I woke up with a need to look at astrology for the next week, which led down a rabbithole of what I was doing around certain days in the past. I ended up rereading a thing I wrote about 20 years ago. In it, I’d just experienced one of the most awkward moments of my life. It got me thinking a lot, and proceed this ten-page post.
Trigger warning for anyone who doesn’t want to read about my so-called love life.
Much like me, the major boyfriends I’d had thus far were all a little nerdy. For our similarities, we had things to say and share and talk about. I was used to a lot of words and fairly decent communication, at least about the world around us and for our then-life stages. I was used to opinions. I was used to boys and young men who were largely authentic, capable of standing on their own, and fine with looking difficult to the world. But opinion time gets thin, especially when those opinions are based in a fear of women. And the communication turned outward meant communication about the person and our relationship itself was lacking. And sometimes communication honesty leads to revelations that turn out to be painful relationship killers.
At this point – about 20 years ago – I knew I needed a break from word-based relationships for a while. I needed less thinking and more just being. I was tired of just being in my head. I was learning to just enjoy music, free of tedious judgments and analyzation beyond whether or not it sounded or felt nice to listen to, and it was opening up my world. I was concentrating on terrestrial things, working, eating, hanging out with my new cat, being alive and what that meant for me. During this time I was learning I actually did, in fact, have a normal libido and that talking to uptight people and folks who walked on my boundaries or made me anxious all of the time is an all-around esteem killer. After years of essentially being nonstop depressive and lovesick, I was having two-second crushes that meant nothing again.
Enter a new face. We were coworkers, working in the same place but not doing the same thing, so I initially only saw him periodically in tiny slices of time. I don’t remember what about our limited space-sharing led to a crush, but after a while I had occasional feelings about him. I learned young not to trust my crush feelings because they go away pretty quickly, and I’d recently realized that I didn’t particularly connect physical experiences with a target source and was becoming more certain I was asexual, so it was fair to think a crush was an internal make-believe experience and not a reflection of any concrete truths or future interest. But I kept going back to that headspace, and eventually I was questioning what the hell. Did I actually really like him? Was there something actually there?
Not long after I started dropping hints towards flirtation in our now more regular interaction, he seemed to be making stops to talk to me that initially looked like the usual casual friendliness but soon enough turned into him touching me most times he walked by. He knew what he was doing. By this time months had passed since I first wondered if this was more than a brief crush and I’d learned enough to know he was not my usual type. He said stray things that clued me in that he was a bit too young for me and maybe also immature. I assumed he didn’t have a lot going on besides work and school and what sounded like party behavior, which I’ve never really been into and was pretty sick of. Sometimes he looked like he was trying too hard to be a people-pleaser, and I don’t much care for people who don’t have authentic form, who don’t know how to set social boundaries and be true to oneself. Sometimes he looked insecure, like he was echoing toxic masculine ideas to try to fit in and it wasn’t just joking. When music generally came up, he didn’t know what I thought were obvious cultural things, like a song on the radio that I’d heard a billion fucking times before. I didn’t feel like we had much to talk about. And yet, woe is the need to discover.
The opportunity to finally spend time alone together outside of that space came about in a haphazard, unexpected way. It was very last minute and neither of us knew it was happening until just beforehand. In short, he volunteered to drive me home after work. I preferred that to the alternative. I was totally not ready for whatever this was and got flooded with nerves. Fortunately for me, I didn’t live far from work.
It was the most awkward ride ever.
It didn’t need to be. I don’t know what he was thinking. The joke is, well, obviously he was thinking with his dick. It was beyond that. His words, and lack thereof, were strained and weird in a way they didn’t have to be. He didn’t seem capable of “playing it cool” at all. We’d never talked outside of work before but this “conversation” was like we’d never even met before. He seemed annoyed or bothered by anything I said. He literally called me “lame” because, in his opinion, I wasn’t “fun”. Apparently me not drinking or smoking was too boring for him.
