Bachelor D

I'm tempted to not even write anything about this for fear of jinxing it... If there even is anything there to be jinxed. But I recall writing something similar to that a year ago, and not writing about it didn't prevent it from being jinxed, so what the hell?

I was supposed to meet Bachelor D on Dec. 29th, but BB became ill that day, so I asked if we could postpone. The tone of his response was less friendly than his previous emails, but I suppose that it's to be expected, considering the fact that I bailed on him. A couple days later I followed up to see if he would be interested in meeting the following week. He said yes, and that we should continue emailing, talk on the phone, etc. to continue getting to know one another. And then I didn't hear from him again until the day before we were planning on going out (after I contacted him to see if we were still on.) By the evening of our coffee date last Wednesday, I was pretty indifferent to the whole thing. When meeting people from the Internet, you really do need to meet right away, while you still have momentum and the excitement is still there. By the time we met, there was no excitement.

That being said, when we met, I realized that I really liked the guy. In fact I liked him probably as much as I liked H the first time I met him. And the amazing thing? I'm attracted to him. Like, full-on attracted to the guy. This is rare. My test consists of asking myself if I could wake up next to him. I almost laughed out loud when I heard the voice in my head exclaiming, "Hell yeah!" At one point he touched my hand while demonstrating something and all I could think after was how much I wanted his hand back. However, I was convinced that he wasn't interested in me. Like me, he seems to have a lot of criteria surrounding what he's looking for. Sure, it's all simple stuff, but to find someone that has it all isn't easy. I felt like I was being tested all evening, and I was convinced at the end of the evening when he told me he'd email me the next day that the email would be a PFO letter. The only thing that gave me any hope was that he gave me a hug goodnight. It was one of those awkward hugs, but still felt nice.

I worried most of the night about the things I said or didn't say during our two hours together. Had I just grabbed my phone and checked my email sometime after 1am, I would have discovered that he had already emailed and said that he was interested in me. To say I was excited would probably be an understatement.

Even now though, I still wonder if he was as into me as I was with him. Perhaps this second date is just a second chance. And I'm so incredibly paranoid that I'm going to end up in another mess like I ended up in with H... because if tomorrow night goes well, I know what will happen to me.

H isn't helping. I already feel like I have to watch my back, and he's reiterating that. I told him the number of coffee dates Bachelor D has been on in the past months, and how few people made it to a second date with him, and H told me that he was probably just saying that to charm me. It's like the little voice of self-doubt inside of my head has been replaced by his voice. The little voice says, "Be careful! H wasn't into you like he pretended to be. This guy could be a player too. You have no way of knowing." ...and then I have H saying almost the exact same words to me.

But here's what I've decided. Yes, I could get hurt. Yes, this guy could be a player. The thing is, what if I don't get hurt? What if he isn't a player? If I retreat, or even hold back in an effort to protect myself, I'm going to miss out... I believe that in order to really gain, you need to take some risk. So that's what I'm doing. I'm not going to play the what-if game. I'm going to put myself out there. I will try not to keep a little part tucked safely away, so that there will be a part of me unbroken to rebuild from "just in case". Will I attempt to take things slow? Yes. But there is a difference between taking things slow and putting up walls.

Am I jumping the gun here? Yes. I realize I've only spent a couple of hours with the guy. I may still get that PFO letter. Or I may end up sending one myself. But a couple of things have changed inside of myself as a result of this experience with Bachelor D:

1. I now know that there are people who fulfill my "dream guy" criteria who will return my interest. Since last January, I've been convinced that perhaps I had set the bar too high and maybe I should lower my standards. But no, the standards should not be lowered. This leads me to point 2...

2. Bachelor B is NOT the guy for me. I think picturing myself with him was me settling. I'm not even going to list all the reasons why.

3. I can't assume I'm going to get hurt. If I want to go for something I need to give it my all.

Wish me luck tomorrow night. I tend to be a klutz on a good day... I imagine I'll somehow manage to impale myself (or Bachelor D) with a pool cue or something!