So the same psychic that told me about the dangers of dating Ed, also told me that my daughter was my grandmother in my previous life. Then when I experience truth bombs like the one I’m about to drop below…. I believe it…

When I had told her (high level) about the level of crazy I had shown in the previous blogs…

Ticket for 1 on the Crazy Train please…

Ticket for 1 on the Crazy Train Please… Pt 2

Her reaction was

Mom have you ever thought maybe you aren’t really crazy? You just have emotions and react to them and then don’t like the response? So you put the blame on yourself and say you’re crazy?

Yep, that was the reaction from my daughter… however, when I told her about my reaction that I had in the blog I’m about to write she said…

Yeah Mom, maybe he’s not replying because you were acting… well crazy

So Ed was still hanging around after both living through and reading the last blog… he was a trooper. As I mentioned he was on a vacation with his family when I last wrote about him so he was a quiet for a week… no texts… nothing for 4 days. An eternity when you’re dating with anxiety.

When we talked on the phone when he got back I made a joke about it… my best defense mechanism and way to talk about my feelings.

We had a few days of texting and then again quiet for a couple of days. Before the silence, we discussed a date in a couple of days… honestly I took the quietness that he had changed his mind and didn’t want to have a date. (Perfect example of my anxiety)

As I had liked him, I decided to go ahead and bite the bullet and ask about our date on the day of the date (talk about last minute). We decided to meet for dinner. I was both relieved and nervous.

I got there before Ed and waited at the table. When Ed came to the table it was… well awkward. I don’t have a good poker face and I was nervous and not cool about the non texting. I was in my feelings and not in a good way. So within a few comments and a few snide remarks about the lack of texts we stopped and had a real conversation.

I talked to Ed about how I struggle with anxiety and how silence feeds into that poorly. My expectation was to get at least one text every couple of days – preferably once a day.

I really made sure to talk from my heart and not make jokes (my normal go to). There was one moment during the conversation Ed grabbed my hand, looked me in the eyes and said “Jill, your voice went up, you don’t have to be nervous now.” My heart melted.

Ed said that he is awful at replying back to most people but that he would work on it and apologized. I know from him showing me his phone for different things, his phone normally did have a lot of unread messages. So I knew that he was telling the truth.

The rest of the night was a-may-zing. After dinner we drove (well I got to drive) his truck (a first for me) to go get ice cream. He recommended we stop and grab hoodies at his house so we wouldn’t get chilly. I got to wear one of his and it was so warm and cozy. The company and the hoodie. We ate ice cream and then stayed out until very late listening to music and talking in his truck. So late in fact that I stayed over.

In that night I also received a few texts from Sean. I was having so much fun I didn’t reply back. Sean even said that he could feel in the night air that I was moving on. It was a good sign – since I felt it too… I was finally going to be able to move on.

It was just a ✨magical✨ date night!

The next morning I messaged Sean and told him that I had met someone. I told him while it wasn’t serious I wanted to give it the attention to figure out what it was. He understood and said he would gives space and back off. Then he did.

The next couple of days were filled with regular texting and even a few calls. I started feeling comfortable again! Then 💥 BAM 💥 like clockwork Ed went radio silent again. It always seemed to happen on the weekend so my imagination ran wild.

I decided that this time I wouldn’t text him and see if he texts me. I really don’t like that I played a game and didn’t just message him. Friday through Monday – no texts. I was so in my own head I sent Ed a message and ended things. I told him to message me when he had the time to devote to a relationship.

He replied back with a quick text apologizing and said he understood.

The next day I had complete texting “break up” remorse and started texting Ed. I asked him to forget about the text message I sent and let’s just go on another date.

He never replied back. This time I understood.

To be honest, I’m still torn about what the right thing was to do. There is a chance that Ed was not texting me because he was busy dating other woman in the prime time weekend hours and I was on the back burner. On the other hand, he could have just been busier on the weekends. I will probably never know and should have just had the conversation.

However, after reading a few articles about anxiety and dating I realized that this is bigger than just this one guy. Although it does suck it had to end this one.

I have known how anxiety impacts my regular life and some of how it impacts my dating life – however, I didn’t realize how SO MUCH of how I date is driven by it. It’s truly helped just being aware of it – even tried to put some of the tips of the below article in my most recent first date – more to come on that one soon 🤓

https://www.healthline.com/health/anxiety/how-to-begin-to-date-when-you-have-anxiety