Maybe I'm just exhausted from getting little sleep last night and feeling really sad, but I could use some support.
I've [30m] started dating again since my last break up. For context, I've had a pattern of meeting people, looking for the best in them, get kinda excited although realistically I have reservations, and then within 4 months the whole thing blows up.
I'm off the dating apps because they get me down, and I've only dated friends a few times because I get huge anxiety about potentially losing a friendship if a relationship goes south. I get huge anxiety about relationships in general just because of a long string of heartbreak.
It's happening again- I met someone who came to an event I host, and she was so wonderful. Just a beam of light- her optimism matched mine, she is into many of the things I'm into like biking and climbing, and she even led a jam on piano at my event (I'm a musician and it's a jam based on a principle of musical humanism). At the end of the night, we even got to dancing in the middle of the room. That night I asked her to go swing dancing and if she'd want to see a show I was music directing before. She said yes to both and I felt so excited, but also knowing it was just as friends. I wanted to see if we would be compatible before asking any bigger questions.
The next day I sent a message and a meme, but got no response. My thoughts went to "I'm putting too much pressure on this and she's reacting" or "she's not interested" and it made me pretty blue. The next day I messaged her telling her that the place we were dancing is going to be 20s themed just so she knew what to wear if she wanted, and she texted back like normal- all was good again.
That night she came to my show and we both biked up to the Green Mill (the jazz club in Chicago) and we had a great time. In the middle when we went back for a drink, we kissed and I was so excited. We talked and found we had so much in common- our thoughts on the importance of family, community, and how we can lift eachother up to be better than the sum of our parts. We both are active and extroverted, and felt the same how often times we feel like society wants us to shut up and not be extra. We both love the same kinds of beer. We both had struggled with weed- she put it well that her favorite thing about herself is her social skills, but when she's high it all goes away, just like me. She works for a bike company, I used to work for a bike company. She wants to start a hot dog stand, I want to write a coffee table book about city flags. We even planned to go climbing together for a second date.
I honestly felt like I found my one.
But then she dropped that she had a long distance relationship with a guy in Amsterdam, and that they agreed that it's okay to be open in their relationship. She said she wasn't polyamorous, but it was a way that she felt they could be there for each other while allowing their needs to be met. I told her I'm definitely monogamous and had an open relationship before but it wasn't fun for me. That said she said she was reconsidering her current relationship, but I've also been in similar situations where I've waited for someone to leave their situation to be with them and those also didn't go anywhere.
We biked back that night, and we still had a great time, and she messaged me when she got home. I sent her my number over Instagram, but that was the last message I got. I guess id expect a "hey Meep this is __!" Text so I had her number, but I still haven't heard back. I'm trying not to push it so I'm going to let her be the one to initiate the next conversation.
In the meantime I feel like I'm on an emotional rollercoaster. I mean granted I just met her and I shouldn't be so heavily invested or excited. I should be taking it slow but I don't know how. Hell I barely understand what taking it slow means. I should be perfectly fine being alone in my apartment with my cat. I've done so much work on myself to try and be in a place where I can feel again, but now I feel like I'm going back into another heartbreak.
I know a lot of this is also because I live alone and my family is 2000 miles away. I wrote a song that paints the picture- "oh, I'm floating away/ oh, I'm floating away/ the spacewalk went wrong/ I clipped into the other side/ of the moon/ just to know what distance feels like". I want to feel secure. I want to feel at home. But these relationships I find myself in tend to do the exact opposite. I'm back on the high seas and it's a stormy night.
I just wish I could be like a normal person and not feel. Or at least not feel like this.
Feeling is so normal, you are trying not to care so much you hurt over something so tentative and new, yes?
I would say to remember that infatuation is not love, it's the chemical reaction that we get, so that we can happily engage with someone, and hopefully build love. You can't stop it but maybe just remembering it's a reaction not a "feeling" based on really knowing each other will help.
Yea, what stinks is usually I end up in relationships where I don't ever feel that infatuation. I always delude myself that the infatuation will come if only I try harder, but that's a part of why everything implodes.
I feel like the times I've had long lasting relationships, I never felt any immediate excitement, and any time I've felt excited, that's when my heart breaks.
Yeah, it may eventually stick, though - my husband had a string of 2 year relationships, said things always just sort of fizzled out. So I told him no moving in together for 2 years, if we are still happy 2 years after moving in together THEN you can ask me to marry you. We are happy still, dozen years in. He says he knew when he met me. I was happy just to date and not have expectations, but it turned into the most functional and loving relationship of my life. And hot!
So some of it is really fitting together, I'm not sure if you need the infatuation, but do know people mistake it for love all the time. I do personally think you need some excitement, otherwise there's less motivation to stay together. But I didn't get such a rush at the beginning, right? It was more of a slowly building reveal.
Mostly just wanted to remind you that at this point you are reacting to a sort of made-up person in your head, you don't know her well enough to know her. Is nothing to be afraid of, it's normal normal, just something to stay aware of, and I was hoping it would help you to feel better about it.
You seem pretty self-aware, I think you will be fine, and also seem like a cool dude so I don't think you need to worry that this is the only person who'd be a good fit.