♡ the life of a 25 year old hopeless romantic ♡





"This song is talking to the person you haven't even met yet. Maybe they're rolling around in the hay with someone else, but they're not as good as you're gonna be. You just have to wait your turn. He's out there, she's out there. They're just learning what to contrast you against."






Questions? Concerns? Random observations?
Leave me a message here, or email me here. ♥






Drew: A One-man Disappearing Act; Part 2/The Final Act}
Tuesday, June 28, 2011 | 7:36 PM | 3Comment

So, Internet.

A few hours after the last entry, by that point, I had pretty much just had it, so I texted Drew. I had basically prepared myself for the worst, mostly because of his sudden weird and distant behavior. So, in my mind, things were most likely already finished.

But I text him anyway. And the whole conversation goes slowly downhill with every passing message. It goes like this:

Me: So, feeling any better?
Drew: Yeah, I am. How are you?
Me: That's good. I'm okay, babysitting. Been pretty busy lately. (It takes everything in me not to type 'AND I'VE BEEN WAITING FOR YOU TO TEXT ME, ASSHOLE.')
Drew: Oh? Ditto. Haha.
Me: Yeah? More outdoorsy stuff? Haha. (He likes camping and hiking and things of that nature.)
Drew: Nah work. lol (Note the extremely short answers.)
Me: Ohh, I see. Sounds tough.
Drew: Eh, not too bad. Fun at times.
Me: That's good, then. Can't have all work all the time. Haha. (At this point I'm pretty fed up with this pointless small talk, and decide to say something that will maybe get him to talk more.) So I didn't say this before, but sorry I was so shy last week. ><; I was really nervous. Hahah.
Drew: Lol don't worry I was too.
Me: Haha, okay. I just didn't want to come off as weird or something. Although I kind of am weird, just not in that way. Lol.
Drew: Hahaha. Don't worry about it
Me: Hahah okay. :) (Okay, that bombed. Chat attempt number 2.) So, what was your impression of me? (Not a crazy question, right? Of course not. Just trying to make conversation.)
Drew: That seems like a loaded question. Lol
Me: Hahaha. It's not, I'm just curious. :)
Drew: Lol i dunno how to answer it
Me: (getting increasingly irritated now, because for the love of god, it's NOT THAT HARD TO ANSWER. I was practically FORCING OPEN THE WINDOW for a flirty comment from him.) Haha, however you want to answer it! It's just a question. lol
Drew: Awkward.
(Note: one of my biggest pet peeves is when someone feels the need to verbalize when an awkward moment is awkward. 9 times out of 10, the moment wasn't even awkward for the other person, until YOU made it that way. Just saying.)
Me: Hah...okay, I guess I'm not getting why that was such a weird question to ask? (And now I'm thinking, 'Mary and joseph, how old is he? 12?')
Drew: Oh no, I'm saying you seemed awkward...? (This is supposed to make me feel better, I suppose, when in fact it increases my irritation by 1000% percent.)
Me: Oh I see. Haha. Well, I totally am. 100%. lol (At this point, it takes everything in me not to respond spitefully, consider I nearly freaked out on him in my previous text.)
Drew: Lol (No objections? Okay. Great.)
Me: Haha. (Or in other words, I'm trying very hard not to bite your head off.) Plus, I tend to act like that when I get nervous anyway.
Drew: Haha. It happens.

Then, I proceeded to stop replying, so I can leave with at least some dignity left (or without taking my fury out on him. Which I very much felt like doing.).

Oh-ho-kay. Well where do I start? Do I start with how he was so obviously uninterested in talking to me? Or should I start with how I practically had to dig for a compliment and he ended up insulting me instead?

This is exactly why I don't think our little 'meeting' was a date at all. He hardly ever flirted with me before meeting me, and whenever he did it was usually just a ';)'. Which sometimes doesn't even count as flirting, in my opinion.

And the one compliment he gave me before we met? That I looked like a chipmunk. Because of my cheeks. He claimed he didn't mean for it to be mean. Oh, really? Well I've only had a complex about my cheeks since the 6th grade, so thank you so much for that.
I didn't say anything about it at the time, but it did bother me. A lot.

