Awkward

I found myself floundering for words...I wasn't making sense... I was contradicting what I had just said.

This doesn't happen to me often.  By most standards, I'm a decent communicator.

But this conversation was painful.  And with someone I hadn't known for long.

The primary thought running through my mind was... He just doesn't know me.

The worst part of dating is taking your time to get to know someone.  After being hurt so many times, it takes an act of congress to get you to lower your guard enough to let someone in.  All sorts of walls are built in order to maintain sanity so you can parent well, provide well, function without seeming like too much of a mess.  After all, you have parent-teacher conferences to attend, dentist appointments to make, homework to help with, clothes to wash, new pants to buy because your kids insist on growing, activities to make, haircuts to give, birthday parties to attend, discipline to carry out, chunks of time to give up so you can volunteer at their schools.  All this while running a company, managing people, connecting with clients and prospects, planning marketing strategies, paying bills, balancing budgets, hiring and firing, working out so you don't get fat, remembering to take your car in so you don't ruin the engine, grocery shopping, returning items so you don't allow clutter to overtake your small living room, reading to keep your mind sharp, and writing so you can release all the craziness in your brain.

It's amazing I am erect.

Getting to know someone with all these balls in the air is lengthy and uncomfortable.  And very close to impossible when it's difficult enough to be erect.

And it leads to a multitude of fumbling conversations.

At what point do you stop investing in someone when you know you don't have all their cards on the table?  At what point do you reveal your cards?  Fear of wasting your time is looming there somewhere amidst the millions of balls.  Fear of being rejected when they really just don't know you.  Fear of rejecting them when you don't know them either.

Just writing this makes me want to go back to bed.

But I press on.  Having awkward and annoying conversations.  Listening calmly when I want to run away.  Being patient when this is not a trait I maintain easily.

I have two little boys counting on me to make good decisions.  They are worthy of me enduring awkward conversations.