#(feeling a little rusty but I couldn't wait to reply lol)

[holidaywishes]

I’m here with an update lol

After day 2, I stopped swiping. There were a few matches from the days that I must have swiped on during the first two days but I was quick to unmatch or the chat was quick to expire.

Still haven’t matched or talked with anyone on Hinge 😂 and Tinder is a disaster. The only guy I was talking to started out nice but he quickly turned the chat into sexual - so par for the course.

I was talking to two guys on Bumble. One was the guy with lots of questions, the other was a Kiwi with lots of banter. Bumble Boy A asked me out immediately, asking what I was doing after the long weekend was over. It felt like it was like the next day but looking back, he asked on a Sunday if we could go out on a date on Tuesday. He was still pretty insistent even when I said we should wait a bit, saying he likes to get to know someone in person. Which is fair, so do I, but I still have to get a feel for you first. So he asked a day later if we could go out on Friday. I agreed.

Meanwhile, Bumble Boy B started the conversation that Monday and I felt an immediate calmness. There weren’t nearly as many questions so he didn’t feel as intense and because he’d travelled so much, and I had done a bit of travelling so much, it felt like there was more to connect on. So we could talk and joke and it felt comfortable.

So the position I was in was Bumble Boy A was so quick to ask all these questions and ask me out on a date but there was very little I could connect with him on, if only because he wouldn’t stop asking questions. There wasn’t anything he asked that I could hold onto and the answers I got from him from the same questions felt so sporadic, that it kinda just felt like he was throwing things out to see what would stick.

While Bumble Boy B was asking questions that I was excited to answer and excited to hear his replies. However, he was relatively non-committal. He would start conversations a little bit later but continue them during the day, so it didn’t seem like he was just looking for a booty call. He sorta asked me out on a date but didn’t follow through and even if he had followed through, I would have planned the majority of it. So even though, I felt a better connection with Bumble Boy B, Bumble Boy A is who I went on a date with. Now, let me tell you about that date…

You know those guys where everything’s good on paper but there’s something you just can’t put your finger on why it doesn’t feel right? Like, for all intents and purposes, he’s a normal guy. He makes his own money, he’s nice, he’s not rude, he’s polite, he has a job, he lives alone, he has a car - everything on paper says go for it but you just can’t? That’s how I felt last night. Even before I left the house, I just didn’t wanna go. I hadn’t been on a date in at least three years, probably closer to four at this point and I didn’t want to bail but I was so not excited to go.

I liked that he planned the date, that he confirmed, that he met me outside. He held the door open, he walked me out when we were done. He payed for the bill when I went to the bathroom (which wasn’t my intention but I’m grateful nonetheless lol), and at the end of the night, he messaged me to see if I wanted to go on another date. All of these things are positives and should signal me that I should go on another date. Maybe I’m just rusty? Maybe I’m not used to a guy actually paying attention to me? Maybe guys keeping conversation and putting in any actual effort is so rare that it feels strange or wrong?

The date itself though? It was exactly like the chat. Question after question. While I had food in my mouth, while I was trying to process one answer, etc., just constant. And they were nothing of substance. I told my friend afterward that he asked me so many questions but I couldn't remember a single one. I couldn't remember almost anything that he told me about himself and the whole date was so SERIOUS. I think that's what got me the most. I came in all smiley and happy because I thought that would keep the mood light but it just felt like it wasn't being reciprocated. Maybe he was just nervous, maybe he didn't think I was funny, fine. I'm not really that funny but when I'm smiling almost the entire way through dinner, you gotta give me SOMETHING. The smiles he did give, felt so forced and eventually, as expected, we ran out of things to talk about so there was a big long uncomfortable silence and I had to make up an excuse to leave. I honestly thought he was gonna message me that night and be like, I had fun but I don't think we're a good match. Or that he was just gonna ghost. But now I have to do the heavy lifting...

See, the problem is: I feel like there's an expectation for me to just.. go on the date. Not from him and not verbally from anyone else either, but there's something in my mind that says "if you don't go on this second date, you'll never go on another date. You're getting older, and if you keep saying no to people or being too selective, maybe it's your fault you can't actually find love." Which has got me contemplating just going on the second date to be like "well I tried and it still wasn't any better, oh well," but I don't want to. I don't want to lead him on or waste his time, or mine for that matter, and I don't think I should have to force myself to go on a date just because it's the only one I might get for a while. I shouldn't have to lower my standards so much just because society tells me I'm not young enough to have higher standards.

I guess the only lesson I have is: if it doesn't feel right, it doesn't feel right. You have to put yourself first in these situations. I gave it a chance, I got back out there, it sucks that it didn't go better but such is life.

Onto the next!

[sasorikigai]

"be careful" // for modern Hanzo!

RANDOM ACTION-THEMED PROMPTS || @mamoriitai || accepting

💥 || His profession has always been abundantly filled with tales of heartaches; continuously weaving and entangling Commander Hasashi with a rewritten tale of woe and despair. Why couldn't there be a story of well-deserved glory, so he could simply get lost in the show, and spin him yarn of adventure or voice him a legend of old, just fashioned fable of sorts? In the vast depths of pain and desolateness, there are countless, lifelong scars; unbearable to retain, as subconscious remain shrouded in impervious darkness. Hanzo still finds himself capable of slipping in the depths of pain and despair, feeling entrapped, and yet, with solidifying gratitude as he has learned to repair his human flaws and weaknesses with love, as his torn spirit mended even through all the tribulations.

For the purpose of his life is not to be happy; it is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that he has lived and lived well. Even beneath a cold, cruel fist of an assailant as the taste of a sharp blade would split his skin as fountains of sanguine would seize him beyond unconsciousness at times, he would archive the excruciating, torturous process of recovery to fuel the rolling hills of his mind, which would become substantially hardened with resilience and resolve.

His heart quickens at the sight of Sayuri's gentle beauty, waking to breathe life into the intense depths of his fathomless eyes once more. As if his beloved had been Spring's gentle maiden kisses stirring each small creature sleeping peacefully, as a sweet caress nestles across the protruded veins of his forearm, which alone becomes a dance of overflowing love she shares with him. In a blink of an eye, Hanzo has come back to find twilight falling a velvet cloak across the sky of Sayuri Iwasaki's being, lost in her mysteries listening to this enchanting cadence and song, as a warm crackling fire of her gaze become evermore melliferous.

"Righteousness and justice are what holds me strong against the vicious threat of criminality and darkness, but it is your bestowed love which lends my chest the evershining glow of light that will always breach through the unknown which I face daily," there remains an obsession in Hanzo Hasashi's broken heart - through his fitful sleeps, insomnia, his mind taking afar, as he would roam amidst destination unknown - concealing fathomless depths of his melancholia and seemingly nonchalant façade that could be easily mistaken for carelessness and sheer assertiveness. After all, Sayuri was the one who loved him the hardest when Hanzo thought he least deserved it, or even actively seeking it out.

"While my mind is capable of going to many places, such as to places that convey feelings of trial and tribulations, and yet, our coalesced life as of now manifest itself into a memory, so that I can become an individual that this society deserves much so. As long as I clearly distinguish a space between man's attainment and imagination, I won't let myself stray towards impulsive recklessness and hotheaded rage of before." 💥 ||