My trip was nice, possibly the nicest it's been in a lot of ways. So now I have to tell you the story of the bearded guy I hit on. It's sort of hinted in my tweets, but here's the whole thing:
I've gone to this thing in Kansas for three years now. The first two I was there with a guy I've called Silmaril before. Both times I had excellent conversations with Eofel, one of Silmaril's best friends and another officer in the raiding guild. I may even have thought that Eofel was cute before, but I was with someone else and my eye doesn't really wander. Sil is completely my type: pale, slender, floppy boy hair. Eofel is not: he's probably about as overweight as I am and he's had a beard two out of the three times I've met him. Needless to say, Eofel was very unlikely to distract me from Sil, and yet he sort of almost did. The second time I went to Kansas there was a night where I was feeling completely like I didn't belong - everyone was playing caps or talking about sports and I was feeling tired, drunk and nerdy. Eofel and I started talking on the porch and he said that he sort of envied the nerdiness... he'd always wanted to do things like D&D, but never really had the chance. It made me feel infinitely better.
After last year Sil and I didn't talk much. In January I finally tried to talk to him and he basically said he really didn't want to continue things but left a small vague opening that we might see each other again if things changed. This left me to brood a bit on our incompatibility, and realize that there was very little likelihood we'd ever actually be able to have a real relationship. At the same time I started to talk to Eofel again, and I remembered how much I'd enjoyed it, and how pretty much every interaction I'd ever had with him was more pleasant and less stressful than with Sil. The last few months I've been trying to hang out with Eofel more online, talk to him, sort of gauge my genuine interest in him. A month or so ago I also got firm and final closure with Sil, which was mostly a relief.
This was all complicated by the fact that Eofel's house is where everyone who can't afford a hotel stays in Kansas. So I was planning on staying with him, along with two to four other guys. I didn't know him terribly well outside of game, I didn't even have his email (still don't). It felt like sending a forum PM saying "by the way, I might have a crush on you. Welp, see you at your house for FIVE DAYS!" would be really awkward. I also wasn't entirely sure how I felt at the time - was I just looking for someone because I was lonely or did I genuinely like him? Would I still be attracted to him with the beard? If I knew him well and knew for sure I was already attracted to him the beard wouldn't have mattered, but since I barely knew him it did.
Ok, and aside about the fear of beards. It started out as a joke, but it's a serious thing. Not a downright phobia, but if a guy has a beard it's hard for me to really see them. Sort of... imagine someone had chicken pox. The first few times you saw them you'd only notice the chicken pox, more than the person's face. Eventually after you see it long enough you can start to filter out the startling weirdness of the chicken pox and see the person. For me beards are like that. I'm not saying this is reasonable, but it's true for me. This isn't some deliberate prejudice or arbitrary decision, it's a genuine mental reaction. I'm trying to get over it, but it's not just something I can just decide to stop.
I tried to get advice about the whole staying-with-him-AND-not-being-sure-awkwardness, and got answers as diverse as "Tell him ASAP," "Wait until you actually GET there and can get him alone" and "Don't touch this, you dated his friend." I decided to take the middle path and try to tell him face to face, when I was actually down there. I figured it'd be a good test of whether I was interested... if I'm not interested enough to actually ask him out, I'm not really attracted to him.
The thing is, I felt good about our interactions from the start. I'm more comfortable around him than possibly any guy I know. I'm serious here. I have a LOT of great, close male friends and this guy made me almost as at home as any of them, within a few days. I was a bit distracted by the beard, but the whole time I was waiting for a moment alone to say something and it just kept not happening. I flirted with him pretty heavily, but I was also making beard jokes so I don't know how much he noticed. We played games and talked in groups a lot during the weekend, but never happened to catch a good moment alone. I will admit that the first instant I saw him he didn't physically match up to my memory, but as the hours and days went by that faded away and I just found myself more and more drawn to him.
On Sunday almost everyone was leaving, but I was staying one more night. That afternoon we were wandering around a bookstore waiting to take people to the airport. I caught him alone in the stacks and confessed that I'd been flirting with him the whole weekend, and that I was interested. I asked him if he was, and he said he'd have to think about it. That almost always means no, so I played it off a little. I didn't want the evening to be awkward, he'd told me previously that his brother's fiance and mother were visiting Sunday night so we'd all likely end up hanging out and playing board games, and I didn't want to make things any more awkward than they had to be.
