Wednesday, August 10, 2005

Intuition answered the phone

I had talked with Vancouver since his call after our date. I knew he was in Germany for work but not for how long. Frankly works been a mess so the thought hadn't crossed my mind to e-mail him out of politeness. A week had passed before I paused to think about the situation. Frankly, my conclusion was that if I couldn't take a few minutes to think about him, this really wasn't something that was appealing to me.

He's a nice guy. He's the kind of "safe" man you can date and marry. Sadly it lacks excitement. And though there's no guarantee that married life will stay exciting, I suppose you ideally still want a man who has that potential. Starting out boring says something about personality and compatability to me.

So I let another week go by without doing anything. Given that he was out of the country, I figured I'd hear from him eventually. I was on my cell phone when the home phone rang Sunday evening. As I came to the phone, I wondered who was calling. In a moment of clarity, I realized that it might be Alan, so I chose to let the answering machine pick up.

I was right. "Thank God!" is what went through my mind. I didn't want to have another droll conversation pretending to be entertained. I also wasn't ready to discuss next steps. Hearing his message, however, I knew I needed to respond. Monday, I composed an e-mail expressing my honest doubt in my ability to keep up with a long distance relationship where neither of us know much about the other. I didn't assign blame and chose my words carefully so as not to imply that I am not attracted to him. Moreover I explained that I need someone close by who I can spend time with. That wasn't going to happen anytime soon in this scenario and I was skeptical it would work.

Yesterday, I received his reply. He was very gracious and admitted he also had to think about next steps and was at a loss. Maybe he was just saying that out of disappointment, but it's fine. I have to be honest with myself. I deserve to be happy, not just content. I feel bad. I feel like I should have tried harder, meaning called and given it a couple more dates. But why when I felt so little attraction and felt that maybe I was doing this more for my parents than myself. I need to get past that and do what I want.