What an awful week I’ve had. I’ve been sick for over a week, which definitely hasn’t boded well for my dating life, which means my blog has suffered, I apologize. I even had to cancel two dates! Well, one date wasn’t really cancelled, more like annulled, as in deleting a guy from my phone (the classic Katie move to try and forget about someone) and my life. You see, I’ve been holding out on you, and I didn’t tell you about the guy I’ve been seeing the most. One of those things where I didn’t know what to say, didn’t want to jinx it. But it didn’t matter, because it ended like most of the guys I’ve dated, in a big ball of yuck.
Mr. Pheromones, Mr. Opposite, Mr. Chemistry, Mr. Fickle… so many names I could have for him. I’ll just call him “Josh”. Now I have to back up a lot. The last guy I really dated, I mean REALLY dated was “the dentist”. It was a long, agonizing relationship of off-and-on, we broke up several times to be just friends, only to blur the lines of our friendship and ultimately decide to get back together. But something was always missing. Turns out, what was missing was his ex-girlfriend, who he couldn’t get off of his mind. So finally, I’d had enough of his moody ways and my constant wondering of what was on his mind. So in my mind I broke it off on a Friday, when he went back home for the weekend and I knew I wouldn’t hear from him the whole time he was gone. And I was sad, though I didn’t want to admit it to anyone. So Saturday I went out to a bar with a friend, only not a friend I knew that well, and I certainly didn’t know her friends. So at the bar, when I didn’t have anyone to talk to, I met Josh, who was there on his own. Three hours passed of fun conversation, I don’t even recall anyone else at the bar that night, he taught me to play paper football and we realized we both had a love of games and a disdain for country music. And this guy seemed more interested in getting to know me in those three hours than the dentist had in the whole 6 months we ‘dated’. So it was a no-brainer that we would hang out again. I felt like I hadn’t been so excited to get to know a guy in ages, so maybe it didn’t matter that I had JUST gotten out of a relationship (and though the dentist didn’t technically know I was done, I was pretty sure he was feeling the same that weekend- so no harm, no foul, right?).
But what I found out from Josh over the next couple phone conversations was that we had NOTHING in common. I’m not kidding, I don’t think I’ve ever met a single person who I was so completely opposite of. “I love the Beatles”, I said, “so over-rated”, he retorted. “My dog is awesome”, “dogs are annoying”. “I have such a sweet tooth”, “desserts are gross”. And the worst- he didn’t believe in God, and I try to attend church most Sundays. That single fact made me really think we didn’t stand a chance, but yet I was so excited to hang out with him for our next date, when he came over for a game night. And his teasing texts were the best. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about doing ever since I met you”, he wrote. Oh yeah, did I mention the butterflies this guy was able to give me every time we talked? I mean, just a written message from him could make my belly do flip-flops. I hadn’t felt like that in forever; I thought butterflies were just a distant memory from my adolescent self. And I wasn’t let down by our first kiss, for the sake of keeping this blog PG, I’ll just say it was AMAZING!
But I found out quickly, that’s all we had. I told a friend early on that I was done with Josh, just to see him again a couple days later. The biggest problem was, the only thing that we did have in common (besides the awesome chemistry, and the fact that when we cuddled I seemed to fit him like a puzzle piece- I even fell asleep and woke up later in his arms- and I can never do that) is that he had a tendency to push people away more than I do. So at least 3 times in the three weeks of us talking he told me he was done, only for him to change his mind later, with him telling me that he was scared because he hadn’t had such strong feelings for a girl in a long time. Josh was a loner. As far as I could tell, he didn’t have many friends. He liked to stay in, and I’m a social butterfly, I love going out. He was okay with the idea of always being alone, and I’m not. So this is how it was from the beginning, and I knew it wasn’t good. I knew we wouldn’t last, but how can you have such strong chemistry with someone who was so wrong? It was the feeling I’m always looking for in guys, but in the wrong guy! So much of the time we spent together didn’t involve us talking much. I wanted to take our relationship out in public I told him, so we planned our first real date, and we went for dinner and drinks the night before New Year’s Eve. And what a mistake that was. Awkward silences and everything I said seemed to upset him. He didn’t think exes should be friends and I keep in contact with a lot of my exes. He was annoyed by how talkative and friendly our waitress was. We couldn’t agree on what to order. So when we got back to my house and he walked to his car without a word, I assumed, again, that that was the end.
But the next day, we texted again, and he agreed to go to a friend’s New Year’s Eve party with me. I was excited to see him, but told my friends that he was a loner and probably wouldn’t talk much. But to my surprise he was talkative, and I had maybe the best New Year’s Eve I’d had in years. He was affectionate to me and of course it was an awesome midnight kiss. He even spent the night for the first time that night, and I slept so great in his arms. But I still wasn’t sure I wanted him to be my boyfriend, and yet later that week, I ended up at his apartment after a date with another guy. Perhaps it was because I’d had a couple drinks, but I also kept comparing how that guy made me feel to the butterflies I always felt around Josh (okay, not always, like when he hung up on me, but a lot). And I thought Josh was opening up, he even told me that he would be open to going to church with me sometime; if it was something I really wanted. And I did really want it, but I started realizing that the person I wanted to date wouldn’t be the true Josh. And then what would happen, would he start to resent me for trying to change him? Would he always try to end things with me, just to come back a couple days later? Would I always have to reassure him that I was crazy about him? Because the thing that I realized from my last relationship was that I was tired of always sacrificing what I wanted in my attempts to try and make someone else happy, and yet it seemed like that was exactly what was going to happen with Josh. And I knew I wasn’t ready to be serious with Josh, yet he told me he didn’t want me to date other guys anymore. So I told him that I wanted him to take a couple days, and think about what he really wanted in a relationship. And he did. And he decided that he didn’t want a relationship. And he turned mean. And I during that time couldn’t stop thinking about Josh, and thought maybe could make it work. But I know it wouldn’t last. And while I realize he will probably change his mind in a couple days, I know my time with Josh needs to be over. But my real problem now is- should I always be looking for that chemistry? Am I going to be stuck longing for those butterflies from every guy I meet? Is that even realistic? Or do I stick with guys that are fun, and I get along with, where the chemistry is okay, just not off-the-charts amazing? So really, this relationship just left me more confused than ever, and makes me question even more if I’ll ever find ‘my guy’.