And so after our 'meeting', he completely stopped initiating conversation. I mean, completely. I simply don't get how if he apparently liked my personality before we met (he had to have at least liked my personality, or else he wouldn't have wanted to meet me. At all.) how it could have gone so sour after meeting me face-to-face for the first time.
I mean, my logic here: boy likes personality = boy likes appearance. Isn't that how it's supposed to work? Am I insane here for assuming??

And god forbid I actually be nervous meeting someone that I might like for the first time. This isn't like people who already know each other for a while going out for a date. This was my first time meeting him, ever. Why wouldn't I be nervous?

CAN I JUST SAY: yes, I am awkward around new people. It can take me a while to warm up to people when I first meet them. Sometimes I don't know what to say to them, or how to start a conversation. But after I warm up to people, I'm just fine. I can act 100% myself, and I'm perfectly comfortable.

Being shy is something that I've been consciously working on for a while. And so for someone--someone I don't even really know, in fact--to say that I was awkward, after only meeting me once for two hours, it was like a slap in the face.
Plus, the 'awkward homeschooler' stereotype is something that very much irks me, which is why it bothered me even more.

And it wasn't like he particularly did anything to make me comfortable with him. The whole time, he was either standing by me silently and staring at me with his hands in his pockets, walking off to go sit somewhere, or muttering something so quiet that sometimes I'd have to ask him to repeat himself. Hell, just the fact that he talked like Michael Cera could have been enough for me to throw back in his face.

But did I do that? No.
Because I knew he would most likely act differently once he opened up. I was willing to wait and see when that happened to really determine his personality.

And it really really bothers me that he's not giving me that chance. That he either saw my awkwardness, my freaking chipmunk cheeks, or something else he didn't like that made him decide that talking to me wasn't even worth it anymore.

So. Needless to say, I'm not texting him again.

These past few days, I've just been trying to get over my anger about it all. I'm mostly over it now, but it still annoys me when I think about it. I had begun to like Drew because of his maturity and his general non-judgmental attitude about things, but I suppose that non-judgmental attitude of his didn't include my demeanor.

But, hey. I'm not going to trip over someone that wasn't even that into me. I'd rather be involved with someone that likes me, and I mean really likes me, for me. All of me.

So, Drew was a pretty big waste of my time. But at least I got a first date out of it. (I'll call it that, it makes me feel better.) And I can add that to my list of firsts this summer. Here's to more firsts to come!


xo Hopeless Romantic

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Drew: A One-man Disappearing Act}
Tuesday, June 21, 2011 | 11:09 AM | 0Comment

First of all, Internet, let me just say that this is probably the quickest time that someone has lost interest in me. Probably record breaking, actually.

Not that that's saying much, though, because I think that brings the grand total of guys that have had interest in me to 5 since the beginning of middle school.

Let me explain. Remember last entry, when I said that there had been something related going on that I'd talk about later? Well. Here it is.

And I'm at least 96.99% sure that I'm not overreacting this time. Because here's the thing. Before Drew and I's meeting, or date (which I'm starting to think that maybe it wasn't a date in the first place--back to square one) he texted me first everyday, or at least every other day. And every once in a while I texted him first. And he always constantly seemed genuinely interested in talking to me, asking me questions about myself, stuff that shouldn't even matter, but it mattered to him.

Now, after our date, he texted me once right after I got home, apologizing for 'being boring because he was exhausted'(on account of the late night shift he works at a hospital), which I assured him was fine, and that I had a great time.

After that? Nothing, basically.
The day after that, I texted him first, and his answers were short and distracted. Which I got, really, since he said he was hiking. So after a few exchanges, I left it at that, because I didn't want to bug him. Then passes two more days without a text from him. A little odd, considering how he had wanted to talk to me so much before, even if it was irrelevant and pointless conversation.

By now, it's Thursday. After I write the last entry on here, I text him to see how he is. Conversation seems a little more normal than the last time we talked. He mentions that he's been sick and super busy.
Which seems perfectly acceptable to me, except after the conversation ends (abruptly and two hours later, which probably meant he fell asleep, but doesn't settle well with me that much either because he used to say goodnight before he went to bed before) when I think about how he'd been plenty busy before and still at least tried to talk to me.

