Last night, I talked to Mike for like… three hours. [Note: This was originally typed on Monday, I believe...] It was pretty crazy. I haven’t done that with anyone in a while. Towards the end, it got kinda emotional. He told me a few days ago that if I had any questions for him, he would tell me anything I wanted. He would be honest and straightforward about it. I said that I didn’t have any questions. I actually did, but I couldn’t remember them later on, when I talked with him. Last night, I asked him one of the questions that was on my mind fairly often. During our conversations, he would always bring up his previous girlfriends. He didn’t mention them by name, so it wasn’t as though I could tell how many he’s had. So I asked him how many girlfriends he’s had. He asked, “Girlfriends? Or girls I hooked up with?” I laughed/scoffed and said, “Okay… both.” He said five girlfriends and he’s hooked up with maybe… ten. He said he couldn’t remember them all, so he gave me an estimate. I wasn’t EXACTLY sure what he meant by “hooked up,” as that phrase isn’t a part of my vocabulary and very few people I know actually use it, so he either had sex with them and/or he just made out with them. Either way, it was a huge turn off for me.

I’m not very fond his smoking and drinking, but as I’ve written before (or implied; I can’t recall now), I didn’t feel like I’ve known him long enough to tell him that I don’t like it. I’ve been talking to him for less than a month. Who am I to tell him what to do, or say what I think he should change about himself? Just a girl from Counter-Strike. I knew he likes me, but I didn’t know exactly how he felt for me; if he just really liked me, but he didn’t want to meet up and be boyfriend and girlfriend and whatnot, then there wouldn’t be a point in me expressing my dislike for his bad habits. I felt like it would be too presumptuous of me to tell him to stop doing them, that I couldn’t be in a relationship with someone like that, if he actually wasn’t planning on being with me at all. It would make me look dumb and would lead to a crapload of embarrassment. So I didn’t say anything. He’s been telling me a lot lately, though, that he really likes me. He wants to come down and hang out with me, or he even come down to pick me up, so I could hang out with him up in NH. I tell him not to waste the gas or money coming down to pick me up, or add extra mileage to his car; I tell him that I’ll take the bus (cuz it’s only $15 one way), but he insists on picking me up. He says that he would like to spend that time with me. I think it’s sweet, but I’d rather him save his money. It might be part of my frugal Asian upbringing, hah.

I’ve told him that I really like him, too. I feel a real connection between us. I know it sounds corny, but I really do. We have basically the same perspectives on EVERYTHING. I’ve told him some stuff that I’ve told others and no one really gets it or they don’t feel the same way, but he does! He does. I was so surprised. And the opposite has happened, too. He’d tell me things and we find that we feel the same way about them. It makes me really happy that I’ve met someone who understands what I’m talking about. I don’t feel weird talking about the really disturbing, morbid thoughts that I have because he’s said he thinks about that kinda stuff, too.

Our conversations are just so amazing. After that post I made about his weight, it doesn’t even matter. I mean, it didn’t matter with my last boyfriend either — I loved him very much despite his physical appearance — but I felt less inclined to bear his children. Right now I feel like I can look past my future children’s crippling illnesses because I like Mike so much, LOL. I’m serious. I know it sounds rushed — like I said, it’s been less than a month and we BOTH know that — but we both feel this really strong connection.

Anyway, back to last night. It was very emotional. He’s very open. We were talking about our past girlfriends and boyfriends. Oh yeah, I told him that I only had two boyfriends, which is true, and I (suppose) I “hooked up” with one guy, who by the way, is sexy as hell, but extremely weird and hyperactive. A very fun person, though. Anyway, I made it a point to tell him that I had two boyfriends and they were both long-term. I don’t date around just to have fun; my last two relationships lasted 2.5 years and 1.5 years. I wasn’t very pleased to hear he had been in so many relationships, real relationships or just physical. I think it says a lot about a person. So ANYWAY, while we were talking about past relationships, we started talking about how the relationships were, sexually. Mine weren’t sexually satisfying — at all. They were long-distance relationships, so needless to say, I rarely got any. Because Mike is so open, he talks about everything like it’s nothing. It makes me somewhat uncomfortable when he tells me about his experiences with his previous girlfriends. But not too much. In the beginning, I felt a little weird, but I was all right with it. But then when I started thinking about how many girls he’s been with and where I am in that group, I started getting really upset. I tried not to make it noticeable; I listened to him talk and I didn’t make any sniffling noises in the phone, so it didn’t sound like I was crying, but he noticed how quiet I was. When he asked what was wrong, I was trying to respond in a “normal” amount of time. I didn’t want to delay my response. However, I was trying to sound normal when I responded, too, but I couldn’t do that if I was going to respond to him within the few seconds after he asked what was wrong. I ended up sounding I was holding something in and it sounded really fake. He said, “Come on, what is it?”

