The Prowl: Maybe He's Not That Into Me?
So last week when I claimed that all was well with my investment banker, despite a rather small and frankly dumb crush on a certain Hill staffer, I made a misstatement. All is not well, and I rather feel like John McCain when he said that the "fundamentals of our economy are strong" at the height of the financial meltdown. Let me explain...
It was the investment banker's turn to come to D.C. last weekend, which was planned around attending a black tie event together, Taste of the South (this turned out to be like a prom for grown-ups). He looked really great in a suit and we ate lots of fried food and drank bourbon and danced and generally had a thoroughly enjoyable evening. The rest of the weekend went fairly well too with lots of in-my-apartment time and a fairly quality newspaper-reading session in the National Gallery sculpture garden - followed by a pitcher of sangria. Somewhere into our first glass of sangria, he let out that even though we were having a nice moment and this weekend had gone rather well, next weekend in NY was a cause for concern to him. Next weekend is so much of a concern in fact that he asked me if I would please stay with another friend.
My trip to NYC this weekend came up because not one, but two of my grad school roommates will be in town, visiting from other continents. I was planning on seeing them, something I don’t get to do very frequently, and figured that I could see more of the investment banker at the same time. One of these friends introduced us, after all, so this didn’t seem like a crazy or overly presumptuous plan. Additionally, I had asked him if he would be staying in New York for the Easter weekend and if he had plans; initially he said he’d be fine with me staying over and that he would like to see me.
The sense that he wanted to see me, I should add, remained constant even when he was uninviting me. Perhaps he just wanted to see me in smaller or somehow "less intense" doses, as if in his mind he thought he was doing me a favor to make sure that I really did spend time with my friends (again, one of whom is also his friend)? When we discussed this he seemed to suggest that my very presence in his apartment would somehow mean that we would need to spend every minute together and couldn’t possibly go our separate ways and reconvene later. My insistence that I didn’t need him to be a babysitter seemed fairly absurd when you consider how much time in the scheme of things we actually do spend together -- such that it remains unclear why a 48 hour period in which I have other priorities is so daunting to him. This was even more so when he admitted that the chance I would sleep over at his apartment anyway was rather high so why was dropping off a bag so troubling?
As the conversation continued and my level of irritation rose, and yes, I might have very sweetly told him he was being an irrational jerk, the crux of the problem became slightly more clear. He said that he didn’t think we were at a phase in our relationship where I could simply appear in his world and assume that would be fine. He wasn’t really talking about rearranging a busy social calendar, although he did indignantly tell me he was considering going to a concert (fine, go). Somehow though, he insisted, when I repeated again that he was being stupid, that if I lined up five guys, they would all see it his way. This was of course then conditioned with an admission that actually, they would look at me and then look at him and see things my way...
At the end of the discussion, which I finally concluded by telling him he was dumb, that I might not call him this weekend, and that we should talk about something else anyway, he became overly affectionate and reiterated that it wasn’t that he was losing interest or didn't want to see me ... it was just some other thing that he could not use his words to explain.
When, as he suggested, I put this to a panel of guys, they agreed with me, not him, that he was being a lunatic. One did suggest that I was perhaps operating with incomplete information; I agreed, especially given that whatever it is that’s bothering him hasn’t been clearly articulated in any form of universally recognizable communication.
As the week progressed, I sort of hoped that he would call and apologize for his behavior over what had otherwise been a thoroughly enjoyable weekend. I also sort of hoped that there might be some gesture of additional wooing to let me know that everything was fine and that he was thinking about me. Neither of these things happened and I suppose that’s fine. Instead, we bantered as if nothing had happened and that was really that.
So where does this leave us? There are two schools of thought...
1. The female friend contingency seems to be of the opinion that I should go to NYC as planned, which I will, and just not call him and see how he responds. A radical faction within this contingency feels more than this, I should just let the whole thing go and pursue some of the available opportunities closer to home (i.e. Hill staffer). The logistics of sleepovers and date-planning in this plan are far easier and he is arguably better looking and less of a nervous recluse. The downside of course is that I actually do genuinely like the investment banker and am not quite ready to resort to such a draconian response over what I really am hoping is a mild freak-out.
2. My mother, who will be somewhat shocked to read this (she checks out my column to know what the kids are up to these days) simply pointed out that boys are dumb. She explained that this isn’t the first time a man has made an idiotic choice and it’s likely not the last that the investment banker will make either. Her advice was to see how the weekend plays out, enjoy my friends, and simmer down a little. Her argument was that two weekends in a row is potentially scary to him and he needs to take a moment to regain his bearings and realize how objectively awesome I am.
I’m inclined to side with my mom on this one as she is sometimes a smart lady with good ideas. This may however be naively optimistic...