Well, best-laid plans and all that …
The women-in-technology seminar thingy was cancelled (local bad weather) so I’m going home to New Guy, alone, and we’ll be able to talk in person like I wanted. I called him on my lunch break and told him so, told him I’d been doing a lot of thinking, too, and while he sounded somewhat despondent or depressed* when I told him I loved him and still wanted to work things out somehow, he did say he loved me, too, and wanted to work things out, too. I really hope he wasn’t just saying it to say it, but he doesn’t strike me as the type.
- Then again, that’s just what his phone voice sounds like, so I dunno - another reason I wanted to talk in person, because his voice is hard as shit to read for emotional clues over the phone.
When she told me the seminar was cancelled, my mom added that she & my dad wanted to meet me on such-and-such corner in my neighborhood that’s on my bus route home, a few stops up from the one where I get off. When I asked why we were basically meeting on a street corner, she said they simply wanted to see me and grab a bite to eat at a local sandwich joint.
This makes me suspicious on so many levels. :dubious:
The kicker is, New Guy has today off but is working tomorrow night, so Big Bad Scary Black Man won’t even be in my apartment when they want to meet me. Frankly, after torturing myself with so much unnecessary anxiety, I want them to meet him. A small part of that is the “ripping off a Band-Aid, get it over with” mentality, but the main part is that I keep hoping that if they see him in person, maybe they’ll see him AS a person, yanno? He is capable of being quite charming (trust me on this one! 
) and I have this stupid, probably-in-vain hope that if they see us smiling happily at each other, they’ll think all the happy thoughts y’all have expressed here.
What REALLY isn’t going to help matters is that the apt. he was sharing with his sister was broken into last week so he’s been staying with me this past week. Has his own key and all. In an interesting bit of timing, I decided I’d give him a key and had the copy made on my lunch break and THEN found about about the B&E so it’s not like I gave it to him out of pity or something but there’s simply no way my goddamn parents won’t see him as using me.
I’m one of the lowest-drama people I know. Really, all I want in life is to be left alone to cook, drink a bit of wine, watch TV with New Guy, pet and play with Nikki and Al, screw like bunnies, surf the SDMB, do my job, lather rinse repeat. I hate all this extra bullshit, and I really hate that a huge part of it is my own damn fault for letting my parents bulldoze over my life this way.
I think when I meet them tomorrow I’ll have to take a few deep breaths, stay friendly and cheerful, smile a lot, and … try to convince them that I really am an adult who can be trusted to make the occasional good decision. Won’t work, though.
Thanks for letting me rant here. The support of some anonymous imaginary friends is truly invaluable, and I particularly appreciate the input of those who have been there/done that too.
