Law v. Life

Better shape up...

Believe it or not, I am pretty cautious with my emotions.  I was watching The Bachelorette and Jason was talking about having "body armor," and I think that is a very accurate way of describing it.  However, when he was talking during the After the Final Rose segment, he confessed that he doesn't have any body armor at all.  That didn't surprise me.  He was able to fall in love so quickly because once he allowed himself to be vulnerable and open at all, there was no turning back.  That's how I am.  I consciously and unconsciously do a lot of things to avoid letting myself be hurt.  And I'm really pretty good at it.  It may sound depressing, but I have been hurt enough in the past that I would prefer not to get close to very many people to the alternative.  But I am also such a hopeless romantic that I can't just deny that part of myself either.  So it is sort of like I am always evaluating situations to determine if I want to make the choice to be vulnerable in case it might be worth it in a particular situation.  Once I make that decision, it's not like it means I'm in love at all; it means I want to let someone know me and I want to know them so that we can discover if there could be something great between us.  However, I choose to be vulnerable so rarely that I feel like guys should know that I almost consider that to be a special gift I'm offering them, and therefore realize that I am going to be hurt if they reject my offer of getting to know me for real.  Of course they probably have no idea that all this is going on in my head and if they did, they would just think I was crazy or at least arrogant to think I was doing them some sort of favor.

For the last five years, with only one brief exception related to dating, I have tended to be pretty extreme in my efforts at self-protection, but then last fall I thought I had met someone who was worth being vulnerable for.  I was wrong.  I never even really opened up to him, but it was the first time in years that I had seriously considered doing so.  I was very tempted to use that experience as an excuse to revert to my closed off, body armor ways.  But I knew that wasn't the response that would make me the happiest, so I fought against it.  And I have been making a conscious effort to be more open and to recognize possibilities.  I've also been trying harder to help guys out rather than creating obstacles or watching in amusement as they struggle. 

Anyway.  There is someone I think I might want to let in.  And he seems like he wants to know me.  And he seems cautious, also, which makes me feel much safer.  So we have been spending more time together and getting to know each other, and every day it makes me feel more willing to be vulnerable and to see if there could be something between us.  However, the slow pace at which this is progressing makes it very confusing.  If a guy doesn't try to sleep with me immediately (or at least kiss me), how am I supposed to know if he likes me?  If there are lots of other very positive indications, but no explicit signs of romantic interest, does it mean he just wants to develop a friendship with me?  I keep telling myself not to get my hopes up or even to accept that if he was interested it would be more clear by now so I should give up, but every time I have those thoughts I simultaneously feel guilty because I want to be a person who is hopeful and willing to be disappointed.  Honestly, I wouldn't change a thing about how this is progressing...if I could only have some assurance that he likes me.  If I could just know that, I would be happy to move very slowly.  But that's not the way it works.  So I just have to be confused, I guess.

I miss shoveling snow

I just spent an hour and a half spraying and pulling weeds.  Mostly pulling.  And no, I didn't spray where I was then about to pull.  I have to say it was one of the most unpleasant things I have ever done.  Like it would seriously have been more pleasurable spending that hour and a half answering three bar exam questions. 

Now I have an enormous pile of weeds on my front walkway and on my lawn.  Because I didn't think I would really be able to convince myself to pull weeds at all so I didn't bother to go buy a yard waste bag.  Speaking of which, there is something wrong with having to pay for a large bag to put weeds in that I then pay to have picked up.  It isn't the same as trash bags or trash cans at all.  Anyway, I guess I need to go buy a stupid bag since I can't just keep making piles of weeds and hoping they disappear.  Especially when some of them have those little bud things that go to seed even after you pull them and then fly around the yard and make new weeds.  I really hate gardening a lot. 

I tried to pay my cousin to come put the weeds in a bag, because I don't want to ever have to touch them again, but he's busy.  Maybe they have protective outerwear at Lowe's.  I just keep shuddering thinking about how unpleasant that was.  I thought I didn't like yard work, but it turns out I really, really don't like yard work.  It is kind of impressive though that I bought my house more than a year ago and I've made it this long without doing any yard work.

An unneeded plan

I think like a lawyer in every aspect of my life.  Let me describe the thought process I had couple of hours ago.

There is a guy who I might like.  He might like me.  But I am trying to assume otherwise so I won't be disappointed.  Because I am going out of town in a couple days I don't know when I will see him again, and I am hoping that somehow I get to see him before I leave, although that is unlikely.  Well, today at work I was absolutely exhausted.  I could hardly keep my eyes open by the end of the day.  As I drove home, I didn't know how I was going to put forth the energy to eat dinner.  But then I suddenly thought, what if he calls me and wants to hang out tonight?  (Now, there is no reason to expect he would do that, but apparently I still felt compelled to think through the possibility).  And I thought, oh no, I'm too tired, but I couldn't pass up the opportunity.  So I decided that if he called and wanted to do something tonight that my response would be, "I would like to answer that with a three part question that, depending on your answers, may have subparts and will ultimately lead to my answer."  (As an aside, I had forgotten all about the obnoxious people in law school with their multi-part, conditional questions until I had that thought, and then I got annoyed just by the memory).  I then immediately thought of the various questions I would ask to try to see him tomorrow instead of today without losing the opportunity to see him at all, to determine why he wanted to hang out (i.e., does he like me?!), and to ultimately say yes to seeing him tonight if it looked like I wouldn't get to see him before I left otherwise, and how to ask this series of questions without him figuring out what I was doing or being annoyed.  In reality, if he called I would say yes in a second, but this was my automatic thought process when the idea of him calling crossed my mind briefly.