Welp.

I was scheduled to go out with the Deja Vu for a second date but, as per usual, I ended up canceling. I had liked him well enough when we went out, but I'm not looking to jump into anything, and it seemed he was pretty intent on Girlfriending me.

So I did the mature thing - panicked and disappeared.

Getting back out there? Yes. Rushing into another relationship? God no.

The irony that I get easily overwhelmed with that much attention from men, considering how desperate and needy I was for attention from my boyfriend, is not lost on me. I'd like to say you live and learn but that's a pretty solid pattern for me. Impossible to please? Apparently.

Though I prefer "cat-like" and "vaguely demanding."

I put the guys I was talking with on a brief back-burner hiatus while trying to work things out with Future Husband for approximately the 5670th time, because I am, apparently, 30-going-on-14 and I'm living through my Sweet Valley High phase.

Amazingly, despite his pattern of doing exactly the same fucking damn thing every time we got back together, he did the SAME FUCKING DAMN THING and you are just as shocked as me, my friend. 

So, finally, despite all of the binders I doodled Mrs. Future Husband on (that's time I'll never get back) I cut that shit out. 

Boom. MeMe is back on the market, for real this time. 

It's a tricky game I'm about to play. I was pretty sure that Future Husband was, legitimately, my Future Husband and the one I had been hunting for while sorting through and discarding all these other poor saps who actually care about me. I may love dating, but when it comes down to it, I'm not a relationship person, and it takes a lot to lock me down. 

Now I'm working through the realization that FH got the final boot, I'm back to square one, and I should just embrace the fact that down the road I'm probably going to end up remodeling an old farmhouse with my "good friend" Patricia and our seven cats. 

I met up with one of my Tinder fellas last weekend in my first group-setting date event. It was a bit awk. I'm not entirely sure why some people (cough cough, Karen) think it's ideal to get to know someone they've never met and are weighing potential romantic interest in while surrounded by their friends who they'd kind of prefer to be talking to, and his friend, who has a yellow raincoat for some reason and is sitting in total polite silence.

I was up front with this dude from the get-go about being out of something recently, and not looking to jump back into dating. He was nice, he was good conversation, but as usual, it just wasn't there for me, and while he said I was "fucking awesome" (he has good taste in women, too) and he would like to get together for a real date, I think he picked up on my vibe and let me flee with my friendsies.

I'll take it easy and wade into the dating pool again, most of the fish which, let's be real, I've already released back into the waters. I don't want to risk moving into something too quickly and hurting a nice dood, or sending myself into a panic by getting stuck in a dating wormhole spiral.

I've got plenty on my plate right now to keep me busy, my life is slowly (FINALLY) coming together, and Patricia and I have plans to go to the spring flea market, so really, I'm in no hurry.

Deja Vu

New experience alert!

What is comes down to is, MeMe worried that if she sits around and feels sad too long, she's going to close up entirely. Let's review my history, where I tend to go literal YEARS in between relationships and sexual encounters (I already regret using that term and I apologize), and then every time I try to get into something new, it's like starting from scratch.

It was hard for me to work on getting my walls down and get out of Single Mode, and I feel like I made progress. I want to keep that momentum going as best I can, rather than retreat inward like I tend to do when hurt. I'm one heartache away from turning into Clint Eastwood in every movie he has made since turning 106.

Okay, done. Dealing with that on the side. Point being, I made the decision (I will potentially rapidly regret) to bounce back out there and see what happens.

Locked in a couple dates for the weekend. Can't say I hated the attention and compliments, how I do. Mama needs a little ego-boost and validation.

One of the guys I matched with I instantly recognized as someone I had spoken with before. Ah, the dangers of online dating in a small town.

He remembered me too, but thought it had been a few years since we had chatted. We skipped a few steps, seeing how we have this long history, and went right on to texting, and met for a beer.

So, according to this guy, we talked back in 2013. But not only talked, we texted. And emailed. This, it seemed to me, was a relatively serious level of online relationship chatting. It was strange we hadn't met.

I was watching him tell me this, and thinking that he did seem pretty familiar. How much of that was looking at his pics, and how much of that was....

Okay. Okay. Okay. Had I gone out with this guy before?

I ran through the extensive catalog in my head of men I had gone out with, refusing to pause and take any time to acknowledge just how extensive this catalog was becoming...

I couldn't see him in there. But then again, I drink a lot. My memory isn't great.

Uhhhhh I wanna say Steve? Oh, Claire? Sorry, girl. My bad. 

Hold the phone: was I on a second first date? Jesus Christ. Was this what my life was coming to?

Have I officially made the rounds and started over?

If you need me, I'll be crying on my porch swing and yelling at kids to get off my lawn.