A new Game
This is the second post, in what may end up being an on going series, between me and JJ. Go here for his side of things.
I've been contemplating what makes people like us different from other people our age. I don't mean different in a bad way, but when you think about how often people in our group jump from girlfriend/boyfriend to g/f//b/f, then you realize that most of us in the group don't behave in this manner. The only person that did that for a while in the group was Seer, and even he's been in a pretty long standing relationship now. Adam's been with Briana for a long time, Josh with Catherine, Paul and Tracy have even been together for a while now. There are other examples, but you get the point. The thing is, we seem to crave the ability to not have to 'move around' so much. I think it's a pretty normal thing, I think that its what most people really want, and the people that have achieved it in the form of a relationship are much more happy for it I would say. But for the rest of us (and them, I suppose, as I am just speculating anyway), we seem to rather be alone for a long time then to enter into a relationship that may break off after a short period of time. I sometimes wonder if that isn't our curse as well as a blessing. I mean, it keeps us from getting close to someone for fear that it won't last. And perhaps it can keep us in when we really want out because we don't want to have to start all over again. It would be hard to say that anyone in the group (and by proxy, anyone reading this) is really afraid of being alone. Maybe afraid of being alone for ever.... but not for a while, not for a lot longer then most people in our age group.
I'm kind of rambling at this point so I'm going to try to start working may way back to my point... I can't count the amount of times that I've run through the basic scenerio of what I assume would happen if I actually started dating someone. I can usually tell, depending on the girl, if its going to last for either A) a few weeks, B) a few months, or C) a long time. Of course, thats all on the assumption that it would get off the ground in the first place. Of course I don't really have a whole lot to base this assertation of mine on. I just assume, and god only knows how often I've been wrong. But I wonder about how many good times and good people I may have missed out on because I tend to only really go after the girls in category C. I mean, who knows, maybe someone I judged to be in A would turn out to be in C. Or vice-versa, of course. Like I said, I really have no basis for the argument, its really just arbitrary. So why do I do it? Because I don't want to start something that's not going anywhere. Of course, I'm young enough and transitional enough (in my life I mean, as I probably won't be living in Reno in a couple of years, won't be going to school anymore in a relatively short amount of time, etc.) to be able to get into a relationship with someone that I like that doesn't go anywhere. And in a little while just ends. So what is holding me back? Is it fear? I suppose, I don't know. Laziness, I sometimes atributite to. I mean, I don't want to have to keep trying to start up with girl after girl. Of course, that's what my life is like until I met a girl that I can be with for a while. Maybe I just don't want to get a chance to get used to having a girl in my life and then lose her and be worse off then before I met her. I don't know, I really don't.
Moving on to another point you made, you talked about protecting yourself from heart break. But let's work with that for a moment. To be heart broken, one must first admit, not only to the other person, but really, truly, to themselves, that they have strong feelings for the other person. They have to accept those feelings, revel in those feelings. It doesn't really matter if the other person returns them or not, as may be the case that leads to the heart break. But never in the whole scheme of emotions in a relationship can you get close enough unless you take a chance. Playing it safe rarely seems to work out, as can be said of me. I oft play it safe, and where am I now? I'm still alone, I can't seem to win out. Now, there are other factors at work there, but I wonder how many people may have been lost because I didn't take a risk. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I don't.
The biggest factor for me, in the past couple of years, has not been not being able to go up to a girl and ask her out, or at least trying to get something started. I'm not sure, but I'm going to say that I've been out on around 10 first dates in the past year and a half. And by first dates, I mean different girl. In that same time, I have been on zero (0) second dates. You can do the math to figure out how many third and fourth dates I've been on... I don't know what the hell the problem is, either. You know what the most common phrase at the end of the night is? "I had a really good time tonight, Matt." Almost every damn time. And yet somehow, in a mystifying and bizarre way, between the end of that first date and X days (I'd say the average is about a week) I somehow screw it up. Now you could argue that they may have just been trying to be nice to me and then tried to get rid of me afterwards. Or you could argue that maybe it's not the dates that are the problem with me, but rather the next few days that I screw up. What is it? Do I suddenly appear too desperate? Not interested enough? Was it something on the date? Was it just a pity date? The last one I'd like to think not, but who knows... Then I think I'm going after the wrong girls... I don't know. I think I talked about it last time I posted, and I won't get into the type of girls I go after now... but it is frusterating.
