Have you ever fumbled in a social or dating situation? Where you’re left palm to face thinking “what on earth did I just do?!” Well I had one such moment recently. I want to share it as a cautionary tale.
I had been talking to this guy for a while and been on a few dates. We will call him Umbrella because in my phone I’ve saved his number with the emoji of an umbrella on a beach. Umbrella and I hadn’t seen each other in a bit of time because of travel and work etc. and I had a chance to meet up with him. I was so excited. I really really enjoy spending time with him, he loves listening to my long and detailed stories and he makes me feel good about myself. Well this particular date we were meeting after he finished work and he had a very early morning the next day and he said he wanted to be home early. I thought I wanted to maximize our time together and picked a place close by to meet. I shaved my legs, was dressed cute with my confident underwear on. Things were looking good. We had a drink and the conversation was easy and I was excited to get him home. My love language being gift giving, I had a couple of things for him at my place from a recent trip that I wanted to give him. I invited him over when he was dropping me off.
Here is where things go horribly and embarrassingly wrong for me. I had Umbrella in my place. He was flirty and even ended up on my bed. We lay down and talked about his work and honestly the whole time I was thinking “he has work early in the morning, how late does he want to be out? I don’t want to start anything and then he’ll be tired tomorrow, he said he wanted to be back at his place early”. We started making out and I wanted him to stay over so bad but my conscience knew he had to be up early. I basically pushed him out the door. It’s not at all what I wanted. I desperately wanted him to stay. I messaged him and it turns out that he wanted to stay too but the vibe I was giving off was to leave and mixed signals, which isn’t wrong. It’s not the first time I fumbled with Umbrella, this is just the most cringy.
You can face palm now on my behalf. I should have asked clearly for what I wanted. I should have said that I wanted him to stay. I should have been more “selfish”. I am really bad at asking for what I actually want and this was a painful example of that. I am always worried and over think that the person I am asking is going to be put out or inconvenienced in some way. And that goes for help with things like pet sitting, moving heavy items, not just in relationships. In this case, he was going to be tired the next day. I have some work to do personally because I’d like to feel more confident asking for things.
The beer suggestion I have for is also from a recent experience. I took a trip to Quesnel, BC (along the Northern BC Ale Trail) and visited the Barkerville Brewing Co. They are a cool spot right in the small town and have delicious beers. I had a flight, pictured above, and my favourite was Sluice Juice which is their current hazy pale ale. I chose to pair this beer with this story because a sluice is a gate device that controls the flow of water. I should have opened the gates a little bit and trusted the flow.