So now it's five days later. I've waited to see if he would get curious enough about how I'm doing to text me, but he hasn't. I would text him first again, but by now I think I would come off as a bit desperate.

I suppose, Internet, that this is Drew's way of telling me he isn't interested anymore. Or maybe he wasn't even interested to begin with, I don't know. I just wish he'd tell me if he was or not, I hate beating around the bush about these things, and I really can't take a hint. I need to hear it for myself. I feel like I deserve that, at least.

Either way, I'm disappointed. Up to last week, I had kept my hopes back, knowing that it could go either way, but I suppose they got away from me. Though, I don't really know how they couldn't have, I thought the date(or non-date) went well, to be honest.

I mean, after a good first date, can you blame me? I admit, I got hopeful. But maybe it didn't go as well as I thought it did.

I knew there was a possibility that it could all end, I just didn't think it would end so soon. But at least we weren't together at all. I think it would've been worse that way.

Well, Internet. It begins again. Here's to the single life.


xo Hopeless Romantic

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Hopeless Romantic's first date. Ever.}
Thursday, June 16, 2011 | 8:07 PM | 1Comment

Internet. You don't know how long I've been waiting to say those words. My first date.

It feels so foreign to say that/type that. Especially in relation to my personal life. But there it is. I'm sorry for the slight delay, as something else has been going on that's pretty related to this, but I'll get to that later.


So. Our date.

Best Friend Rose stayed over the night before, helping me agonize over the perfect outfit (and even lending me a sweater of her own, because I need to go shopping for cuter/more summery clothing). And her staying the night was also a part of this...well, plan that we had.
Yes. A plan. I'm talking a full-on cliche Disney Channel show type plan.

Now, BEFORE YOU FREAK OUT: It wasn't too dramatic. Or weird. Not really. It just involved BFR walking into the bookstore 10 minutes after me, walking around and looking at stuff out of the way and unnoticed, but also staying on location just in case the date went really awful and I needed a backup plan. Of course, I never ended up needing her, and we got to avoid any awkward lines like, 'Oh my god, Rose! I had NO idea that you'd be here! What a complete and totally unplanned coincidence!!"

Immature? Totally. Not even gonna pretend that it wasn't. But I have to admit, knowing Rosie was there helped alleviate my nervousness a little. It helped knowing that if it turned out to be a disaster, I wasn't completely alone and unarmed.

But, don't worry Internet. No convoluted Junior High-like plan next time. Cross my heart!

But anyway, onto the actual date:

I show up a few minutes later than he does, so I have to go find him. For a minute or two, I just stand there, looking lost and confused, and one of the guys working there just kind of looks at me like, 'Are you okay?'

So, I text Drew to ask him where he is in the store, and he tells me he's in Non-fiction. I glance around, and I find that non-fiction is just in the next room over. I try to calm my breathing, ignore the fact that my knees are quivering like leaves in a breeze, and enter the room.

I immediately see a boy sitting in a chair, in a red shirt, jeans and sneakers, reading a book in his lap. My heart leaps into my throat, and I grip my phone in my hand tightly as I start to approach him.
He's so engrossed in his book that he doesn't hear me walking towards him, so as I get closer, I swallow hard and force out a "hey" that I hope sounds nice and relaxed at the same time, all the while realizing that it'll be the very first time he hears my voice.

He looks up, maybe kind of taken aback, and then slowly closes his book and stands from his chair. "Hey," he says back.

I stop in front of him and grope for words for a few moments. I initiate a side hug, for reasons completely unknown to me because I hate side hugs, and the resulting one is really stiff and quick and kind of awful. "So, it's nice to finally meet you." I say, trying to still sound cool and collected even though I'm suddenly terrified because here I am, right in front of him, and I don't know what to say.

He smiles. "It's nice to finally meet you, too."

I smile wider, but it's like my cheeks can't take the exertion from smiling so much, and they start to hurt. After a somewhat awkward few moments, I throw my hands up. "So, should we take a look around?" I suggest.

"Sure," he says, and nods, and then starts to walk toward the door, and I follow.

