Getting relationship advice from the guy you were in love with is… interesting.
I mean, it’s happened more than once but usually when we’re not into each other or I’ve gotten over them or something like that.
I told him I had never really gotten over him.
With it out there, with me conciously realizing it, it meant I could decide next steps.
Obviously, I’m not just sitting around and waiting for a bunch of unavailable men and a straight girl, even if they’re the most fantastic people in the world andI would literally put my life in their hands and trust them to protect me ’til the end of time.
Two minutes after telling him, I subsequently told him that I’m into two different guys and don’t know what to do next. Well, he said this: just pick one of them. And I said this: “What if I-“
You know what… why don’t I just flash back for ya:
I had texted him earlier that night that I had to talk to him and could he come by when he had the chance. He asked if it was okay if we talked on the phone ’cause he was doing some work and couldn’t leave his room. It didn’t work out and in the early A.M., just as I was about to settle in with daydreams of forbidden passion and sexy threesomes, he texts and says his work is over and can we talk now. He says he’ll come to my room and I scramble to my feet but then he says I should come over instead. So, I grab a cardigan and head out.
“So what’s up?” he asks.
“My dance teacher’s dad died yesterday. He told us today.” I explained how I only stayed half the time I was originally meant to and came back to the apartment, crashed on my couch, and cried. “I should feel relieved that at least my dad survived. But instead, I’m constantly terrified that something’s gonna happen to him.” I admitted that sometimes I feel broken. And that he doesn’t. And that that’s one of the reasons I wanted to be with him. “I never got over you.”
He stayed quiet and listened.
“I’m not saying I want to be with you or anything. Just it’s been on my mind and it’ll keep bothering me unless I say something. And now that it’s out, I can move on.”
“I mean…” He half-laughed-half-sighed. “I don’t know what to say.”
I laughed, “You don’t have to say anything. I’m just telling you so that I can process.”
Five minutes later I was saying, “So, my latest predicament: I’m kind of into two guys right now. Not that that hasn’t happened before but there’s usually always that one person at the top who I’m most interested in. But now, I have two.”
“Well, I mean, just date one of ’em.”
“But what if I date the wrong guy?”
“Well, it’s a fifty-fifty chance. But if you date neither of them, it’s a zero.”
“Yeah, I guess.”
“Or you know, you can like maybe wait a week. Talk to both of them and get to know them better and then decide.”
I’m not gonna lie – this was probably the best advice I could’ve gotten. It wasn’t a “jump for it, all in, no hesitation” nor was it a “abandon ship” suggestion either. It had a happy medium. That solved quite a few predicaments for me.
It’s far more complicated than just this but this is all you need to know.
So, I followed his advice.
And I’ve made the choice.
Now, it’s a matter of execution.
But you know how these things work. You push through a milllion lines of code in a program you’ve been working on for days and it slows last minute. And you become tense. You sit there, quiet, tapping your foot, biting your lip, drinking a mug of warm chai with just enough sugar, much less than I like in mine, but you call it perfect. And I go back to the microwave to finish pressing my own tea bag in my own mug – not that the one your lips touch isn’t mine as well – until the dark amber liquid flows into the milk. And the program finishes runing just on time. And you finish your chai right before mine. And it’s sweet. Sweet enough. But patience is a virtue – one that I need to learn.
What did Gomez say? “Can we take it nice and slow, slow?” Or maybe just slow enough that I don’t scare you off… and fast enough that I don’t lose my mind.
