so in the last paragraph of my birthday post I mentioned that I was going on a date. since then I have actually gone on two (count them, two) dates. the first one was a Sounders soccer game. now I don’t know a lot about soccer and the only time I’ve actually watched soccer was for the Fifa World Cup a few years ago in Africa (next one is coming up soon in Brazil, by the way!). I was really proud when Spain won, i’m a fan. but I was really shocked to find out that in regular season games it’s actually possible to tie. I was expecting the game to go into a shoot out with the score after the second half tied up at 1-1 but then my date next to me says “that’s game” and everyone starts to leave. my reaction: that’s stupid. I wanted to walk away with the satisfaction of knowing we won, or the opportunity to accept defeat if we lost. a tie just seems so anti-climactic.
but that didn’t stop me from enjoying most of the game. even though the first half of the game was really slow and I resented being on my feet for the whole time (I was running on about two or three hours of broken and uncomfortable sleep on a hospital chair), the seats were still awesome. they were season tickets my date had gotten from someone. plus I had never been to a Sounders game before which was very un-Seattleite of me. the atmosphere was pretty upbeat but I felt like an outsider because I didn’t know any of the names of the players, any of the chants or any of the little game rituals. afterwards we got some food at red robin after we took the train back to Puyallup. I enjoy the simple little things, so seeing that they had changed up the presentation of the food to a tray and a metal container for the fries made me admittedly excited.
second date was at Point Defiance Zoo & Aquarium. we got to see both the tiger cub and the clouded leopard cub. they were so adorable! them and ET the walrus were the main attractions at the zoo. turns out ET has already outlived the average age for a walrus in captivity of 25. oldest ever was 40. I love ET! he’s been at the zoo since I was a little kid. some of the best attractions that used to be at the zoo are no longer there anymore, sadly. they cleared out the nocturnal house for the new interactive kids area and playground. there used to be an awesome bat cave and naked mole rats and a GIANT jellyfish tank. the beluga whales are also gone now. I resent the little otters that are now swimming around happily in the big tank.
now for the big thoughts…
I like this guy, and i’m giving him the opportunity to make me forget about my ex. but it’s so hard! if I did date this guy I wonder if i’d be doing it for the right reason. I feel like i’d be doing it to satisfy other people, and out of some (perhaps misguided) sense of feeling like I have to do this in order to get myself to move on instead of dating him because I like him and I want to. but at least I am giving him a chance instead of writing him off and pushing him away from the outset, and that in itself is a positive step. it’s difficult to move on when you’re 20 and you’ve only ever had one boyfriend in your entire life. it makes it a bit harder to let go. i’m not skilled in breakups like many other unfortunate people seem to be nowadays: I don’t want to treat guys like notches on my bed.
sometimes I get caught up thinking about why my ex and I didn’t quite click, and I think maybe it’s because he has this self confidence and self assuredness about him that I don’t have, and it intimidated me. nonetheless I can’t sit here and bash him and make him out to be a bad guy because he broke up with me and because I sort of resent him for it. he is actually a good guy, and I don’t think that anyone should ever regret something that once made them happy. so currently my love life is a tiny bit complex (a girl’s feelings are never simple), and I just need to try and figure things out for myself. I might need a bit of advice.
xoxo,
The Paper Float 