Neurotic Dating

After a string of unsuccessful attempts at finding a relationship through sex Carly decided to pledge a vow of celibacy until her heart caught up with her hormones. All her girlfriends thought she was crazy to deny herself the simple joys of self pleasure while waiting for her "prince", but Carly felt this was the only way to break the self destructive pattern: like a guy, sleep with the guy, guy turns into an asshole.

Much to everyones' surprise she managed to keep this up for eight months, that is until she met Gavin. And don't think during those eight months she didn't have a few opportunities to stray because she definitely did. It wasn't always easy to listen to her head instead of her hormones as history would prove. Sex was often like a drug that lifted you to euphoric levels during with a hard crash and emptiness afterwards. Sure there were times she was jonesing for a fix, but the risk just didn't seem worth the reward anymore.

Carly had never done the whole online dating thing before and curiosity got the better of her just like it had countless times before. She refused to use a site she had to pay for because she feared nothing would materialize out of it and that would just be money wasted she could have spent on shoes. It is never a tragedy in Carly's opinion to blow money on a cute pair of wedges.

Anyways back to this Gavin guy. It started out innocently via email through the online dating site. A couple of days later it progressed to texting. After a couple more days they were having all night phone chats. At the one week mark they decided to meet up at a local diner to grab a bite to eat. To her pleasant surprise Gavin was even better looking in person than in his photos. Carly had heard numerous horror stories from friends about how the opposite was usually true.

Just like all the previous conversations, this one flowed quite nicely with much flirting. Carly found herself in a very familiar situation back at her place in bed with Gavin. She had told herself repeatedly that if anything were to happy it would stay PG 13: brief nudity with some profanity. The reality was lots of profanity during some hot steamy sex. He kept telling her she was beautiful and sexy, things she hardly ever believes about herself, and she devoured his words with a fierce hunger.

They got together two more times over the following week, each time leading to passionate naked play. She was not so secretly hoping that even though her actions were the same, maybe the outcome would be different. Maybe he would be different. Obviously this was a conversation she had had with herself countless times before and it had never turned out in her favor. But things with Gavin were looking promising...that is until she mentioned that they were dating.

Dating can cover a wide spectrum of scenerios from two people taht hang out and fool around to a couple on the verge of marriage. Carly meant the former situation, but Gavin must have interpreted otherwise and hence the cold front. Why do people make grossly incorrect assumptions instead of just boldly asking someone what they meant? The world may never know.

Previously Gavin had been texting and calling her on a regular basis, but then things changed. He would no longer initiate texts and his responses became one worded. She was conflicted if she should say something or not, she always seemed to make the wrong choice when a something like this came her way. Finally after a week of weirdness she called him to figure out what went wrong.

She could hear the hesitation in his voice before he came right out and said that he didn't like the fact that she used the word "dating". It made him feel uncomfortable and rushed when he was under the impression they were just taking things one day at a time and seeing where things went. He said girls always make sex mean so much more than it does and while he liked Carly maybe they should take a step back and just be friends.

It would have been easy for Carly to get stuck up in her head like she always did and psycho-analyze just where things went wrong, but she was done with being that girl. If he wanted to take a step back then she would. She stopped immediately responding to his texts. She stopped asking him to hang out. And she focused her energies on other pursuits. While she didn't regret sleeping with him, her body craved that release, she didn't want to try to convince someone to like her. Isn't that what dating is anyways? Whatever, she was over men who acted like little boys when a real woman came along. Clearly they were on very different pages. (at least this was what she told herself to soften the blow to her ego)

Time passed, a few months. Carly wasn't really dating anyone and she was okay with that, not thrilled to be single, but okay. Gavin had gradually begun texting her on a fairly regular basis again once enough time had passed for him to get over himself and realize that Carly wasn't trying to trap him into matrimony. They even had a few laughs over the whole misunderstanding. He called himself a "perpetually paranoid person that often gets stuck in his own head." Carly thought to herself, me too.

He awkwardly cleared his throat, "Would you like to go out sometime?"

"Like before?"

"No, an actual date this time. I want to give this a chance if you're still willing to."

"We've already been down this road. Things will be going great and then you'll freak out on me."

He laughed, "Hey I am a neurotic guy, what can I say? I promise to work on that if you promise to be a little more patient throughout the process."


You'll have to tune in next time to see what Carly did....