Bringing this all back around, I think sometimes that I have such high expectations to start a relationship with these girls (or not, in some cases, when it is not them but me that blows the other off... but thats more rare....) that that thought in my head somehow gets conveyed to them and it freaks them out. They don't want to think in terms of weeks/months, they want to think in terms of days/hours. At least as far as the relationship aspect would go. They don't want someone that's totally in before they even know him. Now, that may not be fair... I mean, think futurama - "Is Heaven missing an angel? 'Cause you've got nice cans!" vs. "My two favorite things are commitment and changing myself." ("Does that dummy have a brother?") But, I think, to be fair, it's a freaky, freaky thing if a guy seems to commited before anythings even really started to happen. This is why I said it may be as much curse as blessing. It can scare them away. They don't want it. And yet not showing interest is worse then showing too much interest in most cases. I understand that a guy that has absolutely no luck* with women shouldn't be talking like he knows what he's talking about with the ladies. But I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. And if my personal journey can shed light on JJ's situation, then so much the better.
More in regard to JJ's current situation, though, I think that both of you are taking this... to a strange place. It's like your saying that you won't date her unless she's going to promise to be there for you for a long time to come. I think that's way too much pressure to put on anyone (you or her) at the begining of a relationship. I understand you can't really go back at this point. But you understand what I'm talking about, right? You already tried going out for a couple of weeks, as you said... I don't know, this isn't really adding up. I mean, do you want to date her or not? And by date I don't mean "be in a relationship" I mean date. Because no matter how this goes in the future, you still will have to start it out by starting to date again. You can't just go from friendly to being in a relationship over night. I don't want to be an ass, because that's not why I started talking to you about this, and I do enjoy having long posts that I can just kind of ponder various aspects of my and others lives, but at the same time, I think it wouldn't be fair for me to just ignore the thoughts going through my head about what I think of the situation as you've described it. ...le sigh. Okay, here we go... the longer you wait the less protected you are going to be. The longer you let it drag out before something happens the more clear it will become. And I say this as a friend, not as an attack or anything of the sort, but do you think she's really into you? Because I don't. I mean, you said yourself you weren't sure and then said yes and that you were willing to wait, but... well, you can't shut off how you feel... I don't know that just waiting on the sidelines, as it were, is the greatest idea. If you were capable in this situation of just being friends with her, then it might be alright. But think about what will happen if you decide to just stay as friends with her and then all of a sudden one day she tells you she met someone and they started dating, and, oh, she should have told you sooner, but she didn't know how to say it, but he really likes me (in this case me=her, if you hadn't noticed...) and I like him and well.... Again, not saying this to be an ass... but how are you going to react. Will your emotions be proected in that sense? I doubt it, and I speak from experiance. I have been the 'friend' of many a girl only to see them start dating total losers while I stood in the background. I don't want to see you get hurt, really, I don't. But I want you to understand what you could be in for. And if she keeps saying "lets just wait and see" then you know, deep down, what that means. And if she isn't ready now, what makes you think she will be ready next week, next month, next year? What isn't she ready for? A relationship? I assure you thats not the problem. Just think about yourself, was there ever a time in your life when a girl could have walked into your life that you really liked and you just 'wouldn't be ready for a relationship?' And I know I've hammered on the relationship thing for a long time, but I think it's important (to me and to you) in the understanding of all of this. I won't be so arrogent as to try to tell you what you should do, but I just hope that if you read this you will start to think about what might be happening.
It may seem as though I'm just being a jerk, but I can live with that. Because I'm not wrong, I don't believe. I just don't want you to go into this with your eyes closed is all. It could work out very great for you this way, and I hope it does, I just don't want you to forget that there is a potential downside and its best to prepare for the possibility of that downside, and maybe take actions to prevent that downside from ever coming around.
