Men Acting as Women

I have been on a major hiatus from blogging. Part of it is getting into the swing of things here, part of it is dating, part of it is making new friends. 

For a while I was attracting these younger men in their mid-20's. Okay they're cute but they're just starting out their adventures. I've had mine and I felt like I was more the mentor role than the companion role. I realize that I was still putting energy out there about my initial insecurity of being grey and still wanting to appear youthful. So what did the Universe give me? Youth! 

Awareness tweaked that right in the bud and I put out energy of a person more my age, having lived his own adventures. I attracted just that: adorable, worldly, intelligent, sweet, and attentive. Too attentive. Mad texting me about how much he likes me and how he misses talking to me and how since I didn't immediately respond, I must hate texting altogether. Sigh. 

What is going on in the world today? Have men completely reversed and are no longer masculine? The above-mentioned subject is from a country where men are very strongly men and yet if I fail to respond to a text within 15-20 minutes, he falls into an insecure tailspin. 

You may remember my post on another eager beaver from last Summer who could not stop himself from texting me ALL THE TIME. I didn't handle that too well. In fact, I handled it the way many an American guy would- I was distant and cold, kind of a jerk therefore forcing the other to dump me. It's not a good way to handle things as it's passive-aggressive and doesn't help anyone except the escapee.

I decided to handle this guy differently and we had a come-to-Jesus moment. His defense was that English was not his first language so I must be misinterpreting his words. Um, no... as I'm not misinterpreting the bithchiness when I don't text right back (because I was in church and turned my phone off). But it did give me a chance to set some boundaries, such as the ones below:

I do not check my phone every 3 minutes to see if I have a text or call from you. I will get back to you within appropriate day and early evening hours and will respond. It may not be within the minute. Please do not internalize this and get snippy with me. 

When I say I'm busy this weekend, that means I can't get together this weekend. Please do not pout that I am not going to kill myself to spend an hour driving to some remote spot in DC and parking (40 minutes allotted to finding a parking spot via stalking people to their cars) just to have a beer with you for half an hour.

I have a life and I expect you have one too. I have friends, groups, dates with other men and I will not drop my life for anyone. I expect that you have these things too-- no, no! You don't have to tell me, it's not my business, especially in these early stages. If I want to get together and you're busy, I respect that. I don't need an explanation. 

I am so glad that you think I'm the best thing since sliced bread (I think you're pretty fabulous too!). However, you do not need to tell me after knowing each other for 3 days how much you miss my presence. We do not have to get together every day, or every other day, or every other other day. Slow down, I'm feeling smothered. 

I think we get the picture. I'm going to do several blog posts on this because I feel there is a whole lot of subject material here. It's very interesting and not at all what I expected when dating again.