I had something funny happen to me today that I felt I should share... I have been seeing this boy from MD for the past two or three weeks. As we've been getting to know each other, there are things about him that make me hesitant but over all I enjoy his company and spending time with him. Lately, it appears that he is becoming a little more attached then i am, so I decided to come clean and let him know about my hesitations so that we can keep things casual and not jump into the serious after a month.
All day i have been building courage to bring up the topic at our dinner date tonight. I've been going over what i am feeling, thinking of the best ways to present the topic, thinking of when or how I should bring it up, and in generally trying not to freak out. I have come to realize that my natural Fright and Flight instincts kick in whenever I have hesitations about a relationship. This method can be quite helpful when you really do feel the guy is a creep, but less effective when you actually enjoy someone and would like to simply build a friendship before committing to a serious relationship. Nonetheless, the natural instinct to RUN is a strong emotion.
So as I am building up the courage not to run, to face him and be honest and take it from there, he texts me that he has something special for me that he wants to give me before dinner. I about died with anxiety!!! I immediately needed advice in order not to completely freak out and end things via text message (something I would have been upset at myself with later)! So I contacted my roommate, my brother, and another close guy friend for an immediate advice session.
My roommate offered some good advice but I found that the boy's offered more rational and easily acceptable guidance. They said they were 90% sure that this "present" was probably just something small that shows that he cares for you and is interested and most likely shouldn't be anything to freak out about. If there was the 10% chance that it was something big, then there was nothing wrong with not accepted it. Then they said if I have hesitations, that this would be a very good time to bring them up and just be honest. Since I had already planned to bring up the conversation about slowing down, it seemed they were the added courage that I needed.
For a few moments after receiving the advice and returning to planet earth, I was completely humored by my reaction. I was so quick to get scared= Fright and even quicker to resolve the fear through ending things= Flight. It made me realize 2 things:
1) No matter how chicken I can be at times, I must be honest with a guy and give him the chance to absorb my honesty and respond for himself, even if his response is not what I want to hear. This also means that Flight is not the first answer all the time.
2) That i really have no idea what i am doing with this whole dating things at times. Its not something that upsets me, its more something that amuses me. I think we are all in this boat at times: none person doesn't know everything so there are plenty of times, especially with dating, when we are at an absolute loss for comprehension. That is why we need friends, good advice, and a minute or two to calm down a evaluate.
If you are thinking of running for a silly reason, just calm down, be honest with yourself and with the guy/girl, and get some help from a rational friend. Then you'll be fine.
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