But the thing was it didn't really matter to me. Once I had stopped making this huge search the investment in finding someone to ask out was pretty minimal. Moreover, I knew that they had to be turning me down on superficial grounds which is a lot easier for me to take than personality grounds.
And, I got a lot of people to say yes.
A lot.
The second half of my strategy was to stay free of commitments. I figured that if I was going to give myself the best shot at findinga truly great person, I'd have to conduct the search in parallel. No more serial relationships for me.
For the most part I was surprised at how well women took that. Some decided that without exclusivity there'd be no sex, but that didn't really bother me so much. I was just havinga lot of fun going out on a lot of dates with a lot of different women.
And there was always prostitution.
So about a year and a half ago, a friend of mine broke up with his girlfriend and she sensibly moved out. I had known her for quite a long time as she had dated a different friend of mine many years before. I didn't really know her well back then, but I had gotten to know her a little bit better over the last few years. To my surprise, she decided to move into the apartment complex that I lived in. Apparently she had been impressed with the location (it was very close to work for her) and value. Coincidentally, she moved into the unit directly above mine. I was a bit concerned if for no other reason than my friend was taking things poorly and I didn't want him to feel like he couldn't hang out at my place.
But then I didn't really see or talk to her for the first three or four months that she lived there. So I more or less forgot about it. Then, a little more than year ago I decided to go back to school. I was pretty excited the night I made the decision and souldn't locate any of my friends. So I went upstairsm knocked on her door, and started to discuss what I was thinking.
Over the next few months we continued to talk more frequently. She had also decided to go back to school and was in the middle of grad school applications. After a while I realized that I was pretty anxious to ask her out. On the other hand, she had dated two of my friends, lived directly above me, and was going to move away in nine months. So I went back and forth in my head for a month or two.
Finally I decided that none of the reasons that I had come up with for not asking her out were on my short list. Given my strategy, I was compelled to ask her out. So I did. She agreed with the caviat that she was going to graduate school and had no intention of dealing with a long distance relationship. I quickly agreed to that term as it was certainly one I agreed with.
I should admit that I broke my parrallel rule. I figured that since the relationship had an expiration date, it wouldn't kill me to be exclusive for a while. Looking back, I guess it worked out OK, but I still feel conflicted about breaking my own rule.
Anyway, we had a half year long relationship, she left for grad school, and we still keep in touch. It was all very nice.
Since 'Kimmie' I've probably gone out on more than five dates with at least a halk dozen people. This was the only thing that could really be consdiered a 'relationship', though.
Since then I did go back to school. Undergraduates in Austin are amazing. I've had some fun. And to my delight, 'Kimmie' visited me for a week in October.
One of the things I realized after she left was that the pacing of our relationship had always gone on her terms. She gave in enough on the things we did, but her visits from Korea were always things she'd just anounce to me. I had my choice of whether or not to deal with them and I always did.
I have now come to accept that there was a fairly sound reason for that. I needed that relationship a lot more than she did. I think I had let myself get traumatized by my dating failures and that this probably had a lot to do with my spiraling so quickly into commercial sex. Even though I still had non-commercial sexual relationships, I really didn't throw myself into anything for almost half a decade. 'Kimmie' was the first time I did.
It's funny that the first risk I take in years was such a huge one.
It's even funnier that it worked out.
So I think that when I saw things were going to work out I was put in a position where in some senses I needed the relationship. I don't really mean in the sense of dependancy, but more that I could see that there was some kind of transformation happening in me that was coincident with that relationship.
The nice thing is that 'Kimmie' really turned me onto women as more than sex partners or ways to kill some time. Yes... ironic.
More than that the lessons I learned from dating her really fleshed out a change in the way that I approach dating that has been quite a good one for me.
(The rather hilarious thing about all of that is that everything I 'figured out', my father more or less told me about fifteen years ago and then every so often after that. If only that were the only thing)
