So I promised in the last post that I would give updates about my dating experiment- ya
know, actually meeting a prospective lova face to face instead of on an internet dating
website? Well, now I actually have a story about putting myself out there! As well as a revisit to old thought patterns that I can’t seem to shake.
Shortly after writing the first draft of my last post, I traveled down south for a work
conference. While I was lying on the grass in between workshops and soaking up the
sun that has been absent this in NYC’s gray winter, a man (that’s right, a real life grown up man) approached me. His name was Arizona (nickname, obviously) and we had met the previous September at a new staff conference. I remembered he worked in the southwest (can you guess which state?) and that I had thought he was cute at the time (he still was).
We talked and flirted for a minute or two and then parted without exchanging numbers or making any sort of plans to meet up again. But later that night, while sharing a couple of bottles of wine with my coworkers, I spotted him for a second time across the bar. We started chatting and I invited him to sit down with us, which to my surprise he did. In fact, he hung out with us for the rest of the evening, until we finally all got up to go to bed. As we walked back to our rooms my coworkers snickered about my new suitor, yet I was drunkenly disappointed that he hadn’t made some sort of more obvious move or gesture.
As I said goodnight to the last of my coworkers and turned the corner by myself, I could not believe my eyes when I saw Arizona leaning on the railing on my corridor. He invited me into his room for a drink and I couldn’t help but say “yes.”
Now, I’m not a total stranger to one-night-stands; I’m fully conscious of the implications and expectations associated with this type of encounter. Nevertheless, every single time that I partake in one I find myself thinking about the guy afterwards for longer than I’d like. I’m somehow fixated on the fantasy that we are two star-crossed lovers that are meant to be together and thrive on the notion that this encounter was “meant to be.” What pisses me off is that I hate that I have this fantasy. I don’t know the guy well enough to be thinking these things! I don’t know why my mind automatically goes to this place. Maybe it’s because I’m a romantic or maybe the “happy” chemicals that are released from brain after sex are particularly potent.
On the plane back home, I found myself feeling wistful for the next two days about the fact that I couldn’t start a relationship with Arizona, this guy I barely knew. I even went as far as Googling how long a flight would be from my city to his— who the hell was I!?! Obviously, these are just fantasies that I know my rational brain would never actually allow me to act upon, but to this day I continue to be disturbed by the places my mind wanders in its haze of post-humping bliss.
So although these thoughts upset me, I’ve learned that they are going to happen no matter what I do. Maybe it is just part of my brain chemistry? Or maybe I’m just a little coo-coo! Either way I know I’ll feel normal, in control of my wandering thoughts, and back to my independent, ass kicking, womanly self in just a day or two, so I try to sit back relax and enjoy the picturesque scenarios my uncontrollable mind can’t help but to create.
