A Little Distraction

Perhaps others may disagree, which I’m open to, but the first thing that popped into my mind was date multiple people. There’s no law, legal or social, that prevents me from seeing other men while my interest most obviously lies in the man that I met on my birthday. A little distraction from the main goal can provide some much needed focus. I also get to split my attention between several men so that I don’t harp on the one special man’s text. This is similar to having a man on the back burner, but meant for people with a greater need to multi-task their men—it’s like having a whole stove full of pots and something baking in the oven, too.

A co-worker set me up with one of the teachers at her old school. She gave me his number and I called that night. To my surprise (and hers!), we talked on the phone for two hours. He, like every other man I meet, has a lot going on and we wouldn’t be able to get together until the next week. Before I got a chance to see co-worker set-up, the middle school teacher texted me randomly on Thanksgiving, “Happy Thanksgiving. I think about you quite often and I hope all is well with you. Enjoy this beautiful day.” What do I do with that? We texted back and forth before deciding that we should go for drinks during the week. I thought we had a good exchange. I thought the co-worker set-up and I had an equally promising exchange over drinks two days later. Neither have responded to texts or calls.

Solution: online “dating” website that I haven’t visited in over a month. I go on when the getting of men gets tough. I’m not particularly upset at birthday boy and the fact that two men gave me the pocket veto doesn’t really bother me either. But, to be honest, a little male attention can lift the self-esteem back to a comfortable height. The struggle comes from birthday boy. We’re not committed or exclusive or anything like that, so I suppose the dilemma starts and ends solely within my mind: when I’m genuinely interested in one guy, I can’t mess around with another. This exposes the inherent flaw in my desire to date multiple people. Ironically, instead of squandering my attention so that my heart doesn’t focus solely on birthday boy, I wind up wanting only him, unaffected by unreturned flirtations.