The Less I Seek My Source for Some Definitive, the Closer I Am to Fine

My new boy called me again from his location in another country. He sounded absolutely exhausted on the phone, but he insisted that he wanted to hear my voice and talk to me. He got a little feisty when I suggested getting off the phone so he could go to bed, so I ended up carrying the conversation while he just listened. He was too tired to talk much really.

I've been trying to figure out how I feel about this guy. I really like him, and I'm excited when he calls. I like hearing his voice or receiving his emails, and he says all the right things. But part of me -- and I emphasize that this has nothing to do with him -- doesn't trust the situation. Again, it's not that I get any disingenuous vibes from him. It's just that I've always been the one reaching out and making the effort, and I'm off-balance in a situation where the other person has assumed that role. He keeps telling me how much he likes me, and I keep waiting to hear the catch. It's not healthy.

My mom assures me that this is just how guys act when they really like a girl. (Maybe that wretched He's Just Not That Into You book has a valid point to make.) I guess I haven't really experienced that since my high school boyfriend, and he was a bit of a weenie, not to mention that he was a boy in high school. This is my first real experience as an adult of being pursued by someone, and as much as I like it, I'm not sure how to react. I'm not sure how much of my own feelings to show him because I don't want to get hurt.

I really need to get my head right on this situation before I make this man think I don't like him and run him off.

But I Still Don't Understand Just How Your Love Can Do What No One Else Can

My new guy called me today from his remote island while he was waiting at the airport to leave for his next destination. I was really happy to hear from him. I thought it might be awkward, the way it sometimes is when two people make the jump from emailing to interacting in real time, but it wasn't. It was really nice to hear his voice, puzzled though I was by the fact that he said he was going to call and then actually called.

I have to say, this man is just blowing my entire mind. I've never even met, let alone been attracted to, a guy who is so emotionally available. I don't have to beg this guy to pay attention to me -- he just wants to. I don't have to beg him to tell me how he feels about me -- he just does. Like today, he told me how sad he was when I left on the shuttle bus to the airport in Egypt. He said he wanted to come back on the bus and kiss me good-bye one last time and that he stopped to consider the wisdom of doing that in the lobby of the hotel and then back in his room, but he decided he didn't want my last impression of him to be a stalkerish one. He said his eyes started watering, which is boy-language for crying. He also apologized for not telling me earlier about his crush, but he said he kept thinking about it and talking himself out of it by thinking of the differences in our careers (which don't seem significant to me) and the fact that we live in different countries (yeah, that one is tricky).

We had a mini-DTR (determine the relationship) talk, which he initiated. He said that it's not like we're diving into a relationship -- we're just testing the waters. I agreed with that assessment and with his further assertion that we'll see how things go when he comes to visit in April. At the very least, we'll be friends. Given how much he seems to like me, I suspect this translates as "we're engaged, but I don't want to tell you that yet because it might scare you off."

I also asked him when he's going to send me the photos of the two of us that he took on our last night in Cairo because my mom has been asking me about them. He said, with a tone of excitement, "You told your mom about me?" And I confirmed that I had and allowed that I tell my mom everything. He said, "What did you tell her?" And I said, "I told her I came home with a giant hickey on my neck." To which he replied, "You told her that?!?! How am I supposed to meet her now?" I was excited to hear that he has the thought in mind to meet my mother.

I'm excited about this guy. I think this could maybe be a real thing. I don't want to get too wound up about it yet in case it doesn't pan out, but this guy has follow-through.

Time Goes By So Slowly for Those Who Wait

I haven't received a response from the Egypt guy to my email yesterday.

I am not good at this part of having a relationship, the part where things start to get real. Usually, this is where things go to shit for me. In this case, it's especially difficult because the relationship is currently confined to email. I have no way of knowing if his lack of response is because he hasn't checked his email or had time to write back or if it's because something I said rubbed him the wrong way and he has no intention of responding. I hate that. My instinct is that he'll call or email soon, but there is no way for me to know that for sure.

The other problem is the part of the relationship where I realize the guy isn't perfect. When I first meet someone, I'm able to pretend that he's flawless or, at the very least, that all of his flaws are a perfectly complement to my own quirks. Obviously, that isn't going to be the case. Someone might be perfect for me and yet still do things that grate or annoy. I'm starting to see pieces of this guy filter in that don't sit quite right with me, and I have to decide whether they are deal breakers or not.

In any case, that might be irrelevant if he never gets in touch again.

