We continue texting but once he heads out of town for 3 weeks, I hear nothing. I can’t really tell you what happened here. I can do a lot of speculating but let’s not. All I can tell you is it felt like I was receiving “mixed signals” and I’m sure I was giving off the same. He hasn’t unmatched me but he’s updated his bio and he’s active on the app and after a week or so I can’t take the anxiety anymore and I unmatch him. Then I delete the whole app.
I move on and spontaneously end up at dinner with an acquaintance. I make a point to clarify it’s as friends and I go to dinner. He pays for the bill while I’m in the bathroom which I think is weird but sometimes my guy friends do pay for my stuff so I shrug it off. I get in my car to leave and he leans in to try to kiss me. I see it coming and I stop him. I ask him about the girl I met several months before. I’ll spare you the details but he was trying to cheat on her. I never hangout with him again.
I go on another dating app date, I go in for the hug goodbye and he went in for the kiss at the same time and that just ended awkwardly. I was totally open to going on a second date but I assume he couldn’t get past the awkwardness (but I don’t really know) and I never heard from him again. Note: The dating world is so different since the last time I was in it. It’s confusing. It’s mixed signals. It’s strangers off of dating apps and overall I just don’t really understand how any of this works anymore. I’m not sure if it’s the difference between your early twenties and late twenties or the advent of dating apps and culture that drastically changed. I’m also carrying a lot of anxiety and a lot of baggage through all this. I’m trying really hard. I’m showing up the best I can but it’s just not working.
I’ve thought about how I want to tell the rest of this story many times and I’m not sure I’ll ever really get it right but in the last few weeks I’ve had a suspicion that maybe..just maybe…this story isn’t what I thought it was about all along. I’m rewriting this before I publish it. You see I want to keep the individuals out of this story but I also wanted to portray to you that dating is really hard. I wanted you to see glimpses into the disappointment I encountered, the really uncomfortable situations that I experienced in “putting myself out there”, and sometimes guys who were just jerks. I want you to feel the ups and downs with me and the heartbreak and the getting your hopes up only to have them dashed again. Some of you know exactly what I’m talking about and some of you just have forgotten what it was like and some of you maybe were lucky and you never, ever had to go on this journey.
The dating world is so different since the last time I was in it. It’s confusing. It’s mixed signals. It’s strangers off of dating apps and overall I just don’t really understand how any of this works anymore.
When I’m just really over things…I feel like I need to just get out of town. I always have a list in my head of the places I want to go to next. It has Key West and the Grand Canyon and Boston among them. I suppose I started talking about Boston that fall when I was going on dates with the guy that took me to the karaoke bar. He talked about Boston a lot and I suppose that in the brief amount of time I dated him I mentioned Boston to my friends and family. So in this moment when I really need an escape and I’m trying to pick a place…someone else says isn’t Boston on your list? They want to go to Boston and it is on my list so I say…sure let’s go to Boston.
I reached out to the karaoke guy once after I deleted him off the app and say that I’d love to hangout again whenever he gets back into town. I’ve heard nothing for weeks so I assume it’s dead in the water but I don’t put people in boxes. If I meet someone cool and they aren’t interested in me that’s fine with me. I’m cool with being friends and I’m open to that with this guy. Honestly I don’t really feel like I’m in a place to seriously date someone so friends feels like a great spot to be in until I can get to a place for a serious relationship.
I’m going to Boston and I’m looking for a hotel. My mom is concerned about making sure I’m staying in a safe section of town so I text him to ask. I fully expect a yes or no and that’s it. Conversation starts back up and we are texting for hours. He sends me a list of all the things I should do in Boston. I go on the trip…it’s lovely. It’s when I end up on this street in Boston I reference (here). It’s when I fall in love with Boston. He texts me to see how my trip is going. We text on and off again over the next few weeks. I have absolutely no idea what is going on here.
