Off-Limits

(Me and friends at an opening night party on 12/04/09)


I talked to Brian tonight. He's getting deployed again. And for the longest time ever. It's going to be weird not being able to call him up. We have an incredibly (and shockingly) functional exes-who-went-back-to-being-good-friends friendship.

I talked to him tonight about the weird boy drama in my life. There are things that have happened recently that I feel like I can't talk about down here. Perhaps that I shouldn't even acknowledge.

Usually, my flirting radar is defective in the sense that I don't notice when it's going off. For so long, I've held this concept of "As Good As Gay" in my mind. To remind you (because I wrote this post long before many of you knew this blog existed)...

In the past, I have often placed men in a category that I call "As Good As Gay". For one reason or another, I have (consciously or unconsciously) deemed them off-limits, crush-wise. Reasons that a male might be put on this list include:

1. I am in a relationship. (automatically makes all other men AGAG because of my famously successful "relationship blinders")
2. He is in a relationship.
3. He is interested in another female on a level somewhere between “significant crush” and “stalker-like obsession”. (You would be surprised how many times I've come across the latter... usually it has to do with "the girl who got away")
4. One of my friends is interested in him.
5. He has previously dated one of my friends.
6. He lives far away.
7. We have never actually met in real life.
8. He's actually gay.
9. I suspect that he MIGHT be gay.
10. He is friends with one of my exes.
11. He is in my class/program. (this one was added when I came down to grad school)
12. He is under the age of 22 or over the age of 29. (I just made up this rule right now, because I think those are probably my extremes, dating-wise, at my present age of 25. Although according to this formula, I could date anywhere from 19.5-36 before things got creepy.)

And honestly, the thought of dating someone who gets labeled AGAG doesn't enter my mind. Unless he does something that changes that. Which usually involves flirting with me in an obvious manner. Or flat out telling me that 1. he wants to date me, 2. he wants to kiss me, 3. he would dump his girlfriend for me... you know. Something along those lines.

So, fine, once the switch gets flipped, all rules are off. Examples:
- I dated Ex #1, who had previously made-out with one of my best friends, and whom about 5 of my friends had crushes on before I dated... Awkward.
- I dated Ex #2, whom my then-roommate (the same girl who had made out with Ex #1) had a crush on not long before. Also, he had a crush on another girl when we started dating (which I didn't actually know about until a few weeks into dating him, but continued to date him anyway. Actually, I should thank her... Part of the reason I started this blog was because he said his crush on her developed out of his love for her blog. So thank you, blogger-chick-whom-my-ex-had-a-crush-on. You changed my life).
- I dated Brian, who was in Nebraska while I was in Chicago. Also, my crush on Brian totally began while I was dating Ex #2 (although I think I already knew things weren't going to work out with him).
- I dated The Filmmaker, who was over a 5-hour drive away... and continued dating him when he was in California, and I was in Connecticut/Florida.
- I went on a date with a 38-year-old when I was 21. (Note: After finding out that he was 38, there was no second date.)
- I kissed a guy who was a 3rd-year in my program when I was a 1st-year. (Note: this is precisely why I don't drink anymore.)


I feel wrong about going into the awkward male situations in my life at the moment... but to satisfy a little curiosity...

- Guys who are in relationships who seem to be hitting on me. (I have to write "seem to be" instead of "are obviously" because it feels somehow safer if I don't fully admit to it, even on here. It just seems so wrong... Actually, I'm only positive about one of them still being in a relationship. The other could very well have broken up with his girlfriend by now, but I'm treating him like he has one until I know otherwise.)
- Guys who have previously dated (or quasi-dated) my friends who now appear to be hitting on me.
- Guys who have hooked up with my roommate are hitting on me (including one who hit on me the same day that he had woken up at my house).
- A guy who is friends with one of my exes has a crush on me.
- A guy who is out of my self-instituted datable age range is hitting on me.

So basically, they're all off-limits, by my own definition. And normally, they'd be AGAG... but they're flipping switches all over the place, and that makes it all much harder to handle.

And there are so many thoughts that fly through my head about these things, but I can't say anything. Because I don't want to spread rumors. Because I don't want to upset anyone. And because what if I'm wrong? What if they're just being friendly, and I'm so lonely that some part of me is, dare I say it, wanting it to be something more?


I will admit to the following:

1. I like to flirt. I'm not terribly good at it. And I don't always know that I'm doing it. But okay, fine. Yes. I'm a flirt.

2. Touch is my strongest sense, according to me, my Movement Professor, and probably most of my classmates (which is unusual; people are more likely to have sight or hearing as their strongest sense). So I touch people a lot. And I acknowledge that could be construed as flirtation.

3. I have social anxiety, and touching people is actually one of my coping mechanisms. It grounds me, somehow. So in large groups of people, I find a way to work touch into conversations as much as possible. And I acknowledge that it could be construed as flirtation.

4. I am an non-discriminant cuddler, and I believe in platonic cuddling. I will cuddle with anyone, regardless of my attraction to them. And I acknowledge that it could be construed as flirtation.

