I’m going to check in quickly today. It’s about 9 PM on Tuesday and I am feeling a bit pressed for time.
Okay, on health and academics, I don’t have any big news. I seem to be stable for the time being in my fitness, and frankly, that’s great. No complaints. Academically, I’ve started my final essay for my English Comp and I’m about to finish Week 7 (of 10) in my Computer Science class. I’ve put the other classes on the back burner for now, because I just want to finish something before the end of the year, and I think focusing down will help.
I’ve been texting with a woman I met on Bumble for a little over a week. I’m not sure what to make of this. More often than not, I feel like we’re on the same page. I also find myself sometimes sharing things I generally don’t with people. But I also don’t always feel like I’m acting like myself. No, that’s not true, I am sharing a real part of me, but I feel like the most common parts of me aren’t being shared. Like, I’m not letting any of my silliness through. I’m not talking her ear off about whatever book I’m reading or Star Trek episode I just watched. I’m not making off color jokes or allusions to my various cultural touchstones like I usually do.
The other thing is that we haven’t met in person, and it doesn’t seem like we will. I don’t mean to be mean, but the state of online dating right now is just terrible, so I can’t help but feel suspicious that she is actually a bot or scammer. In the past week, I’ve had at least half a dozen run ins with exactly that, one of which asked me to send her something like $200 for a snowblower. I gotta hand it to whomever that was, at least this one was creative.
I recognize that I have been pretty down on myself in this arena lately, but in person, I rarely encounter any women that actually show interest in me. I’m pretty sure this is part of why I made an ass of myself to a friend not long ago. She – the friend that I kinda know and wish I was a better friend to – has always been very kind and understanding to me, and talking with her is really great. It’s only ever bad when I make things awkward with my insecurities or my out of practice conversational skills. I’m so starved for a woman’s romantic attention that her mere hint of friendliness read to me as something more. I saw what I wanted to see, and what I saw was something that was never there. It makes me worry that my assumption of her being open to a friendship are also not true, I’m just projecting that want of mine onto her and she is responding in a way that keeps her safe. Because, as it turns out, I am somewhat scary, which is another thing I really don’t like about myself. But this little pity-party wasn’t the point of today’s exploration, so let’s get back to that.
So now this very attractive, well put-together, smart, and worldly woman is interested in me? That seems unlikely. We met online and she’s not available to meet up in person. It seems like I’m just gullible, and this is some kind of con. But what that con is, for the life of me, I can’t figure. Would you really talk for this long if it’s a con? She’d have asked me for money by now, right? But instead, she’s made it clear that she is financially stable and doesn’t need money. So is she an AI learning bot? It might explain how she’s so often on the same page as me, just reading the obvious signs of my situation and reflecting it back at me. But there have been too many signs to the contrary. What’s the angle here?
So I don’t know. I’m very skeptical, and I don’t think this is likely to work out even if she is real and who she says she is. But you know, if this is a real woman, I don’t want to be shitty to her. I’ve been plenty shitty enough in this world. I suppose I should start trying to let some more of my personality through, though there also hasn’t been a lot of opportunity for it. Every way I think about this feels some kinda bad. If she’s real, I’m not really giving her my most authentic self. But I also feel like if I do give my most authentic self, she won’t be interested. But by giving her just a portion of the real me, if she’s interested in that version of me, she’ll be extremely disappointed in the fullness of my me-ness when she meets him… me. But if I give her my real self and this turns out to be the likely scam or whatever it is… Wow, this paragraph sucks.
And how am I so bad at talking about this? God, I really don’t want to read a relationship book. But maybe I should. But which, because every one I’ve come across looks like it sucks pure shit.
I hate dating so much. I sometimes wonder if my last good relationship was actually good or if I just hate having to go through the early parts so deeply that my memory is clouded by making it through the garbage. Like, I remember it better than it actually was, simply because I got to the part that I think I’ve gotten pretty OK at. Not good, mind you, but much better than I used to be, and I’d also wager better than the population mean of men. Sorry, I’ve been reading a lot of Statistics stuff.
I mean, we did break up for a reason. And that reason was me.
Sometimes in romance I feel like I’m a petulant child. Like I’m always just expecting much more from the woman sharing the relationship with me than I’ll ever be able to return to her. How did I get so bad at just being a person?
I gotta figure out the baseline social part. I’ve been thinking about this more and more, and have been expecting I could keep putting it off for a while. I just have too many things to work on, and in trying to prioritize, I figured that this is the last thing I need. But my dawgs, I am a yearnin’, and that ain’t helping me work on my other goals at all. So maybe I need to find a few places I can hang whenever I’m feeling up for, I guess, practicing being a person. That’s not my favorite way of putting it. But I don’t drink anymore, my dining options are limited, and I’m not very into shopping. In suburban America, that’s pretty much it. I guess I need to go back to the library or start hanging out at book stores or cafes. How do you hang out at a cafe? It seems rude, and being rude is another thing I’ve already done too much of.
Alright, I have to cut myself off here or else I’ll be up all night spiraling and editing and spiraling some more. Also, I have a headache, which I think is because I’ve had too much salt in the past week. Either way, I’m sure isn’t helping my mood. Here’s to hoping I’m less of a grouch for the remainder of this season.