WAITING WITH BATED BREATH

Bated Breath: a state in which you almost stop breathing through terror, awe, extreme anticipation, or anxiety.

The "extreme anticipation" aspect of the above phrase certainly applies to my current state of mind (and perhaps the "anxiety" one too). It's been four long days since I have received any form of communication from JT, and that fact, coupled with this damn heat and the Cubs current losing streak has made for an exhausting week.

My natural predisposition is to hope for the best, but at the same time I have a tendency to think the worst. On Monday I got a text message from JT saying that he didn't receive Sunday's text/call because his phone was dead. Fine, shit happens (although I thought this was a suspect excuse because when I called him his phone rang four times before going to voice mail). I almost lost it on Monday at work when I realized that I left my phone at home but once I got back I saw that he left me a text saying he would "hit me up soon". Awesome, right?

Four days later and still not having been "hit up" this initial awesome feeling has devolved in to a state of restlessness that is difficult to quantify. Anytime someone sends me a text message the little "ping-ping" sound that my phone makes causes me to stop breathing and my blood pressure to rise. Is this finally him responding back to me? Thus far it has not. How badly does it fucking suck to receive a text from a good friend and be disappointed?

Now, I realize that people lead busy lives and don't always have the time to make time to hang out (that's the new American Way, is it not?). What I do not understand, nor will I ever is how people, JT in particular, seems not to see fit to respond in any way, shape or form. Seriously, if he brazenly told me to FUCK OFF it would be better than him simply ignoring me. After all, I'm an adult. I can handle rejection (it wouldn't be the first time).

What I cannot handle is non-response, especially after the (granted) short but awesome time we spent together. Not to boast, but I made this guy moan and squirm. Generally speaking, this alone would be a positive reaction to our shared experience and one that would suggest that he would want to see me again (and keep in mind that we kept things very, very PG-13-ish, it's not as if we had wild, crazy, dirty sex).

Every indication seemed to indicate that he really liked me as much as I did him. I felt confident that at the least our shared experience would lead to another date, but at this juncture it apparently does not even warrant a fucking text message telling me to back off. I'm trying so hard not to let this get me down, but thus far this has been an exercise in sheer futility. To be quite honest, this situation makes me rather sad and inserts severe doubts into my mind about my ability to connect with another individual on anything beyond a casual level.

Perhaps I'm just naive about dating gay men but I thought I did everything right by this guy and while we were together everything felt so right. Was I really just in an awake-dream state? Am I that stupid? Am I really this socially inept?

Please understand that I am not a violent/angry person, but my frustration level reached the point on Tuesday night that I slammed my right fist into a solid oak door...and it won. Thankfully nothing broke but it is sore.

It's kinda like my soul, it ain't broke, but it sure as shit is sore right now...

Sometimes I can be such a stupid boy.