We go to the fiction section first, and it's huge, so I say 'wow'. And he says something about them remodeling since he'd last been there. For a few moments I'm legitimately distracted by all the tall shelves of books around me, but then I come back to the present and realize that it's very quiet between us. I steal a quick glance at him, and he looks somewhat uneasy. I decide to say something, anything at all.

"Ohh, Stephen King!" I say, pointing to an entire shelf of his books. "They have a lot of his books."

"Yeah, they do." He agrees.

I say something about not reading a lot of his books, although I want to, and he says something about his Gunslinger series. While he's talking, he kind of trips over his words and stutters, and I notice distantly that the way he talks reminds me of Michael Cera.

So he wanders off to one of the other shelves, and I kind of stay where I am, wondering why he decided to walk away all of a sudden, and then my questions are answered when he comes back with the first book of the Gunslinger series. I take it, only really mildly interested in it, and ask him what it's about. He explains it all, and I nod slowly like I'm interested.

"Well then," I say, shrugging. "It sounds really interesting. I guess I'll have to get it!" And I look over and he looks pretty satisfied, so I decide I will get it after all.

After that, we continue looking, and a black cat jumps on top of the bookshelf next to us. I mention how I've always wanted a cat, and he tells me his family has 5 cats as well as 3 dogs and for him, a tarantula (Ew.) I respond jealously, saying that I wished I had that many pets, and he suggested that I could after I move out. And during this, I finally get the guts to look at him more directly, and I realize that he's cute. Like, really freaking cute.
Slight deliberate scruff, hazel eyes, long eyelashes, nice dirty blonde hair(meaning the color dirty blonde, not meaning that his hair was dirty, it was actually really clean. And you probably knew that, but I thought I'd clear that up anyway.), white teeth, and dimples when he smiles. He's so attractive to me and every time I look directly at him, and he looks at me back, it's like I'm intimidated by his sheer attractiveness, and I have to look away.

So we decide to head to the upper level after that, where they keep the older paperbacks, and we wander around looking. It gets quiet at times, but he doesn't seem as uneasy as before, and by then I'd begun to feel strangely...calm. It's like a got all of my nervous out within the first 5 minutes, and then after that it was like I wasn't even nervous at all. For some reason.

So we're looking and occasionally making comments, like me commenting about how they had about 1000 copies of a book called "Easy Spanish" and a car manual in Japanese.

The bookstore cats decided to join us (one was named Pages and the other was named Chapter. Isn't that the CUTEST thing you've ever heard?!) and we pet them and watch them for a while. He picks up a book and starts to read it, and apparently it's funny because he chuckles at it every now and then. I ask him what's so funny, but he won't tell me, so I just smile and shake my head.

By now we're getting along pretty well, and so we decide to go to non-fiction, where I found him first. We look at stuff, and after I pick up a Chicken Soup book, I tease him about how he should get a Marilyn Monroe biography. And then I tell him how it bugs me when celebrities get biographies written about them even when they're still alive. So then he tells me that he'll get a biography made about him now, just to piss me off. I laugh.

Fast forward through us looking at cookbooks (and me telling him I'm not a very good cook--but get this--he is.), me finding a dictionary/thesaurus/common misspellings book and keeping it to buy, and going to put back my Alfred Hitchcock short stories book, and we headed to look at the books at the front of the store.
As I stare at a shelf, he comes up behind me (and scares the crap out of me, by the way) to hand me a newer copy of the Stephen Kind book he found for me earlier. It's newer and sturdier and prettier than the other one, and so I decide to buy that one instead. He offers to take the old one back for me, and I thank him.

So then I spend about a thousand years looking at every book in that section, admittedly trying to stall a little. And during the last hour, we had one of the weirdest 10 minute awkward silences ever. I swear, it was that long. And I tried to seem engrossed in finding a book, but in reality I was poking and prodding my brain for something to say, anything, and I came up with nothing.

Finally, I said something about the Kite Runner, and I guess that just sparked conversation again, but that whole thing was weird.

Near the end, since I had already warned him that I had to leave around 12ish (my mom was providing the ride, and she had to be at work at like 1), he went ahead and paid for his one book. And when the time came for me to pay, as soon as I put my books on the counter, I realized with a horrifying chagrin that I had completely forgotten to bring my wallet.

