Day Nine - Backsliding

Guess what happens when I feel nervous? I fall into old habits to feel safe. It happened tonight. I regret it, and regret more that to continue forward I'm going to have to appear bipolar. Let me explain.

Tonight I went out, just as friends (don't look at me like that, I'd date him if I could) with a guy who we'll call Todd. I don't say anything about being friend zoned because I honestly enjoy his company so much that I'm afraid to mess with it. We have so much fun, I'm not giving it up, not even for a shot at something more.

He makes me laugh. Laugh so hard my cheeks hurt at the end of the night. It took us twenty minutes to order our food tonight because we couldn't stop bantering. I can't help but look at him a little longingly. It didn't help when the lovely waitress assumed we were married, or her truly shocked face when he told her we were just friends. I know, lady, it doesn't make sense to me either.

Part of me hopes that maybe he'll change his mind, maybe my awesomeness can win him over. Well that plan pretty much went out the window tonight. See, I used to work at a bar. I can have a mouth like a sailor. I'm not proud of it, but I can keep up with most guys I know. It was a defense mechanism I developed at the bar. If you can talk like them, then suddenly you're one of the guys, and being one of the guys is the safest thing to be at the bar. I don't know why I got nervous. Usually around him I'm not. Usually it's really easy to just be myself, because I'm too busy laughing to think. I think tonight was different because for some reason, I couldn't stop thinking about wanting to hold his hand. And being in the friend zone, those thoughts made me feel small, because he doesn't want to hold mine.

That's right. All I wanted was a hand holding. I'm that girl. I worked at a bar, all the over sexualization of everything wearies me, and it's not what I'm looking for. I just wanted to hold his hand. But suddenly, there were things coming out of my mouth that might make a sailor blush. Even better, it made Todd blush. Not because he hadn't heard people talk like that (he's in the military) but because it was coming out of my mouth. Suddenly I was a deep scarlet. Hey, did you see that? That was me blowing any chance I had of wowing him with my girly awesomeness. I might as well throw on some BCG's and grow a mustache.

What's worse, although I sent him a text explaining a lot of this (not the whole, I want to hold your hand thing but the whole 'I do stupid things when I fall into old habits' thing) and he said he understood, the point remains that the next time we hang out, it's going to seem like I'm bipolar. Because the real me is more innocent than that. The real me does actually blush. The real me wants to hold hands. And I want him to know the real me.

So I must push forward, and be true to myself, no matter how bipolar the back and forth makes me look. To pressing on, no matter how silly, stupid, or insincere it may appear.