pillow talk gone awry

One of the scariest parts of a “relationship” can come at any point. It can start out as a joking observation or a planned “we need to talk” or maybe as some pillow-talk gone awry. What I am referring to is the “where is this going” talk. The dreaded relationship conversation that forces you to take a discriminating look at where you are and where you hope your partner is. At the risk of sounding arrogant, I was fairly confident that the guy was head over heels for me. He came on strong in the beginning and has continued to show me growing affection and attachment. So when we had this talk last night, I was flabbergasted (yeah, I think this the most appropriate word for my feelings) flabbergasted when he danced around any real sort of answer and left it with a very ambiguous and clichéd “I don’t know.” Were you listening very closely? Could you hear that? That was the sound of my guard being thrown back up; the layers of myself that had started to be revealed were tucked away and went into immediate lockdown. To anyone not paying attention, it was a subtle and almost imperceptible shift; happily the guy is smart and observant, he knew it had happened.

So fast-forward past the rest of the night (hanging out and drinking with his friends) to when we crawl back to his bed in the wee hours of the morning where the conversation is continued. Honestly, I don’t remember the conversation as a whole because—you guessed it—I was a little drunky. But I will sum it up. According to him, he’s scared. He wants to take care of me and doesn’t feel like he’s up to it just yet, he’s insecure (about the relationship, women, life, etc.), he’s afraid of getting hurt and he’s afraid of hurting me. Are these valid excuses? Well sure. And while we are in the very beginning of this relationship, HE is the one who wanted to make things official, and HE is the one who asked me to be his girlfriend.

God, I feel like a huge idiot. I feel like an idiot for hoping for so much and letting myself get carried away. I know better than to let the idealistic and romantic part of me rule a relationship. I’m afraid, scratch that, I’m terrified of commitment and particularly of committing myself to something as unstable as another human being.

Is he “the one?” Fuck if I know. But I do know that he’s a good man and that I would be a fool to push this guy away. How do I know? Well for me, here’s how I know: the little things that bother me about him--well who am I kidding, they still bother me--but I’m willing to let them go because I know that it doesn’t matter if he’s balding or he smokes or he bites his nails or can’t spell. I know those things don’t matter. What matters is that he is attractive and intelligent and I don’t think I’ve met anyone that tries so hard to see me smile.


The question isn't who is going to let me; it's who is going to stop me. -Ayn Rand