The Best Thing You've Ever Done for Me Is to Help Me Take My Life Less Seriously

I got another email from my Egypt guy this morning. I was happy to receive the email but less happy about what it said.

First, he was telling me how the rest of his vacation is going, and he mentioned that he was at a club with a friend of his (a friend he just made, I presume) and a gay guy was aggressively pursuing his heterosexual male friend to the point that the gay guy was asked to leave the club. That's all fine, but he referred to the gay guy as a "fag." I'm just not down for that. I don't think this guy is actually homophobic because he hung out with two gay guys on our Egypt trip and was totally friendly and fine with them, but it still offends me.

Second, he mentioned that the women where he is are "smoking hot." He knows I get jealous. Jackass.

Third, he didn't say anything about my provocative comments as to how I'm going to get him back for leaving that giant hickey on my neck. I was a little annoyed about that. I don't know what I expected him to say, but I wanted some acknowledgment that my suggestion intrigued him.

Fourth, he implied that when he comes to my city for a visit, he just wants to meet up for drinks. I am not sure that it's a good idea for him to stay with me, but I thought he would want to spend more than an hour or two hanging out with me. He also suggested he might visit some other folks from our tour, though I didn't get the impression that he was romantically interested in any of them other than perhaps me.

I should add, in the interest of full disclosure, that he sweetly mentioned that it makes him happy to get my emails and that he hoped to hear from me again soon. He also asked for my phone number so he can call me from his hotel off on the other side of the world. I don't even call my mother when I'm out of the country unless it's a dire emergency, so that meant something to me.

Still, I debated whether to respond to his email, mostly because of the gay slur. I talked to my mom, and she posited that I was just looking for an excuse to kick him to the curb and said that I don't have anything to lose at this juncture by telling him honestly that what he said offended me. I decided to think on it for the day and then see how I felt. I went to the outlet mall with my friend and ate some food and let the situation marinate. By the time I got home, I decided how I would respond.

I wrote back that I thought our tour group was a good one and mentioned that I was trying to get together with my female friend from the trip and that this really hot guy is coming to my city in a few weeks and we're trying to get together for dinner. I also said that I was glad that he's having fun where he is and mentioned that I was sorry that his friend had a run-in with a rapey gay guy, adding a brief parenthetical that he can't call them "fags" to me. I didn't want to lecture him, but I think I made my point. Finally, I said, "So...let me understand something. You're coming to Boston and you and I are just going to meet to grab drinks? I am seriously pouting because obviously my plans for hickey-related revenge were not that enticing to you. I guess I'll have to try them out on [the hot guy] when he comes to visit, just to see where I'm going wrong. I wonder if he prefers purple satin or red lace..."

Let him mull that one over.

Nothing's Greater than the Rush that Comes with Your Embrace and in This World of Loneliness, I See Your Face

I heard from the Egypt guy again today! I was incredibly excited to open up my email and see one from him. He didn't have anything too substantive to say -- just wanted to know the details of my plans to get revenge on him for leaving a hickey on my neck (I assume he wanted those details to be as dirty as possible) and to reiterate his desire to come visit me here.

When I thought that Catalano was going to come visit in January, I was nervous and on edge. But when I think about this guy coming to visit, I feel happy and excited. I can't wait for him to get here. Obviously, April is two months away, and who knows if he'll actually follow through, but I'm hopeful. We'll see.

Too High, Can't Calm Down, Losing My Head, Spinning All Around

I haven't heard from vacation dude again. I keep reminding myself that he's on a crazy island in the Indian Ocean that, like, is aspiring to be third world one day and probably has little or no internet access. I also keep reminding myself that 96 hours ago, I couldn't stand this person, so it's pretty ridiculous that now I'm all wound up waiting to hear from him. I'm a mess.

And If You Don't Know, Now You Know

I'm still thinking about the email I got yesterday from the guy I hooked up with in Egypt.

I can't get over what a surprise this guy ended up being. Seriously, for ninety percent of the time we were on the trip, I would have happily drowned him in the Nile. Had I punched him in the head, I think most of the group would have voluntarily testified that he did it to himself. Now, I wonder if he wasn't being so loud and obnoxious because he wanted to get my attention. (I'm sure that wasn't the only reason, but it might have been part of it.) I wrote him off as a pain in the ass, but, in retrospect, I misjudged him.

When we talked one on one, I found him to be a genuine person. Maybe it was a combination of a couple of (very weak) drinks and it being the last night of the tour, but he was very honest and vulnerable with me about his feelings. And who doesn't like to hear that a handsome guy has made you his secret crush?

