Catching feelings (and also Carole killed her husband)

I guess it's time to acknowledge that the new normal of the world is staying inside 23.95 hours a day on average and cursing a woman named Carole Effing Baskin.

I'm not saying that the influx of hilarious internet content is necessarily bad, I'm just saying that it has severely cut into the time in which I could be contemplating all of my life choices while staring blankly into the abyss. While my usual pre-corona (not the beer) daily schedule mirrors something along the lines of the short monologue The Grinch pulls from his daily planner, I do miss having the option to be within a 6 foot vicinity of people if I were to so choose.

Given all of that, it's an interesting time to think about dating but a really good time for some serious introspection. So I thought I'd take a minute to muddle through some recent feelings about... well... catching feelings.

I think we can all acknowledge that the internet world is full of memes that put our general fear of feelings on blast through hilarious content disguising our propensity for self-sabotage when it comes to this exact topic.

I recently re-discovered just exactly why it is I was so worried about it in a not so quirky, real life version of the movie He's Just Not That Into You minus the falling in love with a dark haired bartender. And I mean really, that just happens. I did question for one hot second whether I was boring, or not pretty enough, or whatever. But in all reality, it's not always like that. Sometimes, people just aren't that into you. Or vice versa.

And that idea is weirdly somewhat scary.

Because what if you're into them? What if you have to spend the next three days drowning your nights in Ben and Jerry's?

Self-doubt is the real driver of fear in these instances. I had just a blip of that. A blip shorter than the marriage between Kim and Chris and one that absorbed less of my brainspace than the name of my barista this morning, but that twinge of self-doubt can sometimes be a lot bigger than that and it can carry farther than you want it to. Especially when it's someone you've spent a lot of time trying to get to know. Or, it can keep you from even opening up to get to know someone, or allowing them to know you.

It's been a long time since I've really allowed myself to get to know someone. I realized that I suppose that maybe where I messed up in this last whatever-it-was. I don't deal in what-ifs so I'll take what I've learned.

I was lucky and unlucky in a way. The last person I kind of dated was a long distance thing. I had a comfort blanket of texting and screens and long response times to come up with exactly what I wanted to say- a tactic that's much less effective in person. It has definitely prepared me for dating in the time of The Rona but less so for a face to face relationship. So, dating in person, in real life, and "catching feels" or whatever other nonsense the yoothz are saying these days, is a terrifying idea. But, here I go anyway... oops.

I suppose, like everything else in my life, I view these different dating opportunities as learning experiences. Honestly, I like to be constantly evolving in who I am as a person but specifically I try to look at all relationships, ongoing, failed, or otherwise, as an opportunity to grow. Otherwise, isn't it all just a waste of your time?