This guy

I don't know what the hell to do about him. Obviously not pursue, not just yet; he's got a lot of shit going on, and I don't want to muck with that. But he's also sweet as candy and hasn't run off screaming yet. I'm trying to toe the line between platonic friend and unabashed flirt, and sometimes I slide a little too far one way or another, but overall I think it's going alright.

To update: Friday night I asked him to come over to see a new jacket I'd bought (sexy leather cropped, and this was me pushing), and he then invited me watch movies with him and his friend (Professor; him making a move). We saw Earth Girls Are Easy and The Faculty, and ended up holding hands on the couch (me  pushing, insisting he sit beside me), and kept holding hands until I let go (him making a move). Afterward he drove me home and said we should do it again sometime soon (him making a move). I agreed, and said I'd had a great time.
Saturday I asked if he'd be alright taking part in a sort-of triple-date game night with Pink, Soprana, and their men (pushing). He said that was alright, but he didn't want it to be awkward. I then spend the day angsting about whether I was making things awkward for him. Eventually we decided it wasn't awkward, but I do owe him a coffee. But as to his shit, I learned (while out of town, at a concert with Pink), that his father was in the hospital with an infection. Later Saturday after I got home he clarified that his dad was stable, and the antibiotics are working, but that the doctors are worried about his heart.

So today's Sunday and they're running tests, and Hot Rod is texting me while he sits in a hospital and there's been a bit of flirting but more than that I think I'm doing an alright job of being the sympathetic friend, if the friend with dad-died-in-a-hospital baggage. I'm hanging out with Pink at one of the computer laps on campus, and she's working on homework with her lab group while I text Hot Rod, trying to keep his spirits up, and write this gibberish.

Thoughts

What should I do about Hot Rod? Obviously I'm not pursuing him in the same way as previously, but I'm trying to think of people I've bought dinner for, and it's mostly men I'm interested in/dating. Hmmmn. I haven't stepped over the line yet, except maybe with my loudmouth conversating and wearing a strapless dress to dinner. But! There's been no kissing, no touching except when he held the bike up for me while I tried to get started, and yeah that meant his hand on my ass. Certainly not something I'd have felt quite the same about Roommate doing.

Also, I certainly don't want to make Roommate uncomfortable, as I worry we did last night when I stole Hot Rod's wallet to keep him from paying for dinner. Jesus Christ, I don't understand men, though I ought to have guessed, from his impulse to open the door for me.

Post

So I really quite like this guy. But the fact that we've had sex now makes it easier just to view him in a platonic light. That probably doesn't make any fucking sense, but the sexual tension would've driven us both crazy eventually, and maybe only temporarily, but we've gotten that bit out of our systems.

Doesn't mean I wouldn't kiss him crazy if I got the opportunity, or that we couldn't have mindblowing sex down the road, but for now sharing an interest -- or a few dozen -- do a pretty good job of filling the potentially-awkward silence.

Eh, but I've already decided if this didn't work out I'd stick to being single for a while. Seems a good choice. I'm free to flirt without any serious strings, and get a few dozen guys to buy me drinks on my birthday.

Plans and Angst

I feel like I'm making a mistake, but he's not running, or pushing me away. I asked if he could offer what I wanted, and he said as much as he wanted, he didn't think he could. I ought to back off, ought to leave him be, I know that. He said I oughtn't kiss him -- unless it were somehow an accident. Agh. He doesn't want to take any sort of responsibility for the way he makes me feel, for drinking apple juice and dancing downtown at 3am or pulling me in to sleep on his shoulder. He seems to want this, but no sort of responsibility. But the want...is that enough? I say I'm going to seduce him, but does that mean he'll realize he quite likes wrapping his arm around my waist, or that he'll realize he quite likes having someone to wrap his arm around, and it doesn't really matter that it's me?

