Hey, I like you, maybe it wasn’t obvious
I don’t believe being in a romantic relationship is necessary for one’s happiness.
When I was walking to his house, I “suddenly realized” maybe it was a date. It made me really scared because I don’t like dates. In my limited experience with those, I would get all twisted up into a pretzel by trying to, unconsciously following a series of familial, cultural and probably ancestral messages, become something this one person, who I might not even care that much about, I think, would want a desirable, in every way, woman to be. Uff. It’s not fun. It’s exhausting. It makes me feel ashamed of myself afterwards.
So I thought I would look at his windows. When I was close enough to his house. I would look at his windows, and if the lights were dimmed then it was definitely a date. It was cold. I was walking and looking at everybody’s windows. Just to practice for when I got to his.
They were dimmed. Very dimmed. It scared me to death. But I went in anyway.
When he opened the door and I, wearing my poker face, confidently made my way inside, I saw the lights, now seemingly even dimmer, perfectly set dinner table for two, and I am pretty sure music was playing but it could have been my heart. IT IS A DATE. Oh my God. NO. How did I get myself into this.
When I get nervous, I find that a good way to distract myself, and everybody else, from it is to start talking in a louder voice about something innocent and there. Like, there — he is cooking! Let’s talk about that, come up to a stove and say something funny, let’s open a pot and see what is there. Haha. If that is not working and my heart is still fluttering, I usually ask where the bathroom is. It is a good and safe place to be in. Not super safe in New York apartments because everything is so small and next to each other. But it is still the best option for hiding.
When I came out of the bathroom, I jumped a little and shrieked: “The lights are too low!” My poker face cracking right there. The bathroom did not help as well as I had hoped.
To quickly recover from cracking I added: “I just can’t see you!” I could see him just fine. He, very calmly, gave me his phone, wirelessly connected to all three lights in the living room, and said I was welcome to choose the intensity and the color of the lights. Oh my. Well, at least now I could switch to obsessing about what that phone-remote-control thing meant about him rather than worrying about myself.
But, I couldn’t concentrate at all on fixing the lights or thinking about his household quirks. And, when he asked me if I wanted a drink, I jumped again and said in a louder voice: “I don’t drink!” A barrage of images flew in front of me — of dates, drinks, normal people drinking on dates, then a voice — “Don’t let your self-control get lowered. You have to watch out for that twisting into a pretzel thing! High alert.” Red, red, red light. He said he meant if I wanted a beverage. I said no.
He was still cooking in the kitchen attached to the living room with his back turned, and I was just standing there, with no ideas on how to recover. I would have started talking loudly again if it was even six months ago. But I didn’t. I took myself by the shoulders, sat myself down on a bench at a dining table, reminded myself to breathe, and decided to forgive myself. For everything that had just happened. Without explanation or a reason but just because.
I thought how nice it felt to just sit there and breathe. How proud I was of myself for doing the work, for reading all those embarrassing books on self-love, for taking even more embarrassing online classes on worthiness.
I did well that day. I was almost myself. But not unafraid. When I left at 10.30pm to catch a bus, after getting out of his house and onto the sidewalk, as I was walking fast, partly to catch that bus, and partly to get myself into safety, I turned around a couple of times to see if “no one” was following me. No. I was out. No more risk of losing myself. I was safe.
