Go with Your Gut...Or You'll Kick Yourself Later

Some of you have asked "Whatever happened to Mr. Navy?" Here's what happened.

We made plans to meet Thursday night, and then he had to reschedule for last night because of a work-related conflict. Not wanting to sound too available (even though part of me would have wanted to plans with the President for a date with him), I said, "Let me check. I have plans later that night" (with Date Me, DC!, by the way). Eventually I put him out of what I had hoped was waiting misery and agreed to meet him at 6:30.

I got super dressed up and even went so far as to exfoliate my feet for a good 10 minutes in the shower. Details, people. Details. We showed up at exactly the same time and sat outside. Never having had Ethiopian food and not wanting to look foolish on my date, I had interrogated some friends earlier on how to do it. The biggest piece of advice was not to eat too much of the bread because that shit is filling. What I really needed, however, was how not to act like a jackass on a date.

As soon as we sat down, it felt a little...weird. We had stuff to talk about, but the conversation didn't flow like I'd hoped. We didn't really address what had happened in Dewey I began to think, "Ok, I think we're moving into the friend zone." And I kind of just went with that. He asked me about my dates, I told him a little bit about Dr. Nutrition. I also told him about seeing SCL this week. He'd apparently had a similar encounter last week with the girl who broke his heart earlier this year. Once we got into the relationship/dating conversation zone, things relaxed a lot. It was really helpful to have a guy's perspective on the dating stuff.

He walked me to the super secret speakeasy where I was meeting Katie and company. We hugged it out and I thought, "Ok, no more predicament. Dr. Nutrition is the one I'm really interested in. How convenient to only like one guy!" I proceeded to have a fucking awesome time with Katie and her friends, and ended up not getting home until 3.

This morning, however,  I was surprised to get a Gchat from Mr. Navy, asking how the evening went. And then of course I went straight into over-analyzing self. I'd sent our mutual friend (who interestingly is in Dubai at the moment) a note last night saying that we'd gone out but that I was pretty sure what had happened in Dewey wasn't translating into our normal lives here in DC. She asked me, "So,w hat happened?" I told her I'd told him about the dates with other guys. Then she questioned why I'd done that. And then I thought, "Oh shit, did I fuck something up? Why did I do that? Why did I move things into the friend zone?"

Oh, that's right. Maybe because I knew in my gut that's where we belonged. But my self-doubting ass couldn't let the idea go that I'd done something to actively fuck this up. So, I immediately backtracked with Mr. Navy--saying I felt dumb for telling him about the dates, etc when I was on a date with him. Again, the gut spilling is out of control!

And you know what he said? He said he just wanted to be friends. WHY THE FUCK DID I NOT GO WITH MY GUT? I could have avoided all of these current feelings of embarrassment and humiliation had I just listened to my gut.

I'm going to hide now.