I want to kiss him, to at some point buck my hips and pull off his shirt and bit his bottom lip while my whole mouth shivers. I want to drive him crazy, and I wonder if there's any chance he'll fall for me, or if I'm kidding myself. I think an organized system of seduction and silence. I want to tempt him, to intrigue him, to turn him on and make him mad (crazy).

We could die tomorrow. There is value in joy, and there is a chance that there will never be joy again. I can't regret kissing a beautiful man.

No matter how life turns out, I refuse to have regrets. I will kiss anyone I want.

To Hot Rod

Don't you get that it's not the ex girlfriend you're still hung up on, or the fact that you don't know what to do about this you and me thing that's kindof become a thing, at least for me? It's not even that you waited to tell me, though maybe that's part of it. It's, if  you can do your thing without mentioning the ex you're still hung up on for this long (admittedly a week, but still!), what else do I have to look forward to? I go into every situation figuring I can trust my first impressions, and then you go and fuck with my head. How am I supposed to trust that you're being straightforward from this point on? What the hell am I supposed to do about this?

To Baker

[Baker is a guy in KC who I've been chatting with on Tumblr.]

• me: Hi. I like you. Lunch sometime?
• him: Yeah, uh. Sounds good.
• ---
• me: So this is going really well, wow. You seem really great. So what's wrong with you?
• him: I'm a serial killer.
• me: Oh, really? That's exciting.
• him: Yeah, definitely. Great fun. Maybe one day I'll kidnap you and lock you in my basement.
• me: Oh, don't tease. You don't even have a basement, and your closet door's much too flimsy to hold me.
• ---
• him: So I'm really excited to see you again. How's tomorrow or the day after sound?
• me: Geez. All I want to do is kiss you. You're amazing. There's got to be something wrong with you.
• him: No, not really. Nothing big.
• ---
• me: You're not perfect, but you're pretty damn close. We should do this again sometime.
• him: I'm still hung up on my ex and I had a dream about her the other day and I don't know that I can do this thing with you even though you're great and it's a lot of fun. Maybe I want to be around you but she just left and I was really depressed and then you came along and I should have said something but I really like you so if I decide I can't do this will you still be around?
• ---
• me: ...
• me: ...
• me: ...
• me: ...
• me: ...
• me: ...
• me: SERIOUSLY?!

#I liked you better when you were a serial killer

^ This is what I posted, with the 'him' being Hot Rod, and Baker asked if that was what actually happened. I responded:

Oh jeez. Yeah, that's really what happened. I'm waiting to hear back I guess about whether he's ready for a relationship? Or something? I don't know. (It's been a super long day and I'm way too tired to string words together, so sorry if this makes no sense. Also sorry for the emotion dump. Again, sleep or lack thereof.) I'm getting kinda tired of being unable to wrap my brain around two people liking each other, being single and reasonably attractive and living fairly stable lives and yet NOT PURSUING IT. It's absolutely contrary to the way my brain works, and if one more fucking man tells me I'm amazing and fun and beautiful but he's just not sure right now I swear I'm going to throw hammers. Nothing against you, of course, 'cos you're brilliant and offered me eclairs. I'm just a bit bitter at the moment. And hell, maybe he'll call me up in three days or a week and say, "I'm sorry I'm such a chickenshit. I really like being around you. Can we do more of that?" but the fact that he even hesitated, that he's questioning whether I'm worth pursuing -- shit, it's enough to give a girl a complex.

Butterflies

I have two speeds: I love you, and I hate you. He likes me, and yet is hung up on his ex -- Amanda -- which apparently screams SLOW DOWN. And I'm a way-too-fast kind of girl, so. What do I do about this? It's got to be an hour or a dat at a time - not calling him tonight because I'm going shooting with The Couple and my phone's dead, so that'll help for a while, anyway. Tomorrow's Wednesday, but I won't call him then, either. Maybe we'll go biking with people, but it's up to him to clarify when/where/if. I just...I don't want to push, which I absolutely did last night when I sortof insisted he stay the night -- although he did say he'd slept well -- maybe it's going to be okay. Obviously I want to sleep with him, but more than that I want to kiss him until he feels something like the butterflies I get when he kisses me. Something like hunger pains.

