Just one step at a time

I hate the way as soon as I get a sniff of a guy who might be of interest I turn into a complete nut job.

I hate the vulnerability of it. You’re putting  yourself out there, letting someone judge you and deem you acceptable. Or not.

I know it’s more about them and not about me. I know their rejection is not a rejection of me as a person, does not mean I am a bad person. But it hurts.

And I’m not even at that stage yet.

Yet…

I hate the not knowing. It’s so painful.

I hate the trying to figure it out, trying to read signals. Trying to decipher ‘man speak’. Did he mean what he said, or did he mean something else.

Trying to put out signals. Like playing semaphore with the blind.

I h ate the feeling of total nakedness, when you’re ‘just saying hi’, yet you’re saying so much more. And the heat of a blush keeps you off kilter for hours after. You feel naked. Exposed. Almost humiliated inside. You want to say so much more, but you don’t even know if they like you.

And then you bump into them in the street on the way home from the pub after work. And you wonder if that means something too.

I like walking. I’d love to run, but can’t. I have (undiagnosed) problems with both knees and ankles. I say undiagnosed, because they couldn’t work out what was wrong with my knees and I can’t be bothered to back and find out. So now I walk.

Lunchtimes I walk around parts of Regents Park - beautiful and just a 2 minute walk away from the office. Tuesday to Thursday I’ve organised a walking group. It has varying popularity - yesterday 2 of us, today 4.

Today the nice guy from work came! It was us and 2 girls from my team. Who, I hadn’t realised, linked arms with each other as they set off. I didn’t realise this until he made a joking grab for my arm, so we didn’t feel left out! I was a little surprised. And too slow off the mark to take advantage of that!

Still, we have a number of email conversations during the day - they do turn rather bizarre at times!  It’s fun! I do enjoy flirting.

Which, apparently, is as natural to me as breathing. I was accused by 2 girl friends Saturday night of flirting with the waiting staff in the restuarant we visited.

Who also told me to just as work guy out! For a drink. And see what happens.

Now THAT’S scary!