Vegas!
Whoa… Vegas is crazy! It sucked the writer out of me there for a minute…but I’ve collected my thoughts as much as is possible given the randomized, sporadic pattern of said thoughts and I’m getting back on track! By the way, “collecting my thoughts” is one of my favorite phrases…like snatch and serendipity, I just like to say/think/write those words as much as I can possibly squeeze them into my vernacular!
After last Thursday’s date with Mr. Nurse, as well as some interesting thoughts from a few other blogger/daters, I’ve re-worded both my “looking for” and “write me if”. I’ve opted to remove all of the potential “romantic” element and merely post that I’m looking to meet “friends” and friends in the literal, not trendy (FWB), sense. I did this after my date with Mr. Nurse because although Nurse-guy was a handsome, intelligent and fairly fun guy, it became pretty clear to me around midnight of our date that his intentions posted on the dating site are possibly not entirely truthful.
After a great afternoon hanging out on the strip for coffee and chit-chat, he invited me out later that night to an open-mic night at a little dive bar in his neck of the woods. Nurse-guy likes to sing and play the guitar. 
We were having a delightful time at this shin-dig! I met a few really nice people and heard some great music. Around midnight, Nurse says to me, “Are you ready to go?” I’m definitely ready to leave, eat, or go somewhere else at this point and I assume this is what he means; “ready?” as in “ready to leave?”
Yes, I am. So he walks me to my car, where he kisses me and then basically invites himself over to my house. I’m not against this entirely, but I’m a little suspicious at the way he maneuvers this…something just felt “off”… I want to assume the best though; he seems super nice. I tell him that it’s no problem to come over to my house to watch movies (my idea) or maybe go into the hot tub (his idea), whatever… He responds to this with, I’m not looking for a relationship, you know?
Hmm…..the timing of this really just struck me as strange. I mean, what does that have to do with anything, unless maybe you’re making some assumptions about what I really mean by saying you’re welcome to come over? I really don’t see the correlation between let’s hang out at your house….yeah, okay…straight to “but you should know I don’t want a relationship right now.”
I’m not sure I’m following this train of thought…?
Anyway, he’s following me to my house, when I start getting a little worried about how this all connects…and I start doubting my choice to have him over at this time of night, after a few drinks…
Once we get to my house, he’s cool. He starts kissing me and clearly wants to make out. Umm…call me a tramp, call me Suzy Floozy, yeah whatever, I’m perfectly okay with the making out business. Hell, I like making out… I kinda wish there was a making out version of speed dating.
Speed Making-Out? Who's in?!??
I’ve never been speed dating, but I’ve heard about it and I like to make out so much that I think there should be a speed-make-out thing. You would get 5 minutes with each “match” to make out and if you both enjoyed it, you could exchange information and decide if you want to get to know each other more and/or maybe just make out a second time… The safety of this is it’s in a public place with a definitive time limit.
…because making out with a relative stranger, in my house, for an extended period of time started to freak me out a little. Not that this is Nurse-guy’s fault. He wasn’t way out of line or anything…I just started to get a little nervous… Maybe I didn’t trust him? Maybe I didn’t trust me? And maybe the just-prior-to-coming-over “no relationship” proclamation just made me feel too weird and suspicious? I don’t know for sure, but I really felt the making out needed to stop and that he should go home.
…and he did without a problem. So, all was well. I just had a nagging discomfort that I couldn’t quite define or get past. So, I re-worded my profile to specify friends only, which isn’t entirely true, as ideally I’d like to meet someone date-able and I’m still undecided as to the relationship thing. I’m certainly not totally against it, but I’m not necessarily looking for a heavy-duty one either. Hmm…it really makes me question if I’m even ready to be dating? I felt uncomfortable with someone I had great dates with who pushed the relationship aspect and I felt equally uncomfortable with someone who was so willing to take it physically as far as I might allow who plainly stated he wasn’t ready for any kind of relationship. What does that even mean? What am I even looking for here again? My thoughts were scrambled as I hopped in bed after Nurse left.
