Friday, Feb. 28, 2003
Spontaneous, athletic english teacher, 25, seeks female for possible LTR. Sensitive, enjoys films, travel, sports, concerts. But no rush., posted at 11:47 p.m.
Epiphany in Baltimore has moved to epiphanyinbaltimore.blogspot.com Just got back from the gym, where I ran 4 miles and had a good legs workout. My workouts have become disappointingly erratic with the snowfall, so it was nice to have a good one. I was at the gym for almost two hours.Those two hours of crowded solitude provided reflection time, and my mind, for some reason, went to the new Chemistry teacher at our school. I've written about her before, but I'm not Kinetix so you don't get the link :). She definitely is interested in me. We were out one night as a group, and she got drunk and asked me out, twice. I ended up giving her a ride home, and she invited me inside to "meet her cat." I wasn't about to take advantage of that sort of situation with a co-worker, and I'm not interested in her in a romantic sense, so I declined. At that time, I had all these mixed up feelings from my trip home to Michigan, and probably no one would have attracted my interest. Even though I'm past that now, she's still not someone I would normally be drawn to - too needy, I think, and a little... dull. Is that mean?
I saw her today for the first time in a while. She sent me a nice e-mail when we were snowed in, and again asked me out - this time to go to the movies. We were snowed in more than we thought we would be, so it never materialized, and I never even e-mailed her back about it. It was a "if you get bored" type of thing, so it didn't require a response. She in turn has not responded to my e-mailed invitation to play kickball.
Today I got a bit of a cold shoulder from her, I thought. All I can think is, well, that's one more perfectly acceptable, genuinely nice woman that I wasn't interested in and now it's too late. Might as well cross her off the list. I'm beginning to sense a pattern. Am I not interested in women who pursue me? Why is this? This is disconcerting, as, while I enjoy being the pursuer, it's not something I do well except when I'm pursuing only a surface connection (and usually involves a bar, alcohol, and a Baltmore tourist looking for the same meaningless thing I am).
I have this habit of asking questions that of course I know the answer to. It's because I haven't found the right person. I like to play it safe. I think too much, immediately extrapolating my future with a person when I meet her. It's probably a combination of all this, but the fact is that I suffer from an emotional paralysis that would make Holden Caulfield envious.
I'm probably being a bit hard on myself. I don't feel any great sort of urge to be in a couple right now. Sometimes I do, I admit, but the lack thereof is not a cloud in my life. I think that eventually, within the next 2-3 years, I'll get married to someone. It'll be quick and nice and this time of my life, a sometimes delicious and sometimes grueling uncertainty, will be over. I just have to have faith that my waiting will pay off and she'll cut through the insecurities and emotionally paralytic resistance and sweep me off my feet. Or she'll be so wonderful that I'm propelled to sweep her off her feet.
Sometimes I just wish she'd hurry up and get here. And other times, I'm fine with waiting it out.