And then John was a zombie

What's with the weird blog title? Well according to the very addictive website TV Tropes, "And then John was a zombie" is "a situation in which a character, frequently a protagonist, is turned into the very thing he or she has been fighting."

What does this have to do with anything? Well, read on.

As the weeks went by since my last entry, I continued to hang out with Steve once or twice a week. We would cuddle, we would kiss. We would joke. Our trip down to see Ron's play was fun. Warning sign one: I found myself more physically drawn to Ron than Steve, even though dating with Ron had fizzled due to the distance and all the things going on in Ron's life.

I couldn't find any glaring incompatibilities and I genuinely enjoyed Steve's company, so I continued to see him. There were some small issues. He definitely was more of a texter than I am. I prefer talking on the phone over the impersonal, imprecise and easily misconstrued excuse for communication that is texting. I explained this to him, and I had a nice conversation on the phone with him a couple times. But he told me he's not really one to initiate phone conversations, partially because he's busy a lot. Sometimes when too much time passed before I texted him he would send a passive-aggressive type of text like "How are you, silent boy?" or the worst one, "Are you still alive?" This really grated . . . bringing back memories of Brody.

Earlier this month I fell into a funk. Cinco de Mayo rolled around, which was the two year anniversary of the start of my relationship with Ben. Thoughts of him always turn into a vicious cycle. I'll think about him and get sad, then try to block out the thoughts and get angry at myself for still thinking about him, then get frustrated that I need to be so hard on myself in order to block the thoughts . . . then I start thinking about memories of him to make me feel better, then I get sad again.

Steve texted me during one of my sad days, and I told him I was feeling a bit moody. He offered a listening ear, and I decided to open up to him about my OCD tendencies and my lingering hurt over my break-up. He was very understanding, and I was glad we talked about it. Still, as my experience with Brody taught me, you have to be careful of how much you talk about your ex with someone who has feelings for you . . . so I didn't go into much detail.

Last night I went over to Steve's place to watch a comedy special with him. Afterward we cuddled on the couch a bit, but I could sense he wanted more. I was just not feeling it. At one point he said in a semi-joking tone, "You're confusing." I knew he wasn't joking.

I had known I needed to talk to him about where we were going, and now was the time. "I feel like we should talk," I said. I told him that even though I really liked him, the feelings just weren't there for me.

This was where the conversation took an unexpected turn: we started talking about how Steve had felt during the time he was seeing me. He felt like he had had to reign in his usual flirtatious behavior because he felt it was not reciprocated. His passive-aggressive texts (which he acknowledged were inappropriate and inferior to being direct) were due to frustration over feeling like it was always him initiating communication (one of his pet-peeves). He felt like I was holding back a lot of the time. As our conversation continued I realized this was the first time I was really being completely open and honest with him. He stated that this Cal was much more attractive than the inhibited guy I had been lately.

I explained to him that I felt I had overcompensated. That since being dumped by the guy I loved I have made it a priority not to do to others what had been done to me. Not to lead them on, and to try to protect their feelings at all costs. Steve took issue with this. "I'm gonna call you out on your bullshit," he said. "I'm a grown-up, and I don't need you to protect me. Relationships come with the risk of getting hurt. It's not your responsibility to protect me from that. I can take care of myself." He also suggested that I was over-thinking things way to much (surprise surprise).

This was probably the part of the conversation when I started to break down. Yes, that's right. I was letting a dating prospect go, and I was the one that was crying. He had hit a little close to home. I realized with horror that by trying so hard not to do what Ben had done to me, I had nevertheless become Ben in my brief relationship with Steve. By trying to protect Steve from hurt, I was shooting any potential relationship in the foot. I didn't reciprocate affectionate gestures because I wasn't sure of my feelings and was so concerned about leading him on. I kept my true self shielded because I wasn't sure how I felt and hoped the feelings would kick in. But feelings can't kick in if you guard yourself. It is only by opening up, by being vulnerable, that feelings are allowed to grow. The flower of love needs oxygen . . . it doesn't need to be held under a magnifying glass. It's a metaphor I told myself countless times after my relationship ended.

Steve told me that at times he had felt a glimmer of potential with me, but in the last week or so his feelings had cooled since it didn't feel like we were progressing anywhere. The slowness made him feel we had more of a "weird friendship" than anything else.

Well, suffice it to say I felt quite bad that I had hurt him. And to his credit, he admitted that he should have brought it up sooner. Overall he was very understanding. He told me I'm a genuinely good guy, and despite my indecisiveness, I'm a lot more of an adult than any of the other guys he has dated. He ended up confiding in him a bit about some of my self-worth issues and the way I put so much pressure on myself. I swear, I got a lot out of that conversation. At the end we both agreed that we really want to remain friends.

I would like that a lot. And unlike Ben, I fully plan to be proactive about it.

Come to think of it, even though in my dating relationship with Steve I took on some of Ben's avoidant characteristics, ultimately the ending was different.

I did not lie. I did not tell anyone I loved them. I did not give false hope of reconciliation. I did not promise a friendship that I had no intention of actively pursuing. And when we had the discussion, I opened up about my own baggage. Something that Ben was never quite comfortable doing.

Maybe in this case, John isn't a zombie after all.