any amorous attraction i held for the ex-crush’s has completely worn off tbh and i can talk to him freely about masturbation, porn, genitalia, whatever, and not feel a bit of ~sexual tension~. i still love him as a friend (ironic that i’m now the one saying that). and he treats me so well! i don’t think i’ll ever understand the idea of the friendzone??? being friends with an ex-crush is great! he helped me buy a bunch of books w his own membership card and lugged them to our meeting point (last time he carried 10 books he gave me for free in his backpack as we walked 7km). he’s started calling me ‘darl’ in text and uses read hearts w me. we have so much in common, too--he read slash fics on ff.net, ao3, and livejournalled. fucking surreal. on monday we ate ramen, got caught in a downpour, and ate ice-cream. at one point i had to explain what periods are for (this is why he’s gay, i guess). he told me about his boyfriend, who does drag & can help with acquiring heels for the immunologist’s cosplay. the funniest thing was him explaining how a man might pee when erect--’there are different positions you can try. there’s horizontally. you end up looking a lot like superman!’ another thing is that the ex-crush is ridiculously patient with me--i was late for an hour (i felt so bad, trust me) and yet at the end of our time together he still thanked me twice and each instance i was like, wtf???? for what?!? and wanted to cry
immunologist asked to sleep over on the tuesday and tho it had only been 6 days since i last saw him i’d missed him so much??? like, how. so we didn’t do anything but talk on the first day. apparently his new roomie let him know that i was “really into him” bc i had gotten snuggly w him the last time i’d gone over. apparently the immunologist then had to explain the aro ace thing, tho he didn’t explain that i was not and also not into him. frustrating. but the immunologist seems to not care that the cool rock shop guy ships us fervently either. he also thinks i would make a good girlfriend. go figure. that night we went to see local christmas lights and he’d not worn enough, so he was chafing his hands on his arms. we tried linking arms, which we knew from experience only worked with me leading--this time he made an adjustment and held my arm on his side with both of his. he was warm soon enough, and in the end we held hands as we looked at the festive displays?? it’s something he used to do with his mother, he said. we joked about levelling up our stealth stats as we disposed of doggo’s poop in other people’s bins and also found a black rabbit he took pictures of! before bed he, skimpily clad in only his boxers, lay down next to me & guided me through his baby photos. after lights out he snuck back in and pinched my nose (we’d started it earlier that night). it was somehow not a frightening experience. the morning after he showed me his bedhair and asked me if it made me feel special, but since he’s shown his roommates before, not really! now i know the immunologist is fairly introverted and gets tired easy during our sleepovers, so while we were walking home from a trip to the mall on the second day the following conversation took place:
i: “are you a masochist”
he: “no”
i: “then why do you like spending time with me?”
he: “because i love you”
and then he wrapped an arm around my shoulders. he’s way too tall for me to do the same, but i could reach his waist. it turns out the protrusion my hand rested on was his pelvis, tho, haha, since he’s tall and thin and i guess really leggy. anyway, we walked home like that. it made walking necessarily slow but it was lovely. walked the dog doing that too.
forgive me for being foolish and heteronormative but i’m sort of in a haze since had always expected to do these things with a boyfriend first. the functional and fruitful social life has kept me from doing much writing, however (retrospectively: ha. haahahahahahahah.)
i later hung out with the ex-crush again, and after meeting his coworkers & browsing the books at his workplace we had some scrumptious thai he, a native, recommended! gotta take my mum there sometime. he told me a bit about his family & how he hadn’t come out to his father yet & dealing with the death of his aunt & the obstacles of being deaf... he said that i’m understanding and i get people to open up. the immunologist weeks later has seen me work that magic on otherwise guarded people & we call it my superpower: talk no jutsu, i guess. the ex-crush also bought me 'rivers of london’?! he’s so sweet! so i got him the little prince. :3 we also went for ice cream... i got a green tea parfait that was HUGE, and it had a big cone stuck upside down into it... as it melted i took his hand, pushed it into the cream and made a sex analogy hahah the grossest ever!!! oh, and i also i went for pizza with the immunologist at dinner and he actually offered to marry me out of convenience if i were single at 30, hahahahahahahaha (also retrospectively hiliarious). he also mentioned that i’m the only one he’s that affectionate with (oddly, now that an amorous relationship has sparked, he says that was still a friendship thing...)
the historian told me after a 3 hr phone call, ‘you look pretty no matter what you wear’ and the ex-crush said, you look great, all the time’ which gave my the confidence i needed to wear a kind of clothing i had shied away from for years... i really love my friends
(24th jan.) in hindsight, i was pretty confident, but there were a few areas in which i was making a ‘fake it till you make it’ attempt, but now i’ve finally made it! sure i’ve had off days but now i feel like it’d take much more than it used to to get me down (i’m no longer anxious, or depressed, tho that’s not to say i feel great all the time--but it’s still much nicer than the alternative), and ready for what sex & romance & life will throw at me?