I forgot to bring my wallet. To a bookstore.

But thank God, Drew had gone to wander someplace else, and he wasn't there to see. Completely red-faced, I told the cashier my situation, and he laughed it off, telling me that he could hold them for me until I could get my wallet from my mom's car. I thanked him, and went to go tell Drew my situation too. He laughed, but he didn't seem irritated or put off by it.

So we looked at children's books for like an entire fifteen minutes (got a bit awkward, considering there wasn't that many books in that section to look at in the first place, but not too bad) while I waited for a signal text from BFR to tell me that my mom was outside and that she was in the car. I finally excused myself and rushed out to the car to grab my purse (with my wallet in it) to pay for my things.

I pay for them, and then it was time to say goodbye.

We both walk slowly toward the entrance. I clap my hands together. "So," I try not to come off so eager. "This was fun."

He's looking down at me and smiling. "Yeah, it was. We should do it again."

I nod, trying not to look excited. He wants to see me again. "Yeah, definitely." I initiate another side hug, but this one was much better, more genuine instead of stiff. And he smells good. After we break the hug, I ask, "So, text you later?"

"Or course," he says.

So I (stupidly) say goodbye and walk out the door, and it's not until I'm halfway to my car that I realize we've done that say-goodbye-and-then-walk-in-the-same-direction thing. I turn and see him almost directly behind me, and I give this embarrassed sort of giggle, and he kind of does too. Then when we part ways, I wave, and he waves back.

And on the way home, I proceed to tell my mom and Best Friend Rose every single detail.

It was so not as bad as I expected it to go. In fact, it went pretty well. Despite forgetting my wallet and some awkward moments, I thought it went pretty dang swimmingly.

And Rose said whenever she saw us together, he was always smiling really big, and he kept staring at me. Which I can attest to, because whenever I'd be studiously looking at shelves of books, I'd suddenly feel him looking at me.

The whole rest of the day, I was so happy. I finally get why people who first start dating someone are so freakishly happy all the time, because that's what happened to me. It was like I was floating. I couldn't stop giggling.

Not to get ahead of myself here, Internet, but I haven't acted that way about a boy in a very long time. I'd almost forgotten what it'd felt like.

I guess all I can do is sit back and see where it goes from here.

xo Hopeless Romantic

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No turning back.}
Tuesday, June 14, 2011 | 6:49 AM | 0Comment

Well, Internet. This is it. No turning back now.

The morning of the day that I meet Drew.
Actually, we're meeting this morning due to certain circumstances. So in about two hours is when I meet him.

Not gonna lie. I'm scared shitless. I keep thinking about all the things that could go wrong. I keep wondering what he'll think of me. What I'll think of him.

But I'm trying not to overthink it. I'm doing my best not to. Or else I might scare myself enough not to go at all.
Because let's face it, Internet. If I can't do this--meet someone new, someone that's really nice to me and likes talking to me--then I will be single for a very, very long time. And it's spontaneous. But maybe I need to be more spontaneous instead of just sitting holed up in my house practically all day.
It's new for me, and it's scary. But if not now, then when?

Like, I'm excited. Don't get me wrong. But I'm just...so. Nervous. I feel like I'm getting ready to take my finals all over again.
What am I even doing on here?? I should be getting ready!!

Oh god. Here it goes.


xo Hopeless Romantic

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To Luis}
Sunday, June 12, 2011 | 2:15 PM | 0Comment

"Out of a random chance, I found your site. Now, here's my question:

What is a hopeless romantic? (hint hint on my signature)

The true hopeless romantic would always rather give than receive. Because they know then and only then, will there be true love."

Hi, Luis! I'm sorry I'm answering this so late. I did see this question in my mail a little while ago, but it's taken me a considerable amount of time to figure out how exactly I'd answer. I hope it's okay that I post this on here, by the way.

All right. Well. After I read your question, I sighed, because that is one doozy of a question. Because it's kind of simple, but at the same time, it's not.

I agree 100% with your signature's definition of 'hopeless romantic', absolutely. And I think that pretty much sums up the general definition.