A beat after he told me that, he suddenly made an unannounced detour in a direction I definitely didn’t live. The road led to a church. I think he was expecting the lot to be empty but people were there. He parked in a shady spot far from the other cars. As we had approached the church, I casually informed him that I knew where we were and asked what the hell. He didn’t meaningfully answer me, and his answer sounded dumb to me, like he was trying to impress a buddy who wasn’t there. He turned the car off and leaned on the car door, facing me, saying nothing.
…
Okay? AND? The premise was driving me home – why are we stopped?
Another shitty vague half-answer.
He stared at me. I once again questioned this, more directly this time asking if he was expecting us to drink/smoke/whatever to eliminate a choice from the menu. No, he said, he didn’t have anything.
Blink. ???
WTF, bitch, use your words!
It seemed he was expecting me to do all the work here, including inventing a story of what he actually meant but never said. Unfortunately, nope. This situation was not previously agreed on, and he did not communicate with clarity at any point here. Furthermore, a ride is not foreplay. Therefore, fuck this shit. Take me the fuck home.
He turned the car back on, drove into the direction of my home again, and silently seethed for a bit. He was genuinely frustrated. Finally he asked me in a highly defensive manner about the rest of my night, trying to make sure I knew he thought I was “lame” again. As in, it was SO lame and boring that I was going home instead of reading his mind. I was pretty secure as far as who/what I am and what I meant to be doing with my time, so that kind of crap wasn’t going to win me over or manage to work as some form of shitty negging. It felt akin to a cartoonish DARE ad where some dusty pothead approaches a couple of kids minding their business playing at a public park and asks them if they want to try some free mystery pills, only for them to say something about how mommy said don’t talk to strangers, and getting a dismissive L-shaped finger sign to the forehead and a “LOO-ZERS” in response by the pothead. Fuck you, man, I got a whole-ass park right here and before 30 seconds ago it was dipshit-free. Oh no, so lame, whatever shall I do… I guess go home and lamely read a lame book with my lame cat. Fucking loser doesn’t even drink. What’s next, I’m fat and have a unibrow? The bro gods have deemed me a disagreeable prude? What else is new? Don’t I know I’m a-supposta be a demure wittle girl so eager to pwease? Wuv me dadd-ee? Not into it. Ever.
It was fairly obvious he was mad at me already that I wasn’t going to be a mind reader and didn’t smile my way to his dick, but he punctuated this by calling someone to ask them about festivities for the night. Couldn’t have waited five more minutes for that call, had to make sure I heard how “fun” he was.
I told a few friends – who’d heard about this crush situation already – about it in the day after. The agreement was that it was awkward as fuck. Who acts like that? What the hell?
One would think that’s where the story ends, but nope. Re-reading my words about that event brought on how much those few minutes in time showed so much about him and the future.
Things were a little tense at work at first, but whatever feelings I had about the awkward ride home quickly washed away.
It didn’t take very long before one day I broke out in a rash and he grabbed my hand. I’d been up all night, which led to dehydration enough for my skin to break the next day and I fucked up by using scented lotion on my hands. My hands were afire. He took my hand gently and asked about it. And there we go, suddenly we were friends again.
Some days later we were talking about trying again, about actually going on a real date. It took some time figuring out the logistics, but we eventually figured out how to spend a few hours together out in the world. In the interim we spent a little more time together at work but maintained casual friendliness as far as anyone could see or know. I must have decided the awkward ride was a fluke of mismatched expectations and poor communication.
Our first date was a largely normal first date on paper but his communication style was still “insert meaning and intention here” and I still wasn’t too certain about this. The atmosphere was weird, like the air was off. It felt like us being together pulled in weird, dodgy, antisocial vibes from the world towards us. Being fully alone with him was fine, but, still weird. I remember the moon was void of course the entire date. All text I’ve ever read about void of course moons say not to start new or important things during them, that “nothing will come of this”. I mused that technically the date was in secret – because monogamy misogyny I’d experienced before and not being sure about him enough to deal with people inserting their ideas about love and sexuality on our faces – and getting away with things is exactly a void of course moon thing.
Our schedules were still off, so date two we met up in the middle of the day for an hour or two. My nerves were high again and it was also a weird experience where he failed to use his words, though we had somehow gotten more comfortable with each other.
