crazy update

After things ended with A, I resolved to make new friends, especially of the male variety. For some reason it's been very difficult for me to make new guy friends since high school. In college, I attributed it to living on an all-girls floor during my freshman year and then joining a sorority. I was surrounded by girls for four years. And while I had a small group of guys that I considered my friends, very few of them were solid friendships that have lasted past graduation. After college, it's been more of the same. Most of my male friends are either coworkers or guys I've met through friends' boyfriends. So the process of cultivating more male friends beginning in January has been quite arduous.

What makes the prospect of male friends so challenging is that I have a history of getting romantically involved with them. Whether it's me that is interested or vice versa, it takes the friendship to another place and it's usually very difficult to return to the friendship with that other relationship hanging over us. These guys that I've been spending time with over the past month aren't, initially, the types of guys I would usually be interested in. I find myself putting up my guard, being cautious of their intentions and trying to recognize my own. But the more time I spend with them, the more I become interested in them being something more.

This is why I felt like I was going insane the other night. After a nice dinner out with one of these male friends, I found myself thinking about him as something more. Maybe it was the 5 glasses of sangria or the dimly lit table at the restaurant. Maybe I'm just looking so hard for a new relationship that I'm making something out of nothing. But it freaked me out. When he dropped me off at my apartment, I couldn't help but feel some sort of awkward tension in the car as I said good-bye.

It's silly, thinking about dating him in the first place (after being friends for over a year, being anything else would be very strange) so I'm not going to think about it. I just hope the tension will be gone the next time we go out.