Guyz! I got my hair did today and thought that it was the perfect time to take a selfie and share it with y'all! Also, a good time for a blog update. Shall we continue?
So story time.
A few weeks ago I was sitting with a patient, not too much older than me. He was in for a drug overdose. And he spent the entire four hours I was with him telling me I had pretty eyes, that my facial expressions were cute, trying to hug me or leaning in really close to me, asking me why I was backing away from him, asking me if I had a boyfriend (I told him yes--Jesus). It was really uncomfortable.
This weekend I sat with a really confused elderly man (we're talking almost 80). He was fine, until his nephews came in and asked him, "have you noticed how pretty this girl is that's sitting with you?" Then they left and it was as if he realized that I was free game. As I plugged in his IV pole and explained to him that he wasn't going home that night but was staying in the hospital with me, he said, "You're a real nice lady. I can stay here with you tonight. You can sleep in the chair... or you can sleep on top of me. I'm not kidding. You're a nice lady and you look good, too. Give me a call if you want to come over and be with me--not as a helper but as man and woman." He asked me if I had a boyfriend and I said, "kind of..." because by now I'm understanding that they won't back off if they know I'm single. He then told me to call him if it didn't work out. This happened three times over the course of 30 minutes, him asking me to get in his bed.
That's the end of that, for now. But... there's something else I've been wanting to write about. A few weeks ago I wrote about how I went sledding and hurt my back and called Kyle over to give me a blessing. During the course of his visit, things got really uncomfortable when he told me that he was trying not to spend time alone with me anymore because he didn't like what people at church were thinking/saying about the two of us. After talking for a few minutes I said, "oh... you think I like you." He said that he had picked up on that. I told him that I thought that he was great and at times that scared me because I didn't think I'd find someone for me that was as good of a person as he was... but that I didn't like him and didn't want to date him. It was humiliating. I see how he would have thought that I liked him, especially because that weekend I had asked him if he wanted to go to dinner and it happened to be Valentine's Day and our friend Emily didn't want to go so it ended up being just the two of us (confounded with the fact that I've known for awhile that I have a hard time telling him that I'm grateful he's my friend in person when I can do it via text and wanting to work on my ability to be open and vulnerable in person and maybe took this moment to tell him that I was grateful for him).
But anyways, this is why it's hard. It's hard because I had finally, finally realized that I could be me with him. I could be silly and honest and weird and serious and everything would be okay. We would still be friends and his opinion of me wouldn't change and I could tell him things and not worry about if I was opening up too much or too little and no longer worrying that I would really start to like him if I did open up. We were friends. That was it. And it was perfect because I... because I've missed that part of me. It's not that I can't be myself or open with Emily, because that's not the case. But Emily fulfills a different social need for me--she fills what my lady friends filled. And Kyle was finally filling in for Blake. I've missed that and I need it. I need someone to sit on my couch and be able to talk about my life in the context of the Gospel with (and not that my lady friends and I never did that) and share my worries and my fears and anxieties about the church with. I've missed feeling secure with my male friendships. I miss being able to love a boy without being in love with them. And it was finally there for me. I finally felt free to text Kyle and invite him to do things frequently without worrying that I might be overwhelming him or worrying that if he said no that it was a reflection of his feelings about me. Kyle telling me he didn't think we should be alone together because ultimately he thought that I liked him has really been a struggle because now I don't feel secure anymore. Yeah, it's great that he was comfortable enough to bring it up but it was horrifying and humiliating. I asked him if he believed me (that I didn't like him) and he said that he had lingering doubts. The last thing I wanted was for our friendship to change from what it was and now his "lingering doubts" are killing me because I feel like I have to prove that I don't like him and I don't know how to do that. If I care too much or text too much or ask him to hang out too much, is it going to make him withdraw because I might like him? So what this whole fiasco has really done has made me want to withdraw and made me a mess because I don't know how to behave with him now. I feel like I shouldn't ask him to hang out one on one anymore. I feel like we need to have a chaperon or a referee and I don't want that. I want us to sit on a couch without anything going on. I want to tell him what's really going on in my life and what it is that I'm really worrying about or struggling with. I want to tell him my stories. And I want him to do the same. I want to hear about his problems and give him advice that I know he won't take. I want to hear his opinions on things that I'm working through. I just want to be okay being us. And I can't because I'm no longer okay with being me around him. I feel like I need to keep it quick and light and airy. And it's seriously the worst. And now when he is too busy to hang out I don't automatically assume he has work or something but assume that it's just that he doesn't want to hang out with me. Which leads me to feeling like I'm not worthwhile which just perpetuates that problem. And it makes me angry because half the time it makes me want to cling to him and the other half of the time it makes me want to push him away and decide that I can make it without him as my friend. I don't want any of that. I just want it to be like it was before he decided to voice his concerns that I had feelings for him.
Man Problems. That's what this post should have been titled.
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