Weekends with TTP

You might remember that, back in August, I flew off the radar when I started dating this guy, this wonderful guy: The Traveling Progressive.

Then in January or February, I posted that TTP was moving. Not far–only about three hours away–but that’s about 200 miles and one time change. Ugh.

Now it is April, and somehow I realize that we’ve already successfully made it two full months of long-distance relationship.

It is wonderful; it is terrible. It is heartbreaking, and it warms every inch of me.

Lucky in Love

Some days, it just hits me how lucky I am.

A year ago, I was finally recovering from one of the worst relationships of my life. Now, I’m in one of the best relationships I’ve ever had.

But tonight, I am marathoning Catfish and if there is anything that can make a woman feel lucky in love, it’s watching this show. Especially after having tried the “online dating” thing and having one pretty miserable experience.

I think some of these situations are just absolutely crazy. I was totally shocked to see in one episode that Marcus is a real person. He’s really who he says he is!

But then he said something along the lines of “you can’t commit to just one kind of pizza.”

Ooookay?

And I feel like Daisy and Marcus had one of the better experiences. This is one of only a couple of times that I can remember the mystery person being who they said they were. Most of the time, it’s someone enacting a fantasy to, at best, deal with negatives of their own lives, or, at worst, to intentionally manipulate and take advantage of someone else they’ve met on the internet.

I am one of the lucky ones, I think while watching. Not necessarily for avoiding a catfish scenario, but because I am in love.

Real, true, genuine love.

And that is such a good feeling. Even in the sucky moments. Even when I’m upset the TTP is so far away. Even when I feel sad, lonely, and discouraged: I. Am. So. In. Love.

And that makes me one lucky lady.

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.

Hello, Operator?

So, I’m starting to wonder if communication is not my strong suit. I don’t think this is actually true, but lately I feel like I’m genuinely having trouble getting through to the guys in my life.

My poor friends listen to me bitch so much, and multiple of them have been like “I just can’t keep track of these guys anymore.”

Yeah, welcome to my life, guys.

I’ve recently been chatting up with guy I met on OKCupid who also works at the same university I do. We’ve mostly texted but he seems very nice. He’s fun to talk to. He wanted to get together this weekend, but I already had a lot of other plans and needed to spend some time at my house. Given the last internet-spark date fiasco, I am totally fine with taking it a bit slower and not meeting up with people until I’ve talked to them for a while. He’s leaving to go out of town until school starts again at the end of August, so I guess that gives us plenty of opportunity to talk before deciding if meeting up is the way to go?

Anyways, in Am-I-Really-An-Awful-Communicator? News. . .

“Just Tell Him You Like Him!”

Haha, BFF. This is advice my best friend gave me today, after hearing me fawn over The Cop for most of last night and then again today via text. By 9:17 this morning, I was already being told to just tell him I like him because I was talking about him that much.

“Riiiiiight. Like that would ever happen.”

What is my problem? I am totally, 100% against exposing my feelings directly to someone whom I have known for years. Maybe it’s the fact that we haven’t talked in a few years. Maybe it’s because there’s been a sudden shift in my point of view and ideas about him. Maybe it’s because I’m left wondering, “why did I never see The Cop this way before? Or did I, and I just didn’t know it?”

So while I’m dealing with those thoughts, I’m also thinking about how The Cop is leaving town soon to be un-see-able but not totally un-reachable while also being so busy. For four months.

FOUR MONTHS.

We all know I’m going to be sitting at my desk, twirling my hair, thinking about his arms.

This fact of life is leaving me being a little irrational–like, really, if he’s off doing his cop things is he really going to be meeting and falling for some other girl? No. Probably not, unless she is also at the police academy and then maybe that would be a good fit for him? I don’t know.

But instead of just being like “listen, I think you are swell and I’d like to stay in touch while you’re gone and I hope that I don’t annoy you and then maybe we can hang out again when you’re back,” I’m having quiet, internal freak outs about whether or not he realized I like him or if he thinks I’m just weird?