender Outlawing
It's been a while since I managed to come here to write; it's been such a long week, with a five day date with Christi which was wonderful and at times difficult and confusing, and then a Gender Outlaws retreat where I just broke down in so many ways but also felt a deep sense of community and learned a hell of a lot about, well, talking dirty, being romantic, all these things that I feel uncreative about. I learned to say what I need to say, even if it's hard. If relationships end for me so consistently I think it's because I don't say enough, not too much. Right now I just feel scared and like I'll never be ready for this. For dating. For the sort of deeper connection that I long for.
Christi and I agreed to date officially at the end of my visit (they decided after taking a shower; we hugged on it, like some kind of business transaction) and now I'm like, can I do this, is it too much pressure, am I going to be disappointing, is this going to end before the next time I talk to them? I just try to remind myself that it's *casual* dating because I think I take it too seriously. Casual dating is maybe someone else's language for intentional friendship. But Christi says if you just call it an intentional friendship then it's unlikely to go anywhere.
LJ and others have helped me remember that if it doesn't work out, it just wasn't the right one, and... I'm kind of feeling all the stuff that goes with heartbreak before anything has even happened. How freaking gorgeous they are makes me nervous. I showed LJ some of their modeling pictures and they said, "That'd make me nervous." I've dated a lot of beautiful people but I don't think I've ever dated someone that was just so plain damn hot. Which brings up so many of my own insecurities.
It's hard to just feel the joy of the realization that someone really awesome has decided that they want to date me. I expect the worst with so many things; I expect people are just going to disappear from my life and I'll have no idea what the hell happened. I've been avoiding turning on my phone partly because part of me expects it to be over by the time I turn it on. I checked Fetlife and it looks like we're still dating on there but, damn, why do I get so expectant of everything turning to hell?
I'm planning on writing more through the next couple days. There are things I absolutely feel the need to do right now: walking, moving my body, writing, grounding. I'm kind of scared and don't know what will come out when I start writing, but I figure if I write down the stuff that's going on inside of me, that can only be a good thing. I want to write about all the learning I had during the Gender Outlaw retreat, and maybe a little bit about our date.
Christi and I agreed to date officially at the end of my visit (they decided after taking a shower; we hugged on it, like some kind of business transaction) and now I'm like, can I do this, is it too much pressure, am I going to be disappointing, is this going to end before the next time I talk to them? I just try to remind myself that it's *casual* dating because I think I take it too seriously. Casual dating is maybe someone else's language for intentional friendship. But Christi says if you just call it an intentional friendship then it's unlikely to go anywhere.
LJ and others have helped me remember that if it doesn't work out, it just wasn't the right one, and... I'm kind of feeling all the stuff that goes with heartbreak before anything has even happened. How freaking gorgeous they are makes me nervous. I showed LJ some of their modeling pictures and they said, "That'd make me nervous." I've dated a lot of beautiful people but I don't think I've ever dated someone that was just so plain damn hot. Which brings up so many of my own insecurities.
It's hard to just feel the joy of the realization that someone really awesome has decided that they want to date me. I expect the worst with so many things; I expect people are just going to disappear from my life and I'll have no idea what the hell happened. I've been avoiding turning on my phone partly because part of me expects it to be over by the time I turn it on. I checked Fetlife and it looks like we're still dating on there but, damn, why do I get so expectant of everything turning to hell?
I'm planning on writing more through the next couple days. There are things I absolutely feel the need to do right now: walking, moving my body, writing, grounding. I'm kind of scared and don't know what will come out when I start writing, but I figure if I write down the stuff that's going on inside of me, that can only be a good thing. I want to write about all the learning I had during the Gender Outlaw retreat, and maybe a little bit about our date.