It was probably date three where things got interesting and some real progress happened. This time we met late and just drove around for a few hours. Most of the weirdness had left. We parked for a while near a spot of road I ended up having to drive down regularly in the future, which was very rude of that road. For the lack of conversation, I should have called out the next day for my own peace of mind, but I wasn’t doing anti-sex garbage any more then than I am now, and I went to work with some visible marks. I’d made an attempt to cover them but one was still apparent even with tons of makeup and me intentionally facing my head down all day. I was mad I didn’t own a turtleneck. I remember a 60+ year old lady saw me and open-mouth stared at me before promptly turning away, blatantly shocked that this 20-some had a hickey on her neck. If she’d had pearls, they’d have been thoroughly clutched. I remember at a different point I went to work with my arms entirely covered in dark bruises from trying to protect my life at a concert and no one said shit or gave me vibes or anything, but not a fucking hickey! People are ridiculous. What’s wrong, lady? Jealous? I’m sure I just mentally rolled my eyes.
In any case, we went out a few more times.
I assumed by now that his communication would be trash, but I was feeling weird every time I went into work now. Part of it was being incredibly pent up. I was hoping to pull him into whatever dark, out-of-the-way place but there were always other people around and no real excuse to interact. I was recognizing I was probably on the fast track to trouble, and thinking about whether or not I actually wanted that or if my body was free to lie to me or what. I was also dealing with “wtf I thought I was asexual” conflict while wanting to shoot myself because I could smell his sweat when he got near me and god damn can we leave NOW, I don’t need a paycheck, I don’t need to eat, I can survive on orgasms, I’m fine, everything’s fine, fucking breathe. Paging HR: excuse me, is there such a thing as a pre- harassment form? I spent today committing Thought Crimes when I shoulda been having a Case of the Mondays. I was struggling with whether I actually thought he was attractive or I was just horny and he was there. Or both.
The other part was an increasingly out-of-balance feeling I was picking up at work. There was too much eye contact in one place, too much space where there should have been a person, information wasn’t reaching me the same kind of way, and what’s the pause right there about? Even when absolutely nothing was happening, I felt like I was picking up on energy targeted towards me. I no longer felt invisible. But no one said shit. No one talked to me at all. I could feel that something had occurred, just not what. Obviously it was about him and me. Strangely enough, we weren’t interacting any differently in front of others. Even stranger, we’d agreed not to talk about us dating at work early on. The relief I felt having that conversation because I didn’t want to be “in a relationship”, period, nevermind with this person. Maybe in the future, who knows, but not then or under those circumstances. Whatever this was felt temporary. It was what it was. People didn’t need to know. We were functionally the same at work. They shouldn’t have known beyond insinuation over us being friendly, but we’d been friendly in broad daylight well before the time when I felt the energy shift. It’s possible a coworker or two knew or inferred something and the story developed on its own, but that’s not what I was feeling. It wasn’t a joke or some private boys club thing or people just making shit up akin to “shipping”. There was something else. It felt antagonistic.
After a particularly bad vibes kind of day, I asked him if he’d told anyone about us. He said no, and nothing more. Huh. I don’t believe you whatsoever. People weren’t treating me differently for no reason. I hadn’t done anything different at work. The only people who outright knew about him were my own friends. Typical jokes about me taking a ride home from him wasn’t enough for that much vibes going on.
One day I overheard him having a conversation with a loudmouth coworker (retrospectively, I wonder if that coworker was trying to help me). Somewhere in it he said he was having weekend activities, like he was going to a party or something. “Girls” were mentioned. I processed this as, well, we’re dating, it’s not serious, I don’t really plan to keep doing this, but it would be nice to know something like that for personal health reasons so I can make better-informed decisions.
I asked him about the same period of time an hour later and his answer was “nothing”. As in, his weekend was filled with nothing. Interesting. Very misogyny, much lies, wow. I felt pretty irritated that he had just told someone else one thing and me another. Which reality is true? One can only guess. I felt like he was treating me like his parent, which is gross. DAE ENM? Stupid socialized monogamy poisoning people’s brains where it’s either hardcore progressive monogamy or lies & cheating. Can’t just be honest about intentions and needs from day one. Part of me was also processing whether or not this sort of situation – had he communicated better – actually suited me, if I was better off dating with future intention, if loving someone made a difference, if it was impractical for me regardless.
