Then The Morning Comes
Good morning, my friendly and supportive readers. Today in KC it is a slightly crisp 67 degrees, just cool enough to justify putting on the sweats and drinking my hot coffee out on the balcony while over-analyzing my love life. Just one of the joys of having a mind that races when I can't sleep -- see, I'm supposed to be napping right now after getting up at 4:45 a.m. to teach a Zumba class (to which no one came).
I've mentioned this before: I'm very analytical. The nebulousness of dating is perhaps the biggest thing I struggle with, aside from the more common fear of rejection. I have now entered the phase of reviewing every little thing with P, every conversation, every email, every text message, to find the signs that he's not interested. Or, at least, not as interested as I am. You know, those little signs that I'm inevitably misinterpreting or being overly critical of, taking as a sign that he's still out shopping.
As a Christian, I'm not super big into astrology. However, there's enough evidence to suggest that there may be some validity to the charting of stars, the gravitational pull of different celestial things, to support some of what astrology claims. Daily horoscopes, those 4 line newspaper fillers, are crap, and any good astrologer will agree even though they crank them out daily because it keeps a roof over their heads and readers coming to their websites. More in-depth "readings," though, based on birth location, date, time, etc., tend to be much more accurate. I go into this tangent because many years ago, probably 13 or 14 at least, I got one of those "understand yourself" readings based on my natal statistics. Every now and then I come across it while cleaning up files in my home office, and I take the 10 minutes to re-read it. Each time I do, I'm surprised at how accurate it is.
One of the things that I remember surprising me when I initially read it, yet over the years have come to see its truth, is that it basically says I don't fall easily for potential romantic partners, yet when I do, I jump in with both feet -- and most likely sooner than my partner. I look back at my own love life, as sporadic and unsuccessful as it has so far been, and clearly see that. Even within this own blog I can see the trend: a few guys who I was somewhere between hmmm and meh about, and then suddenly WHAM. And now I'm up at night obsessing about whether or not he's as interested in me as I am in him.
My biggest problem at the moment, perhaps, is that I want things to happen now. I don't want to be patient or understanding that he has a very full life as well. Cerebrally, I know this. I know he has a son who lives with him half of the time, who has homework that he needs help with and who has to get ready for school in the morning and who rightfully demands the time and attention of his father. P is very much into watching movies, and during our date we discussed the pros and cons of Red Box and Netflix. During that, he said he rarely has time in the evening to watch a movie that isn't 10 year old son appropriate by the time the son goes to bed and P himself falls asleep. My brain understands, accepts all of this. My heart, my emotions, are another story.
I know I have to stop obsessing. I have yet to not receive a reply, even to the point of an enthusiastic reply, to an email or text. I know taking things slow is usually best. This is just my first time dating someone with a family of their own. The last guy I "dated," for lack of a better term, was also a divorcee but had no kids, both of his parents were deceased, and he has no siblings. (He also had a lot of baggage, but that's another story.) And while I need to remember about P's family, I also have to keep in mind he's got a lot of crap going on in his life.
In the past two weeks, P has gone to the funeral of a high school friend and is right now waiting and watching while another high school friend is in ICU having undergone open heart surgery -- triple bypass and a couple stents put in -- and so far the recovery has not been good. 48 is a bit young to have to so severely face one's own mortality. The friend who had surgery had a heart attack while driving home from vacation with his family, 3 children in the car. The natural nurturer in me, the minister in me, wants to be there to support P, but I'm way too new to his life to play that role.
So I'm trying to step back and look at the bigger picture. He has a family, he has friends that he is worried about, he has a very busy job. He's made time for me so far, and there's no clear indication that he's ready to call things off. I should not read too much into things like the fact that he changed his primary profile picture on Match, because he did not upload the picture that he sent to me. I can't blame him for still being active on Match, because I'm still on there checking the profiles of guys who are messaging me. I haven't been going through my "Daily Matches" because I just feel weird "seeing" more than one person at a time, but not everyone is that way and I just have to get over it.
And for crying out loud, it's been all of 6 days since we stopped using the site as our primary means of communication and went to texting. I admit, it seems like time is running awfully slowly -- when you are hoping to hear that text message sound, the seconds just seem to creep by! (Incidentally, I've given P his own text message tone -- so my heart doesn't jump and stop every time I get a text.)
Or maybe I need to cut back on the coffee.
Slurp.
I've mentioned this before: I'm very analytical. The nebulousness of dating is perhaps the biggest thing I struggle with, aside from the more common fear of rejection. I have now entered the phase of reviewing every little thing with P, every conversation, every email, every text message, to find the signs that he's not interested. Or, at least, not as interested as I am. You know, those little signs that I'm inevitably misinterpreting or being overly critical of, taking as a sign that he's still out shopping.
As a Christian, I'm not super big into astrology. However, there's enough evidence to suggest that there may be some validity to the charting of stars, the gravitational pull of different celestial things, to support some of what astrology claims. Daily horoscopes, those 4 line newspaper fillers, are crap, and any good astrologer will agree even though they crank them out daily because it keeps a roof over their heads and readers coming to their websites. More in-depth "readings," though, based on birth location, date, time, etc., tend to be much more accurate. I go into this tangent because many years ago, probably 13 or 14 at least, I got one of those "understand yourself" readings based on my natal statistics. Every now and then I come across it while cleaning up files in my home office, and I take the 10 minutes to re-read it. Each time I do, I'm surprised at how accurate it is.
One of the things that I remember surprising me when I initially read it, yet over the years have come to see its truth, is that it basically says I don't fall easily for potential romantic partners, yet when I do, I jump in with both feet -- and most likely sooner than my partner. I look back at my own love life, as sporadic and unsuccessful as it has so far been, and clearly see that. Even within this own blog I can see the trend: a few guys who I was somewhere between hmmm and meh about, and then suddenly WHAM. And now I'm up at night obsessing about whether or not he's as interested in me as I am in him.
My biggest problem at the moment, perhaps, is that I want things to happen now. I don't want to be patient or understanding that he has a very full life as well. Cerebrally, I know this. I know he has a son who lives with him half of the time, who has homework that he needs help with and who has to get ready for school in the morning and who rightfully demands the time and attention of his father. P is very much into watching movies, and during our date we discussed the pros and cons of Red Box and Netflix. During that, he said he rarely has time in the evening to watch a movie that isn't 10 year old son appropriate by the time the son goes to bed and P himself falls asleep. My brain understands, accepts all of this. My heart, my emotions, are another story.
I know I have to stop obsessing. I have yet to not receive a reply, even to the point of an enthusiastic reply, to an email or text. I know taking things slow is usually best. This is just my first time dating someone with a family of their own. The last guy I "dated," for lack of a better term, was also a divorcee but had no kids, both of his parents were deceased, and he has no siblings. (He also had a lot of baggage, but that's another story.) And while I need to remember about P's family, I also have to keep in mind he's got a lot of crap going on in his life.
In the past two weeks, P has gone to the funeral of a high school friend and is right now waiting and watching while another high school friend is in ICU having undergone open heart surgery -- triple bypass and a couple stents put in -- and so far the recovery has not been good. 48 is a bit young to have to so severely face one's own mortality. The friend who had surgery had a heart attack while driving home from vacation with his family, 3 children in the car. The natural nurturer in me, the minister in me, wants to be there to support P, but I'm way too new to his life to play that role.
So I'm trying to step back and look at the bigger picture. He has a family, he has friends that he is worried about, he has a very busy job. He's made time for me so far, and there's no clear indication that he's ready to call things off. I should not read too much into things like the fact that he changed his primary profile picture on Match, because he did not upload the picture that he sent to me. I can't blame him for still being active on Match, because I'm still on there checking the profiles of guys who are messaging me. I haven't been going through my "Daily Matches" because I just feel weird "seeing" more than one person at a time, but not everyone is that way and I just have to get over it.
And for crying out loud, it's been all of 6 days since we stopped using the site as our primary means of communication and went to texting. I admit, it seems like time is running awfully slowly -- when you are hoping to hear that text message sound, the seconds just seem to creep by! (Incidentally, I've given P his own text message tone -- so my heart doesn't jump and stop every time I get a text.)
Or maybe I need to cut back on the coffee.
Slurp.
Comments
Post a Comment
We are all adults here. Comments are welcome, but they are also moderated because there has been a marked increase in spam, trolling, and generally snarky and nasty comments being submitted. Different opinions are welcome when expressed maturely; rude comments and links will not be published.