Bye, Bye, Dating Life. Hello, Relationship.

With things go so well with The Traveling Progressive, readers can look forward to different kinds of posts coming at them here.

But that brings me to a predicament: what do I do with the Tech Head?

Here’s the deal: I started talking to this guy a while ago, we text often, but he was out of town until recently. Now he’s back and wants to hang out, even though I haven’t responded to any of his texts for the past week. I don’t want to be a bitch and just ignore him because he seems like someone who would be a good friend, but I don’t want there to be any misunderstandings about the fact that I’m not looking for anything other than friends.

However, I also don’t want to send him a text that just assumes he’s only looking for someone to have a relationship with because that seems a little shitty. It reminds me of that text. . .

So I was thinking of something along the lines of: “Welcome back to [shitty town]! It would be great to hang out, but I feel like I should let you know that I’ve started seeing someone and am only interested in being friends.”

Does that sound shitty? Does that sound presumptuous? Does it sound like I’m keeping that door cracked open just-in-case?

That last one is definitely not how I want to sound. I’m almost obnoxiously serious about TTP. I still can’t seem to locate any flaws; last night I was in the crappiest mood, and he told me he would “just love on me” until I felt better; he makes fun of my weird quirks without being an ass. He likes to see me, and I like to see him, and even though it’s only been a couple of weeks, I don’t foresee any major shifts in feelings any time soon on either of our parts. I’m wild about him, and it’s not even that scary.

In other news, my friends keep telling me it needs to be “facebook official” but TTP and I decided to just not list any relationship status on there at all. I think it’s super cute that he removed his relationship status because of our conversation/the day after we had this conversation. In this convo, I told him that I didn’t have a relationship status because I have several friends that I didn’t necessarily want to know I was single, and I have several colleagues/former students as friends, and I don’t think my relationship status is any of there business. This convo ended with, “So, I basically just decided I wouldn’t have a relationship status unless I am in a relationship.”

His response? “The best way to beat the system is to not play by their rules.”

 

Me: This is wonderful, but it’s also bad. Very bad. And by bad, I mean that I’m going to crash and burn for him.

J: 

Me: If I haven’t started already.

J: I was gonna say.

Love Life Introspective: No, I am Not a Slut

So, I’ve been really quiet again lately. That’s because I keep starting posts and not finishing them. And I keep not finishing them because things are going really well, almost too well to be able to write about it in any meaningful way.

Most importantly, The Traveling Progressive and I have been seeing quite a lot of each other. He has made me a delicious dinner, taken me out for a fancy dinner, and put me completely out of my element by taking me out on an ATV.

And he told me stories of baby TTP crashing four-wheelers.

When I recently discussed this with my parents, the differences in their reactions were startling.

Me: TTP took me to the [little, fancy, expensive restaurant in town] last night.

Dad: Oh? How was it?

Me: It was really good. . .blah blah blah.

But later, my conversation with my mom was more like this:

Me: TTP took me to the [little, fancy, expensive restaurant in town] last night.

Mom: And is he expecting any reciprocity in return?

Me: [dumbfounded look as I try to decide if she is talking about my taking TTP out sometime]

Mom: Well, you know most guys expect something in return for taking you out to a nice dinner.

Me: Or. . . not. Because that hasn’t happened.

Mom: You need to play hard to get.

Now, I don’t necessarily want to discuss my parents’ disparate reactions, or how weird it is that my mom chose to focus on whether or not I was sleeping with him while my dad just cared how dinner was. I also don’t want to talk about my mother’s passive comments like smirking at me when someone mention’s “fuck buddies” or straight up asking “who are you sleeping with now?” when I try to get my family to make plans in advance so I can plan the rest of my weekend.

“Sometimes you just wanna kiss the girl. . .”

If someone had told me, back in the early days of college, that I’d be standing in the school corporation parking lot late on a Sunday night, making out with my new college friend’s exboyfriend, I probably would have laughed in their face. Even if that someone had been the future me.

But that’s exactly where I was last night. 

Platonic, or Not Platonic? That is the Question

So, I recently started talking about The Traveling Progressive, who I’ve known for a while. He keeps throwing down these strange comments that basically make me think he would rather be friends even with all the flirting that happens when we’re out.

So, after he gave me a platonic hug on Tuesday night, I asked him to let me know when he got home. My friend J and I went to MacDo, ordered some burgers, and went home, with me bitching all the while about how does he ask our friend if I’m seeing anyone and then pull this platonic shit?

Bye-Bye, July

My life continues to get more and more complicated, even though things are going well in basically all aspects.

The Cop is officially away. We chatted a bit the few days before he left while he was out of town, but other than that I have been cut off. I did some Facebook stalking that I’m not proud of, mostly because it wasn’t so much of him but of girls who were tagged with him in recent photos. From a 5k. Because I am totally insane.

It was fruitless stalking, of course. I also had a cryptic conversation about The Cop with a mutual friend. It was good because I was making some pretty passive aggressive comments about men/dating/his friends. I know he found it funny because we used to have these conversations in high school. I’m mostly still happy that I refrained from ever texting him and asking if The Cop was interested in anyone. So now our mutual friend knows, but oh well? He would have figured it out eventually on his own anyway.

So it’s a bummer that The Cop is gone, but I will live. Because I have plenty to keep me busy/entertained.