However, although you probably didn't exactly intend it that way, this question also made me wonder why I call myself Hopeless Romantic in the first place, and why I consider myself a hopeless romantic.

Here's the thing. I made this blog basically at the very very end of my 8th grade year. I was distraught, heartbroken, over my crush (Ricky Bobby)--whom I believed, at the time, had finally started to feel the same--that had moved away. I needed a release, some way of knowing that I wasn't alone, that I wasn't the one only who'd felt so cold and utterly rejected.
I most likely didn't know the full meaning of the term 'hopeless romantic' at the time, to be honest with you. All I knew was that up to that point, out of all the boys I liked, no one ever liked me back, and Hopeless Romantic sounded dramatic. I kid you not. I was basically still at that point where I thought that since I had never had a boyfriend and I was almost in high school, I would NEVER have a boyfriend, and I'd be alone FOREVER and adopt 295738 cats. Or chihuahuas. Or maybe I'd buy every goldfish in town and make my house into a goldfish aquarium and every morning as I fed them all I'd make fish faces at them to say good morning.
THE POINT BEING. I was heartbroken and lonely and boyfriendless. Sounded legit to me.

The irony is, I feel more like a 'hopeless romantic' now. Even after having a few boys 'like me', for a lack of a better word. Even after I've been in online school and I've gotten to know me, the true me. In fact, I think that's why I feel that way.

I think I'd call myself a Hopeless Romantic because I've always believed in the ideal of love.
I'd always been that little girl that played dress up in pretend princess dresses and wedding gowns, and even as I got older, I saw romances in movies and on TV and I always believed that love was this unexplainable, all-consuming magic. That it just happens, and suddenly you're not the same person, that the plain, raggedy Cinderella turns into a sort of royalty. That once you fell in love with someone, it was forever, and their adoration would be unchanging and unwavering forever.
But then I grew up.

And more recently than ever, I've started to realize that true love isn't this unreachable magical, mythical thing and then BOOM--just happens. It's not just a noun, it's a verb. It's raw and life-altering, sometimes not in the good way. It's sometimes very painful. It takes work, and I mean, tons of work, to make it last sometimes. And it's scary. Because once you give someone your everything, once they know every little detail about you (and vice versa), so much that they know the exact way you think, the way you breathe, the way you blink, they also have the power to absolutely destroy you.

I've seen a good amount of happy couples in love. Do I believe that successful long-term relationships founded on love exist? Absolutely. But I certainly don't believe that they're so easy to find, just around the corner for everybody. I also think they're rare to find. My grandparents, for example, were married for 56 years before my grandfather died October 2009. They'd been high school sweethearts. I've seen evidence right in front of me that two people, if they truly and deeply love each other, can stay together, despite everything.
But I've also seen some couples fall out of love, even after a seemingly long time. The ones that appear as if every time they're together, it's like peeling off a bandaid slowly. Ones that can hardly stand the sight of each other anymore, but it's almost as if they have no option but to stay with each other. Because they hardly know any other way to live. They have no choice.

Realizing this has made me realize that the fairytale love I waited for when I was younger, the kind I dreamed of, doesn't exist. It can't. Not in the real world, not in true life. And seeing it shatter to pieces in front of me fills me with a kind of despair. And it's very hard for me to accept.
I think it's so hard for me because it's another part of growing up, which I know is inevitable for everybody, but it's still hard none the less.

I still dream of that love sometimes, which is why I still consider myself a hopeless romantic. But the difference is now I know that that's all they are, dreams. Not reality.

This was probably a much longer answer than you anticipated, Luis. But I had a lot to say, as usual. Haha. Thanks for sending it in, by the way.


xo Hopeless Romantic

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Near Panic Attacks and All That Good Stuff}
Friday, June 3, 2011 | 9:10 PM | 1Comment

Internet. What have I done?

So. Since the last entry, I've still texted Drew everyday all day. And we talk about pretty much everything. Heck, I'm texting him as we speak.

And things are...well. I don't really know how things are. I mean, they're going great. I'm pretty sure he wouldn't even text me this often if they weren't.
But that's the thing. I'm starting to think that they're going too well.

