love: is being too available a turn off?

 

Photo Credit: weheartit.com

 

Right on schedule! It is Sunday, and I'm posting on this blog. Let's all hope and pray and cross fingers (and toes, arms, legs, whatever else an be crossed, etc.) that I stick to this.

 

So this begins part one of the whirlwind tornado that has been my love life as of second semester.

This story starts off similarly to the other "connections" I've made at parties but ends very differently. I know what you're thinking: This girl really needs to start making sober connections. Yes, yes, I know all this. This realization has hit me but more on that in future posts, I promise! But back to the story. It went a little like this:

Boy meets girl. Girl flirts with boy. Boy and girl kiss. Boy asks for girls number. Girl doesn't realy think she has any feelings for boy the next day. Boy texts girl constantly. Girl hates texting and starts to dislike boy. Girl explains she does not want a relationship. Boy respects this but still keeps texting girl. Girl is over it.

 

Very, very over it. Sick of it. We can conclude that I'm not any more of a fan of texting after that.

 

For the purposes of anonymity, we'll call him Mr. Too Available. When I met Mr. Too Available, I thought he was nice. I mean, he was cute and seemed like an interesting guy. Part of me now wonders whether I thought he was interested or just interested in me. It sounds like a shallow thing, but to be brutally honest, we all like attention from the opposite sex. There's no denying that. I mean, really... please feel free to disagree with me but I don't think I'm just talking about me here.

The morning after we kissed, Mr. Too Available was texting me throughout the day... and the next day... and the next. I could feel a burning in my stomach and a feeling as if I wanted to push him farther and farther away from me. We had known each other for maybe two days and he was already asking me out to dinner. I didn't even know the guy!

A friend said to me, "But that's what dates are for! To get to know him." I simply said to him, "Yeah, but dinner? That seems a little too serious way too soon." I texted Mr. Too Available back and told him that I was busy that night but we should grab coffee at some point instead.

To be honest, the coffee date never happened. After ignoring one of his texts and no contact for two days, he sent me a long message explaining that he completely understood that he was busy and was willing wait for me to make time for him. This made me slam on the breaks even harder. "Willing to wait?" I mean... we've known each other for less than a week. It was just all too fast! I barely knew the guy and he spoke like a candidate on the Bachelorette or something. It was just... cheesy. I diplomatically replied that I wasn't in a place for a relationship and if we did hang out, it should be only as friends.

 

And the thing is, at the time, I wasn't. I have a lot on my plate right now and making time and room for someone new was not on my agenda. It just felt like he was taking a pillar and ramming it over and over into the precious walls I've spent years building up. It didn't feel like he was courting me; it felt like an invasion.

Now I sound like some dysfuntional single woman, and yes, I've accepted that I am.

 

On top of that, I had heard from a lot of people that know him well that he wasn't necessarily a nice guy and treats women like shit, but that wasn't what made me so skittish about him.

But with all of the Mr. Too Available drama, it made me start to think about how we relate to men. We reject them if they're too unavailable but when they're too available, the outcome is the same. Is availability a turn off? With Mr. Too Available, I felt like he was chasing after me when I hadn't even started running (until I really did start running). It was too... forceful. But I guess I've always been a fan of the long courting of the good friend turned lover type. Is it wrong to want to get to know a guy without the pressure and expectation that things will become romantic?

 

If I had agreed to get to know Mr. Too Available, I feel like there would've been an expectation that it would turn into more from the beginning, at least on his part. I didn't want myself or him, for that matter, through that -- discomfort on my point and most likely disappointment on his.

So if men are too available and too unavailable and we still don't want them, what is "just right"?

 

I think another reason I couldn't dig Mr. Too Available was because, and I'll be honest. I do love a good chase.

 

My name is J, and I am a dysfuntional single woman.

Oh dear, lord...

 

-- J