The vanilla man bailed.
I’m not really surprised, but I AM disappointed.
He has legitimate reasons that I don’t doubt are true (he expanded a bit on serious family issues that he mentioned earlier), but really: If you’re in the middle of some emotional upheaval, maybe, you know, don’t say ‘yes’ in the first place. I’d guess that he didn’t quite realise the mess he was in until he tried to add something else on top, and then he realised later that he didn’t have emotional/mental energy for it/me.
In taking stock, I’m not invested so it’s no big deal from that perspective, but I did expend considerable emotional energy on it (which you’ve seen from my posts about it). I’d expect it to feel like an ego-blow, but it doesn’t, so that’s good. And of course as an introvert, there is a sneaky little ‘phew’ in there that I don’t have to deal with socialising, but overall yeah, disappointed. I was genuinely interested and curious about him and I thought it would be fun.
We left it in a very civilised manner, I have no bad feelings towards him. It’s a very ‘grown-ups being grown-up’ situation, which is always a relief. I left the door open for him for when he gets stuff sorted because ‘eh, no skin off my nose’. If I run into him when I visit my dad, I think we will be kind of sweet with each other. I’m not concerned about it being awkward.
As an aside, this was an interesting little exercise for me.
One thing: I haven’t asked out ‘a random man I met in the world’ in a long long time. I rarely meet men who appeal in that way: When I have in the past, I’ve never had a problem inviting them out (I even had a ‘go-to’ approach for this :P). But I stopped doing it. Since I prefer a D/s relationship, it has seemed a bit pointless to target ‘probably-vanilla-men’, but it was actually kind of fun to have a starting point that was real-world ‘I find you appealing’. This vs online dating where I do the ‘we might be compatible’ stuff FIRST before I find out if he’s actually appealing to me in a chemistry sense. It actually feels really good to start with ‘you, yes you, strange man, you are attractive to me’ as a starting point.
Another: I normally don’t write about contact with potentials here because I use ‘Ferns’ everywhere and it is inextricably linked to my blog so anyone with an ounce of smarts can find it and I don’t want them reading my inner thoughts about them. So writing about someone new in the very early stages is not something I do. Most of those contacts lead nowhere, so it’s probably just as well I’m not sharing them since I expect those little stories would very quickly start to sound boringly familiar.
But it was interesting to me to write about this one here, to take you with me. It would have been MORE interesting if it had played out differently of course, but it is what it is.
I very rarely meet men out in the world about whom I think ‘well, hello :)’: I should probably ask them out when I do. Because ‘why not’?
14 comments
Better now than later, still sucks though boo
Coug
Yeah, it’s a bummer. But his communication was good throughout, so as far as disappointments go, it was a soft landing.
Ferns
(I even had a ‘go-to’ approach for this :P).
Would love to know what this might be. Not that I’m voyeuristic. OK I am too and I would love to know how Miss Ferns deals with the wide vanilla world.
*laugh* I figured someone would ask.
No surprises given I was much the same then as I am now: Simple, direct, and with an easy out so they didn’t have to think too hard about an excuse if they weren’t interested.
Walk up, say hi, then while they’re still giving me that ‘um, what do you want?’ look and expecting some random chit chat, I’d go with “If you aren’t married, gay, or otherwise unavailable, I’d love to take you out for dinner.”
Boom!
Ferns
Been scratching my head for ages now trying to understand the easy out. You’re not trying to suggest someone could say they ARE married, gay, unavailable, when all the time they’re NOT? Is that the solution here? I also can’t do sudoku.
How is that tricky?
‘Otherwise unavailable’ covers every possibility in the world from ‘ew you’re a hideous wildebeest’ to ‘I just won lotto and am about to ditch this shitty town and move to Monte Carlo’. So popping it into their minds arms them with ‘Sorry, I AM unavailable’.
Or yeah, they grab one of the others and just lie, I don’t care.
My experience: Men are shit at saying no to women, especially when this comes out of the blue (‘people in general’ are bad at it for various reasons, but men are often so shocked they’re like deer in the headlights). Giving them some options that they can just latch onto saves them from saying ‘yes’ just because they couldn’t think of a polite way to say ‘no’.