That is all.
I've been contemplating what makes people like us different from other people our age. I don't mean different in a bad way, but when you think about how often people in our group jump from girlfriend/boyfriend to g/f//b/f, then you realize that most of us in the group don't behave in this manner. The only person that did that for a while in the group was Seer, and even he's been in a pretty long standing relationship now. Adam's been with Briana for a long time, Josh with Catherine, Paul and Tracy have even been together for a while now. There are other examples, but you get the point. The thing is, we seem to crave the ability to not have to 'move around' so much. I think it's a pretty normal thing, I think that its what most people really want, and the people that have achieved it in the form of a relationship are much more happy for it I would say. But for the rest of us (and them, I suppose, as I am just speculating anyway), we seem to rather be alone for a long time then to enter into a relationship that may break off after a short period of time. I sometimes wonder if that isn't our curse as well as a blessing. I mean, it keeps us from getting close to someone for fear that it won't last. And perhaps it can keep us in when we really want out because we don't want to have to start all over again. It would be hard to say that anyone in the group (and by proxy, anyone reading this) is really afraid of being alone. Maybe afraid of being alone for ever.... but not for a while, not for a lot longer then most people in our age group.
I'm kind of rambling at this point so I'm going to try to start working may way back to my point... I can't count the amount of times that I've run through the basic scenerio of what I assume would happen if I actually started dating someone. I can usually tell, depending on the girl, if its going to last for either A) a few weeks, B) a few months, or C) a long time. Of course, thats all on the assumption that it would get off the ground in the first place. Of course I don't really have a whole lot to base this assertation of mine on. I just assume, and god only knows how often I've been wrong. But I wonder about how many good times and good people I may have missed out on because I tend to only really go after the girls in category C. I mean, who knows, maybe someone I judged to be in A would turn out to be in C. Or vice-versa, of course. Like I said, I really have no basis for the argument, its really just arbitrary. So why do I do it? Because I don't want to start something that's not going anywhere. Of course, I'm young enough and transitional enough (in my life I mean, as I probably won't be living in Reno in a couple of years, won't be going to school anymore in a relatively short amount of time, etc.) to be able to get into a relationship with someone that I like that doesn't go anywhere. And in a little while just ends. So what is holding me back? Is it fear? I suppose, I don't know. Laziness, I sometimes atributite to. I mean, I don't want to have to keep trying to start up with girl after girl. Of course, that's what my life is like until I met a girl that I can be with for a while. Maybe I just don't want to get a chance to get used to having a girl in my life and then lose her and be worse off then before I met her. I don't know, I really don't.
Moving on to another point you made, you talked about protecting yourself from heart break. But let's work with that for a moment. To be heart broken, one must first admit, not only to the other person, but really, truly, to themselves, that they have strong feelings for the other person. They have to accept those feelings, revel in those feelings. It doesn't really matter if the other person returns them or not, as may be the case that leads to the heart break. But never in the whole scheme of emotions in a relationship can you get close enough unless you take a chance. Playing it safe rarely seems to work out, as can be said of me. I oft play it safe, and where am I now? I'm still alone, I can't seem to win out. Now, there are other factors at work there, but I wonder how many people may have been lost because I didn't take a risk. Sometimes I regret it, but sometimes I don't.
The biggest factor for me, in the past couple of years, has not been not being able to go up to a girl and ask her out, or at least trying to get something started. I'm not sure, but I'm going to say that I've been out on around 10 first dates in the past year and a half. And by first dates, I mean different girl. In that same time, I have been on zero (0) second dates. You can do the math to figure out how many third and fourth dates I've been on... I don't know what the hell the problem is, either. You know what the most common phrase at the end of the night is? "I had a really good time tonight, Matt." Almost every damn time. And yet somehow, in a mystifying and bizarre way, between the end of that first date and X days (I'd say the average is about a week) I somehow screw it up. Now you could argue that they may have just been trying to be nice to me and then tried to get rid of me afterwards. Or you could argue that maybe it's not the dates that are the problem with me, but rather the next few days that I screw up. What is it? Do I suddenly appear too desperate? Not interested enough? Was it something on the date? Was it just a pity date? The last one I'd like to think not, but who knows... Then I think I'm going after the wrong girls... I don't know. I think I talked about it last time I posted, and I won't get into the type of girls I go after now... but it is frusterating.
