#today in nonproblem problems

[invisiblerambler]

My Life is a Cosmic Joke

I need to vent about this, doing it publicly is probably stupid but it's happening anyway, more beneath the cut.

so that networking event I went to last week, someone that I met there offered to give me a tour of his office where he's interning for the summer. I said yes because it's a place I may want to work someday and I was curious. it's a tech company I knew they would have tech company offices. very quickly after I got there I realized this was a thinly veiled pretext to a date. I didn't really care, I figured that would probably be the end of it.

Through planning this visit this guy got my phone number because I texted him to let him know I arrived so he could get me from the lobby standard stuff. a couple days later he texted me asking a follow up question about plans I had said I had made. the plans didn't end up happening, but now there's a dialogue going.

earlier this week he invites me to something else professional. I say yes, maybe this time against my better judgement because I assume maybe this is a group thing. reader it was not in fact a group thing, and I end up going on this tour with him and the guy that worked there. totally fine, the company was interesting and it was a really good learning experience I would not have otherwise gotten.

He had taken a ride-share to this place and I had driven, so he asks me what I'm up to afterwards because it's early evening now. I say I'm planning on heading home but I can drop him somewhere, he's only in town for the summer as of now so he doesn't have a car here.

on the drive it becomes very clear he wanted this to be a dinner date. no plans just hoping I would say yes.

I gently decline saying I have to get home (I do kind of) but I leave the possibility open for future interactions.

I'm driving him back to his office, across town during LA rush hour so it takes a while.

This gives him plenty of time to grill me about my dating history, my life and if I am currently interested.

I VERY RECENTLY had mostly decided to not date men. I haven't dated in years, and absolutely have not dated a man since high school, so whatever out of practice is I'm beyond that.

throughout this drive it is incredibly clear this man is down bad for me. he acts shocked that men do not regularly show interest in me, and I explain most men are not comfortable with my level of ambition.

he says that is what attracted me to him, that I know what I want. all of this is super flattering, but I am still unclear if I am even interested in dating. theoretically, absolutely but now that the opportunity basically has been dropped into my lap I am scared shitless.

when I said that I wanted to pursue a creative career he told me that I could do that while he made the money. he asked me what I thought of essentially being a stay at home wife, and I balked at the idea. and yet I'm still entertaining this.

I have nothing good to say for myself other than I am somewhere in-between blushingly flattered and horrified I am even entertaining anything with a man who repeatedly prodded and questioned my lack of desire to have children.

he always seems to say the right things which is infuriating and things I would normally have as hard nos I'm not ruling out. I am not ready for anything serious, and he accused me of not being able to commit, but I had just begun entertaining the idea of dating again.

the attention is nice I won't lie and pretend it isn't but also being confronted with the reality of dating so soon after I even had the thought of wanting to even open myself up to that again!

my extremely carmy coded reaction is to shut it down, my life is too messy, my trauma too unresolved, I'm not even sure I'm attracted or interested in men

I have never dated people I wasn't friends with, not seriously anyway, and not since high school. I know there's a world in which I just let this play out and hit the eject button at any point I choose (with compassion for him in mind) but this is so far outside my comfort zone that the idea makes my skin crawl.

I know that accepting the attention, going on a few dates and breaking it off is fine! it just doesn't feel fine.

I also want to use the excuse of my career, yes I moved here to live, but I also moved here for a job, for my career. dating is for when i've graduated and made my first shaky steps in the direction I want.

I know life isn't that cut or dry or easy. I just don't want to lose focus. I'm aware it's not an all or nothing and I am not wired to abandon my ambitions.

I wrote all of this just to have my weird and messy feelings about attracting the attention of a man for the first time in nearly a decade, and being completely unsure of how to proceed.

a man being down bad for you actually can feel bad sometimes!