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.