I stewed on the dissonance there. The feeling at work. The other feeling at work. The shitty communication. The very likely intentional lying going on. How I didn’t see any long term here, that it was mostly physical. I pictured him failing to communicate and lying about something far more important. This guy was going to give me a disease, wasn’t he. God damnit. Well, the assumption of lies was fair enough, and I could make choices based on that for now.
The next time we interacted, he was telling me that he’d call me later to let me know if we were going to go out that night. Sounded fine to me. I would wait for his call.
I went home. I wasn’t home too long when I had a surprise visitor. I went out with her. We were still out close to the time he most likely would have called me and/or randomly shown up at my door, so I called him with the aim to tell him I would be home soon and to confirm whether or not it was still happening. He did not answer the phone. Instead, a friend of his did.
I’d met this friend briefly a week or two earlier. I asked what the hell, where is he? This friend gave me some weird-ass runaround way worse than I ever got from my “date”. He didn’t know and he couldn’t give me options or help me eliminate choices, including stupid ones I threw out. I felt like I was being fucked with by a couple of 12 year olds. Why? What’s the aim here? WHY do YOU have HIS phone? More runaround non-answers. Uhh. k. Well. Tell him I called, I guess.
The phone remained silent as I continued on my journey. I was unsettled by the incredibly weird phone call and not really sure what to do. I called again, and eventually my actual “date” answered. Zero info. I asked him what before was about and what was going on now and I didn’t get an answer, but he said he’d call me back in a bit. Sure. He gave me an exact number, like 20 minutes or something. For some reason I remember picturing him as if he was in a room with other guys, probably smoking, but I can’t remember why.
I went home. At least an hour passed, no call. By now I was sitting on my bedroom floor just waiting for the phone to ring and becoming increasingly livid that this was my reality. I’m not waiting for some fucking god damn disrespectful asshole who can’t even properly tell me he didn’t want to go out hours ago when he was doing whatever the fuck he was doing. He could have told me his plans changed at any point but no, here I was, still waiting. I’m not an option or an afterthought. Do what you say you’re going to do. And what the HELL with the phone shit and all this horrible communication and lying? I eventually had enough and called one more time. I told him “this is fucking bullshit”. He ruined my night and embarrassed me in front of two different people, so fuck him.
Things were TENSE the next time we worked together. I saw him throw something at a wall in anger, obviously more about me seeing him have an emotional display than whatever had just happened three seconds earlier. Aww, poor baby, didn’t get what he wanted after acting like a selfish fucking idiot. :'( Throwing stuff at a wall seems pretty “lame” to me.
He didn’t apologize.
A couple of months later I saw him duck down in his car in the parking lot. He was sitting with another coworker, a lady from a different department. Of course he was. She ducked down, too, so I guess the DL stuff was his norm.
I was having trouble with my boss and dead-end situation anyway, so I decided to quit.
A couple of months after I quit, he caught me online. We hadn’t had too many internet-based interactions so I wasn’t expecting conversation at this point. He volunteered that he wasn’t seeing anyone and made it seem like that was the big selling point. No.
Another month or so later I got an offer to return to that workplace. Boss was giving me a raise, hours I actually wanted, and the job I wanted to do, so I decided to give it a shot.
I don’t know what the fuck manipulation or miscommunication happened, but he – my old date – picked me up for my first day back. I got in and he immediately gestured to the backseat as if he was offering an opportunity. Har har, so funny. It’s 10 in the fucking morning.
A few days later I saw/heard him say something off-putting and ignorant, which he immediately looked to me as if to say “see, I’m so entertaining, yes?” No. That got me chased down to ask “what’s wrong”. I half-lied. The larger truth is that I was irritated with having to work around him again. I think whatever he had said had to do with orgasms but it was framed differently in a way that said he had no idea how women’s bodies work. How did I get here.
Not long after that he did a crude gesture kind of thing at me in view of anyone who wished to see. WTF, dude. What is wrong with you? How did we go from him agreeing not to talk about us to this shit? Why do you think this is okay?
