Guys. After a seven year drought, I've been kissed. And fake dated. And fake dumped. All in one month.
Spade here.
This story is real good. Hold out til the end. It's totally worth it.
This all begins at the beginning of July. I joined a softball team (2nd base, bruh) and I knew a coupla people who were on the team. When I got there, I met three other guys who were friends. None in particular stood out. We played two games together, and because I didn't have my eye on any of them I was able to act like a normal person/cool Spade style.
The third game I hit a ball and came home, and one of the guys, we'll call him Aspen for the sake of the story, said, "Hey good hit."
I replied, "Thanks, man." (I know you guys I'm a real charmer, smh)
Him, "What did you just call me?"
"Man."
"Oh, I thought you said babe."
"Haha," I laughed (and suddenly felt nervous). "Are we not ready for that yet? I thought our relationship was there." (Clever girl.)
He laughs. We talk. Find an instant connection and call each other babe for the rest of the night. I have to leave early. He comes with his friends (who are now my friends) to my football game. We hang out after. He finds me on FB, asks for my number, and now we are texting.
We have another softball game that week and he texts me and says, hey we should watch a movie after the game. I agree.
So here we are. We end up at my house (and I drove which is weird). First, I say I'm hungry and he does too so we (and by we I mean I - I guess he cut the peppers) make chicken tacos. He loves them, which is not shocking because I'm pretty all right at cooking. Then we put in A Knights Tale.
The best phrase I can use to describe out positioning on the couch is "settling in." We are side by side, and then suddenly his arm is around me. Then suddenly he is rubbing my arm. I LITERALLY CAN'T EVEN BREATHE. I'm talking to myself, "In through the nose, out through the mouth."
Then his other arm is on my arm. Literally this guy is everywhere. He can't keep his hands to himself, and I don't hate it for a second. Then, he is touching my hair and my face and RUBBING MY LIPS. (Admittedly in hindsight this is a little weird, but in the moment it was okay.) Then we are kissing. We are kissing a lot.
There was a moment where I was viewing this whole spectacle while it was happening. The kiss was just okay. No tongue. Just lots of kissing. And then the movie is over and repeating the opening selection phrase and it's getting annoying. Then I say, "We should probably stop." And we do and I take him home and he tells me to drive safe.
This is what I've learned guys... DON'T KISS ON A FIRST DATE. Even if it feels right. Because there is no foundation to talk about questions and you have no idea what a kiss means to this guy. After seven years, you don't even know what it means to you. All you know is you now feel more invested than you think you should be and you don't quite know what to do with these feelings. My mantra through this whole thing, "Play it cool."
But you can literally only play it cool for so long.
We text the next day for a bit, and I try not to freak out about things. I had a reception to go to, but he says he is tired. This makes me worried.
Eventually we communicate to each other that yes that was fast, and yes we still want to see each other. So I think we are chill.
The next time we see each other is another softball game and at this game he is super bugged. He didn't get into the program he wanted to get into for school, so he's upset. I say, "Want to hang out after this?" He says yes. I have a cool idea to go paint in the park. We do and it's really fun. And we end up kissing again and staying out until three in the morning.
Now after two episodes of this, I'm a little confused. One time could be a potential booty call. Twice is a pattern. So still trying to be chill, but also trying to figure out motives.
I can't remember much of what happens during the middle weeks of July, but I do know that I find out that he's recently been dumped. So I question whether or not I'm a rebound. We text a lot. He has off days. We see each other sometimes. We talk about everything. He tells me things he allegedly doesn't tell anyone else.
But he never asks me out. He says he's not ready for a relationship and he's not asking anyone out right now. I try to be patient. He gives me more than enough to go off of that he is looking forward to the future.
Then I head to Idaho for a break over the 24th. Before I leave we swim together and kiss. He tells me he's not ready to define what we are. I tell him I don't know if I'm okay with that. I leave and say I'm not going to think about it over the weekend. When I get home I tell him I want to see him and we have seriously the BEST NIGHT EVER. It is so fun and playful and we talk about deep things and he tells me things that are going on and it's so amazing... It felt like we were in a relationship. That night he tried on a pair of my pants (weird). He also said, "What if we were married?" He said I looked smokin' and he kissed me even though I told him we weren't going to kiss until he took me on a date. It hurts now to think back on that day because it was so good.
