Dating : In Limbo
Hello everyone, I hope you all are having a good day! First time posting on here but I’ve run into a sort of emotional roadblock and don’t feel comfortable talking to my currently available friends as open as I can here. This is a bit of a vent, but I am open to advice and especially interested in just discussing what’s happened.
A little context, I’m a 27M who works in education. A few years back I got out of what had become a very toxic relationship. It was my first relationship and first time I was intimate with someone. I never had the time or the motivation to put myself out there earlier in life. I’ve struggled with abuse from my childhood and was only really was able to approach a healthy level of social vulnerability late in college. I had my part to do with the breakup, but I can honestly say I tried everything to fix and make it work. As I opened myself up more, she took more advantage of it, leaving me feeling pretty broken the past few years. I’ve been dating on and off since it actually ended, because I tried to rehash that old flame. She remained my only relationship and sexual experience as dating failed time and time again. Mostly because my early dates made me feel guilty, as if I was cheating on my ex despite our relationship ending, and my later dates never really intrigued me.
I gained a lot of resiliency and the strongest social network of support I’ve ever known from the experience. I pushed myself at work and found success there. I’ve been dedicated to a new gym program for about a year now with a lot of progress. I still struggle emotionally, about all my past abuse, but have methods of dealing with it. Including active and passive meditation. My investments in myself have led to what I like to call a “glow up.” I have negative self image but I’ve been told I’m good looking. I’ve built a decent amount of confidence, tempered by my tendency to overthink. That broken feeling has never left. I’ve been wondering lately whether I’d ever be able to feel vulnerable or a feeling of love (in a general sense of romantic caring and openness) for another person, which caused me to delete apps like bumble and try to further focus on myself.
This leads me to last week, where I went on educational trip. I was given a lot of attention by participants, which feels good but I’m at work as far as I’m concerned. Also, I give the attention from a pool of people that aren’t eligible (teacher demographics) with a grain of salt. Turns out there is one prospect there, a person helping run the trip. Initially, I can’t even see myself in her league, so I don’t pay attention. Over the course of the week, it become a bit of a joke for the participants to tell either of us that we’d make a cute couple. We also have chances to talk and interact, the kinda cute teasing and chats two people who have no reason not to be romantically interested in one another have. I realise she may be interested and I’m picking up some signs (which is huge for me). It gets to a breaking point one night while I’m out with other participants where I have her number and know she was interested in meeting up. I do it (I sometimes surprise myself). Although it was later at night, she comes out, and we get to talk a bit but I’m kind blocked by this guy who seemed pretty interested in me. I was trying to send him the right signals but he wasn’t picking up on them until later, and at that point he actually started working towards blocking us… Alls fair in love and war I guess, anyway, I get the chance to walk home with her that night. It’s nice but nothing happens because I am a spaz towards the end.
Next day comes up and I’m feeling the whole “why are you the way that you are” in the mirror vibe. Despite all that, there’s some flirting and at the end of our time that day SHE propositions meeting for drinks. I want to be careful, so I mention the others are meeting for happy hour, she goes ahead says she’s not really interested in having the others around. I don’t miss the cue and immediately make solid plans (we are all a work in progress everyone, this was huge). After a comical runaround between bars avoiding the participants (because we don’t want to make it awkward for her as a leader on the trip) we have drinks, some food and good conversation. We end up walking home and it seems like we are both interested so the night continues in my room. She’s the second person I’ve been with, but it really was an amazing night not only for the physical intimacy but our conversations on history, rap, racism and ourselves. She’s incredibly smart, funny, quirky and beautiful. We talk about us and she leaves it at “We’ll see.” It hurt a bit but I fully understand and get where she was coming from. I had similar concerns about distance and what would happen when the heat of the moment passed. She leaves in the morning, to avoid that awkwardness I mentioned earlier and immediately I start overthinking about things.
The next day is nice but lowkey painful as I couldn’t express myself or my feelings about her due to us not being alone. I had a flight out an hour after the program ended… I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye the way I wanted, but luckily we have technology. We’ve been texting back and forth, and I got bold enough (thanks to alcohol) to tell her I was interested in possibly being exclusive yesterday. She says she’s not ready for that kind of attention from a guy as I was admittedly laying it on strong. So we settle on continuing to talk, and to meet up if either of us are in the others area. She lets me know she doesn’t usually text this much, she checks my social media while not being an avid poster herself, and has complimented me multiple times. Same time she also jokes about me coming back this week (I’m broke but I’ve even thought about it), setting me up with other people and stuff that makes me think she’s trying to set some distance. I’m not mad or anything like that, I just feel a bit sad. I’ve found someone who has reminded me what it feels like to really connect with someone and whom I find myself really attracted to for the first time in years. I know there could possibly be something down the road. I wouldn’t be disappointed if it just ended in friendship, but I definitely feel stuck on hoping a relationship comes out of it.
TL;DR
Met this girl and she’s rekindled a sense of romance in me I thought I lost, but there’s no chance at commitment for now.
Thoughts, while I mull this over?