I took a break one day and some coworker I had never met before that day referred to me as his girlfriend. It was like I was his sweet precious girlfriend and omigawd how cute for him, that little dainty flower of a boy. Wrong all around. He had definitely been talking about me. So much for that.
Then he started requesting me to call him. Why would I ever do that? Are you insane? Do you not remember how phone calls have gone here thus far? And we had nothing to talk about in person, so what the fuck? I’m not calling you. He continued to gesture and mouth “call me”.
One of those requests was a sudden “you should call me this weekend” thrown at me. I had a prompt, extremely sarcastic “yeah, riiight” response. He made a fist pump kind of gesture like he just won. The fuck? Did he just fail at sarcasm? Well, that’s his problem.
The weekend happened. During said weekend, I got sent sexts by another man with a women’s underwear fetish who turned out to be a narcissist afraid of femininity and more interested in power/control than real living women. It was 20 years too early to send him the Charli XCX song and make a joke about me being Billie Eilish in the remix.
I got to work the next mutual workday. All was normal until the first break I had, where I was cornered by this boy quietly pouting. Maybe it wasn’t real but it looked like real emotion, like I’d hurt him. “You didn’t call me…” he said to the floor. Nope, I sure didn’t. Much glee. Now you know what it feels like, bitch.
I decided to let this shit go after that. He’d gotten the message. I heard he was leaving soon, I wouldn’t have to see him around anymore, and we were even now.
Unfortunately, closure was still coming.
I went to a concert. It didn’t screw up and go to work immediately after, but I definitely hadn’t had enough sleep before work the next day. It was before the smoking ban so I was extra depleted. I went home in the middle of the day for an hour or two, but it wasn’t enough rest. I was not thinking clearly.
He was standing with his phone texting someone and asked me if I wanted to get pizza with him and his friend (the phone call guy) later. That was new. I heard those words and imagined a pizza box delivery or a restaurant. Free food, huh. I shrugged and agreed for some reason.
We left work together. He drove through the city proper and on the way he stopped at a grocery store. It was frozen pizza. The lies we tell.
We were 20-plus miles from home when he told me he’d been pulled over for drunk driving the night before. I didn’t have any visible reaction but my brain woke up and went “why am I in a car with this idiot?” Apparently the cop, the fucking dumbass asshole, let him go. Just, oh cool, white boy drunk at the wheel, cool, cool, you just keep on driving. Imagine if he’d been any other color.
Who’s to say how long a “moment” really is, but it felt like not a full moment later my date pulled into a convenience store parking lot and promptly turned to me, money in hand. He asked me – get this – to buy “us” alcohol.
The fu.. bi… ARE YOU STUPID? DID YOU NOT JUST TELL ME YOU GOT PULLED OVER FOR DRUNK DRIVING HOURS AGO AND NOW YOU WANT ME TO BUY YOU ALCOHOL WHILE I’M AT MERCY TO YOUR SOBRIETY TO GET ME HOME?
He stared at me like this was totally normal and expected. Clearly I, the over-21 individual here, required to obey his addiction today, and wasn’t it so nice of him to hand me money, too? The whole request was less “can you walk in and get us something to drink” and more “onward, slave, capitalism awaits”.
No. The answer is no. There’s no way. I’m not doing anything like that ever. Literally our first real conversation outside of work was about how “lame” I was for not partying, and I told him outright I didn’t drink at least one other time. That was BEFORE him bragging about being pulled over by a cop because he can’t be trusted while inebriated and fucking drove drunk.
He tried to work me down, begging. Ew. He shifted the fantasy story from “us” to just him. When it was finally clear to him no meant no the first time and he was wasting his time, he turned back to the wheel in anger. Car on, spun out of the parking lot, a bit of speeding except we were in a neighborhood with tons of lights so he got stopped quick. He looked quite angry. Man man very angry he got denied his drug of choice. How dare I. Was I only just there to be the alcohol provider? Asshole. I then watched him morph from “what’s next, he’s gonna hit me?” to his people-pleasing personality while I reminded myself of how I might take the bus home from this neighborhood.
