Night and day

Thanksgiving day I spent at my sister's house, putting in my family time.

Thanksgiving night I spent curled up on the sofa with The Ex, watching marathons of "Modern Family" and breathing him in.

Business Lunch

It's just now dawning on me that perhaps it meant something more. The New Guy, The Shhh Guy, what have you, he e-mailed me last weekend saying he would be in town and would I care to have lunch with him? I said, Sure and I arranged it with work and he arranged it and he came to town a few days ago and we caught up. I assumed he had some business here in my small town but it's now dawning on me that all the business he had was taking me to lunch.

The Next Big Thing

Also.

The Dane is back in my life.

We have become friends become friends who are plus ones to events become friends who wake up next to each other twice in one week become friends who casually text about innocuous things. I'm not sure I'm all that interested in him, but I also must assume that it could be a thing like it was with The Ex, how it felt like nothing until suddenly it felt like something and then I couldn't fall out of love no matter what I did.

So I'm treading carefully with The Dane as I suspect he could be The Next Big Thing.

There is no work drama

It's all happened so slowly.

The Coworker only occasionally responds to my texts but at work seems to go out of his way to create less space between us. Today, at our regular staff meeting, he sat next to me. Immediately after, upon my asking another coworker for help on a project, he interjected with his insistence to help me. Our walk from the meeting to this new project felt longer than necessary; I badly wanted to address our situation but badly didn't want to bring it up at work.

So it's fine.

There is no work drama.

Except we said we liked each other, I spent the night at his house and met his cat, and then he asked for a rain check on our next planned meeting. And now I can't make heads or tails of it.

It's fine.

It's all fine.

Except in my head where the parts that are supposed to make sense don't make sense. Something is amiss, he met someone or he is being sensible or something else entirely, but his silence on the other end of messages have me guessing and thinking about it too much. I'm grateful for the holiday that is upon us for a holiday from this drama inside my head.

Bridge burner

Well, you can't say I didn't warn him.

I like The New Coworker, I do. He smells nice and appreciates my humor and understands numbers and is outgoing and stays busy. He likes me too. I made a point of having a conversation with him saying that I'm interested now but I will very suddenly become apathetic and for seemingly no reason at all. Or maybe for the reason that my brain catches up with my ill-fated desires a few weeks in and I'm no longer surrounded by a rush of good feelings but simply just this one person, as human as I am. 

So I've decided to make a pros and cons list about this man. I've decided to pinpoint the red flags now so that I can move on early or try to be educated about this if we decide to make a go of it. I have to try to stop it from derailing suddenly and making my work situation dramatic.

Maybe I could just stop pursuing coworkers. Can it be that easy?

Somebody to love

I didn't mention the New Coworker. The Sculptor was a coworker at a school where I teach, but this New Coworker is from my other work, and yes, I've always found him to be attractive. And no, I never really thought much of it.

But things happen as they do and we were talking about weekend plans and he invited me to a musical with some of his friends. It sounded innocent enough, but I had my Stirring The Pot reservations. Regardless, I found myself choosing a friend-appropriate Saturday night outfit and headed out to meet them. And then I really couldn't tell. We whispered comments during the musical and I wasn't sure if it was merely the act of whispering that created the intimacy or if it was something else entirely.

We all went out for a round of drinks after and I got to know his friends and little by little we touched more and more until he grabbed my hand and I got scared and pulled away. I know myself. I know what I do. I love to kiss a man and pretend like it could be something and then in a day, in a few weeks, a few months, I am indifferent and he is bereft. I might be giving myself some credit with bereft but this makes me no less worried about all the bridges I've burned this year. Mr. R and The Sculptor are both men who can't stand to be around me now because I managed to hurt them so badly with my interest turned apathy.

I guess it just takes time to find someone who could understand me, who I could allow into my life in a real way. I know I shouldn't kiss this man at work simply because I know myself and we work five feet away from each other five days a week. But knowing all this doesn't quite stop me from wanting to kiss him.

What she said

I've moved and not been adjusting well and so now my new roommates assume The Ex is my boyfriend because why wouldn't he be since he's spent the night at least three times in the last week.

It's all been very confusing.

I just don't want to go home at night to my new big empty house (my roommates are quite the quiet bunch) and sit alone in my big bedroom without anyone. He is a coping mechanism.

So to try to squelch this, I have asked The Doctor to have that drink he asked me about all those weeks ago. The Doctor who is my neighbor.

I'm in such a state of anxiety that the only thing that feels like The Right Decision is to marry The Doctor and live peacefully in a state of calm and stability. Maybe a little bored, but damn stable. I'm twenty-six-years-old and shouldn't be thinking this way, that the only way around my financial problems is through a man, is through a partner. Maybe it's just the idea of having a partner to bear some of the stress of everyday life, of all the daily struggles and changes like moving. Maybe this too shall pass as it always does. Most of me wants to go it alone, wants to stay alone, wants to travel and deal with things in my own way and not share. But the scared part of me wants a nice house and a nice man and probably a cat or two. Must reassess.