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I am in a funk.

I've had a very busy week. Stressful with work. I had two jobs this week- and one took up a lot more time then it should have. The second got a bit nudged out of the way because of it. Neither job is related to my PhD studies, and I have work that needs doing there as well, so it's starting to scratch at the mental door.

The thing is, I can't really say no to small private jobs because I really need the money. I also want to keep good relationships with the few contacts I have that can give me private jobs. It just doesn't help that they all coincided. I don't like feeling like I'm doing an inferior job, or that I don't deliver work as expected. I'm fairly critical of myself in this way, so if I even think that I've remotely let someone down, I berate myself quite harshly. Even if I haven't let anyone down at all, I know I haven't met my own standards and expectations. It's not good enough.

So there's that.

This running around between Cambridge and London is taking its toll. It's tiring. I don't feel that I settle in one place long enough to accomplish much. I keep uprooting myself for just a couple of days. This is not helpful when what I need to do is sit down and focus. Every time I am in London and need to go to Cambridge I dread it. Once I'm there, it's perfectly fine, but it's the act of getting there that I find incredibly burdensome. I do it, of course. But as I say, it takes its toll.

Which isn't to say I don't love what I'm doing in all of this. I do actually. I suppose all of these things add up to it being a challenge that keeps me from being bored or feeling too easy about all of it. I need a challenge in my life. I recognize that. So this isn't the worst thing by any stretch. I think it's all just gotten slightly out of hand this week, and I have things piling up for the next few months and I probably feel slightly overwhelmed and just need to get it all under fucking control again and things will be fine.

Plus, I'm making some money, so that is actually a good thing.

I will get a handle on it. This week has just been hard.

The other thing that's weighing on my mind is this boy situation. I have never, ever, met someone as difficult to understand as L. One of the things that I would say is typical of my interactions with people is that I tend to relate to people on fairly intimate personal levels. Not intimate sexual, but intimate as in, people feel comfortable talking to me and opening up to me and it just seems to happen in a vaguely natural way. It's not something I actively try to achieve, but I would say that it's a hallmark of how I engage with people close to me. It's something I even cherish.

L is a complete mystery to me. He doesn't tell me anything of consequence. It's not that he's being cagey or necessarily being obtuse, it's more like... just silence. Like a wall, but a wall that doesn't even know it's a wall. I can't explain it. I don't think I have ever had such a bad read on someone that I was interested in, and had spent a reasonable amount of time with, ever. Even people I don't like- usually if I'd spent as much time with them I'd at least have some indication of who they are as people.

How all of this manifests itself is that L simply doesn't talk to me. It's been two weeks since I saw him. We have plans to meet up tomorrow. At least, I think we have plans to meet up tomorrow because he hasn't actually confirmed anything really at all. In what would otherwise be our seventh date, I have no indication of whether or not he will actually show up or not. I have no way of understanding his character or personality, or anything about what is going on with him as a person to know if he is trustworthy or not. This makes me feel extremely uneasy and preemptively defensive.

Which sucks really. In all of these interim weeks of what amounts to basically no communication, I find that I respond by wanting to parrot this behavior and withdraw myself. Except of course, that isn't what I want to happen or actually do as it goes against my nature. I don't know how to communicate with someone who doesn't communicate! I'm more used to honest conversations, even at early stages. I'm not the right one for you? Okay. You're not the right one for me? I'll tell you. You seeing three people just now and not ready for any commitment? Okay. But what is this all about? What I have is this tremendous urge to stop communicating with him. To see if it actually matters to him or not. To see if he would be in touch on his own.

But that's game playing and I am not a game player. I hate that shit actually. So yeah. We're supposed to meet up tomorrow, and I don't even know why. I don't know why he would want to meet up with me since he seems to show so little interest or enthusiasm in actually getting to know me- what's the point? As far as I can tell we aren't even having an overnight, so it's not like there's sex involved. See, that I could understand more. You want a booty call, that makes sense. And if that's what he wanted, well, I'd probably be up for it for a while, but then the rules would change. None of this doing stuff bullshit. Just call me or I'll call you, go over to the other persons house, get it on, and then bye until next time. No confusion. No extraneous activities. And oh yeah, it would also need to be at least once every week or two, otherwise it's simply not worth it for me, and why get involved in a booty call relationship unless it's worth it for you? See- everything shifts then. I'm not adverse, but we would need to talk about it, agree it, and that would be fine.

But given that there's no sleepover involved (I think) and some other things about how we have interacted before, it doesn't particularly seem like that's what it's about anyway. But what it is about, I couldn't tell you.

Here's what I can say. I do like this guy L. I am drawn to him in a way I don't even think I can explain. I'm attracted to his mind, the way he thinks, the way he expresses his thoughts. I recognize there are thing we don't have in common. Those things don't even phase me. He's not the usual body type I go for, that also doesn't phase me. Intimately, I went down on him without freaking out or even explaining that it's something that sort of freaks me out, and I didn't freak out. That doesn't happen. When we fuck we both get hot and sweaty and his sweat literally dripped on me and I still didn't fucking care. Even with people I have really liked before that wouldn't have happened- in the back of my head I'd still be going 'ew' and I wasn't. This is not how things usually go for me. This is not how I usually feel or act around someone. I am drawn to him in a way that I don't come across very often. Usually I'm incredibly wary of men. Defensive. Until I can relax enough to trust them and chill out a bit. When I'm with him I don't feel the walls and the tension. Except of course, when I feel I can't talk to him or I feel like he's not interested in talking to me. This is usually all the time in between when we actually see each other.

For as much as I don't understand him or even think I know him in the slightest, there is something about L that when I see him, makes me feel insanely calm. Which is only ironic because given the enormity of what I'm saying is wrong, I'm not actually calm about any of that at all. And what I think is going to happen is that all of this is going to implode and he's going to go away and disappear.

So I guess that just makes me sad. Certainly disappointed. Here I am contrasting what I see as just a glimmer of something extraordinary for me. And recognize that I'm probably going to lose it. That it's a tiny seed that will not grow. That instinctual feelings, no matter how intriguing or exceptional, are simply not reciprocated. How can that not be disappointing?

And so, while I do not think I know L well enough to say I have feelings for him personally, I find I am distressed at what I perceive as the likely loss of the possibility. That I will need to put the memory of how such feelings feel away, and re-lock the door on such things. In some ways it's not about L at all. An embryonic relationship ending is not an emotional maelstrom about the pre-couple. But rather, yet again, and as always, I am forced to wonder if I will ever, ever find someone who I can feel like this about, who could possibly feel the same way about me. Or am I just destined to be the only one forever.

Like I said. It's been a bit of a bitch of a week and I'm in a funk. But all of these these things will be sorted. One way or the other. Tomorrow should be interesting.