I said, “Nothing.”

“Come on, Laura… don’t do this to me.”

He wants me to open with him. I already told him before that I have kind of a hard time opening up to people because of my first relationship. What happened there was that I never, ever opened up to anyone. I kept everything to myself, or I wrote it down in my journal (my actual journal, not a blog). At the end of high school, I met my first boyfriend, who I thought was the love of my life. He urged me to be open with him, tell him how I’m feeling. When I finally became somewhat comfortable with it, he broke up with me and he wouldn’t tell me why. So much for being open with each other. I felt so betrayed. I went back to keeping my shit to myself.

Mike said he understands. I’m trying not to keep things from him. When he asks me something and I respond with “I dunno” or “nothing,” I’m not trying to hide things, like I used to. In the past, those responses meant you weren’t getting anything out of me. But now, I’m really trying not to. I just need a few moments to gather my thoughts. I did that last night with Mike. I told him I’d tell him in a few minutes and he said okay. After a few minutes, I knew what I was going to say and I told him.

I said that I wasn’t comfortable with him smoking and drinking and I try to avoid guys who do that kinda stuff… and guys who sleep around, or who even appear to be those types of guys. I don’t want to seem like a goody-goody or anything, but I just don’t want to be with someone who could have STDs or someone who knowingly harms himself. I didn’t say that last sentence to him, but I meant to and I will the next time this comes up (if there is a next time). He said that he smokes pot because he has anxiety. I guess it calms him down or something. He said that he drinks because he likes to. However, he said that he doesn’t drink to get fucked up anymore. And the thing about how many girls he’s been with… well, he just summed everything up and said that everything is in the past. He said that he’s not like that anymore and that he actually hasn’t had a girlfriend in like a year. I know that also doesn’t include girls he’s slept with, but I’m going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he meant that he hasn’t been with a girl in a year.

I told him that I didn’t want to say anything about these things that I don’t like about him because I haven’t known him that long; who am I to tell him that? What am I to him? Like I said, just a girl from CS. I’ve only been talking to him for a month. And I didn’t even know how he felt for me, so where do I get off on telling him that shit? That’s how I’ve been feeling lately. However, after that conversation with him about his previous girlfriends or just girls he’s been with, it just made me upset. I really, REALLY like him, but he was the type of person that I AVOID. I didn’t know what I should do. I explained all of this to him last night, about my moral dilemma, about how I felt stuck. I said that he’s the type of guy I wouldn’t mind being friends with, but I typically avoid people like that. He said, “So basically, you like me as a person, but you don’t like my habits?” I said yes. At this point, I was crying and not trying to hide it. I felt kinda silly because, like I keep repeating, we haven’t known each other long, so I felt like maybe it seemed weird to him that I was crying about it. However, the other day, we were talking about stuff and he said (and he told me not to feel weird or anything; he’s not a psycho. Haha) that, to be closer to me, he could transfer to another store (he works as an assistant manager at a supermarket. :O) that just recently opened up in Times Square. I’m only about 15 minutes from NYC, on the Jersey side of the Hudson. Out in the ‘burbz. He was saying that he would totally move here if he thought that it was worth it, and I think he does… I mean, he’s talking about it with me, so I think he really does like me that much. He wants to check out the new store down here when he visits me. :D

OH YEAH, so anyway. In response to my moral dilemma, he said that he only does it because he has anxiety, but he said that when he’s doing something, he doesn’t feel the need to smoke. He said that he would stop smoking pot for me. He thinks that maybe I’m the catalyst in his life that’ll put an end to his smoking. Although we haven’t known each other long, he said that he really likes me and he really wants to go somewhere with this, so if he had to choose between giving up smoking to be with me or getting rid of me to continue smoking, he’d stop. He also said that whatever he’s told me before about the girls and whatnot, he said that it was how he used to be, but he doesn’t want that anymore. He doesn’t want just sex; he wants to find a meaningful relationship and he really thinks we could have that. I know it could all sound fake, but I really do believe him. Not only has he pointed it out, but I noticed it, too — how much we have in common and whatnot. It’s really funny.

I told him I’d be right back, and I muted him, so I could blow my nose. I think he thought I put the phone down (I never told him that I actually mute him when I have to do something instead of putting the phone down and walking away) and I heard him sniffling. I heard him take a few breaths and when I “came back,” he sounded a little like he was just crying. He asked, shakily, “So what do we do now?” I didn’t tell him all of that with the intentions of ending our friendship (or relationship?), so I told him that. I said I want to see where this goes. And again, he said that he would stop smoking for me. He said he just doesn’t want to lose me (“yet,” he said).

So we’re going to try it. He said

//Edit: [7/24/07 @ 1:43 am]  I forgot that I didn’t finish this.  I was wondering how come it wasn’t showing up on my blog, haha.  I don’t remember what I was going to say at the very end.