BAH! insecurity!

dammit! right, so i have interested men coming out of the freakin WOODwork now. personals ad and all. first time in my LIFE this kind of thing has happened to me. there was the date with peter on saturday night, bryan on sunday night, phone date (lame, i know) with steve on monday night, and lunch with scott yesterday. of the 4, i like bryan the best (though i haven't met steve yet, so how much i like him remains to be seen).

the lure of bryan is his confidence (take note, gentlemen). he's obviously self-assured, and has the skills (skills!) to back it up. he *definitely* knew his way around my body.

even though our date went *really* well (dude! the date lasted NINE AND A HALF (!) hours), and we parted with kisses, i've found myself feeling horribly insecure about it. does he like me? does he want to see me again? he called me on monday (left a message, anyway). i called him on tuesday (he was at warmdaddy's open mic night, jamming, so we only talked for (literally) a minute). i haven't heard from him since (but, hello? it's only thursday! and yesterday was a freakin holiday! (happy 225 america!)) and i'm starting to freak out a little about it. insecurity alert! insecurity alert!

feeling this insecure really pisses me off! DAMMIT! i want someone to love me (yeah, and not in a parents or friends kinda way). plus (maybe more so) i want to have sex with bryan! did i mention that he's skilled? urg.

in other news, i spent last night downtown (in the rain) with becky and jared. we brought blankets and (tried to) watch the fireworks. i managed to pick a spot such that the trees hid about half of the explosions--we could only see the really high ones. bummer. plus, they played lame pop/rock music to accompany the fireworks. next year, i'm definitely going back to my hometown, washington dc, where the fireworks are set against the washington monument and the music is played live by the national symphony orchestra...

becky and i had much conversation about boys (she and her boyfriend are having trouble, and she's got a psi jung player who's showing interest, then of course there's the merriment that is my life lately). we spent some quality time talking about jared, my feelings for him, and his possible feelings for me. becky insisted that he *must* like me--he spends way more time with me than with the other women he's friends with (and he's got a fair number of female friends--one of those men who do). people are constantly under the impression that we're dating (1. the folks at CUNY 2000 (a psycholingusitics conference) 2. the other grad students in our dept and 3. the members of the psi jung softball team). but i countered with the fact that jared and i happen to have a *lot* in common, from our devotion to tuna to the nature of our breakups with john (me) and cathy (him). so the fact that we seem so close is just that we're really good friends, and we have a lot in common. i dunno. he sends out totally mixed signals: one day he can't stop commenting on the fact that our grad student friends thought we were dating and the next (well, metaphorically) he compares himself to one of my girlfriends (with whom i can discuss all the gory (so-to-speak) details of my new beaus) (though i did get him to admit that he's not *exactly* like one of my girlfriends (or gay male friends) because i *don't* tell him all the gory details about (e.g.) what a fabulous kisser bryan is).

also, on the one hand, i *so* would like to date him b/c he's HOT (plus, i like him a lot). on the other hand, i *definitely* don't want to ruin our friendship with a romantic relationship. what to do, what to do... one of these days, maybe i'll get up the courage to make a pass (can't just ask him out, because there wouldn't be an easy way to distinguish me asking him out on a date from me asking him out as a friend (which i (and he) do (does) all the time).

p.s. last night was the first time EVER that i'd heard him say ANYTHING bad about cathy--he described her as insecure and a control-freak. before this, he's only ever described her as "the sweetest person."