Nom

I did. I lol'd, enough that I thought you should know. Hooked up with a girl from Tinder. Also saw Jurassic World with her, which I probably wouldn't have gotten off my ass to do otherwise. So, wins all around.

I've been on plenty of Tinder dates by now and I still get weird flakes/rejections. Last week I got a girl's number, started talking to her via text, confirmed that we wanted to meet up once she knew her work schedule the next day, texted her the next day and had a pretty decent conversation that ended with me pitching a coffee date. She never responded, and like two days later she unmatched me. No skin off my back, but I wonder why people even bother spending the energy sometimes haha.

Because I tend more towards long term relationships, monogamous or not I've done both, and being my own gatekeeper ensures that anyone I do enter a sexual relationship with is going to be someone with whom I can be satisfied for an extended period of time. Because I am not wired to be generally receptive to very short relationships and the kinds of interactions they entail--again, with the caveat of special circumstances, most involving alcohol. Feel free to ask more about it, but understand that this is not something that I feel I am wrong to want or feel and I'm not interested in being told so, passive-aggressively or otherwise.

Speaking of having big balls, sex drives, and Tinder (this is not as weird or exciting as that probably makes it sound) I've been in my new city for just over two weeks now and I've been on five Tinder dates. I ended up being attracted to none of them in person, and one was out of nowhere a lot heavier than pics indicated (not shaming, just not attracted to that body type). I know I could have slept with at least two of them that day, but chose not to due to lack of attraction. I'm a picky SOB but w/e. I already learned about myself long ago that I'm too introverted and self-conscious for sex stuff with people I'm not already comfortable with (unless I'm pretty drunk, and even then it's iffy). So with the whole Tinder thing I'm just kinda leaning into it and taking the opportunity to be pickier. It makes my options slimmer from the get-go but also has the advantage of making me happier in the long run. Having the power and all that. All in all considering I moved here for a job I applied for on a whim and went from sleeping on a college friend's floor to moving into a house with people I just met over the span of two weeks, I'd say I'm doing okay haha.

To add to the Tinder stories, I started using it seriously about two weeks ago. My first two dates flaked, and then I had to be the one to turn down two more because I unexpectedly got a job in a different city so now I'm scrambling to move. We'll just call that the practice round. I second the notion that Tinder is terrible but also amazing. I'm also super glad to finally get out of a college environment. I eventually did hook up with the girl from however many pages back, pretty much just because I could. I also hooked up with a freshman in my cousin's sorority at a different college when I was visiting for the weekend. In a bar bathroom. Let me take this moment to note that I graduated a year ago. Like, high five bro, but also, oh god get me out of here please.

Oh I know, and I've had plenty of eventful experiences haha. Mostly I've been hobbling myself because of aforementioned social issues. We're on spring break now anyway so I can't do anything at the moment, but my thinking has been trending towards [bleep] it, when school is back in session it's game on.

Okay so new girl, new problem. In the wake of my last breakup I found myself needing to re-structure pretty much my whole social life--due to the fact that I graduated last year but am still working at the school I graduated from (and it's a tiny school in the middle of nowhere), my circle of people I know grew a lot smaller and had a lot of overlap with my ex. So thus far I have been mostly focusing on building up a group of friends through the few people I knew from elsewhere, and by and large I have been very successful. I never find myself wanting for something to do on the weekends and even most weeknights if I am so inclined. Here's where the girl problem comes in. She's a part of the main circle I've been absorbed into, and I've felt she's been flirty with me since the beginning. I haven't done anything about it thus far because I was more concerned with making these people my friends and I didn't want to charge into a situation with people who have 3+ years of history together (intertwined dating pasts and such) and [bleep] things up. But now I feel comfortable and accepted and kind of want to go for it. The main problem now is that I can't read her whatsoever, which is annoying because I'm usually really good at this. She'll do the whole eye contact and then look away thing in a group setting, and we've been touchy and flirty before, but usually only while drunk. We've gotten into extended drunk conversations in which I'll test the waters, and she usually responds positively, but then will suddenly withdraw like she got spooked, and it's never in direct response to anything I do or say. She's very awkward about saying more than a brief hi to me whenever we cross paths throughout the day, which is fairly often because the place is so small. I'm not trying to overanalyze this, but it seems to me like she's probably at least a little interested and just awkward as [bleep] about it. And I know I would already have my answer if I'd actually made a move or whatever, but I haven't felt comfortable enough with everything else until now to really consider it. Also, re: gap years, they're not about quitting life, they're about experiencing it.