I’m probably not ready because I’m not sure of the intimacy threshold or physical boundaries within the smack-dab-middle of the options here. How can I not be sure of even my own boundaries? And what does that even mean? Check-list time:
Option one: Friends who date. If we hang out as friends who date and there’s an attraction which understandably gets physical, where is that boundary? There’s no established prior friendship to dictate that. So if it doesn’t get physical, would we really continue “dating”? And if it does get physical, then is it beyond friends?
Option two: Just friends. I’m questioning whether this is a valid option on a dating site at all. With the popularity of the trendy FWB thing, I somehow am having a difficult time buying into the possibility that many of the guys who write me are truly interested in hanging out with me indefinitely as friends. If there’s an attraction, then it’s probably going to be acted upon and push the limits of “friendship”. If there’s no attraction, how often will said guy really want to hang out?
Option three: Friends who casually date and engage in sexual relations. Okay, this is pretty much FWB, right? And I might be okay with that (maybe) with someone whom I’ve known for years and have an established meaningful friendship. However, in a new city where I don’t know anyone, that’s not an option…. And aside from that, then it’s basically just two people hanging out and having a casual sex thing, right? And while I don’t necessarily see anything wrong with that under certain circumstances, I’m not sure I’m okay with that right now either. It might make me feel rather cheap and/or used.
Ew. Which is kind of the feeling I was getting from Nurse-guy…and I didn’t like it. I really shouldn’t think that, as I can’t say for sure what his deal is/was. He was respectful and seemed honest. I only know that something felt odd for me and that suspicion could very well be it. Something was just off for me in the whole timing of his inviting himself over and immediately saying, I’m not ready for any kind of relationship. That’s okay with me and yet… hmmm?
This is my brain on online dating" pink, fuzzy and I can't know what might roll!
It makes me realize how fuzzy the whole concept is even to me! Like, wow..ummm okay, me either, but I wasn’t going to rule it out immediately. Thinking I’m in more of a let’s just see how it goes place. Once he firmly established that wasn’t what he wanted, I can respect that, but then to come over and immediately jump into mad-make-out? I guess if I already knew I didn’t want any kind of relationship, my thoughts about “hanging out” at midnight at someone’s house probably are in the literal sense of cool, let’s hang out as in yay…let’s watch stupid movies, let’s discuss global poverty, let’s color in my Alice and Wonderland coloring book, let’s do yoga, make Rice Krispie treats, knit matching scarves, sing karaoke to cheesy 70’s ballads…you know, hang out. If we’ve established the entire relationship-stance on date one at midnight, then: 1. The mystery is already gone. And 2. I feel a little cheapened to make out with you, at least the heavy-duty can’t-keep-my-hands-off-you making out. We can keep it light pal or we can go passionately macramé a few exotic plant hangers…your choice!
Macrame' might be fun!
Am I totally contradicted? Yes, perhaps… and you would not be the first to accuse me of this in my life. I’m sure that’s surprising, but it’s true. I’m nothing if not a total and chronic contradiction. Yeah, and just so you know, when I’m not having crazy passionate one-night stands (after all, that’s as long as they’ll usually “stay”) with that aspect of my personality, it frustrates me too. It is what it is though. (Insert Popeye here) So, I do feel for how this must play out to others, but it’s also the one aspect of my personality on which we can always depend.
So, I wrote nurse man the next day that I enjoyed our day, but that I felt confident we weren’t a match as friends or otherwise. This threw Nurse off a little, as I received a “WTF?” response, but except for trying to pin-point where I stand in relation to all of this, I’m so over the Nurse thing already. He sucked all the mystery out and then tried to suck my face…and (ahem)other personal areas as well. No. It’s been decided. Moving on…
I’m emailing with several people now. A few are in the pushy let’s-get-together-yesterday category (I’m intentionally taking those excruciatingly slow) a few are in the entirely questionable (I’m mostly being polite) category, one is in the borderline stalker-already (he’s just about to get the “block” ewww!), and two are…ummmm…wait for it……wait for it…
Intriguing and delightful!
Seriously. One fave, I’m way excited to meet and the other, I’m not sure I’ll meet anytime soon if ever…? Only time will tell! However, either way, meet them or not, I do know I truly adore them both already!
...like nailing Jell-O to the wall! 
