Trivial stuff

Wednesday on the way home from work I told Stephanie I would be going to a movie with Chris Friday night. Her response was explosive. She freaked out on me. It was extremely unpleasant, but thankfully, her phone rang and we had a break. Then she went for a drive and when she came back we had a very productive conversation. She admitted that she was hurt that I was moving on and that she was still hurt that we did not work out.

She said she knows I'm still in therapy and I've been insisting I don't need a relationship to distract me...so she was very surprised to hear I was dating. I told her that I'm still not interested in a relationship, but that I've been a hermit for the better part of a year and that I need to stop turning down invitations and get out more. Diving into my navel is all well-and-good, but I do need to surface once in a while, and some honest self-evalutation, as well as input from friends, has made me realize that I'm never going to rid myself of my discomfort with attention and with expressing my emotions if I do not expose myself to people outside my little world.

She told me that I need to be careful if I'm going to start dating. She said that regardless of whether or not I believe it I am an attractive, even compelling, person, and I'm also quite oblivious to nuances. Or rather, that I choose to ignore them. She warned me that my warmth and interest and my tendency to touch people when we talk can be construed as a come-on even though that is not my intention. She also warned me about my libido. That all someone has to do is touch me or kiss me at the right time and I'm lost...Me and my damnable sensual nature. Ah well. I listened. I heard.

So dinner and a movie tonite. We're going to see Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. And I'm going to be a good girl.