Over the past few days, we've happened to talk about the different bookstores in town, like I'd mentioned last entry. I also mentioned last entry how he'd said, casually, that we should go to one together. After that one time, he mentioned it once again.
Both times, I said sure, because it was all out in the open and no commitment yet, just at some indefinite time in the future, no big deal. Right?

Um. Well. Yeah, until he brought it up yesterday again. And for real this time.

Before I go there, I should say that yesterday, he talked about some more serious things, more serious topics than we'd ever talked about before.
I dropped the big one on him, and by big one I mean the fact that I've never had a boyfriend before. Only I tried to make it sound more casual, more like, 'I've never really dated anyone before,' instead of, 'I'VE NEVER HAD A BOYFRIEND WHY AM I SO ALONE' or something to that effect. And he was completely cool about it, saying, "Not weird at all, probably for the best."

And then he told me a super personal story about how bad his last relationship was. To be fair, though, I asked, so he was just answering my question. Basically, it was all about how he dated this girl who his best friend (a lesbian) had gone out with her first (therefore causing him to hide this dating relationship from his best friend), and how his ex was this psycho goth chick that flirted and made out with anything with two legs (all behind his back during their 9 month relationship) and then proceeded to sleep with this 30 year old dude and start a thing with him, thereby ending her relationship with Drew.

Okay. Did that shock you as much as it shocked me? Because it shocked the hell out of me.

I mean not that I expected it to be a story with rainbows and sunshine, but it really caught me off guard. I feel like it would be something I'd see on Secret Life (by the way, I'm so unimpressed by that show lately. Before, it was so bad that it was good, now it's just really bad.)

I didn't even know what to say. It was an extremely personal story, something that he had trusted me enough to tell me. And this threw me for a huge loop.

One thing about me, Internet, that I'm not proud of at all is that I can be extremely selfish in my dealings with other people sometimes. I'll start getting to know someone new (and anyone, not just guys), the real them, and then they'll tell me something so dark and heavy and personal about themselves, and for some reason, I'll start to pull away from them. It's like I can't handle the full reality of them, like I expect everyone else to be perfect and flawless and have perfect lives. And then when I find out that they aren't, my entire image of them shatters, and I suddenly want nothing to do with them.

I don't know why I do this, I really don't. And I hate that I do. It's like some part of me that I can't help.
I haven't always been like this, though. All of my closest friends, I've accepted them with my whole heart. It's just been as of late, and I can really only think of 2 instances of when I've done this before. But maybe it's because I'm older now, and I'm generally more wary of everyone, less trusting. I don't know.

So, after I learn this new bit of information, I feel like there's this new expectation of me. This brand new, heavy expectation is on my shoulders now, and to be honest, it freaks me the hell out.

I finally reply, telling him how sorry I am that he had to go through that, all the while trying to sound like it didn't freak me out in the slightest, even though it kind of did.

After that, he kind of switches the subject back to me, and I can tell it's kind of a sore subject for him, which is totally understandable. He asks about the guys I almost came close to dating, and I tell him all about Ricky Bobby (very, very briefly), the other legally blind Ricky Bobby that asked me out a billion times over text (reference point, here), and Phil. There are a few other insignificant small stories I could have told him about, but I didn't bother.

So then, after I finish telling him about how Phil was obsessed with his money, out of the blue, he asks, "So, when are we exploring a bookstore, hmm?"

Before, when he suggested that we go to one together, it just kind of seemed like an obligatory, 'Yeah, we're friends! Let's prove it to the world by hanging out and taking 1000 pictures of us together to put on Facebook!" One of those things that most people talk about doing, but rarely ever mean.

I just assumed this was one of those. I just assumed he would keep saying this, feeling obligated to say it, and then one day he'd officially get bored of me and it would never happen.

But then here this was, right in front of my face.

I tried to bullshit out of it. "Hmm, I don't know! I'm busy the rest of this week and this weekend, so I'm not sure. When would be good for you?" (Yeah, me. Busy. Uh huh. Busy catching up on the shows on my DVR.) After he told me in about a week or two, I said, "Well, whatever works is cool with me!" all while intending to say that I was busy for whatever day he'd say. But he figured me out.

