Rejected

Oh, let's be honest. We all saw the writing on the wall. We knew this was coming. I won't even pretend to be blindsided myself. In spite of my occasionally lacking judgment skills when it comes to dating, even I can't kid myself.

I haven't heard from Mr. Charming in over a week now. In fact, I haven't heard from him since he told me he'd let me know if he was free Friday. In other words, apparently I don't even warrant so much as a

>>>> can't make it sry

text.

But guys? It still hurts. Even when you know you're headed for a fall, see it coming miles away, when the thing actually happens, foresight doesn't make it any less…ouch.

In Which Both Charming and My Chill Are Absent

The facts were these:

I saw Charming last week, right before leaving town for my cousin's wedding in Atlanta. I was having the great "Are We Exclusive" internal panic you may have heard tell about. But I had calmed down a touch. I was convincing myself to go with the flow and let the conversation come up naturally.

I left town and didn't hear from him the entire weekend. I resisted the urge to send him the requested photo, partly because the only time I apparently warranted a photograph the entire weekend was when I was holding my niece. I had a feeling a photo of me and a baby might send a weird message.

I got back to town and bit the bullet by asking how things at work were (he'd had a spot of trouble about a missed trip and I had been waiting all weekend to hear if it had been cleared up).

Exclusion Anxiety with Mr. Charming

Remember last week? When I was working on finding my cool again and not being insecure about my dating life and whether or not a guy likes me? Well, all of that was going quite well, until I went to my friend Lana's for dinner last Monday night.

With Lana's husband Mark out of town for a few days, and Mags' boyfriend Gordon working late, the three of us were having a girls' night in to gossip freely. In between breaks to check on Lana's baby, who is going through a "I cry if anyone but Mom holds me" phase, Mags was discussing the new apartment she and Gordon are moving into in a few weeks, and Lana was explaining Mark's disappointment that his job keeps sending him on business trips when he wants to be home with her and their son.

And then the subject turned to me and my doings. I filled them in on all my work aspirations and how the job has been going, but what they really wanted to know about was Mr. Charming.

Call Me Miss Insecure

I'll be blunt. Dating Mr. Charming has reawakened a part of myself long since forgotten, a part of myself that I absolutely, uninhibitedly do not like: the insecure part.

Before anyone jumps to any unsavory conclusions about the man in question, this is not his fault.

…unless you're blaming him for the fact that I like him, in which case, what a bastard.

But short of that, this is mostly down to me, and perhaps a little bit of the blame also lies on the men who came before. Oh, and absurd gender roles that society has forced on us.

You see, after that oh-so-charming first date with Mr. Charming, I found myself in unfamiliar territory. I was stuck waiting around to see if he would ask me out a second time. This might sound incredibly arrogant, but the truth is I haven't been in this situation very often. Most of the time, as you're well aware, I feel lukewarm at best about a first date. It is a rare occasion that I go beyond a second date with someone. The select instances that I have, I've been sucked headfirst into a hurricane.

For the record, this nearly always turns out to be a mistake. The primary examples are the infamous Misters Manipulation & Mess. Here's an overview: