TheLadyE

@Copa, I feel you on not having monitors. I am doing a lot of content creation/design work for my new role and the first thing I asked for was another monitor and a keyboard/mouse. I ordered the keyboard & mouse from Amazon and my company is buying a monitor for me and shipping it. If we were in the office I would have one anyway.

Several of my friends have come over and sat outside and talked to me. I also took my dogs over to my friend’s house to play with her dog outside in their yard. Our state is opening up – we’re in Phase 1 – and I feel ok about it. I’m still not really going anywhere (the freaking MALL is open, what on earth?) but I did go to Target, the grocery store and the liquor store the other day, with a mask. It felt like liberty.

The date with new guy from OKCupid – let’s call him the Analyst – was…meh. Kinda boring. It was about 3 hour long and nothing really of substance. He seemed to want to have a second date but I’m not really feeling it. Just…boring. Ah well.

@Lianne Yes, I did a lot of processing this week and while I’ll continue to process, the harsh reality is that Lion Tamer was/is mentally ill, has deep-seated issues, and is also an addict and I can’t drag him through his recovery. It’s not my responsibility. I did really like him (or at least I liked who he was when he was taking his medicine – like I said it’s a long story, which came out in bits and pieces throughout this week) but at least it was only about 5 weeks of my life before the other shoe dropped. I was trying to give him the benefit of the doubt, but it’s just too big for me. It’s tragic and I wish it were different, but that’s the way it is.

I have learned a lot through this, and other than a relationship actually working out I guess that’s the best I can hope for, right? I guess what I’m saying is I do think I have a good grasp on my pattern and I’m more confident about what I bring to a relationship and not afraid to ask for what I want. Just the fact that I asked Lion Tamer to kiss me rather than waiting for months on end is progress.

I’m not perfect and I’m still going to seek out some therapy, but I think I am still OK to start meeting new people and see what happens. I’ve also reached out to a few of my friends and asked if they know any single guys who share my faith that they might set me up with, since I’ve never really done that before and I feel like it might be a little less risky since the guy will already be somewhat vetted, if that makes sense.

The guy tonight rescheduled for tomorrow, though, anyway. So we’ll see. Like I said, very low expectations at this point.

So I decided that since my last 3 relationships were with guys I was a 97% or higher match with on OKCupid, and the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results…I’m going to try How About We?, and I’m paying for a membership as a birthday present to myself. It actually looks really cool and there are a lot of fresh faces that I haven’t seen on OKCupid, so that’s good!

And also I have a date tonight with a guy I started talking to on OKCupid a couple weeks ago, but I literally have zero expectations for it. The thing with Lion Tamer stung pretty badly (there’s a lot more to it than I wrote here, but I don’t want to get into it – although I do see that I really dodged a bullet), but it’ll be nice to just sit across from someone new and talk. He seems fun and we have some similar interests…so we’ll see!

Update: my second date with Lion Tamer went pretty well! We went to an International Festival and then we ended up a bar near my house and we talked til about 2am. He drove me home and stayed until I let my dog out and then hugged me & asked me out again. We’ll see each other at least next weekend if not before! And then tonight he texted me to tell me how much fun he had last night.

He also gave the bone I got to his dog and sent me a picture of him chewing it 🙂

He seems really sweet and that he genuinely likes me. It’s funny, I’m so used to men being emotionally unavailable and stringing me along that I don’t really know what to do with a man who really likes me and is very open about it. He said he had a great night and he loved the International Festival and how did I know he would like it so much? Awww.

When he was leaving, we talked about our next date and texting (he doesn’t get texts all the time because his phone is ooooold) and he said that when he texts me and doesn’t get a text back he gets anxious. So I said something like “You don’t need to be anxious, I’m gonna be straight with you – I think you’re cute and I like spending time with you.” and he seemed really relieved and said “I feel the same way!” So we have established that we like each other and we’re seeing each other again! Yay!