Well...

So... it's been about 6 months since the last time I wrote...

A freaking lot has happened in that 6 months.

Remember Fidget from like, 3 years ago?

I dated him before my mission.

To make a really long story short, we started dating again

in July, and we dated until the beginning of October, 

when I broke things off. Again.

Basically, he's just a narcissist, and so ever since then

we haven't spoken at all.

I know that sounds a lot like I'm just pointing fingers,

but I'm serious.

Narcissist.

It was bad.

Since October, there's only been one other guy in my life,

and he's still kind of in it. It's really complicated.

His name is Samuel, he's in my singles ward.

(That's a church congregation for young, single adults,

age 18-31.)

He put together this Jiu Jitsu class for our ward,

and I started going during the summer.  

It's an every week thing, and I would go every week,

faithfully.

I really liked learning how to defend myself,

plus a little of how to just plain beat the crap

out of someone.

It's fun, what can I say?

But, back to Samuel.

Whenever I'd go to Jiu Jitsu, we'd always flirt, a lot,

but then the rest of the week I'd pretty much never see him,

or talk to him.

That changed quite a bit in December.

We hung out after Jiu Jitsu, and were watching Nacho Libre,

and that was the first time he held my hand, 

and we cuddled. It was pretty fantastic.

I really, really like him.

It took about 2 weeks-ish from the time we started spending

a lot of time together until the first time he kissed me.

Or well, if I'm being technical,

I kissed him first.

But anyway, yeah, we dated for about a month,

and then he said he just wants to be friends.

I had a rough couple of days after that,

but, I decided that it's better for me to stay friends with him

and perhaps help him see that he can be himself around me,

than to just say "No, screw it." 

Besides, I think there's a lot more to it than him just saying

"I just want to be friends."

His parents were divorced 2 years ago, and his dad was

a pretty awful person, from the sound of things,

so I can see how he'd be pretty terrified of relationships and 

marriage, etc etc. 

And, really, I know that he at least thought about marriage

while he was dating me. He brought it up several times.

Therefore, my conclusion is that perhaps he REALLY 

felt something while he was dating me,

and it scared the crap out of him, and so he tried to push me out.

But he's still keeping me within arm's reach, because

he still wants to be friends. 

And, if my feelings don't deceive me, he's still into me,

he just won't admit it.

For instance, he still flirts with me a lot, especially when 

it's just us two together; he asks me semi-frequently if 

things he does impress me. Like, when we went to a 

power tumbling gym, he was doing "flips and shiz" 

as he calls it, and afterward he was like

"I bet you didn't know I could do that. Pretty impressive, huh?"

And when I responded with "I wasn't surprised."

he was like "oh..."

So then I told him later that I did think it was impressive, 

because honestly, it was. It was pretty dang impressive, 

actually.

And, going back to my list, he still opens all my doors for me,

when I let him, and when he gives me hugs when I first see him, 

or when I'm about to leave, he always holds on

really tight, and really long. 

So, yeah. 

Friends?

I think it may be just a temporary thing.

I can live with that.