If You Find Yourself Caught In Love...

Ah, what a difference almost a month makes! Well, OK, so not that much is different. I am still working at Target, still interviewing for library jobs. One interview went particularly well a couple weeks ago, and I have an optimistic feeling about it, but I'm trying to not get my hopes up too hide. They are still doing interviews, as well, and hope to make the hire by October. We'll see how that goes.

Um, other news? I almost had romance. We'll see, but I think I might have said too much, and gotten too possessive too early in our... well, relationship isn't quite the right word. I don't fault myself for how I feel, because, not to go too deep into it, I sort of feel justified in my reaction; I made the mistake of confronting him about it in anger, which I do fault myself on. Instead of discussing it calmly in a way to make my feelings known, I let myself get whipped up into a frenzy of insecurities and basically dumped it all on him without any warning. And then, my timing being what it is, I had to go to work. I managed to get him to agree that we needed to talk about it further, and not to write me off completely -- even as the discussion was going on, I immediately regretted what I was doing, and tried to mitigate it without backing down.

The problem is, and this may in fact come as no surprise to anybody who has read more than one of my posts, I have very little experience in matters of the heart. Now, this is not to say that I don't give wonderful advice: a lifetime spent watching relationship-oriented TV dramas have given me a remarkable knowledge about relationships, at least theoretically. And not to blow my own horn, I have a pretty good capacity for empathizing with other people, and find it easy to give advice based on my own feelings and reactions. But I have not actually dated someone in years. What this essentially means is that when I am faced with the opportunity for romantic entanglement, I react not unlike I do when I am faced with a job interview: I begin to panic at the prospect of screwing it up, and thus become panicky and desperate, which undermines my efforts completely.

It's not that I think I would be a bad boyfriend, any more than I think I would be a bad employee. I have a lot to offer in both positions. Rather, my history creates the desperation: it's been so long since my last opportunity that I fear that I may never have another opportunity again. And let's face it, what people want to see, both in prospective amours and employees, is confidence. I have never been able to fake that with any ability. I had hoped I had turned a corner, that I might be able to play it cool and approach this with maturity. So as surprised as he was by the outburst, I can assure you I was just as surprised.