My date was successful in every way except in the way that engenders new dates. At the very end of the evening, around 1 AM or so, when we were alone together, he told me, we couldn't possibly date because of the distance, but if I wanted to hook up, you know, of course that would be fine. And I said no, I wouldn't be doing that, and I left. I had a very fun time though, and I felt things. And the guy was super attractive to me and I think this helps me isolate some more of the traits I'm looking for in a person. Some people who you'd definitely tag as being "on my side" (moms and friends) think that the dude could've been more careful with my feelings. If he knew he didn't want to date me because I lived in VA, he knew that before I ever came up for the weekend. And it is accurate to note that the dude is the one who pushed some escalation of the expectations of the date; he's the one that asked to call me on Thursday (and we spent 40 minutes speaking). He's the one who kind of kept bringing up relationship expectations when we hung out. I think that's ok. I think people can be confused. I was willing to see how things could be. It turns out he doesn't have family near me like I thought, so that's a factor that changed over the course of us hanging out (just because I'd made a wrong supposition). I do have to admit this isn't the first time a guy has had me at his place at 1 AM after several, several hours of hanging out -- to only tell me then that he's unavailable for some reason. (This is the second.) I don't know. I got to get fabulously dressed up, I even painted my toenails, and I looked amazing. I'm confident that as a date/weekend, I freakin' killed it. So, although rejected, I left the weekend really appreciative of 95% of the experience. Kahneman says that we have bad memories, and we will judge an entire experience based on the last 5 seconds or minutes of it. If that little bit of time is negative, we'll perceive the whole thing negatively, even if most of it was positive. I'm not going to do that with my weekend. I enjoyed a heck of a lot of it. :) And then I ran 9.32 miles on Monday because fuck it, if I get rejected, I'm going to go out there and get me a win. (PS. Wasn't it a mutual rejection anyway? He rejected dating me, while I rejected having sex with him.) Musings from adulthood ---
OMG are you me but four days later? Sorry it seemed promising only to end up the way it did. You seem to have a healthy view of it, recognizing things you'll be looking for in the person who is right. I got rejected a week ago when the girl I'd been on a few dates with over a month said she couldn't see having a relationship with me. So last Friday I went and ran my third best ever half marathon. I fucking crushed it. It was a two loop route, and after a blistering pace (for me) I ran the second loop even faster. Meeting up with someone else this weekend. There were a lot of things I liked about this person, things to look for in the future.
Yep. Life is not a book or a movie, that moves orderly from one scene to another and ends at a predictable or slightly surprising conclusion that makes sense and follows a specific story line. Life is trying shit out, and doing the shit that works, and not doing the broken shit again. (Hopefully.) Sounds like you both "won" this weekend ... had a lovely time with another person, and then moved on with clarity. Good on ya. Hopefully all your encounters are as respectful and honorable! "I think that's ok. I think people can be confused..."