Fools

I have my rules. I like to think that I follow my rules. Somehow I still manage to screw things up.

There's a girl I like, and she lives out of town, but not so far that I would say far away. Let's say she's a two hour drive from here.

Now, I'm a parent. And a separated man. Despite having pretty much an early retirement situation where work is concerned, I don't have a lot of free time in the key dating time zones (eg. evenings and weekends). Dating someone else in the same situation has had it's difficulties in terms of finding times that work for both schedules. Add a 4 hour round trip, and my ability to blow problems out of proportion makes me feel like I'll have to trek through Alaska on snowshoes in order to date this woman.

Which, of course, is not the case.

But I've let this mental foolishness colour how I perceive the relationship. As a result, I've left my online profile up most of the time, and continued to consider other women for dates. None have measured up to her personality, but I couldn't have what I wanted so why not settle?

Last weekend, her computer died, so there was no contact between us for almost a week. She had my number, I didn't have hers. I thought perhaps she had found someone, especially with her online dating profile gone at the same time. I missed her. I was sad that I hadn't heard from her. Then Thursday she popped up again, and told me what had happened.

Now last night is where things went... wrong.

Somehow we got on the topic of dating, and me, being the completely honest type, answered the questions honestly. I said that I had no great prospects, but was continuing to look, and had added a couple of people to my MSN this week. One was a woman who I thought was in Regina, but she was in Saskatoon, so she was out of the question.

So here I am, basically telling this woman that likes me, that I like her, but I'm looking elsewhere, and I'm only considering women who live in Regina. I didn't slap her in the face, but I'm sure it felt that way. She cut the conversation short, wishing me well, which is not a good sign.

I felt sick to my stomach afterwards. I sent two e-mails afterwards, somewhat panicky.

I still don't know what to do.

I just know I'm not happy with the situation.

I should've followed the rules. Not assumed, and asked. Both her, and myself.