Well.
La Dispute Guy wants to keep it casual. After a lot of going back and forth about whether I should say something or not and consulting with a not obnoxiously huge, but not tiny, number of people, I decided to ask him what his intentions were with me, and keep it casual is the answer I got. Emotional wall...hurt many times...investing in things that disappear...all things that were mentioned that may as well have been me talking to him.
I have to tell you that at first that felt entirely fine. I told him before I asked that there wasn't a wrong answer, and that wasn't a trick. I honestly just wanted to know. Plus, BS--yes, the BS I was in love with last July--well, the July before the July that just passed--you know what? Since he's now my friend and no longer that other kind of boy, let's just call him by his name. Brian he is--and I role played my asking him, and one of the scariest options was his saying he wanted to be serious and us see only each other, not because I don't like him enough for that but because after having been single for four years, the thought of having to worry about answering to someone in absolutely any way falls somewhere between mildly daunting and abysmally suffocating. While we were lying in bed, me between his legs, my head somewhere between his stomach and his chest, casual really didn't sound bad.
But then he left, and I'm thinking you probably know me well enough by now to know I got sad. Like, really sad. Like, sad enough that Keifer actually offered to get off his bunk bed and give me a hug (which for him is really saying a lot), sad enough to tell Griffin when I talked to him that I'm never dating again and that I had to go because I had to go cry and then go to bed. The next morning, which was yesterday, I woke up feeling just as bad. I changed the title of my Suspension playlist on Spotify, which I made when I started my fall for La Dispute Guy, to something along the lines of Happiness? Please. What Was I Even Thinking?, and felt mopey for most of the day.
My moping and sadness wasn't what it seems. It wasn't because I thought La Dispute Guy didn't like me the way I like him because I know that's not true, and it wasn't exactly because of the casual thing, at least not the way you probably think. I don't mind him seeing other people at all, and it's nice to know I can, too--even though when somebody kissed me last Saturday night, I realized there's nobody else I remotely want to kiss--but what I told Griffin and what I'm now going to tell you is if things continue the way they've been, I'm probably going to end up liking him even more. I also told him that despite that fear, I can't stop seeing him now because I said the casual thing was fine, a statement he refuted, telling me that yes, I can, or at least I can just not put in as much effort as I've been putting in, something that sounded plausible at the time. I'll just stop messaging back so much, I thought. When he's in the area, I won't always be around. I'll find a way to protect my heart.
Last night, though, like every night for the past 36 days, La Dispute Guy and I messaged; when I woke up this morning I had a message from him like I usually do; like always, we've been messaging since; and I realized that other than my perception, nothing has changed. I also realized that trepidation and reserve are not my things, and I care completely when I care. I also, for whatever reason, have a really, really hard time staying sad (a fact of life that prompted Curt to tell me I'm too happy to ever really be goth when goth meant something different back when I was seventeen). To deny those things would be to deny who I really am.
So I woke up this morning and changed the title of that playlist to Melodrama Much?, I listened to happy music, I danced around my house, and I sat down to write this blog. It's true that La Dispute Guy may make me sad in the future, but he makes me unreasonably happy now, and I refuse to let foreboding joy take that away.
La Dispute Guy wants to keep it casual. After a lot of going back and forth about whether I should say something or not and consulting with a not obnoxiously huge, but not tiny, number of people, I decided to ask him what his intentions were with me, and keep it casual is the answer I got. Emotional wall...hurt many times...investing in things that disappear...all things that were mentioned that may as well have been me talking to him.
I have to tell you that at first that felt entirely fine. I told him before I asked that there wasn't a wrong answer, and that wasn't a trick. I honestly just wanted to know. Plus, BS--yes, the BS I was in love with last July--well, the July before the July that just passed--you know what? Since he's now my friend and no longer that other kind of boy, let's just call him by his name. Brian he is--and I role played my asking him, and one of the scariest options was his saying he wanted to be serious and us see only each other, not because I don't like him enough for that but because after having been single for four years, the thought of having to worry about answering to someone in absolutely any way falls somewhere between mildly daunting and abysmally suffocating. While we were lying in bed, me between his legs, my head somewhere between his stomach and his chest, casual really didn't sound bad.
But then he left, and I'm thinking you probably know me well enough by now to know I got sad. Like, really sad. Like, sad enough that Keifer actually offered to get off his bunk bed and give me a hug (which for him is really saying a lot), sad enough to tell Griffin when I talked to him that I'm never dating again and that I had to go because I had to go cry and then go to bed. The next morning, which was yesterday, I woke up feeling just as bad. I changed the title of my Suspension playlist on Spotify, which I made when I started my fall for La Dispute Guy, to something along the lines of Happiness? Please. What Was I Even Thinking?, and felt mopey for most of the day.
My moping and sadness wasn't what it seems. It wasn't because I thought La Dispute Guy didn't like me the way I like him because I know that's not true, and it wasn't exactly because of the casual thing, at least not the way you probably think. I don't mind him seeing other people at all, and it's nice to know I can, too--even though when somebody kissed me last Saturday night, I realized there's nobody else I remotely want to kiss--but what I told Griffin and what I'm now going to tell you is if things continue the way they've been, I'm probably going to end up liking him even more. I also told him that despite that fear, I can't stop seeing him now because I said the casual thing was fine, a statement he refuted, telling me that yes, I can, or at least I can just not put in as much effort as I've been putting in, something that sounded plausible at the time. I'll just stop messaging back so much, I thought. When he's in the area, I won't always be around. I'll find a way to protect my heart.
Last night, though, like every night for the past 36 days, La Dispute Guy and I messaged; when I woke up this morning I had a message from him like I usually do; like always, we've been messaging since; and I realized that other than my perception, nothing has changed. I also realized that trepidation and reserve are not my things, and I care completely when I care. I also, for whatever reason, have a really, really hard time staying sad (a fact of life that prompted Curt to tell me I'm too happy to ever really be goth when goth meant something different back when I was seventeen). To deny those things would be to deny who I really am.
So I woke up this morning and changed the title of that playlist to Melodrama Much?, I listened to happy music, I danced around my house, and I sat down to write this blog. It's true that La Dispute Guy may make me sad in the future, but he makes me unreasonably happy now, and I refuse to let foreboding joy take that away.
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