I’ve had the same feeling before, when I’ve invited someone to my house and I’m not quite sure why, but suddenly I felt uneasy about my decision. Usually, I try to get the person out immediately when I do that. (I say this like I’ve done it tons of times, only a few). I think it is just intuition. I don’t have to know exactly why, but I have learned to start listening to my gut. There was this episode of Oprah where she had an expert on that was talking about intuition and insticts. The expert said that humans are the only animal that feel uneasy about something, but charge forward, because they are afraid to hurt someone’s feelings, they doubt themselves, etc. If a deer hears rustling in the bushes and feels uneasy, he doesn’t head in to check it out. He goes the other way. It could be danger. Humans, on the other hand, would be like, “Wonder what that is!?” Trust your insticts. They are there for a reason.
Ahhh…I wish I’d seen that Cat…I have the best intuition, but I always second guess it and that’s usually the times I get in rough situations and wonder why I didn’t honor that feeling to begin with. the way you’ve described it here is awesome..I mean, we are just mammals after all, right? Makes sense!
I think I tend to 2nd guess inviting men over to my house bc the male/female communication system seems so flawed..what’s “obvious” to them is often not at all what we’re thinking at all..and vice versa..makes it hard to have to 2nd, 3rd, and 4th guess what you say and do while getting to know someone new!
It’s funny we both decided to go the “friend” route on there. I honestly haven’t been back on since the day after I reinstated my account and gave J my email. I think I’ve made a solid friendship with him, like somehow, with no sexual innuendo’s, no pressure for anything but friends and getting to know each other, I feel better somehow. At least for the time I’m chatting it up with him, texting, or what have you. I really adore J and all his awesomeness. The guy is so Barney Stinson it’s not funny, and he didn’t even know who that was or seen the show, I’m now familiarizing him with his awesome doppelganger/tv character.
I need to go back on there and check my messages, not that I’ve ever liked having multiple close friends at once, much like I’m not good at dating, I don’t do well with more than one Best friend. I have several girlfriends, but only ONE that is my Best Friend and she’s so far away. Not to discount her friendship, or make his more than it is, but it’s nice to be understood and have someone local to hang out with. Which we will, very soon. My latest blog is about the same thing too, lol, great minds think alike I guess!
I have to go read yours..been in a funky non-focused place where my reading abilites have been suffering..gotta catch up on all the good stuff happenin’!! This “J” sounds pretty cool so far..yayyyy:)
It’s so difficult to define what you want, when you may want different things with different people. So, don’t make yourself crazy by trying to figure it out. You’ll know, as you did with Mr. Nurse, when you interact with the person. I agree with Catherine, that you need to trust and act on your instincts and don’t worry about hurting feelings, because chances are, they aren’t worried about hurting yours (gawd, that sounds bitter! And I’m really trying to veer away from being bitter).
Amy is right though, I don’t worry about hurting J’s feelings, he knows, up front what I want from him and don’t want. And if I was unsure, I would have said that too. I’ve decided to be honest with men in my life as I am with the women. If for some reason I change my mind about him, I will tell him, as I’d expect him to with me, sort of an understanding we have come to about just being honest with each other as friends, from the get go. I hope it truly does work out that way, but I will at least hold up my end.
I guess on your profile you could say you want to start as friends, with no expectations, and if something changes you will let them know. But that you don’t know what you want, and what you want from each person may be different and you are okay with that. Ya know?
I gotta read about this J-guy…right now..I’m getting excited for you that you’ve met a cool guy who can handle being friends!!!
Amy..sometimes I think that’s one of the worst “handicaps” of being raised with deeply Southern values and traditions..I’m *always* worried about hurting someone’s feelings or looking like a b^$*h…and I’m sure you’re right, most ppl probably aren’t even worried about doing that to others much at all… I don’t think you sound bitter… sounds like experience lessons to me and I think you’re right-on, so maybe I’M just starting to get bitter or something too?! There’s such a fine line between bitter and merely realistic from actual experience!
Let’s say we’re “keeping it real”. Not bitter. Just real. Haha.
Also, I like your idea of 5-minute make-outs. I’ve done the 5-min speed dates…not fun, but I totally see the novelty of 5-min make-out sessions. There just needs to be some screening process about who can participate and lots of breath mints all around!
hahahaha @ breath mints…yes!!!! LOTS n LOTS of mints for everyone..and a BIG YES! to major screening prior to the make-outs !