I genuinely don’t intend to use this thread as a diary, but it’s an incessant issue that I need to address and just wanted to express here. My apologies for the length, so I’ll spoiler tag it.
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Yesterday on my way home from a trip to VA, my friend and I had a talk, and to jump to the main point, I still possess some type of attraction to past interests, and even though I moved on, the attraction just somehow revives. I deemed it as fondness, but the reality that the slightest of romantic feelings still linger plagues me. To clarify, on the way to the trip, we’ve met up with a good friend of mine who I don’t see much, and when I heard about a guy he was sleeping with that he cut off, it was “unjustifiably painful”, in other words “There is no reason for that piece of information to bother me”. Visibly, I was unbothered, but I did admit to my friend when we made it to my apartment that it was like a stab to the heart, even though as of now I’m perfectly content that we’re friends.
We met three years ago in the fall semester in college, and I didn’t get to know much about him until the next fall when I asked him out. He just got out of a relationship that end pretty badly and just didn’t have it in him to enter another relationship, and turned me down. I accepted this gracefully, and we still kinda hung out and stuff at school with our friends. Only saw each other once the following semester (he graduated, then I finished school the next semester). Last January (haven’t seen him in a year at that point), we went clubbing, danced with our friends, and he goes off to dance with another man whom he makes out with. We cheered him on, but it still stung a bit (I was happy for him). However, I eventually entered a dance cyber which took my mind off things. The next morning, I messaged him to say it was nice to see him again (which was mutual), and asked if he got the guy’s number. He stated that he didn’t know him, but hates when he goes to meet random people when drunk and that his friends didn’t stop him (If I knew this, I would’ve stopped him, but I didn’t want to be a cockblocker).
Back to yesterday, we chatted on the way to VA with his sister (she’s awesome BTW) and another good friend. We get out of the car and I hugged and picked him up (apparently he likes being picked up), and we smooched. That’s been a thing between us, but it’s evidently platonic and not something I overthink. We went back to his house to tend to a friend’s sprained ankle, said our goodbyes, and smooched again. During the trip, I asked if he could give me advice on meeting other men, but he stated he doesn’t really know since there’s almost no one in our area unless you go to DC or Baltimore. It’s strange, because I’ve felt this stronger about a guy before except him, and it plagues me a bit even in my sleep. I don’t like it at all. We’re all planning on a trip to archery tag soon.[/details]
That being said, chatting with my friend before going to bed, he told me that I need to be less critical of myself about my lack of experience in sex and dating, and that I should use my strengths to my advantage, which is rather hard to accomplish considering I have no self-esteem at all. According to him, I’m an intelligent, poetic soul who could conjure up a few pick-up lines due to my writing experience, and that my reserved nature could create a mysterious persona about myself, so in other words, I’m Bruce Wayne. I never thought of myself as intelligent because I feel as if my manner of speech is average or just like everyone else. There’s also that I dance, and the past two times I’ve went clubbing, I’ve caught others’ attention and had a guy dance with me before. He said that the next time we go clubbing, he’s going to help me develop confidence by dancing with guys. I can’t imagine the outcome of that.
TLDR: I’m dealing with infatuation, self-esteem issues, and questioning my intelligence.
