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Saturday, May. 01, 2004 - 2:15 p.m. STAYING HOME It rained the entire day yesterday. I got soaked several times going to and from my car. Earlier this week, my father and I were planning a fishing trip south of New Orleans this weekend. Our plans depended upon how the weather would be. As a result, our fishing trip was called off, and I had no reason to travel to New Orleans this weekend. Of course, I could have found another reason to go to New Orleans. Jazzfest is going on, and I know that preschool teacher would have been willing to go with me if I decided to go. However, I am beginning to wonder how long I can keep this charade going. Yes, I want to date this woman, but I am not sure I really like her. I only want to date her for the experience, but if I do not like her, the experience will only go so far. Dating a woman you do not like is not the same as dating a woman you do like. I have no desire to express any physical affection toward her. I may as well be spending time with a cousin.
Certainly this woman has attractive qualities in her personality. She is fairly intelligent, interesting, very down-to-earth, compassionate, etc. I esteem these qualities, but despite them, something just does not make me head-over-heels for her. As special as she is, I know there are other women out there with these same qualities. At the same time, such women are difficult to find. What makes her most attractive is the fact that she finds something attractive in me. Though I have not told her anything about my bipolar history, she sees many of my old-fashioned values and seems to respect them. But then again, if I stop short-changing myself, I think I might realize that many other women, if they got to know me, would be attracted to these same qualities. If I continue to lead this girl on, I can only see this problem blowing up in my face. I recently read an article in a men’s magazine that said that dating any woman just for the sake of dating could actually hurt your ability to meet women. What happens is that your lack of romantic interest in this woman eventually comes across, and your lack of interest begins to makes you unattractive to her. She begins to question whether you are capable of bringing her the affection and happiness she expects and then she realizes you are not capable. In a matter of time, she will want to break the relationship off, leaving your ego hurt in the end. As a result, your self-confidence is weakened, and the dating scene only further disenfranchises you. On the other hand, I am fully expecting such a letdown, so if it happens, I do not believe I would be all that hurt. Furthermore, at this point in my early-dating career, the experience I get dating her is probably worth the time I spend with her. This eighty-mile buffer zone between Baton Rouge and New Orleans is also useful, as I do not have to spend much time with her, so she does not really know everything going on in my life such as other women I might be dating. In effect, I can keep our relationship simply based on nice long-distance phone-conversations, with our meeting once every couple of weeks. Things do not appear to be rushed, so for right now, I can probably drag this out as long a possible. As for other women I can date, I do have two other prospects, but both have their negatives as well. The first is a pharmacist in New Orleans who is a sister of a friend of the bipolar woman I know at work. The first knock against her, of course, is that she lives eighty miles away. Very much like my situation with the preschool teacher, it is hard to have a relationship with somebody when you cannot see her on a regular basis. I got the pharmacist’s phone number from my co-worker, but I have yet to call her. My main issue is finding a good time for me to go to New Orleans to date her. The second prospect is this 22 year-old community-college student from e-harmony. Her strength is that she lives in Baton Rouge, but her weakness is a little bit of immaturity I have detected in my communications with her. Based on a photograph I saw, from a physical appearance vantage point, she certainly has a nice body. She and I have exchanged a few e-mails after which I asked her for her phone number. She responded that she did not want to give me her number, saying that she thought it was too soon. While I fully understand her vigilance, I have to at least act hurt by her lack of desire to send me her number. So I wrote back stating the limitations of getting to know someone through e-mail and that I saw nothing wrong or unsafe with just talking to someone on the phone. I then said that I would continue contacting her through e-mail. However, I said I would never ask for her number again, and she would have to just give it to me whenever she feels she is ready. In my situation, since I have already asked for her number, any excessive e-mail communication with her could make me appear as though I am begging for her number. To drive the point home to her, after I received her e-mail in response, I have told myself that I would e-mail her back no sooner than a week after each e-mail she sends. My goal would be for me to play on her impatience and frustration by the fact that I really do not seemed bothered and anxious to talk to her. She would then second-guess her decision not to send me her number. As I could have predicted, she sent another e-mail yesterday night, right before a weekend when she is going to be alone, just to see if I was still interested in her. I do not plan to answer her until Monday night, after her lonely weekend is over. The problem I have with this girl is that we are likely to have very little in common, yet I am probably going to be very physically attracted toward her. On top of this issue, because she lives in Baton Rouge, if anything does develop, I will probably have to spend some measure of time with her. If she is good-looking, I will probably want to spend that time with her. If this were the only reason I continue to date her, I would only be fooling myself. Looks are not a good reason alone to have a relationship with someone. Nevertheless, I will approach this whole thing with an open state of mind. She and I may have more in common than I think. Yet despite these prospects, I will be alone this weekend again. I have work to do around the house, so I should stay busy. There is the possibility I could drive to New Orleans tonight and go fishing with my dad tomorrow if he feels the weather would be good enough, but that situation is unlikely. I may end up going to a baseball game with that old man from the cruise tomorrow. Either way, I am not too hurt by being alone this weekend because not doing much is providing me much-needed rest. |