Rick's Dessert Diner Date with Daniel

After our big conversation about the ex, I really wanted to make a conscious choice to put everything behind us and move forward. I loved and accepted Daniel for the person that he was as a whole package. The wounds he had acquired before we met made him the empathetic and kind person that I had fallen in love with. While I think some of the choices his ex made while she was ending their relationship were less than kind, or considerate, and I think Daniel overlooked plenty of red flags and pushed aside and avoided a number of problems for his own part- I think this woman was brave for walking away from something she knew was a wrong fit for her. She didn't do this break up well by any means, but she didn't go forward with a relationship that she knew was wrong for her. And that was the right thing. Unfortunately, that crushed Daniel. She should have done it better. But she didn't, so here we are.

That week, I was feeling very triggered by my own relationship history and I really needed Daniel to step up and be there for me and reassure me that all was okay. But the problem was, Daniel was having his own hard time. So here we are, having this mutually excruciating emotional crisis, and both needing different kinds of support. Daniel didn't feel emotionally available and I needed support. The incongruency there was not so great.

Wednesday we had a date night and I told Daniel I really needed a solid, sweet date for us. I needed to feel good. But he was feeling low, and and even his language in talking sounded low. He suggested I come over for a movie and we could stroll over to Rick's Dessert Diner and get take out and bring it back to his apartment. For whatever reason, this just did not feel good enough to me. I am a pretty easily impressed person but I just needed... more. My messages to him had an off tone, and I told him, I was trying to be excited and I understood he was tired, I just needed a little dazzle. He said he was tired but that a nice quiet night in sounded good and that it felt date-y to him. I felt weepy and cried before our date but tried to pull it together. I got dressed up and tried to pull it together but I couldn't shake my mood.

I grabbed some of my favorite movies, and my pretty new white coat and headed on over to Daniel's!

I was trying really hard to rally, but... honestly I ruined this date. Daniel had stopped being physical with me at this point (saying he was too stressed studying and finals and emotionally drained with everything) and after the lying incident I really needed some kind of affirmation. But having your partner recoil when you put your hand on their chest and say things like, "Don't touch my fat." every single time you try to cuddle with them really has an effect of putting up a huge wall between you. I felt sensitive and rejected. I'd try to tease him and flirt with him over text, and reading back over them, there were a few instances where he had started to play back with me but I was already feeling so rejected and so sensitive to his physical sensitivities (he would literally stiffen when I tried to be close to him) that I needed an overt declaration of interest because I felt so beaten down, especially after the conversation on Monday. I was trying really hard not to take it personally because Daniel had explicitly told me he was SO tense about school and we both acknowledged there was weirdness between us, but we wanted to power through it and we knew we could overcome it because we cared so much about each other. This night though, I just felt drained and emotional. I don't remember what movie we ended up watching, but I do remember thinking I ruined this date. Daniel tried really hard and I just fucked it up. I guess I had the right to feel off with everything that was going on, but I did feel bad. This was hard.