Because I'm inherently mistrustful and suspicious of others, I doubted whether he really liked me and wondered if he just said all those things in the hopes of having sex with me. When he showed up at my room to apologize for getting fresh, I became more convinced of his sincerity because that didn't seem like something that someone who just wanted to get laid would do. When he then emailed me after I left, that convinced me even more for the same reason.

His email was also really sweet. He filled me in on what he'd been doing since I left (which, unfortunately, was mainly dealing with some light credit card number theft that he found out had happened to him in Luxor), and he told me he had had a dream about me and woke up holding his pillow. He apologized again for trying to rush things between us, but he said that it was just so amazing to be with me that he didn't want to let me go. That's pretty flattering.

It's a shame that I don't see any real chance of anything going beyond friendship with this guy, since he's the first guy since my high school boyfriend who seemed to get me and like me for myself. Maybe (and I hate myself already for saying this) this is the universe's way of telling me that guys like that are out there (ugh, I hate when people say stuff like that and I can't believe I just made myself one of them). But maybe I shouldn't count this guy out so soon. If I learned anything in Egypt, it's that life and people are full of surprises, so you have to limber up your thinking.

You Can't Always Get What You Want, But If You Try Sometimes, You Just Might Find You Get What You Need

I'm still pondering all the stuff that happened in Egypt, especially hooking up with that guy the last night of the trip. He sent me a long email last night in which he said he dreamed about me and woke up holding his pillow. Very sweet.

So, more details on this whole hook-up...

The last night of the trip, we had a party at the hotel's outdoor bar and almost everyone on the trip showed up to enjoy one last night together before we went our separate ways in the morning. This guy sat next to me in the outdoor seating area, and he started being affectionate and chatting with me. He's an affectionate person, so I didn't think anything particular about it when he was holding my hand or putting his arm around me. He behaved like that with all the girls on the trip. Then, he started to buy drinks for everyone, and I figured I would use the opportunity to get my fill of free Cokes. (I should note that the alcoholic drinks at this bar were clearly watered down, and I ended up being a lot more buzzed after glugging down one Coke after another than anyone else did after doing shots and drinking cocktails. Sometimes it pays to be the teetotaler.)

So, as the free drinks started flowing, this guy continued sitting next to me and, for the first time on the trip, wasn't annoying the bejesus out of me. As more and more people crowded around our table, our chairs moved closer and closer together. After he got a couple drinks in him, he had his hand on my knee. I said, "You can keep your hand there while I'm drinking this drink, but when I'm done, your attorney-client privileges end and you can put your hand somewhere else." He kept buying my sodas so he could continue inching his hand up toward the promised land. At one point, he got up and was hugging people good-bye, and I turned to my guy friend sitting next to me and said, "If he comes back and I'm finished with this drink, that's too bad." My guy friend put his hand on my thigh and said, "Hey, if you see a parking meter with time left on it, that's where you're going to park."

The evening continued in that same hand-on-the-thigh vein as I started staying longer and longer than I originally planned. A few times, the guy kissed my neck or the top of my ear, but it struck me more as being friendly and affectionate than trying to lay the groundwork for getting down to business. Eventually, the outdoor bar closed, and we were left with the option of going to sleep or going to the hotel's (highly dubious) club. The guy whispered in my ear that we should go back to my room, and I was like, "Absolutely not." And he was like, "It'll be fun." And I was like, "Not happening." So, we went to the club.

Things continued more or less the same way at the club, at least as far as the relationship between his hand and my thigh went, except that his hand was continuing its upward progression to my Nile delta (so to speak) and he was being a little more kissy. I was surprised to find that I enjoyed the attention rather than being put off by it, especially since, as I mentioned, he was not someone I had really enjoyed during the week. I attributed this to the fact that I was feeling hurt and rejected by the semi-closeted gay dude's sudden decision to go from spending every waking minute with me to not talking to me at all even when I spoke to him directly (classy).

Around 2 in the morning, most of us decided it was time to go to bed. The guy said he would walk me back to my room (the hotel was set up so that the rooms were almost like little separate bungalows rather than the more standard arrangement). I knew this would lead to smoochery, but I agreed to let him walk me back. When we got to my room, he confessed that he had liked me all week but hadn't told anyone. I told him truthfully that I was surprised and hadn't had any inkling that he felt that way. He told me that he liked how intelligent I am and how pretty he thinks I am and how good he thinks I smell. This was intoxicating to me because I think that my intelligence is a liability in attracting guys and while I was in Egypt, my skin looked like the surface of a cheese pizza and I smelled like, well, Egypt. We hugged for a long time and kissed, and then I shooed him back to his room.