Here again is a place in my story where I want you to see the invisible threads being woven. I’m not sure I would have gone to Boston much less fallen in love with it if it weren’t for this random stranger that I met on a dating app. Sometimes I wonder..if I hadn’t met him at all when would I have made it to Boston? If he didn’t give me a list of all the greatest things…would I have fallen in love with Boston? I’m not sure…but thanks to a random algorithm…I won’t ever know.
This is what my story is about and it’s barely even started…that in my pursuit of love…the people I dated…they played pivotal parts in my story and they didn’t even know it. That while I didn’t find love…I found good things…that in this dating journey we can see every end of a relationship as a failure…and we don’t really need to see it like that…we need to see it as a journey…a journey that could last forever…it could last til I’m 99…and I could never find love and if that happens…I want you to know…I did fall in love just not in the way society tells you, you should.
Sometimes I wonder..if I hadn’t met him at all when would I have made it to Boston? If he didn’t give me a list of all the greatest things…would I have fallen in love with Boston? I’m not sure…but thanks to a random algorithm…I won’t ever know.
I have a meeting somewhat in his area of town so I ask if he wants to meet halfway for drinks. He wants to hear about my trip. I don’t hear anything..I’m like whatever. The afternoon before he texts and says yes he’d like to meet up. We go to a sports bar and watch some games and split an app. He makes an excuse to pay since I drove further. The entire time I think we are friends. This becomes a theme in all of my story…I’m always thinking I’m friends and oblivious to guys who are interested in me. (Sidenote- Men…if you’re reading this and we’re friends and you’re interested in me….please let me know.) I thought he was pretty clear that he wasn’t interested in dating me by all the weeks that went by without asking me on a date. Honestly, up to this point he’s never actually asked me on a date. I’ve done all the asking.
He walks me to my car and he puts his arms around me and this is the first time I realize this is a date. He kisses me. We stand out in the parking lot until most of the cars are gone talking and laughing. He gives me a final kiss goodbye and I leave and go home. Note: I am a professional parking lot talker…some would call this my love language..I will talk to you until the parking lots clear and all the cars are gone because I just don’t want the night to end…..to friends, to family, to boys I really like.
The following week someone gives me basketball tickets to a highly sought after game. I ask him to the basketball game. He wants to go but he keeps putting off giving me a solid answer. I give him a deadline and he finally tells me he got into poison ivy clearing some land and he’s covered in poison ivy all over his face. Weeks go by and I’m over here googling how long does poison ivy last to decide if I’m just not getting the hint that he’s not interested. (laughing emojis) At one point I so hilariously send him a multiple choice question to figure out how he feels about me because I’m not getting a straight answer and I have SO MUCH dating anxiety. I wish I could recall word for word because it was funny but I believe I sent him something along the lines of this and a reference to the YOU Netflix series we’ve both been watching…
How do you feel about me?
A) I’d like to date you.
B) I’m not sure how I feel about you.
C) I just want to be friends with you.
D) I’d like you to never contact me again.
He thinks it’s hilarious and he tells me A) I definitely want to date you. This poison ivy thing continues on. After a while, I give up and go silent again. I’m back on dating apps. I go on two more dates.
I want to talk about this here. I want to talk about the dating anxiety. I want to talk about the mixed signals and mostly I want to talk about how scared I am of rejection at this point in time…that I just don’t directly communicate with him until it boils over and I send this text. I’m also very undecided how I feel about him…I’m approaching this whole thing trying to figure out if he likes me….and I’m not sure I really ever let myself admit I like him. I’m really in a gray space just waiting to see if he likes me. I’m a reactive dater. I’m passive. But I am courageous for even putting myself out there. Most people would not…I remember meeting a friend during this year and she hears my story and she goes, “…but you still believe in love after all that?” and I do…through it all I still believe that love exists out there for me. I will walk through fear and anxiety and panic attacks and a whole list of really hard things….and I still choose to show up.