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.