5. I often dance in a suggestive manner. As a result, I have a general rule that I will only dance with people after giving them a verbal disclaimer that I dance in a suggestive manner, and that it does not mean that I want them. (I haven't danced with anyone lately, but I felt this belonged on the list because of past transgressions.)

6. I have lately been mentioning on a regular basis just how lonely I am. I actually said it on Tuesday while I was on stage in front of 22 of my schoolmates. I acknowledge in retrospect that statements like this could lead someone to believe that I am looking for offers... Which I'm not (as far as I know).

Yes, I flirt. Yes, I cuddle. Yes, I encourage people to touch me. And yes, I'm guilty of more than I'll be admitting on the internet tonight.

And I realized something particularly horrible about myself yesterday. Brace yourself:

Sometimes it feels safer to flirt with people who are unattainable.

Because really, I don't want to be in a relationship right now. I don't want to become "...and Angela". I don't. So as stupid as it is, I think I'm actually MORE likely to flirt with people in relationships. Or, at the very least, I'm likely to flirt BACK when they initiate it. I don't always realize that I'm doing it at the time, but I see it retrospectively.

But in my defense:

1. I once slapped a guy who had a girlfriend who said "kissin' ain't cheatin'" and tried to kiss me in his car. And I plan to do the same to any future non-single guy who attempts to make any sort of move on me. I do not condone cheating, and I will not be a part of it. Period. (NOTE TO BOYS: The difference between cheating on a girlfriend and not cheating is picking up a phone and breaking up with her first. If you're not willing to do that, then you shouldn't be trying to hook up with anyone but her.)

2. I very directly stated to TWO of the guys hitting on me that I am not going to sleep with them. (Which, frankly, they should have realized, as they are both well aware of my lack of a sexual past.)

3. I very directly stated to one of them that nothing is going to happen between us because he has a girlfriend.

4. As soon as I (very recently) found out a guy had a past quasi-relationship with a friend of mine, I stopped talking to him. Out of sight, out of mind.


I was talking to a classmate yesterday very vaguely about the things I've mentioned here. She basically said.
1. She thinks I'm an attention whore.
2. She doesn't think that what I actually want is someone to cuddle with (which I've been thinking would be the solution to my physical-loneliness problem), because she thinks I could easily get that if I wanted it. She thinks the issue is more complicated that that.

I don't think of myself as an attention whore. Although, I am a blogger, so that's not exactly evidence to the contrary.

But maybe she's right on the cuddle buddy issue.


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Okay, I suddenly got a feeling of déjà vu as I was typing this post, so I took a break and I checked over my archives... And I found a post that I actually deleted after the initial posting (well, "Saved as Draft", if you want to get technical) that I wrote 11 months ago. A post where I mentioned the very same "kissin' ain't cheatin'" story, in fact. A post where I wrote about 4 guys who were interested in me under strange circumstances.

And that deleted post involves one of the very same people that I'm writing this post about. I actually wrote, "...it has been strange for me to be around him. Less comfortable than normal. I guess that night flipped the switch. Maybe he's no longer easily fitting into my tidy little label of As Good As Gay."

Which means his switch was flipped way back then. And then he went back into AGAG territory (probably around the time of The Filmmaker, if not The Engineer). And here we are again, at the end of the year that we started off in an awkward position.

The deleted post was deleted for a reason... but Past Angela just surprised Present Angela with this:

"But I'm not going to lie: I liked it. More than I'd like to admit. If he were single, I probably would've let things go in a different direction that night."

OH. MY. WORD.

I don't even want him! I don't! I swear! He's wrong for me, I'm wrong for him, we're wrong for each other. And IF he's intending to hit on me as he has been, I'm sure it's purely out of his need for chasing unattainable sexual conquests, and not because he's interested in me on a romantic level, and I have no desire to be used in such a manner.

But, man, the game is fun sometimes. Maybe it's because I know it's not going anywhere. Maybe that's why it feels safe. Maybe that's why. And it's got to stop. I have to stop flirting with him. Have. To. Stop. Now.

I'm leaving for a couple of weeks. To Connecticut, with my family, where I'll be working, and in a state where the only males I know that I'm not related to are over the age of 50. A state in which there is absolutely zero potential for flirtation.

I told Brian that. I thought this hiatus from temptation would be a good thing. He thinks the opposite. He thinks that as soon as I come back, my emotional baggage is going to explode after having been packed away for weeks. I hope he's wrong, but I'm not sure if he is.

So here we are. Another un-concluded post. *sigh*


May you be able to stay within your limits.

~A~



P.S. Don't you wish I blogged more? If I get a 20SB Bootleg Award Nomination, I'll try to do just that. :) My 20SB URL is http://www.20sb.net/profile/angelaboration

P.P.S. After this post, I thought it appropriate to throw in a quotation from one of my favorite book series...

"The tales we tell ourselves about ourselves make us who we are... and who we might be."
~ Jessica Darling, "Perfect Fifths" by Megan McCafferty


P.P.P.S. I ate an entire bag of Christmas-colored sour gummy bears while composing this post. And they were delicious.