Bringing this all back around, I think sometimes that I have such high expectations to start a relationship with these girls (or not, in some cases, when it is not them but me that blows the other off... but thats more rare....) that that thought in my head somehow gets conveyed to them and it freaks them out. They don't want to think in terms of weeks/months, they want to think in terms of days/hours. At least as far as the relationship aspect would go. They don't want someone that's totally in before they even know him. Now, that may not be fair... I mean, think futurama - "Is Heaven missing an angel? 'Cause you've got nice cans!" vs. "My two favorite things are commitment and changing myself." ("Does that dummy have a brother?") But, I think, to be fair, it's a freaky, freaky thing if a guy seems to commited before anythings even really started to happen. This is why I said it may be as much curse as blessing. It can scare them away. They don't want it. And yet not showing interest is worse then showing too much interest in most cases. I understand that a guy that has absolutely no luck* with women shouldn't be talking like he knows what he's talking about with the ladies. But I'm just trying to figure out what I'm doing wrong. And if my personal journey can shed light on JJ's situation, then so much the better.
More in regard to JJ's current situation, though, I think that both of you are taking this... to a strange place. It's like your saying that you won't date her unless she's going to promise to be there for you for a long time to come. I think that's way too much pressure to put on anyone (you or her) at the begining of a relationship. I understand you can't really go back at this point. But you understand what I'm talking about, right? You already tried going out for a couple of weeks, as you said... I don't know, this isn't really adding up. I mean, do you want to date her or not? And by date I don't mean "be in a relationship" I mean date. Because no matter how this goes in the future, you still will have to start it out by starting to date again. You can't just go from friendly to being in a relationship over night. I don't want to be an ass, because that's not why I started talking to you about this, and I do enjoy having long posts that I can just kind of ponder various aspects of my and others lives, but at the same time, I think it wouldn't be fair for me to just ignore the thoughts going through my head about what I think of the situation as you've described it. ...le sigh. Okay, here we go... the longer you wait the less protected you are going to be. The longer you let it drag out before something happens the more clear it will become. And I say this as a friend, not as an attack or anything of the sort, but do you think she's really into you? Because I don't. I mean, you said yourself you weren't sure and then said yes and that you were willing to wait, but... well, you can't shut off how you feel... I don't know that just waiting on the sidelines, as it were, is the greatest idea. If you were capable in this situation of just being friends with her, then it might be alright. But think about what will happen if you decide to just stay as friends with her and then all of a sudden one day she tells you she met someone and they started dating, and, oh, she should have told you sooner, but she didn't know how to say it, but he really likes me (in this case me=her, if you hadn't noticed...) and I like him and well.... Again, not saying this to be an ass... but how are you going to react. Will your emotions be proected in that sense? I doubt it, and I speak from experiance. I have been the 'friend' of many a girl only to see them start dating total losers while I stood in the background. I don't want to see you get hurt, really, I don't. But I want you to understand what you could be in for. And if she keeps saying "lets just wait and see" then you know, deep down, what that means. And if she isn't ready now, what makes you think she will be ready next week, next month, next year? What isn't she ready for? A relationship? I assure you thats not the problem. Just think about yourself, was there ever a time in your life when a girl could have walked into your life that you really liked and you just 'wouldn't be ready for a relationship?' And I know I've hammered on the relationship thing for a long time, but I think it's important (to me and to you) in the understanding of all of this. I won't be so arrogent as to try to tell you what you should do, but I just hope that if you read this you will start to think about what might be happening.
It may seem as though I'm just being a jerk, but I can live with that. Because I'm not wrong, I don't believe. I just don't want you to go into this with your eyes closed is all. It could work out very great for you this way, and I hope it does, I just don't want you to forget that there is a potential downside and its best to prepare for the possibility of that downside, and maybe take actions to prevent that downside from ever coming around.
That is all.