Primary Drama
I don't think I have it in me to date. I just don't.
I turned to internet dating for all the wrong reasons. I knew I was busy, but I thought it would be less time consuming than other pursuits. I knew I wasn't unhappy with my life, but I thought it needed the added spice of dating to make it feel full. I knew that it takes me a long, long time to develop feelings for someone, and that it is hard to find a good match for me, but I thought I was feeling particularly honest and open.
Internet dating is really time consuming. Sometimes an hour every night to respond to three people, all asking lengthy questions that over drinks would take no time. And the emails became so redundant that I started copying and pasting answers about my musical tastes. Setting up dates, meant that the few nights I happened to have free weren't devoted to rest, and household chores, it was devoted to spending a potentially exhausting amount of time with a stranger.
And I was apparently quite content with my life as it stood. I go to work, I go to the gym, I have my unusual hobbies, I had a social life that wanted my attention so much that there was rarely a week that I didn't spend time with someone other than my cats. I started viewing these guys as intruders upon the time I spent wanting to write, to see my friends, to stay in touch with my family.
As for my ability to open up to guys? Wow. Still failing.
When I was younger I was always the... victim, I guess? The one wronged, at any rate. I was the one who got broken up with, who didn't get called, who got invited out only to be ignored and then propositioned like I was up for anything.
Breaking up with the Boy From Dallas in November was literally the first time in my life I was ever in the position of the one leaving. I felt like a total heel and it wasn't until weeks later that I stopped feeling guilty. Interestingly, as time passed Boy From Dallas becomes increasingly worse in my memory. By now I've taken to jokingly referring to him as "Sea Monster" ("He had fives and tentacles all over his face! It was awful.") He wasn't really all that bad, but maybe that's how my brain has coped?
Since the end of the three year relationship I had in college, in which marriage and the future were talked about as givens, I've have never had legitimate feelings of love and romance. I've dated a handful of guys, slept with a handful more. I got a little crazy about some of them, but mostly it was a lot of "Meh." The last time I shed tears about a guy was in 2007? And I might have teared up about Boy From Dallas, but that was guilt, not about being denied love.
Point is. I'm a cold fish. When a guy doesn't call, I usually immediately write him off. I don't get sad, I don't wonder what I did. I just sigh and roll my eyes and move on. What else can I do? He'll either call or he won't and being upset about it is not going to do me any good. Either I'll be pleasantly surprised, or I'll be right.
Well.
Last night I accidentally stood someone up. Like full on, this is what happens in the movies when people get stood up. Well sort of. We'd made only vague plans for yesterday evening. I checked my phone at 6:20 after getting home from the gym and saw no texts, no messages about meeting. I put it down and walked away and assumed. I rarely hear my phone (ask Kate and my mother) and I didn't hear it. I found out around 9pm that he had called much later, and actually WENT to the place we had talked about and God, I feel like a skank.
I would contact him and explain the misunderstanding, but how do I? "I'm a defensive man-hater and I'd written you off." And also, I don't think there's really a spark with this guy, I was really just meeting him to give him a second chance, but I can't apologize, reschedule and then decide there's no spark. That would be even MEANER. Argh. I want to apologize, but I also think it might be better if he assumes the worst about me. That way I'm not some nice girl that didn't like him, I'm some bitch he hopes dies in a fire and he'll find someone better. (Hey, maybe I could fake my death...).
This morning I get a text from a guy I got lunch with on Friday. This is the other problem with internet dating, online he seemed nice enough, if a bit too upfront about emotional drama. But meeting him I was immediately not attracted to him. And I mean I didn't like his voice, body, or demeanor. Not his fault, not mine. He emailed me after lunch and I didn't answer because I didn't feel there was a reason to? We chatted for a bit before lunch, spent one hour together, hugged and said goodbye. No future plans were made, no promises. Five days later he texts me with "Haven't heard from you, are you just that busy or is this the blow off?"
...Normally I would feel completely justified in ignoring it and moving on. But. With last night's fail, I mostly feel like a really, really, really bad person.
