You Might Like Me Now, But I Will Like Myself More Later

"Again? Really?"

"Yes, really."

"Jesus Christ. Really?"

"Yes."

I make terrible first impressions. I make terrible second impressions. Hell, I make terrible fifth impressions. You might think you know me, but you really won't until you've logged some serious hours with me. Until you do, you will think I'm wild and gregarious and brave. And it's true; I am those things, in part. But I'm also very anxious in a lot of social situations, and I bluff better than most.

I'm a great dinner party guest. But it's not necessarily me you're hosting.

I'm often told, after the feathers settle, months into friendships, how much quieter and softer I am than initially perceived. How calm and soothing and focussed and gentle I am. How much less space and energy I consume. I know how intense I can seem, how exhausting it can be to keep up with me in a large social situation. Imagine how tired I get.

I try to tell people off the bat how anxious I am, as if to hopefully diffuse the anxiety. It seldom works. Nobody believes me, they pour me another drink, and I tell another ridiculous story. Everyone laughs.

Stick around, I want to say. It's worth it.

During my short-lived experiment with internet dating, I used to talk a lot of talk about going with my gut. About the lizard brain, and not wanting to waste time. Over the last few months, I've been feeling somewhat badly about the men I cut off immediately, without allowing them to warm up. The lizard brain only really tells you if you want to fuck someone. The lizard brain knows nothing of companionship, and can really only tell you how the first three months will go. The lizard brain fucks, and eats crickets. That is all.

I am the most confusing kind of slow burn. I start at a rolling boil. I polarize people. The energy somehow forces them to make snap judgments about whether or not they like me, romantically or otherwise. Except it's not really me, of course. This is why, I suppose, women often drunkenly confess at parties that they hated me for the first six months they knew me. Men come back to me later, after we've become friends, after we've decided not to date, and I've moved on. They get to properly know me, and have some sort of epiphany, and...i'm so amazing and how didn't i see it at the time and why don't we...There is one man who, 13 years after he put me in the friend ghetto, still emails me three times a year to tell me that he is in love with me. I haven't seen him in a decade. He's not the only one.

No. This is not about you. Or you. Or you, for that matter. It's about me. It's about the girl who thrice moved in after first dates, now wanting to go slowly. Wanting to go very slowly, and trying harder to give people the time to settle into themselves in the hopes that they will grant her the same generosity. Friends, lovers, whoever you are, be patient. You might like me now, but I will like myself more later.