The main point here is this: no, you're not wrong for feeling the way you do about his behavior and the behavior of his friends. They are also not necessarily wrong to behave that way. People want different things from relationships, and if you're not getting what you want you have every right to move on and find it elsewhere. Frankly, I agree with Rpg; you should move on. There's someone, many people in fact, out there who will be happy to pay more attention to you and prioritize you more.

Maddy, you're a champ for being so patient, but this very clearly bothers you and it would probably benefit you to take a step back and think about whether it's worth the effort. You're doing a lot for him in the form of swallowing your own needs and desires, and while that is necessary to a certain extent in any relationship, there comes a point at which you need to recognize that you're perfectly within your rights to want things from him that he's not giving. What does he do for you? If you're completely honest with yourself, are those things enough? If they're not, is he willing or able to change for you? You can't make anyone change, but if you don't feel he's putting in the effort that you put in for him and you're not okay with that, this probably isn't a relationship you want to be in.

I have discovered my body does not like gin. Like, at all. Also not huge on vodka. Go-to hard liquors are rum and tequila. And whenever I'm at a bar I'm partial to Long Island Iced Tea, whiskey sours, and a good old fashioned. Mostly I'm a beer drinker though, IPAs 4eva. I am a particular fan of Two Hearted and anything the Great Lakes brewery makes.

This is the same kind of thing that's currently making me hesitate in the whole TA/student situation I mentioned earlier. Definitely not interested in anything serious considering I'll be moving on after this semester, and I'm not afraid of that per se, but the fact that we'll have to see each other most days no matter what happens combined with me feeling kinda responsible due to being rather older is making it a bit difficult. Although it's not quite the same as having someone all over you and resisting that; more like having potential there but with me being kinda responsible for making something happen. I guess I can share an update though: Last weekend I was rolling with a crew of dude friends and decided to go home when they left for a party I wasn't interested in, only to run across this girl on my way. She invited me to go with her to some other stuff and we ended up back at her apartment with a bunch of people smoking a bong until 3 am. It was definitely kind of tense, and the touch barrier was broken and all that, but it was a weird setting and I was reading the room and decided to play it safe and just go home. Yeah yeah, I chickened out, but it's not like I can swing and miss and then never see her again, no harm no foul. I really don't want to screw up a working relationship. tl;dr this whole thing is running really hot/cold and I kind of dig it (rpg you get me rite) even though I should probably stop waffling and go for it or drop it.

Best advice I can give for that is just spend more time around people who are attracted to different things and have differing sexualities. I tell dudes to spend more time around women they're not trying to sleep with all the time, especially when they need help getting past the whole Nice Guy proprietary view of women's sexuality. Hang out with them, participate in conversations about sex with them, get more comfortable with the idea that everyone (well almost everyone) has sexual desire and it manifests in completely unique ways. For example last night my original plans fell through so I ended up hanging out with my recent ex and some of her friends and helped coach two of them through text flirting and body language. I've done the same thing with guy friends of mine. I'm totally cool with taking on the Gay Best Friend role despite being pretty much completely straight myself. It's a label, but it's meaningless.

What an odd thing to read as the first post on a page while lurking. My name is a shortened version of my original one which I took from this guy: http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nom_Anor I mourn the old EU, even though a lot of people hate the Vong arc. Which funnily enough happens at the same time chronologically as the new movies.

Long time no see here . . . I'm doing the thing where I pop up because I'm bored/am recalibrating my life and I log in to TIF again. So I just got out of a long term relationship with a girl that started over a year ago as a consistent hookup, evolved into feelings while remaining non-exclusive because she was studying abroad for a semester, and ended in one summer + semester of monogamous relationship. I graduated last year and she's a year younger, so we were able to stay together because I got a job working at the school as an assistant in the art department. Anyway, that's over now, and unlike my previous relationship in which I basically nuked the girl out of my life, we are still actually best friends and it has not been bad at all so far. (Plenty of time for that to change, but c'est la vie.) So now I'm rocking the single life and having a minor moral crisis about a girl in one of the classes I help with. I'm basically an after-hours supervisor so all the students can work safely with the tools and equipment, but I'm also a sort of unofficial teaching assistant. I don't have any influence over grades or anything but I dig this chick and I really don't want to make it weird for the rest of the semester. I've pretty much already decided to go for it anyway and am mainly posting about it because it's much more fun to have an audience for these things. Onward!

Classes really need to start up again so I'm not being driven to post here because all the students are gone and I'm spending my days alone in my office not getting paid.