"Lol. Figure out a day and which bookstore and how we're doing it. :P"

I must have gaped at my phone for an entire five minutes. Damn it, he was good.
So then, I go into full-on panic mode and text Best Friend Rose an entire caps-lock rant, and the gist of it's a little something like, "DREW WANTS TO MEET HE WANTS TO MEET OH MY FREAKING GOD TELL ME WHAT TO DO JDGJGDJGDJG HELP MEEEEEEEEE"

I had to send it like 4 times because for some irritating reason, Best Friend Rose decided at that very vital moment to either have her phone away from her or be distracted. Then, when she finally replied, I gave her a little more explanation, and then she very cruelly decided that it would do me some good for her not to tell me how to handle my guy problems for once.
And then I nearly threw my phone across the room, wanting very badly to hire a voodoo priest to make a voodoo doll BFR so I could throw M&M's at it and then real M&M's would fly at real Best Friend Rose's face and she'd keep wondering where in the world those M&M's were coming from. That would show her. Mmhmm.

So after about 45 minutes of intense thought, and torturing myself over what to say, I finally gave in, telling him that anytime after this weekend I would be free, and that we could meet there.

And so he picks Tuesday.

TUESDAY. FUCKING NEXT TUESDAY.

Excuse the language, but I thought it was pretty appropriate, considering this is the moment when I feel my heart squeeze and then drop like a tightly closed fist into my stomach.

So what do I say? No? No! I can't say no, because I do want to meet him. I swear I do. We have tons in common, get along really well, and I'm pretty sure I would hate myself if I don't take this chance, because I knew I'd regret it if I didn't. So I say that it's fine. And I feel something crawling up my throat and a wave of nausea hits me.

Shortly after that, he tells me goodnight, and he goes to bed. And I start to get dizzy, start to feel tears stinging the back of my throat. Why?

Because I'm terrified.

I can honestly say that I've hardly ever felt a fear like that before, Internet.
I can't put my finger on why the panic hit me so suddenly. Maybe it was because I'm terrified of change, terrified of not knowing things, terrified of not feeling in control, and this situation involved all three.

Maybe it was because this whole thing became a lot more real than I ever thought it would.

I usually cry to relieve stress when I'm overwhelmed, or when I'm panicking. Both of which I felt at that moment. I did okay at first. Only cried for about a few minutes. I did alright.
Until this morning. Because right when I woke up, I remembered exactly what worries had kept me awake for quite a while the night before. And I walked straight downstairs to talk with my mom. And I flipped out. Full-on sobbing, shaking, getting dizzy, everything. And I told her everything.

Mind you, me and my mom are thisclose. She's one of my best friends, I swear, and I talk to her about everything.
So we talk about this, after her trying to get me to calm down (which didn't work, because I probably cried for an hour straight anyway) and we both decide that I'm definitely not ready to meet him Tuesday. After telling me that she was willing to give me a ride there (which I'd need either way because I still don't have my license), she tells me that she could probably only do it during the weekday about two weeks from now, since she has work. This sounds a lot more graspable to me.

So in the end, I told Drew today that next week wouldn't work after all, and that I could probably do the week after. He was fine with it, to my relief. I didn't want him to think I was canceling because I wasn't interested in meeting him, because I am. Like, I really am. Probably more than I should be.

I'm still nervous and scared as hell, but I've calmed down a lot, considering I finally stopped crying like a big fat ridiculous crybaby. But is this considered a date? I have NO IDEA.

It sounds more like hanging out, just a kind of getting-to-know-you thing, but even then, thinking about it still makes me want to throw up.

At this point, I don't even know what's going on. I thought he wasn't interested in me in that way at all. Not the slightest bit.
But the past few days he's gotten a bit...not flirtier, really. Maybe. More open, I guess? He's been joking with me and teasing me more, but that doesn't say anything, not really.

But THEN two days ago, completely randomly and out of the blue, he sent me a goodnight text. A goodnight text message. Do guy friends do that? And he seems like he really wants to meet me. A lot. Why?

I'm so confused Internet. I'm completely lost. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before. Ever. I don't know what to do.

I'm starting to think that maybe I bit off more than I could chew.


xo Hopeless Romantic

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