We managed to largely avoid awkwardness, and for that last 24 hours Eofel and I talked about ourselves a lot. I had learned earlier in the week that he had been married once, and he revealed to me on Sunday that since his divorce he really hadn't been interested in relationships. It's not that he was broken or hung up, but he was happy being alone the vast majority of the time and didn't notice anything missing, so he didn't go after girls anymore. This sounds odd, but I in no way doubt his sincerity. Indeed, if I could trade and be at the point where I wasn't lonely the majority of the time I'd quit this tireless searching, second-guessing, and angst. I didn't want to push too hard and topple his equilibrium, especially considering that we live so far apart and I'd likely never be anything but an occasional guest in his real life. I was as honest as I could be about my history, my wants, and my own loneliness while not making him feel guilty about it. I was still hoping 'til the end that he'd somehow suddenly change his mind, but of course that didn't happen.
So now I'm home and it's still lingering with me. Usually when I know for sure that a guy is not interested I can concentrate on the fundamental incompatibilities that make us incompatible and lose interest myself. I was able to do that almost instantaneously with Sil, but the thing is, with Eofel the problems are distance and his generalized lack of interest, which are really hard to grab onto.
This wasn't some sullen, sarcastic, brilliant douchebag with a few redeeming qualities, this was a guy who was generally cheerful and kind to pretty much everyone, while still being brilliant. I felt like this was the right guy... the one who was supposed to show me how dumb I've been for the last few years. The universe lured me in with Silmaril's slender legs and soft hair, but that path led to brief periods of passion undercut with insecurity and doubt. Then, hoping my lesson was learned, it revealed a shaved-head, bearded, slightly podgy Eofel who was better in almost every conceivable way. My beliefs about what I tend to like (well other than the genius thing) would be nicely shattered, but at least I'd get something out of it. I like that narrative a lot, but it didn't turn out to be true.
Add to all this that I've recently realized that girls asking guys out has an ABYSMAL success rate, unless the girl is super hot. I simply don't have a single story from any girl I know where she asked a guy out and it worked, except in cases where the guy has already dropped VERY CLEAR HINTS or she had affirmative intelligence from some other source.
All this has sort of led me to think about whether or not I want to stop asking guys out altogether. I don't think that's a good idea, though, because asking out someone I've liked for a long time brings closure at the very least. But maybe I should look at it in that way... "really this is vastly more likely to end in rejection and let you get on with things" rather than having hope. Hope is the chekov's gun of emotion - hang it on the wall and you know there's a crushing disappointment in act three. That's a horribly melodramatic statement for what was a good weekend and a small sort-of-rejection, but CHRIST, universe. I really thought I was finally doing what you wanted and that maybe you'd cut me a break for a friggin WEEKEND.
How do you balance self confidence and hope with reasonable expectations? I know you're supposed to have self confidence and I did, I really did. I had hope, too. But I've done this "ask a guy out" thing like a dozen times now and it never has resulted in a relationship. I've done the thing where you go to parties and concerts and meetups and talk to people there, but that never works either. How do I continue to do it with the same mindset? When does it become the madness of repeating the same action and expecting a different result? If I hadn't had self confidence and hope and had approached this with the belief that it was basically a lost cause to start, maybe I wouldn't have built myself up so much this weekend.
The thing is... Eofel confessed that, at times, he does feel lonely for a few days and then it passes. If he was just completely disinterested or asexual that little glimmer of uncertainty wouldn't exist, so I still have a tiny sliver of possibility buried deep under my skin where I can't get it out.
There's still baggage with THAT though, too. It turns out that Eofel's ex-wife was a girl who Sil had dated for years, so the fact that I was seeing Sil before all this may be another negative loaded on top. The thing is, Sil and I never really dated. We just... talked on the internet and met up a few times. It's not like he'd jumping claim on some big, loaded situation. Sil and I broke it off because we wanted entirely different things out of relationships and life. I just worry that even if Eofel does find himself back on the market, my history will put me out of consideration.
Now how long is it going to be before I genuinely like another guy? It's really hard to get to that place, and I realized this weekend that all but one or two guys I've liked or dated were guys who would either 1) never put a profile up on a dating site or 2) if they did, I'd skip right over it for some stupid reason. But I can't just date everyone on a dating site regardless of whether I feel any interest in them based on their profile... it's just hard. It feels like the lack of a relationship if my biggest problem in life, but it's one that I can't do anything to fix. Other than losing weight (which I am doing veeeeery slowly) there's nothing I know of that I can do. I try harder than anyone else I know but I don't get any results or feedback as to what I'm doing wrong and it's starting to wear on me. I'm almost thirty and that haunts me. It's just a random number, I know, but I feel like it rings differently in everyone's minds. I'm starting to doubt I have any chance, anymore.
optimistic