I got ready and went to bed, and about thirty minutes later, I hear a knock on my door. Guess who was back? Apparently, his roommate had disappeared into the ether, leaving this guy with no place to sleep. I told him he could stay in my room, but only to sleep and not for any other purpose. That is when things hit their nadir. I haven't shared a bed with anyone other than a female friend or a relative since 2001, and it felt unfamiliar (though not bad) to have someone holding me while I was trying to sleep. The bad part was that he kept trying to get things to progress to a more sexual level, and I was getting uncomfortable and told him to go to sleep.

To backtrack a little, I was hurt when the gay dude I'd been hanging around with suddenly dropped me without any explanation. I only found out he was gay because his friend on the trip took pity on me and told me that he didn't want me to go home feeling like I did something wrong and that he thought I should know this guy was gay. I was feeling sad and close to tears most of the last day because someone I thought was really special and possibly a guy I could be with in the long-term turned out to be (1) gay and (2) a dick. I was angry with this dude for not being honest with me, and I felt that I couldn't be resentful of him and not be honest with this guy who was trying to convince me to have sex with him.

To that end, I told him that I didn't want him to take it personally that I wasn't open to being more physically intimate with him because it was based on being assaulted in the past. He told me he was sorry that had happened to me and told me that he had worked in the rape squad in the military police and knew that it was common and that he didn't tolerate it. He told me that it made him like me more that I shared that with him. I was glad that I had because although it is difficult for me to talk about, I thought he needed to know.

Unfortunately, he persisted in trying to move things to a more physical level, so I kicked his ass out of my room. I made him call his roommate and wake his roommate's ass up and go back to his own room. By this point, it was 4:45 in the morning, and I had a 7:00 wake-up call to go to the airport to fly home. He asked me if I was okay about everything, and I said that I was.

After he left, I considered whether I was really okay or whether I had just said that to get him on his way. I decided that I was. I don't think he meant to push me into doing something I didn't want to do -- he was just physically uncomfortable because he, um, liked being around me. When I told him to stop and threw him out, he left.

In the morning, I woke up at 6:45 and brushed my teeth. At 6:50, I heard a knock on my door, and it was the guy. He told me that he hadn't slept at all because he was so sorry about what had happened. As he put it, "I poured my heart out to you, and then I ruined it." I told him that I was really okay, and we talked a little bit. Then I threw him out again so I could take a shower. I should note that he also noticed that he had given me a baseball-sized hickey on my neck that required me to borrow a scarf from one of my friends on the trip to travel in. I was like, "Dude, we are in a Muslim country." (He himself is a Muslim, so he should understand!) He kissed me good-bye in front of the entire bus full of people headed to the airport, which made me a little shy but I kind of liked it.

He already emailed me since I've been home, which is very sweet. I honestly don't see things going anywhere (he's Canadian military police and I'm an American lawyer, so both of us have jobs that keep us in our respective countries), but he made me feel good about myself when I felt bad about myself and I enjoyed getting to know him better, so I'm hopeful that we might remain friends.

Walk (of Shame) Like an Egyptian

Just got back from vacation, and I'm so exhausted. I feel a lot better after taking a shower. There's just something about American showers that makes me feel cleaner than foreign showers. There is a layer of grime that foreign showers just can't remove.

This was probably my favorite trip that I have ever taken, and I travel more than Carmen Sandiego. Egypt was cool (though the pyramids were not as amazing as I expected and Cairo is filthy, Abu Simbel is incredible and the Nile is gorgeous), but the other folks in my group really made the trip for me.

I'm too tired to get into all the details now, but I ended up totally throwing myself at this guy who turned out to be a semi-closeted gay (I thought I left that kind of behavior behind freshman year of college, but I guess not entirely), and ultimately hooked up with this guy who I thought was totally annoying. The annoying guy ended up being really sweet and not at all how I thought and apparently had a crush on me the entire trip, which was a twist I did not expect. Of course, hooking up with that guy resulted in my having to travel home with an absolutely enormous hickey on my neck that made all the Delta representatives I encountered look at me like a filthsome skank. Whatever. They're just jealous.

Off to bed.

Walk Like an Egyptian

I'm off on vacation tomorrow! I'm so excited to see the pyramids and all that stuff.