When You're Young and Pretty, by Rock

So I'm sure all 5 of you have been DYING to hear about my trip with 2.0. It's been a crazy week, and I needed a little time to process. Not that it didn't go well.

I headed over to his place on Friday afternoon, and brought champagne as a congratulations for his crazy month (almost) being over. He seemed genuinely touched, and we relaxed with some champagne until it was time to leave. When he put on his backpack without first putting on his coat, I teased him a little, but thought nothing of it. We cabbed it over to the airport, and it was clear that he was still in work mode a bit. Let's not forget, that this trip was happening because he had to NY for work, and while his company wanted him there a few days earlier than everyone else, he would mostly have time to enjoy the city. That's where I came in.

In line for security, he brought up me teasing him about "forgetting" his coat. "I wasn't going to forget it. I was doing a dry run." I kept teasing him since he wouldn't admit that he made a silly mistake.

Then some bitch of a woman behind us says to him, "You can slap him if you want." We both kind of laughed. I said, "Did you hear the whole story? Cause if you did, you would be on my side." She admitted to hearing just the end. But I was being "obnoxious."

So the three of us stood there in pretty much silence. Somehow it came up again on the other side of security and I offered the flippant apology myself. The old standard: "Well I was totally just teasing you, but I'm sorry that it upset you."

We ordered food and sat down and I was still unhappy with it. He made attempts to move on. I finally said, "I'm unhappy with my apology, it was flippant. I do think that you were being extremely, out-of-character sensitive earlier, but I apologize that I didn't pick up on that earlier than I did."

He said, "I appreciate that. I will admit that the past few weeks, I have been extremely sensitive and tired and out-of-character. So I apologize for that." And I said that I appreciated that.

We played cards until it was time to board. The flight was uneventful. We were both tired when we landed and pretty much got food and went right to bed.

It's hard for me to transition into that "we're together but we're both tired or out of it" mentality, especially when someone has just told you that they're not ready for the "boyfriend" word, unlike previous conversations had led you to believe. To me, that word invokes a sort of safety net for the few off days you're going to have. But on this night, I was tired enough to just go to bed no worries.

We woke up and cuddled for a bit and flirted with the idea of fooling around. But then we had to go meet his friend for brunch so it was postponed for after we checked into our second hotel. He still seemed a little distracted through lunch, and about halfway through the museum we checked out after. But then there was just this shift where he decided he could finally have fun. We were packing up at our first hotel and I was lying on the bed waiting for him. He bent down and kissed me, and my god if I hadn't been waiting for something like that for the past two weeks. That kiss might have been the highlight of my trip.

And from that moment, things were amazing. We checked into the second hotel and immediately got down and dirty. We had dinner and saw a show. We picked up some beer and cuddled and watched SNL. The next morning he had to run some errands before he had to report for work. We turned it into a little shopping trip and had fun.

We stopped at a cafe for a little snack and I said, "I like to talk too much, you know this, but I wanted to say that the past few weeks have been a little iffy, and I think we were both kind of looking to this trip to see how it went." He nodded his head in a "that's fair to say" kind of way. I continued, "But I've had a really great time with you this trip, and I'm really looking forward to seeing how February goes."

"It's almost here," he said with a smile.

And that's honestly where I am. We had a big stick thrown in our timeline with January being so crazy. If the guy I started falling for continues to be back, then great. If not, moving on.

This past week has been a bad indicator. He was in New York still through Thursday, getting very little sleep and being busy all day. I flat out told him that I realized he would be crazy so to not feel like he needed to get in touch with me all the time. I got a text or two and a phone call and that was about what I expected. Now he's in Vegas for the weekend with a friend. I've been promised drunk dials, but none so far. Just a text. RuPaul says that "expectations create resentment" and I'm trying my best to remember that. And remember that this week is a wash and some decisions can be made next week when we have a date on Tuesday and are going to see a concert with some friends of his on Friday.

I had this realization that possibly I demand too much from partners. I'm trying to make an effort right now to uphold my standards and wishes, while lowering expectations just a bit. I get a little upset when guys don't follow the same thought processes that I do, but really if I dated myself I would go crazy. So either I have a good time with someone or I don't, and that's it. But I'm just ready to actually evaluate without any outside influence.