Fantasy Date

Rode sixteen miles in the last three days (another at least two tonight) and maybe I've got a date. Probably it's tomorrow. He said he'd try for tonight, but somehow I doubt it'll happen, given the crazy exertion he's going to be up to. I know whenever it is I'm not going to be sleeping with him. Which, and I've said it before, is weird. This is a lot more like actual dating, and I'm not sure what to do about that. I hope I'm not scaring him off.

On the phone, I say, "We could eat dinner at my place, walk around the lake if you're up to it." I worry it'll lead to moaning in the bed, but I give him my address and wash dishes while I wait. I thaw pork chops and chop potatoes in an attempt to distract my buzzing mind. It doesn't work, and as I separate soft white cubes I think of the words, the address -- did I tell him up-and-to-the-left, and will he remember? Does he want to kiss me? How long should I wait to kiss him? Outside, of course, because kissing him so close toa bed would be dangerous. And of course I don't have a loveseat, so we'd have to sit on the bed or the floor, and -- Jeez. Obviously I've only got one thing on my mind.

Laundry Day

Am I really into this guy? He makes me nervous, sure, but he doesn't inspire Wannajumpimitis. He's admitted that he's awful at quote-talking-to-girls-endquote. I guess in the back of my mind I wonder if he won't be terrible in bed, or whatever this thing that I can't name or place, will fade as I get to know him better. I could live without him, I guess, although the excitement of the next date has held me in its thrall so far. Am I just using him? It's been a week and I'm worried about fucking things up with him. But I guess I've had such a messy summer that I'm living like I've got nothing to lose -- and I guess we'll see what comes of that. Hot Rod is magnificent, but he's a stranger. I really need to spend some time getting to know him -- and maybe that's the difference between Hot Rod and the other guys I've slept with (although he's not really a member of that group yet): I knew all of them (except Turkic, but we'd been talking daily for a week prior). So maybe my hesitance is natural, and familiarity-based.

Sure we've talked on the phone for now twelve hours, plus eight in each others' presence, but that's admittedly not much. I'd like to kiss him some more, to trace his chest hair and find out his least-favorite body party, so that I can compliment it to death. I want to get him drunk and kiss him everywhere except the mouth. I'd like to play the naughty schoolgirl to his beleaguered teacher. To teach him to dance. I'd like, at some point further down the road, to admit the ten people I've kissed, and the stories behind them.  To talk about the time I maybe cheated on a guy, and my worst break-ups. And how it all happened the summer before I asked him out. I'd like to get his history, collapse in a sweaty mass beside him, and race him to the shower. I want, and I don't know why, but but I really hope he wants too.

Jeez. Is it just that he's a guy, or that he's Hot Rod? Is it more than his goofily white grin and glasses? I feel like  I'm not allowed to talk about sex, that I'll chase him off somehow or make it all about sex even before  we've gotten there -- God I hope I don't fuck this one up, too.

Post-First-Date

I don't know why I find him so adorable. I find him attractive, sexy intelligent, passionate..because he is those things. He's certainly adorable as well, but that seems like something that has much more to do with me. He's not great at making plans and sticking to them, but he's very good  at indicating his interest, if he's kissed thoroughly beforehand. And, y'know, I think I can make that happen.

I wonder how I should feel about his suggestion that I sleep with him after the first date, and knowing each other less than a week. I mean, that's something I've done, obviously, but he has no way of knowing that! I guess I'm trying not to judge without more information. It does seem a little odd for a guy who didn't even kiss me until I made a move, though.

