Dating or Just Screwing Around? (The Longest Blog Post Ever)

This is like my on-line diary. It's great. 'Cause it's 8:41 AM, no one is up but me that I could call and gush about last night to. Well, to bring you up to speed, Scottie was not exactly coming through in the way I wanted, but I think he is now. Long story short, I was out of town Thursday night, I got in about 9:15 PM Friday night, and last night, I had plans from like a month back to go to my neighbor's birthday party. So, with all of that, it wasn't really the appropriate week for Scott to ask me on a date, cause I had all these other things going on. So, we hung out on Wednesday, and yesterday, Saturday, he did call, and he said that he had plans to hang out with a friend and then, he wanted to go downtown and hear a DJ. So, I was a little put out that he wasn't really inviting me. I mean, I thought he was implicitly, but I just wanted him to say it: "I really want to see you tonight, so if you get done hanging out at your party, why don't you go do 'X' with me?" I hung up the phone with him totally frustrated but really trying to be "cool." I also let him know that he'd be welcome to come to Jane's party with me for a few minutes, and he didn't really bite on that either. So, I did end up calling him back a few hours later and saying "Hey listen, I really want to go see that DJ too, so call me when you head this way, I'll have my cell at Jane's." (I actually did really want to see the DJ after doing some on-line research and talking to a friend of mine who's a DJ.)

So, he did call. And I called him back a few minutes later, and he was already downtown. So, I feigned disappointment, "Oh really, I was hoping you could come by and get me." He said, "Well, I was just up that way. . .I could come back." "Do you mind?" "No, not at all." So I made him come back and get me. And then when he got here, he wanted to go in to my party for a few minutes. Then, all was forgiven, I was completely enamored of and in adoration of him once more. And we hung out and drank wine and talked and mingled for a few minutes. And then, he was like, "Let's get out of here." It was quite possibly the most assertive thing he's ever said, so I of course complied. We went downtown, we didn't actually see the DJ because the line to get in the bar wasn't moving, and although I did want to, he suggested we get a drink somewhere else and see what was happening in a few minutes (then, the line still hadn't moved, so we went to another bar). After a couple drinks and a couple bars and me being thoroughly intoxicated (although not so much I didn't know what I was doing, but enough that I could say to him exactly what I was thinking), we went back to my house. And those who know me, know what happened there.

So I asked him last night, in my drunkenly honest state, "So are we dating or just screwing around?" He laughed. I unwisely gave him a third option. "Or do you not want to talk about it right now?" "I don't want to talk about it right now," he said with a smile.

(By the way, in the vein of ME's post about not asking questions you don't already know the answer to, or that you don't want to know the answer to, I both think I know the answer to this question, and want to confirm that he thinks the same thing. . .that we are, in fact, dating. And I do think that's the answer to this question he doesn't want to talk about. Which is why I am confident enough to ask it. I don't really need the answer from him at this moment, but only to plant the seed in his mind. And him not wanting to answer the question does not change the fact that we are dating.)

So when he got up to leave this morning (at an obscenely early time, might I add), I said, "Are you leaving?" "Yeah, I'm really restless." I said, "Well, I don't want you to leave. And besides, we don't have to SLEEP," with a mischievious grin. He laughed and said he'd stay a few more minutes (which turned into like an hour and a half).

So, I asked him, again "Didn't I ask you if we were dating or just screwing around, and didn't you give me a funny, smart-ass answer, last night?"
He said, "I took the third option."
"I gave you options? What, was it like multiple choice??"
Laughter at my endearing funniness. . ."no, I said I didn't want to talk about it."
"Ok." Pause. "Do you want to talk about it now?"
"No."
"Ok." Pause. "Maybe we could screw around now instead."
Laughter. "Alright, we could do that."

This may sound like an out-of-control situation that I've gotten myself into, but I assure you all, I'm as content and confident about the state of the situation as I ever have been about a fledging relationship. I was thinking the other day about an ex-boyfriend that I dated in college, and I just can't even describe to you the level of confidence and assuredness that I had about the situation from the very beginning. To give you an idea how wonderfully naive and innocent I was at this fresh stage of my life before time and mean boys had done things to me, I told this boyfriend "I love you" at an obscenely early time. Like, a month. And I did. I fell head over heels for him, and just from the beginning, we were hanging out all the time and just getting along wonderfully. And I knew he loved me. And he said to me, when I said that to him, something like, "I really have strong feelings for you too, but I'm not ready for that yet." And I said to him (here is the moment of supreme, unabashed, unapologetic and ridiculous naivete, but I was SO RIGHT), "That's ok. Because I know how you feel about me, because I can see it when in your eyes when I look at you." Do you understand that I told a man I loved him, he didn't say it back, and I basically told him "that's ok, because I know you do"? God, that we could all be so ridiculous in our confidence. Because then, ironically, we'd probably get every man we wanted.

Anyway, the point of the story is that, even though you may read the above lines and say to yourself "no, you're wrong, you're screwing around and that's it and you just don't know it." No, we're not, I can feel it and I know it. We're for real. And I think he knows it. And when he kissed me goodbye this morning, I said, "I'll talk to you soon?" And he said, "yep." And "yep" is code for "of course, silly, we're dating, and I know it, and you know it, and I call you all the time and I'm not going to stop now."

There's another point to this long-winded story. As some of you know, I just got out of a relationship a few months ago. And I broke up with Brian because he didn't make me feel happy and in love and silly, goofy, crazy about him the way he used to. And he didn't TRY to either, he didn't say and do romantic things to try and keep things "fresh" between us. I didn't feel like he loved me. I didn't feel "in love" with him. And being with Scott reminds me that when a guy is making you feel a certain way, when his actions speak louder than his words, when you can just unabashedly "tell" that he likes you, you don't get as hung up on the things he says or doesn't say. I wanted Brian to do and say all those things because he wasn't making me "feel" it. This is not me saying I don't like love notes and flowers. I do. But when I'm with Scott, and he says he doesn't want to talk about whether we're dating or not, but he says it in such a way that I know the answer and know he does too, I don't need the words as much. When he comes and gets me and comes in to my neighbor's party, I know that he likes me. When he stays another hour and a half and doesn't even seem conscious that time has passed because we're laughing so hard at whatever we're talking about, he doesn't have to say "yeah, of course we're dating." Cause I know we are. I've had enough guys leave in the morning that I know the difference between the ones I'll be hearing from and those I won't. (Next time I ask any of you, "do you think he'll call?" remind me that if I TRULY wonder about the answer, and am not just asking to get reassurance, he probably will not be calling. Because you KNOW when they'll be calling.)

So even though I went about things with Scott in the entirely wrong way, and even though I probably shouldn't be as physical with him as I am at this stage of the game, I don't think it matters in the long run. When it works, it works, no matter that you proceeded to try everything within your power to screw it up (blacking out, stupid text messages). I think it works. And I feel confident and at ease in a way I haven't since I was that stupid 20-year-old from a couple paragraphs ago. And that was a pretty good relationship, besides the ending of it. Confident and at ease is a good way to feel. And I think I just realized that I never really truly felt at ease with Brian. Wow. More on that later. That's another blog post for another day.