Within minutes of the convenience store we were pulled up to a huge park and he got out. Ooh boy, now we’re doing take girl to mystery nature location. I got out with an attitude of “welp, fuck it”. Next thing I knew his hands were on my ass and we were walking for no stated or otherwise discernible reason. The previous moment in time was not addressed. I only inferred that we were at the park because his friend wasn’t home yet.
Walking uphill, I couldn’t catch my breath. I remembered the smoke and I said something about having seen a concert the night before, and then asked him about live music. He said he’d never been to any concerts, then corrected himself. Oh, he’d seen Weird Al once. Buh dum tiss. I don’t have any negative feelings about Weird Al – I grew up listening to him – but that’s hilarious against my wealth of heavy shit knowledge that was still growing and prioritizing music in my life. Absolute pussy killer. 0/100. You have completely lost. There’s nothing left here. Why am I even here?
We then met up with his friend, and all seemed fine with the now-cooked pizza. For a while my date completely disappeared without telling me he was leaving in the first place, and on return he had a small opaque black plastic bag. Something tells me it had drugs in it. Maybe that exact situation was why I got the phone runaround before. In any case, his friend was as much of a douche in person as he’d been on the phone. Very “I’m a guitarist” energy, like one more woman present would have led to a comical “anyway, here’s Wonderwall.” I remained confused but entertained by how stupid this all was.
We finally left. A couple of short ADHD stops later, we were back in our familiar neighborhood. He didn’t seem especially present, but we were in the middle of things when his phone rang. Final countdown: -1,000,000/100, he answered his phone. Whatever it was, it was more interesting than me with my shirt off. Pretty sure it was someone with alcohol.
That was the closure I needed.
I think I only saw him in passing once or twice in the days after, and that was that.
I decided to quit again.
A few weeks before I left, a coworker who had been giving me weird-ass inconsistent vibes all through our employment history together (to the point that I joked she was into me, but I was seriously like, was she trying to ask me out and just doing a god awful read-between-the-lines job of it? Bi panic at its finest, I guess. Who knows. She was always weird.) but especially during the few weeks I felt something was awry at work tried to con me into a conversation I didn’t feel like having where she essentially revealed word had gotten around about the two of us dating before. It was the final confirmation that he had lied to me about us being a “secret” (my word). And instead of talking to me then and asking me then what was real, she chose wrong. I didn’t ask – merely observed that she cared about this – but it seems she was becoming more than simply friendly with him and very well might have been doing so prior to us dating earlier.
I got one more dig in my soul one day while I was on break. An older coworker from a far-off department walked in with determination to let us breakroomers know men were terrible. She said she’d been trying to date but men were gross and boohoo, she just wanted someone to take to the proms and farmers markets of life and yucky men so yucky and why her be such victim of yucky men. The other lady coworker with us – the above person – agreed and empathized. Pretty sure I gave her side-eye. Bitch what, why you lying? If it wasn’t me or my former date, I’d heard about other boys getting the between-lines treatment, and she’d told me things to essentially say she couldn’t wait to date someone. My immediate instinct, had I not been at work, would have been to argue the initial statement including that one needs to be much more clear and loud about boundaries/needs, including not putting up with bullshit, then questioning why this older coworker was equating sexuality with being gross and what in the conservative self-hating fuck is that shit. But I was at work. These were the same group of people who got weird around me because I merely rode in a car and talked sometimes with some boy for all they knew. If I said anything, it would have been twisted and turned against me. So, nevermind, go ahead and suffer. “A groan of tedium escapes me, startling the fearful. Is this a test? It has to be. Otherwise, I can’t go on” probably ran through my head.
Despite quitting and being away from those people, I still got unwanted third-party updates about him for another couple of years. He ended up getting weird-ass vibes coworker pregnant. So much for men being gross. I knew she was lying. The fuck you do, lady.
I haven’t seen him since I left that place, but I saw her and her kid in the wild maybe ten years later. It was an extremely poorly timed thing so nothing was said.