Oh Em Jesus H Christ

He's called Hot Rod, and I really like him. Turned-down-sex like him. He's made it clear he's really into me, but I don't want to rush and fuck this up. I also don't know that I want to rush at all. He's so bloody sweet, and a great cook (made chicken on the grill tonight), and a conversationalist with a good taste in music. I met his roommate tonight, as well, which was another reason for turning down sex, and he's super nerdy and hilarious and maybe a little bit into me, but that's probably just serious arrogance talking. I really don't want to get between the two, since they're best friends in addition to roommates. And we'd only just kissed when he asked me to stay the night, so that's another thing. Those three all together, and it was definitely the right choice. Oh, I do hope he calls. I've still got a smile and his taste on my lips.

Now, I've got a test in the AM and need to crash. Jeeeeez.

Hot Rod

There's a line here, "Friends say I'm crazy 'cuz easily I fall in love," and that's been my tagline for the summer. Hot Rod - IT guy, and the sweetest thing since honey, has crawled under my skin and left me listening to my "She Amazes Him" playlist. He called me "cutie pie," and "pretty" and "cute." More specifically, he said I have a pretty face, and a great laugh -- and he's smart, and funny, and geez.

On the five points:

1. Height (6') - Don't know for sure, but I'd guess so.
2. Dark Hair/Glasses - Yes indeed.
3. Body Type - Solidly athletic, way moreso than me. Good influence, I'd say.
4. Intelligent - He got through two years of Electrical, and wants to go into law/political journalism. Yup, he's got it.
5. Passionate - See above. :)
6. [Into Me?] - If the eight hour conversation night before last was any sort of indication, and the compliments he dropped just to make me squirm, and the fact he listed me among things he liked, I'd say probably. Oh geez, I hope so.

 I can type a transcript of an eight-hour phone call, but we talked sports (I said I played racquetball, so that's something I need to get on. He plays tennis, racquetball, and bikes.), film and music preferences (He's seen the Notebook and adores bad movies.), tv (He's an enormous Trekkie, likes Jericho and could watch more Who.), normal people (He pretends to be one, should flaunt his weird flag more often, but it makes him uncomfortable.), majors and future plans, drinking, friends, the battle of the sexes...I don't even know. Family, high school. Eight hours' worth of topics, and it just kept going. Sleep, or lack thereof. Him hunting down my address and stealing me. His roommate and exes.

To get up-to-date, I grabbed him coffee yesterday afternoon and we ended up sitting together drinking coffee for all of his lunch break (He didn't eat??), talking about I-don't-know-what, genocide and IT and biking, and we were maybe going to do something, but I think he went to sleep. Anyway, no call last night, then just as I was going to bed I decided to dress up and couldn't resist a call over - no answer, but like I said he was probably sleeping. Anyway, that was at about 23:09, and I worry what that'll look like to him. Hopefully not desperation? Ball's in his court and I'm wearing an overly formal dress today, so I guess we'll see (!!!).

Finn

You know, until I decided to end it, that I hadn't planned this. You know from things I'd said -- things I remember saying, and meant at the time -- that I thought it would last -- not forever, but indefinitely. And I wanted that to be true and it was, for a bit. But you also should know -- because I told you -- what I need, in order to justify to myself -- yes my friends, but mostly myself, most importantly myself -- being with you, and that thing is -- what do you call it? Affection? Caring? Love? I don't want forever, or promises of such, but I need "I want you with me tomorrow," and you've never given that. You probably can't, because of all your past baggage, and sure that's bullshit and you ought to get over it, but I also can't fix you if you don't want fixing, and I can't stick around if you don't want me. And the most you've ever been able to admit is that you like what you get when I'm around, and that's not wanting me.

Sorry, boy. I am so terribly sorry that this couldn't be more, for both of our sakes. Thank you for the time and the dancing and the education.

Not Breaking Up

Because we were never dating, of course.

But this blows.

(For information's sake, this is Finn. And I called him and woke him up and feel like an ass, and "broke up" over the phone. By clarifying that I could do this and it makes me smile and I like it but I don't feel like he knows who I am or cares. And he said that he does care about me as a person, but that he doesn't know what else he could do differently to show that. And I outright asked him to argue with me, to try to convince me...and all he'd say is that he didn't know what he could do. So.)