The next day he's supposed to help me move. We have a miscommunication and he doesn't end up coming over until midnight. We move my stuff and it feels different. After, he says he wants to talk. He tells me he can't hang out one-on-one anymore because it isn't "good for him." He says he doesn't think straight when I'm around. He says he's not ready for a relationship or to date anyone. He says he thinks we should not see so much of each other. He says he needs to work through these things and he can't do it when I'm around because he forgets. I ask him why we can't work through these things together. He says he needs to do it alone. I ask him if he's sure. He says he's sure. He leaves, but I left my watch in his car so he has to come back. It hurts to see him again. While he was talking to me I felt nothing. When he left, I cried. My roommate actually came downstairs by chance and saw me alone in the dark sobbing. It hurt really bad.
The next day, work was really hard. I didn't want to do anything and I couldn't stop thinking about it or crying. We actually had a softball game that night and I had to see him. I was not nice. Then I felt bad for not being nice and I went to his (and the other guys) football game with the girls and tried to talk to him. I texted him later and said I was sorry for acting weird, I just didn't know how to act. He said it was fine, and he understood.
The next day was nothing.
The day after we texted and he told me he was having a hard time.
Then he got sick. I told him I was going to bring him lunch. At lunch we smiled a lot and he touched my foot and knee. He was sick though, so we didn't really do anything else.
The next day we texted until 4 a.m. He texted me the next morning and we talked throughout the day. It felt like things were finally normal. He was asking me all things Spade. He said again, "We should just get married." In fact that's the last thing he said to me before crap hit the fan, which is the only expression which describes the following events perfectly.
So when we were texting until 4 a.m. he asks me if I know a girl which we will call Susan, for the sake of the story. I met her once or twice, and she is my roommates best friend's cousin. So rando, I know. So we've got Susan, the niece, and Penny, the aunt.
Penny and Susan are talking and Susan mentions this boy that has taken her out FOUR TIMES IN THE LAST MONTH, Apsen. Penny is very aware of the things that have been happening between the two of us, so she says, you should ask Aspen how he knows Spade.
She does.
He says the following, "Oh yeah we play softball together. She's actually super into me and asked me out once, so I went out with her and it was weird."
"She's 25 and it's weird she's into me. She's just not really my type."
I couldn't even. I still can't even. I was shocked. Totally blindsighted that he would say something like that. It was appalling.
So I did what any angry 20-something would do, I confronted.
I texted, "Hey you know how you're not going on dates with anyone right now."
Aspen, "Mm why?"
Me, "You're a liar." And I told him why he was a liar.
He defended and said we were never dating, which we weren't. He said there was no commitment, which there wasn't. But he legit told me he wasn't dating anyone right now. And here I was, being patient and waiting for him to overcome his issues, when he was OVER THEM. I was just an idiot who couldn't read the huge sign right in front of me. He kept saying, "I just valued your friendship so much." But I just couldn't get those words out of my head, "25 and into me. super weird. not my type." This was so inconsistent with how he'd been acting. I didn't get it. I told him if he was a real man he would apologize in person. He called me and left a dramatic apology and said he wanted to see me and talk. At the same time, Penny showed me a text he sent Susan that said, "Hey Tori is super mad at me for taking you on dates. So if you hear any garbage, that's why."
Wow. Apsen. You are a jerk.
Eventually we talked, but I had nothing to say to him. He tried to appease both sides and cover his tracks, and in the end he didn't get either girl. Apparently he wasn't very honest with Susan either. She said she was going to tell him tonight that she just wanted to be friends, anyway. Things at first were blown out of proportion, because Penny made it seem like Apsen and I were dating, but I made sure to clear all that up. We weren't dating. No commitment. Just claims of one of his best friends that soon went down the toilet.
After I left, nothing really sunk in. I unfollowed him on everything and just tried to fathom what happened. It hurt that he would say those things. At first, I couldn't even believe he said them. That's not who I thought he was. I was shocked I allowed it to happen. I realize I made many mistakes along the journey, and literally red flags were everywhere, but in the moment they didn't even seem like flags. They were just things he needed to work through before we got to where I wanted us to be.
I texted him two days later and apologized for letting myself react and not think in the situation. Things between him and Susan were ruined - which he mostly did on his own. I tried to make sure she knew the truth. We talked that night and compared notes and found out how much he lied. About when we last kissed, how we went out, what our relationship was like, how he felt about me. Maybe he was being honest there to her, but that meant the whole time he wasn't being honest with me.
So here I am now. Three days have passed since this happened. I don't really know how to feel about everything. I still want to know what he's doing and regret/am happy I unfollowed him on Facebook. I want him to feel sorry and really apologize, but also I never want to see him again. I want to feel the way I did when I was around him and things were good. I want to feel that instant connection again.
Dating is hard. Dating is really really hard. I think I'm going to take a break from it for a while.
And not play softball for a while. Or listen to "Would you go with me?" or eat at his favorite restaurant.
Next time, no kissing on the first date.
xoxo,
Spade