The thing is, for all of this, I knew the second I met him that he was going to be trouble for me in particular. I felt it off and on for months as the crush was developing. I consciously understood we were not compatible, that I needed different things from people socially, before anything had happened. I literally told people close to me that he and I had no future, and I made fun of him and myself for related reasons. And yet. It was like my soul said “you know, this would really piss your sexually uptight ex off, and you need this to maintain balance in the universe” and wouldn’t let it go, even though that’s not actually what I was thinking. Retrospectively, maybe the long period of building tension and repeatedly hitting a “no, I should not proceed” wall is how I ended up in that mess, self denial being how it is with anything else. Could have quit. Could have taken a weekend to go find a stranger. Could have pursued underwear boy. Anything else. Nope, had to be meltdown toddler lying to me and putting on airs and wasting my time and making me have the realization of how important communication and trust actually was to me. Of seeing for myself what abusive people look like before any abuse actually happens. I also learned I wasn’t tr00 ace but somewhere on the asexual spectrum, way before I ever knew there was a spectrum or that microlabels were a thing, so there’s that.
It’s also remarkable about how those first minutes knowing each other outside of the context of work said everything. He all but told me his priorities were partying. He didn’t communicate well or at all. He was self-centered and didn’t care what I felt/thought/wanted and just did what he was going to do without asking. Who knows how he would have been had I not noped out. I didn’t actually think I was in danger but yet his sudden mood switches, including the pseudo-violence, suggested otherwise. It was all there early, and yet he put on positive progress airs long enough for me to think it was just bad timing and a weird situation. Nope.
The agreement to not talk about us also turned out to be false. I don’t think he was actually seeing someone else in the 2-3 weeks things were happening the most between us, but it’s fair to say he was sending out feelers surrounding that time. I’d guess he brought it up so I didn’t dampen his opportunities (in his head, not in reality). But then he – or someone, and he must have just went with it – talked about me anyway. That contradictory limbo vagueness was there before, all during the crush phase, and again during that first ride in his failure to define what he literally meant.
I recently heard or read someone talking about relationships that develop with a lot of anxiety or butterflies, of persistently feeling nervous or worried while getting to know someone new. It can be misinterpreted like it’s nervous excitement and lust. Turns out a lot of that can be danger signals, of one’s gut saying “do not proceed”. On reflection, the best relationship I’d had thus far didn’t have that anxiety vibe. I knew very early that I wanted to keep knowing him and there was no question besides logistics. Whatever nerves I had were brief and persistently washed away in the confidence that I’d made a wonderful choice. We communicated well from the start. I was certain about him and what he looked like to me in the context of my life at that time and under those circumstances. There was no freaked out feeling anywhere. I was never seriously concerned about my safety. When people talked poorly of him, I would never have played along, nevermind referred to him poorly on my own. And yet I was calling my date with a colorful nickname, back and forth constantly about whether I really wanted this, and when I was in it things still felt weird and I still felt anxious even after seemingly positive progress towards assumed connection. I thought, at times, I was just plain anxious and I needed time, but retrospectively, with all this added up without all the in-between distractions, my gut was telling me to get out of there minute one. But I went with logical, and logically I understood I needed to just go with the flow for a while, even if the flow lead to rapids.
The astrological transits I had during the first ride was Uranus in Pisces transiting my 6th house square my 9th house Mercury (my mood disordered coworker randomly drove me to a church? really?!), Mars entering my 9th house opposite my 3rd house Uranus (same!! wtf!!), and Saturn in orb of square my natal Venus. That day both the Sun and Moon were aspecting my Moon, too. Fast forward to our first date: Node exactly conjunct my Descendant literally that day, Saturn at the same degree (not sign) aspecting my Ascendant/Descendant and still in orb of square my Venus. Astrology is pretty wild sometimes.
I was looking at that because of Mars, which will be opposite my natal Uranus soon while also conjunct transiting Uranus. Between my 3rd and 9th houses. And here I am, writing. I was then reminded that Jupiter is now approaching square my Venus. Something in the air, I suppose. Work out the last of whatever is left of processing those times, baseline, and go forth newly informed for whatever the next thing is. It’s been so long that my idea of myself and priorities have changed and it’s incredibly unlikely that something like that would happen again, but I’m forever suspicious of transits echoing into the future. It doesn’t work like that, but, in a sense, things do echo, and here we are.