Just a week ago things were looking in the up with L. He seemed like my best candidate with things getting stronger each time we met. I told you about our last date when we went to the cinema, dinner and then back home. Unfortunately last week he had night shifts so we couldn’t arrange to follow soon after.
During the we we exchanged some messages and talked about meeting soon. However I couldn’t pin him down. He did told me the last two nights he’d been out drinking a lot and having a great time.
On Saturday we were chatting on Messenger when all of the sudden I got this line “love is in the air”. That could only mean something really good or something really bad.
After a bit of digging for details he told me he was about to delete all his profiles as they were of no use for him. Then he told me he’d met this guy just on Wednesday and he was falling in love with him. Damn! my best prospect had just vanished. We didn’t chat much longer, but I did let him understand I had been having some hopes.
He even seemed to be making some longer term plans, so when he told me it was a big shock.
So there I was, on Saturday, with no plans and just having learnt L was no longer on the cards. I felt sad and lonely. But in all honesty I couldn’t tell whether my sadness was due to him or to the fact that I had just taken a step backwards towards finding someone who is more than just a date or a friend with benefits.
It made me think about whether I’ve been getting something wrong. I’ve been dating multiple people trying to see what could come out of any of them in the hope at some point I’d find something more permanent. But maybe that’s meant my energies have been spread too thinly over too many, maybe missing the chance to deepen any of the relationships. Maybe I should only date one guy at a time? But then I may be missing the chance to meet someone else for who I’d feel sparks. But just maybe, if nothing more happened was because it was not meant to be.
On the other hand L was in my shortlist, so he always had priority over anyone else. I never missed a chance to meet him because I was meeting somebody else. But maybe I didn’t pay enough attention? As a good friend of mind reminded me, you need to really go for it, in the same way I meet a lot of people, other people do too and they could just find someone else any moment.
Although it is true that I never really felt a big deal for him, I thought he’d be a good match and although I really enjoyed meeting him the magic was perhaps not there, he was not in my thoughts all the time. And probably the same thing happened to him. I was hoping that maybe with time something more intense would come out. Probably it was due that one of us would end up finding someone else. In the land of plenty you must be fast.
So as it stands now I only have F, of who I really am not sure, and S. F has been in HK for two weeks now and won’t come back for another.
I’ve only met S twice and he’s been rather busy at work, so we couldn’t meet as planned on Sunday for the Chinese New Year celebrations in London. But I think we clicked more than with any other besides H.
I have a good feeling about S and I am looking forward to a third date with him. Maybe I should learn some lessons and concentrate on him more, but it is difficult to get some of his time. I still need to find out whether he’s only after friendship anyway.
After all I do have a need to be with someone, and short casual encounters do fill some of the void. On Saturday I was feeling quite down and ended up staying in rather than going out. But I did meet someone new on Friday and B again on Sunday…
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Treating your prospective BFs as ‘candidates’ applying for a desirable position seems to be taking out all the magic of dating, falling in love, doing the things on an irrational level, just because you can and you feel like doing them… . You seem to be gladly denying yourself the freedom of love for the utilitarian aspect of an LTR.
You may really want to reconsider this.
And you may want to take your time, lighten up, put a smile on your face and go for the guy, whom you happen to like most, even though he might not be the one whom you may find the single most suitable candidate.
Great BFs are not found. They are made.
One more thing. Even though you may not be giving them all the pertinent details, most people are well, like dogs. They feel that your interest in them is actually more of a superficial self-interest. They feel that you are not into them as people but into your own concept of a qualified BF. They know that you will never be loving them for who they are, but your own (self)-interest in them. If there is anything that puts guys off, this is that notion of self-interest.
Get it out of your system, cool off, and start anew.
SC
No post comment here, just wanted to say you have a cool blog
SC – I don’t think it’s quite like that. I haven’t been treating dates as candidates to be matched against a set of criteria. There have been three people I’ve fallen in love during the last year, and none of them clicked almost any of the boxes.
I very much rely on the “chemistry” between us to appear, that’s what will make a bf. Obviously there is some criteria like living in the same country or not leaving in 6 months that would make me discard someone but that’s it really. I’m not looking a bf like who’s comparing some online shopping at all.
When I say I’m not sure about someone is because even though a few things seem right and we seem compatible in a number of things I don’t quite see the chemistry there, and in some cases, like L, I tried to see if that may be something that may appear with time. It’s not that is not quite matching some pre-defined characteristics I’m trying to find, it really all comes down to chemistry and feelings.
Stephen – Thanks! 🙂