Blurting out ‘aaahh I’m gay’ is fine with me. True or not.
Better that than saying ‘yes’, then walking away and going ‘ugh, now what?!’ and then fucking me about while they figure out how to get out of it.
Ferns
It sucks that it worked this way, but at least you gave it a try. I honestly think that if you hadn’t made the effort, you’d still be wondering if you should have. I’m a complete stranger, and I don’t want to sound patronizing, but as a fellow introverted over-thinker, I think you can be proud of yourself for making the attempt. If nothing else, you won’t have to keep wondering if you should try or not.
*smile* I appreciate that, and no, not patronising. I’m really glad I did it also.
Ferns
“If you’re in the middle of some emotional upheaval, maybe, you know, don’t say ‘yes’ in the first place. I’d guess that he didn’t quite realise the mess he was in until he tried to add something else on top, and then he realised later that he didn’t have emotional/mental energy for it/me.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is how you deal with things by being an adult in an adult relationship. No ghosting. No stringing along, not leaving someone hanging thinking wtf, did I do something wrong? No head in the sand pretending. No, like this instead – on one side, by going you know what? I thought I had the headroom to try this but actually, I don’t…. and the other side accepting that people can over commit with good intentions. Hallelujah for people that don’t play games (well.. not this sort of game anyway, other games are fun…).
Tis encouraging to see there are still growed up in the world, even if it still kinda sucks, but hey, no awks, and good on both of you.
I 100% agree.
It didn’t turn out how I wanted, but he was honest and gracious with it, reiterated in his last how he’d much rather be meeting with ‘a beautiful young lady’ (yes, he’s totally milking that compliment, I’m okay with it :P) than dealing with the crap he was dealing with, apologised for mucking me about etc.
It’s really not hard to behave well, but I really appreciate it when men do it.
(I also think the RL vs online aspect makes a BIG difference in this: a kind of ‘I know where you live’ thing :P)
Ferns
Sincerely sorry you were disappointed. I do admire how you’ve dealt with it all. Good on you. I’ve gone through my own periods of emotional upheaval, as I’m sure anyone reading this has. If your assumptions about that are correct then sure, I can relate to the guy on some level if that’s what it was about. On the other hand, something puzzles me. I can grasp that a guy in that situation might agree to meet an attractive woman, sort of just because she is nice and he wants to reciprocate that. Then, after pondering things, he realizes that he just isn’t in the right head space to carry it off. That might explain the period after he first said yes when he didn’t show proactive interest as you put it. But, once you made an effort to reboot the thing, which I thought was awesome of you, by the way, that was the time the guy should have gotten real. He should have stepped up his game and said, yeah, nah, things are a bit shit at the moment, and I’ve decided I’m just not up for it right now. Instead, it seems he communicated that he was more up for it more than ever. Maybe you have generously given the guy a bit too much credit. Probably best I think that you didn’t invest more emotionally in it than you have. I have to think he wouldn’t have turned out worth the trouble in the end.
I’m taking him at his word and just assuming he misjudged his own emotional capacity (i.e. he could make the time for the second date, but didn’t realise until later that he didn’t have the emotional/mental energy).
As an introvert, I can understand that (a reason why I hate making plans in advance: It seems like a good idea at the time, but when I get to the ‘day of’, I’m lying on the couch going ‘UGH WHAT WAS I THINKING: I DON’T WANT TO!’)
Ferns
Ferns
Sorry to hear that you are disappointed.
You put yourself out there and it didn’t work out.
Upside: more time for exercise and novel writing.
Recalling “the good old days” (quoting you) – if a guy is interested, he will ask for your number. Period. If he doesn’t, then he is such a passive snowflake that you don’t want any part of that.
TRW
“Upside: more time for exercise and novel writing.”
*laugh* that is a huge reach for an upside, but I appreciate the effort.
“Recalling “the good old days” (quoting you) – if a guy is interested, he will ask for your number. Period. If he doesn’t, then he is such a passive snowflake that you don’t want any part of that.”.
I keep thinking about this and realised I have quite the double standard in how *I* behave when approached vs how I expect *someone else* to behave when I approach them.
I’ll have to have more of a think about that :).
Ferns