Clear glass

For the first time in two and a half years I feel indecision. I feel like the trail that I've been following has petered out. Now instead of walking easily, I've got to make a decision. Do I keep hopefully bashing my way along the track? Take a detour through some scrub and hope that I meet up with a clear trail again? Find a different route completely?

It's like I'm surrounded by clear glass at the moment. Guys can see me, talk to me, flirt with me, dance with me, and even cop the occaisonal feel (I can only hypothesise that the glass disappears around the ass region when in busy nightclubs) but I'm not available to them. I'm exempt from 'the game'.

Most of the time I feel this is a good thing. I get one-off bursts of attention from various guys, but don't have to make a choice about where to take it from there. I don't have to try to impress, worry about being liked, or calculate the moves between 'I want you' and 'chase me'. I also don't have to be the bitch that says no. There's nothing personal, no guy can ever be offended - hey, nothing against you, but I have a boyfriend! There's your answer - it's a fact and not an opinion.

Two and a half years ago I received far less male attention. Five days a week I would don my overlarge school uniform and keep my head down. I enjoyed school, but I associated with my own group of friends and kind of ignored the rest - and 'the rest' included most of the popular people and the hottest guys, who intimidated me somewhat. While I wouldn't say I was 'invisible' - I was one of those geeky leadership types, organising community sports days and always on stage at assembly for acamedic awards - I was certainly only visible for my brains and personality, not my looks. On weekends, I wore an equally unflattering orange blouse in the nut shop and failed to attract the interest of, or muster interest for, any of the guys who I worked with or served. Underage events in Adelaide were at a minimal, and my friends and I never really got into attending random house parties - so at nights I would still only really see the same crowd that I hung out with during the week.

There are plenty of girls prettier than me today, but at some point in the last few years I guess I started to become visible for my looks. With attention came confidence, and not just confidence about my looks but confidence to be open with my mind and personality too. A growing faith that rather than trying to blend in, I can be myself and people would be attracted to that.

A fear of losing DW is not a fear that no other guys would like me - rather, it's that I would have a hard time finding a guy that I liked quite so much.

It's why I'm often glad for the clear glass - I don't trust or open up to that many people, really. In fact, you could say that I save all my trustingness and openness for DW. That's an instinctive thing, which I don't understand and can't justify. I can attempt to vaguely explain it by saying that DW is like a well that I can throw anything into... whatever I hurl his way, he will be able to understand it, deal with it. But really, he doesn't always understand everything. He doesn't deal with things better than anyone else - he's just human. Yet, it's somehow not about what he has been proven to do but what I trust he can do. I feel a level of security with him that I don't with many, or any, others.

There have, however, been a handful of guys in the last few years that have given me a little touch of that feeling. The feeling of, hey, I could imagine this going somewhere. I was thinking last night about those guys and realised the common factor - all of them valued my mind as well as my looks. Which is kind of funny - hey look, this is how you pick me up! There's no mysterious formula after all - just make a point of listening when I talk and I'm yours! It's still vanity.

It's also somewhat ironic:

I look attractive --> you're interested me --> you appreciate what's 'underneath' --> you get my body!

Anyway, I don't have much of a point to make. That's the problem. I feel like I don't know what I should be working towards.

DW and I (or, maybe just me) have been having some lingering issues about neediness. In all my other relationships I'm the need-meeter: the listener, the shoulder to cry on, the one who remains emotionally stable. I don't need my friends to listen to my problems or offer their shoulder - pfft, that's DW's job! They would probably do a much better job than DW, but some part of me is incapable of giving them that role. I save it for DW, then feel let down when he doesn't relish that position the way I would for him. That's the other thing - DW is less needy than I am, so I don't get to be the need-meeter, don't get to fill my 'natural' role in the relationship dynamic. I feel almost a bit cheated, because it's like - you haven't seen me at my best! Instead, you see me at my worst, and I feel like an imposition!

Sometimes I feel like the only way DW and I could be together long-term is to give each other some freedom first. But I've seen firsthand the heartache that friends have gone through when they are all like, 'Yeah, let's break up because I want freedom to travel and meet people and stuff. (Really I still expect you to wait around for me, if I don't find any other boys good enough)'. And then they don't find boys good enough and don't travel and want to go back to the one who they love, and find they can't, and there are tears galore. Yes, I've seen that.

When I have seen that, or hear people proclaim 'I could still see myself marrying so-and-so' while proceeding to sever their relationship with the person in question, then I think: If you love this person so much that you could imagine being married to them, why would you not want to be in a relationship with him? DOES NOT COMPUTE.

Maybe he doesn't make you as happy as you suggest? Maybe you just like the idea of a security blanket?

Gradually, it does compute.