My mood is good.

Right now, at this very instant, my mood is good. For the first time since 1956 our football team has been shut out in back to back games (whoever taught Daniel Evans how to pass deserves a punch in the face), but I feel good. The game was less important than the ability to spend some time with friends who I have not seen in a while.

I've had a rough time of it the last couple of days. That new unavailable girl's boyfriend has moved down, and I have not seen her since. But, you know, I think that's ok. I told my brother about the whole situation, and his response was "Aren't there any single girls in Raleigh?" I'm sure there are bro, but I haven't met many of them yet, or at least I haven't met many that flirt back with me. As I think it about this whole thing I don't think much of it's my fault. I mean I'll take some of the blame. As soon as she told me she had a boyfriend I should have told myself 'Thanks for playing' and moved on to the next girl, but she didn't make it that easy. (Warning: I'm about to bitch for a minute) First, she waited until the end of what seemed to be a pretty fun first date to mention that there was 'some guy back home.' In an attempt to avoid this situation I asked her if she was seeing anyone. Refering to him as 'some guy back home' (home is 1,200 miles away) implied that he wasn't very important and that I had an 'in.' She calls me up a day or so later to see if I want to go out to dinner with her and another girl. I go, and she sits next to me... noticably closer than she needed to, does all the flirty things of bumping and nudging and smiling and everything else. At this point I'm thinking that this super cute girl has a thing for me. Then the next time we were supposed to hang out she blew me off, so I should known right there that this wouldn't work out, but when I see her the next day flirtations continue and tentative plans are made to hang out again. Again I get blown off (and I do something stupid that I'm not going to talk about here). Eventually though we do hang out again... at a pool... and she's in a hot little bikini. This is where I find out that 'some guy' is a boyfriend of three years who is about to move in with her. We've hung out and chatted and FLIRTED over a week and I'm just now learning that there's a live-in boyfriend on the way?! It's too late now, I'm hooked! Boyfriend's not here yet, he hasn't moved down yet, there's a chance he might not move down, I have a chance (the things we tell ourselves...). On the way back to her place we stop for pizza and we walk around campus some in the warm summer night. We both start to look at each other for a little too long, if you know what I mean... but we keep it a short walk. I take her home and help her set up some stuff in the apartment and play with her kittens... and we start to talk about the boyfriend and the conflicting thoughts and feelings that she's having (We agree that we just has what could have been called a great date had she been single and able to call it a date). I get a couple of really great hugs and go home, but we make plans to each other the next day. Of course I get blown off again, this time its for school work, so I'm okay with it, but we end up talking on the phone for an hour and a half. We talk about all sorts of things, and she tells me that she's never talked to guy like this without having dated him for a while first, which is odd to me. Educated conversation just seems like its one of those things you do to learn whether or not you want to date someone. We've gone and started to build a relationship, but we've built it on borrowed time. So we go out for breakfast the next morning. I pick her up and she's in a hot little skirt that she purposely wore to look hot for me. Whether she admits it or not, I know she wanted to look for me. We sit across from one another and often catch ourselves looking at each other. She tells me to quit it, but she's looking at me just as often. In another circumstance we would have torn into each other, but we didn't. We talked, we had fun.... she let me hold her hand for few seconds before she thought better of it. I dropped her off at home, and she was good. Nothing but a hug goodbye and as my hands slid down her arms to leave she caught my hands and gave a little squeeze. The kind of sqeeze that says I really like you. And that was it. The end. I haven't really seen her much since. Now, there were a few meetings here and there that I haven't mentioned, but these were the big ones. These were the ones that strung me along. Not only did she let me do it, but I think she even encouraged it. It's been almost a week since breakfast, and I think I've just about broken free from this spell.

She tells me she want to get together and have more 'deep' philisophical type discussions; she can't have intellegent conversations with 'some guy'. I want to, but I'm not sure I should. This goes back to my whole, if it hurts when you do that then stop doing that thing, maybe I should limit my exposure to her... or maybe I'm a big boy and can just suck it up and get over it. But I know what I don not want to happen. I do not want to become some kind of substitute boyfriend that she can have deep, meaningful converstations with while 'some guy' gets to share a bed with her. That's like dealing with some of the hard parts of having a girlfriend but not getting any of the rewards.

I'm not saying that I'm completely over all this yet, but talking about it here will certainly help me to get over things, or at least deal with things better. I feel like I haven't really had many people to listen to me lately... whether anyone actually reads all of this or not, at least I feel like someone has listened to me.

And yet my mood is still pretty good. The high of fellowship and football :)

It's funny. This is not at all what I thought this post would be about. I thought I'd talk about getting kicked out of the office, or if blissful ignorance is better than love lost, or mention an update on unavailable cute fiesty photographer and how I taught her boyfriend how to dance... I guess I need to post more often to get all this crap out there.