Getting weirder?

She called me Sweetheart.






Once upon a time, I had a crush.
At a random moment, I discovered that my feelings were reciprocated.
They offered their honor and I honored their offer.
Then things kind of went off the rails, and they quit me cold turkey, and put me on radio silence.

Time heals all wounds, and after a few years I was invited back. A few years after that, I decided I would go back.

And a very important conversation *finally happened.*

She called me, because He was wanting to get together (for non-sexytimes) to work on something with me. This turned into all three of us getting together, which made me more comfortable. The thing that had gotten so badly screwed up the last time had a lot to do with the fact that He apparently can't trust himself around me. And by that same token, neither she nor I can trust him alone with me.
And I had finally come around to understanding my "uncomfortableness" about the whole thing, my seething resentment, and my fear. I wasn't scared that I would screw things up again; I'm too vigilant to let that happen. I realized that I flatly could not trust Him to manage his own boundaries. I realized that He and I have intense chemistry, and that He *cannot handle it* period. Full stop.

Over the weekend all three of us played together and it was glorious. He kept trying to catch my eye and drown me in his energy, and I worked pretty hard to keep away from eye contact unless there were other people around us. He made it clear that he'd like more time with me, more play with me, and maybe even alone time with me.

And that won't do.

Fortunately for all of us, my day off turned into the only day to handle a completely different crisis, so we postponed our project.

Then I got a phone call from her.
It was clear that she was nervous having this conversation, and probably was worried that I'd get defensive and weird. She's very non-confrontational. She opened with "I have some... concerns."
I wanted to hear her concerns.
"I don't think He can control himself around you."
I have that EXACT SAME CONCERN.
I expressed that after things had gotten screwed up between us before, I never wanted that to happen again.
Apparently *they* finally had the important conversation where He gained some honesty about His feelings for me, both with her and with himself.
I thanked Her profusely for discussing it with me. I explained that I found each of them attractive, both separately and together.
She wanted to make sure that he and I wouldn't be put in a compromising position, and I agreed. I also pointed out that while my house would work because I have a lot of activity here, I also don't have a good space for the project in question.

So what I got was an invitation to come to their house to work on the project and then watch a movie and snuggle "or something".

We've been tag teaming back and forth via email. She also mentioned potentially hanging out on spring break week for him.

And then on IM tonight she called me "Sweetheart".
She doesn't call me Sweetheart.
I'm not sure I've ever heard her call anyone that.

I'm going to have to start asking the harder questions, I think.
If I'm going to be dating a couple, I want to know that it is dating.
Or what it is.

There's that specter of "The Boundaries Conversation". The one they don't want to have. I think I'm going to have to give them some homework to do, and then we can all have that conversation.

And while I'm at it, I can figure out what it is that I want.

Especially with the buffet being so (potentially) abundant.

It's not like they're the only couple I'm eyeing or anything.

Oh, but wait, there's more...

And weirder still...

Let's call my "Date friend" Angel for the purposes of this journal.

I've mentioned her before; she's the one I felt like I was dating even thought that wasn't what we were doing.
Then she asked if it could be what we were doing.
Which I was into.

We're being lesbian sheep, apparently. I'm either out of practice or just not good at reading her signals, and she's either being nervous about overt behavior or just plain not good at "come hither". Or something.

The event in question included the two of us seeing one another but not SEEING one another.
She kept inviting me to her room, but any of the times when she did so I had to be somewhere else. We were going to get dressed up together and I discovered that I'm allergic to one of her perfumes (so I had to go until it wore off.)

She then proceeded to not have a good time at the event at all.

When I called her after the event to talk about it, she was not only sad that she didn't have a good time, she was downright angry. And when I listened and asked questions (you know, like you do) she took my questions to mean that she wasn't entitled to her feelings which was not what I was attempting to do.

So I left that conversation confused. The part of me that knows the dance of passive aggression read between the lines and saw that she was pissed off at me for a perceived rejection, in a crabby place because she spent the weekend failing to have a good time and placing some of the blame for that on me.

SHe also went out of her way to tell me that she couldn't spend time with me because she was spending time with her roommate.
In several versions.
Which was weird.

However, my actual way of dealing with perceived passive aggression is to simply go by what people *actually* say and ignore the subtext. So I shook it off, and went about my business. (Also: Crisis happened and I had to handle that.)

So then the next time I talk to her she's all about wanting to get together, and everything is fine.

Ah.

Um.

Ok, good. That works just fine for me.
We're getting together later this week for lunch. That works well for me, too.

Might have a bit of "what is going on" conversation with her. Maybe.

I have too many options. I'm going to wind up with none of them.

There's this other weirdness happening too.

Soooo there's a friend of mine. This person is a good friend, and also a dude. I had a shiny golden pitch-perfect opportunity to upgrade that friendship over the weekend. I didn't take it. I did seriously think about it though.
In fact, it's on my mind a lot lately.
It did not help to get a friendly smooch from said dude, after which he smooched the dude standing next to me. (There was a lot of smooching in that moment.)
And sugarplum fairy fantasies of freaking *cruising* with him flitted through my consciousness.
Because I am the world's BEST wingman.

Hell, part of me wants to combine the two situations outlined above for a long, crazy night of debauchery.
Believe me when I say that if I did it would be just plain weird. Those two people haven't given me the slightest hint that they're compatible. Like, at all. In fact, there are things about each of them that would likely spin the other one off in a complete retreat of nopenopenope.

I must be careening into "OH DEAR GOD EVERYONE IS SHINY LORD HELP ME JESUS I WANT TO LICK THEM ALL FOR HOURS" territory. I hate when this happens. Most of my adult life has been like this. Spring is approaching. I tend to get sprung in the spring.

I don't self-identify as timid when it comes to affection. On the other hand, my situation is significantly different right now.

Hell, I'm tempted to get a hotel room for a weekend, invite all the shiny people at once and wrap myself up as a present.

Instead I'm going to go lay down.