Tell me I'm not a horrible person? :(
I turned to internet dating for all the wrong reasons. I knew I was busy, but I thought it would be less time consuming than other pursuits. I knew I wasn't unhappy with my life, but I thought it needed the added spice of dating to make it feel full. I knew that it takes me a long, long time to develop feelings for someone, and that it is hard to find a good match for me, but I thought I was feeling particularly honest and open.
Internet dating is really time consuming. Sometimes an hour every night to respond to three people, all asking lengthy questions that over drinks would take no time. And the emails became so redundant that I started copying and pasting answers about my musical tastes. Setting up dates, meant that the few nights I happened to have free weren't devoted to rest, and household chores, it was devoted to spending a potentially exhausting amount of time with a stranger.
And I was apparently quite content with my life as it stood. I go to work, I go to the gym, I have my unusual hobbies, I had a social life that wanted my attention so much that there was rarely a week that I didn't spend time with someone other than my cats. I started viewing these guys as intruders upon the time I spent wanting to write, to see my friends, to stay in touch with my family.
As for my ability to open up to guys? Wow. Still failing.
When I was younger I was always the... victim, I guess? The one wronged, at any rate. I was the one who got broken up with, who didn't get called, who got invited out only to be ignored and then propositioned like I was up for anything.
Breaking up with the Boy From Dallas in November was literally the first time in my life I was ever in the position of the one leaving. I felt like a total heel and it wasn't until weeks later that I stopped feeling guilty. Interestingly, as time passed Boy From Dallas becomes increasingly worse in my memory. By now I've taken to jokingly referring to him as "Sea Monster" ("He had fives and tentacles all over his face! It was awful.") He wasn't really all that bad, but maybe that's how my brain has coped?
Since the end of the three year relationship I had in college, in which marriage and the future were talked about as givens, I've have never had legitimate feelings of love and romance. I've dated a handful of guys, slept with a handful more. I got a little crazy about some of them, but mostly it was a lot of "Meh." The last time I shed tears about a guy was in 2007? And I might have teared up about Boy From Dallas, but that was guilt, not about being denied love.
Point is. I'm a cold fish. When a guy doesn't call, I usually immediately write him off. I don't get sad, I don't wonder what I did. I just sigh and roll my eyes and move on. What else can I do? He'll either call or he won't and being upset about it is not going to do me any good. Either I'll be pleasantly surprised, or I'll be right.
Well.
Last night I accidentally stood someone up. Like full on, this is what happens in the movies when people get stood up. Well sort of. We'd made only vague plans for yesterday evening. I checked my phone at 6:20 after getting home from the gym and saw no texts, no messages about meeting. I put it down and walked away and assumed. I rarely hear my phone (ask Kate and my mother) and I didn't hear it. I found out around 9pm that he had called much later, and actually WENT to the place we had talked about and God, I feel like a skank.
I would contact him and explain the misunderstanding, but how do I? "I'm a defensive man-hater and I'd written you off." And also, I don't think there's really a spark with this guy, I was really just meeting him to give him a second chance, but I can't apologize, reschedule and then decide there's no spark. That would be even MEANER. Argh. I want to apologize, but I also think it might be better if he assumes the worst about me. That way I'm not some nice girl that didn't like him, I'm some bitch he hopes dies in a fire and he'll find someone better. (Hey, maybe I could fake my death...).
This morning I get a text from a guy I got lunch with on Friday. This is the other problem with internet dating, online he seemed nice enough, if a bit too upfront about emotional drama. But meeting him I was immediately not attracted to him. And I mean I didn't like his voice, body, or demeanor. Not his fault, not mine. He emailed me after lunch and I didn't answer because I didn't feel there was a reason to? We chatted for a bit before lunch, spent one hour together, hugged and said goodbye. No future plans were made, no promises. Five days later he texts me with "Haven't heard from you, are you just that busy or is this the blow off?"
...Normally I would feel completely justified in ignoring it and moving on. But. With last night's fail, I mostly feel like a really, really, really bad person.
Tell me I'm not a horrible person? :(