Why Do I Feel Weird When Things Go Well With A Guy?
Always the skeptic.
What does it say when happy, giddy feelings feel foreign? And confusing?
Jeremy just left my house. I’m on cloud nine and I have the dopiest smile on my face as I type this.
After my last date with Jeremy, my heart was all a flutter. I forgot what it felt like to be smitten with someone and not run through the list of red flags immediately after a date. With him, I find more reasons to fall for him, not less.
This is the first guy, ever, that I haven’t plotted the breakup before the relationship starts. He’s the first guy who slept next to me. He’s the first guy that makes me think “oh my Godddddddddd he’s soooooo dreammmmyyyyy marryyyyy meeeee” like I’m 16.
The downside to this feeling is extreme insecurity. My assumption is Jeremy’s banging loads of other chicks and I’m another fun time. Most men make their intentions clear. Jeremy’s divorce is relatively fresh and he recently moved to California from Canada. Will he want to bang fresh woman meat?
I’m also used to guys texting me often. Jeremy began with loads of texts but he was vacationing with his son on a fishing trip. He had free time. Now that he’s back, he’s juggling co-parenting with some project director of something-I-don’t-know-something. With messages that are few and far between, my brain assumes he’s out dating other women.
Meanwhile, I’m dodging Jonah after he spent a few hundred dollars on my birthday dinner. A few dates in and he’s already buying me expensive dinners and commenting on marriage.
It’s Thursday evening. Jeremy offered to drive out and pick me up and take us to a video game arcade I took Rod months ago. My strategy is that competition causes heart-pounding excitement and loads of opportunities for random touching. I tell him it’s more of a weekend thing because it’s far away but he offers anyway.
The next part of my strategy is my outfit. I’ve dressed provocatively (uh, slutty) every other time but today, I’m going for sweet. I have a flowery top and tight jeans. I need to show that I’m not just whore-material, but also girlfriend-material.
Which goes out the window when I accidentally get makeup on it. In a panic, I put on a white eyelet frilly crop top I bought years ago and never wore. Since I starved myself all day, my stomach looks flat enough. To keep him on his toes, I put on colored contacts. What’s more exciting than a different eye color (other than a whole different woman)?
Jeremy arrives and looks handsome as ever. An athletic top with a hood and khaki shorts. He’s got on a baseball hat. I want to eat his face he’s so damn hot.
When he realizes how far the arcade truly is, I point out a brewhouse right ahead. Inside, it has a large counter around the bar. This is my kind of place. I hate sitting at a table when I’m on a date because it’s so formal and you’re on a time limit with a server checking on you. The bar area seems more informal, fun, and allows for easy leg touching.
The evening is amazing.
We talk nonstop. Jeremy allows me to tease him about his shitty LinkedIn picture. His kids keep calling and I’m the cool date who shoos him outside to take their calls. I can’t remember what we talked about because we chatted about everything.
At one point, Jeremy says that I bring “everything to the table”. I ask, with the disclaimer that I’m not fishing, what on earth I bring to any table. He gushes about how smart I am based on my writing (I’ve got some mad texting skills) and how I knew the conversion between pounds to kilograms.
Maybe it’s a low bar for intelligence but considering I ended a relationship with Vance because he continuously tried to make me feel dumb, I’ll take it.
I’m quite drunk and hopped on emotional endorphins when we leave. In his truck, I order him to let me suck his dick. “In the parking lot? In the open?” he asks incredulously. Oh honey, have you not been whoring yourself in vehicles as I have? I verify that his windows are tinted and I continue on my oral way for a bit without finishing. I need him to view me as spontaneous and fun.
On the car ride back, I let it slip that I found his ex-wife online. I tried to cover that I wasn’t trying to be a psychopath; just as a female on the internet, you need to know who you’re dating, and in the absence of finding his social media, I found hers.
Thankfully, he didn’t seem to mind. In hindsight, I’m floored. It’s creepy when a guy tells me that he scoped me and my ex-husband online. I guess the difference is that as a woman looking, I’m trying to spot a murderer. A guy looking means he might be the murderer.
We get back to my place and being on my period, I assume I’ll just give the best blowjob of my life. Jeremy is having none of that. He’s kissing me and telling me I’m never to be with another man (um, yes sir). I make a wisecrack about the women he’s with, but that leads to a joke about his harem and that I’m the lead woman. That doesn’t fully answer if he’s banging other women but since I didn’t explicitly ask, I guess I deserve the vague answer.
The blowjob leads to me ripping out a tampon and having sex in my shower. Jeremy is struggling to not slip so I jump out, grab my bathmat, and tell him to fuck me on the floor next to my sink. I figure it’s better than period sex in my bed and he won’t slip to his death in my shower. I can always replace a bathmat.
Jeremy keeps pounding away at me doggy-style while his leg smushes mine. Could I adjust it or tell him to move his leg? Yes. Did I ask? No. The next day my leg looks like someone took a baseball bat to it.
When he’s done, I cram in another tampon while he crawls back to my bed. I hastily throw on shorts because I’m certain a white string dangling from my vajayjay isn’t appealing.
We make more jokes about his harem (no, really bro…are you sleeping with other women or not?). I don’t know what else we talked about because I’m in post-sex bliss, basking in the nakedness of a man I absolutely adore.
Before he leaves, Jeremy wants Round 2. He tells me to find a towel, which isn’t ideal since mine is all light-colored. I find an old one and hustle back, stopping only to rip the dry tampon out of my angry girly bits.
Gentlemen, if you knew the pain of ripping out a dry tampon, you’d give us medals of heroism.
When that’s done, it’s time for Jeremy to leave. It’s a work night and he’s a bigwig at his company. As I get water and cookies for the road (with lights, it’s about half an hour to forty-five minutes for what is a 15-mile trek). We do a cursory check of when we can see each other again but it’s rough with our custody schedules. It looks like it’ll be almost two weeks before we can hang out again. I offer to swing by at lunch during the week, which Jeremy thinks is a good idea.
I hope it’s a good enough of an idea for him to ask when his crazy work schedule allows it on days he works from home.
This feeling is foreign to me. I can’t remember being utterly smitten, wanting to stare at someone’s face, and not listening to a word they’re saying because inside I’m bursting with butterflies.
Everyone and I mean everyone, had red flags and flaws on the first date. By the end of the first week, I’m typically plotting my escape route. If a guy lasts a month, I’ve already found his replacement.
I’m enough of a cynic to know this could end at any moment. Jeremy might eighty-six me as I did to many guys for the past two years. Karma is enough of a bitch to make that happen. I tell myself that I’m happy to finally experience this emotion.
I didn’t think it was possible. I thought I’d have to manage my expectations and find someone “suitable” or “acceptable”. The bar is elevated and if I don’t feel this giddiness with someone at the start of a relationship, then I’m out. This isn’t draining my energy as those other dates did.
This relationship, whatever it is and however long it lasts, is making me feel alive.
