Dates with Steve, and Vegas

Phew, I'm exhausted. I signed up for a two month long online fitness class and just tried one of the workouts. It was a lot more volume than I'm used to, and I've been out of the gym for several weeks due to being sick (again, argh).

Aaaanyways . . .

I've gone out with Jake's friend several times now. So I guess he deserves his own pseudonym . . . let's call him Steve. Steve is a really cool guy. He's got a great personality. Really funny (sarcasm and self-deprecation are his specialties, haha) and nice. He's pretty cute, though he has a beard which is not usually my preference. We have a lot in common, including a love of entertainment (including improv, he loved it even before he saw my show), music, and traveling (in fact, he's traveling abroad this week). He's also by all appearances quite interested in me. I hung out at his place after the second date (we didn't do anything as I was still sick), and after the third date we made out and cuddled in the back of his car.

Intellectually, I feel a lot more compatibility than I did with one of my more recent prospects, Wes. Distance-wise, he lives a LOT closer than Ron (only about 15-20 minutes away).

Sounds like a match, right? Well, I still have my apprehensions. The excitement-right-off-the-bat feeling wasn't there with him. And I still have that fear of hurting someone that tends to get activated when someone shows a lot of interest in me early on that I don't quite reciprocate.

I'm actually kind of glad that he's out of the country this week. It gives me some time to relax and get my head straight before he returns and we continue spending time together. I am definitely enjoying his company and definitely want to get to know him better. I just need to make sure that things go at the right pace. This one seems promising, but I want to make sure I proceed properly.

Meanwhile, my long-distance flirtationship with the Texan is still going. We check in with each other at least a couple times a week, send each other pictures and occasionally get into conversations. Hopefully our correspondence can continue, if in a toned down fashion, when I get into a relationship locally. It would be cool to meet in person and make a new friend someday. I must say, I get more excitement from him . . . perhaps it's the unavailability due to distance.

My mood is much improved. I do still think about my last relationship a lot, and do still miss Ben quite a bit. But I'm not overly sad about it very much lately. I had a conversation with Janice on the phone yesterday, and she always helps me put things in perspective. She reminded me that even if Ben is still with the guy he replaced me with in 3 months, it doesn't necessarily mean that the relationship is healthier. In fact, she suggested that maybe it has more conflict than ours did. Maybe in some way that's what he wants. More little fights might distract him from his tendency to gaze at greener grass. It was an interesting theory, and it made me feel better even though I know such speculation is pointless and the state of his current relationship doesn't and shouldn't concern me. Eventually I hope to reach the point of total indifference. In the meantime, such speculation gives me alternative scenarios to think about besides "I wasn't good enough."

As the preceding paragraph probably makes clear, I am certainly not over Ben entirely. It has been a looong time, and though I do feel I continue to make progress, I am also self-conscious of the fact that I am not yet over it and do worry about the implications for any future relationships. At the same time, I feel like a new relationship could help further my healing process.

In other recent news, I went on a Las Vegas trip with a bunch of (straight friends). They took me to a strip club, which was my first experience going to one. They wanted to go to one that had both female and male strippers, but by the time we got there (Club Sapphire), the male strippers were gone. That was NOT my scene. I lasted maybe 20 minutes before I started to get very anxious and had to leave and take a taxi back to the hotel. Would I be more comfortable around male strippers? Maybe. Although one thing I didn't like was how aggressive the strippers are. If you could just sit back and enjoy the sights without being targeted that'd be one thing, but it seems as soon as you sit down some girl is coming to offer you a lap dance. Right when I first walked into the bar a girl with a real bad attitude tried to lead me to the bar to get (her) a drink. She kept asking me the same questions over and over ("What's your name? Where are you from?") and seemed just generally out of it. I pawned her off on my friend and went and hid in the bathroom. I'm not ashamed. Haha.

So that was my strip club experience!