philotimo

I’ve always been super hyper independent which comes from childhood trauma. I just live life on my terms fuck other ppl. like I always had like some friends, but I only talk to one out of my k-12 friends still & I’ve made a lot of friends here in Korea to the point where some friends jokingly say I have too many (cause my weekends are usually booked with plans) and it’s just cause ppl realize how great I am lol and idk maybe I’m not good at accepting compliments, but I feel like I’ve tricked all these ppl into liking me & that honestly if something happened literally tmr and I was friendless, I would be perfectly ok and that’s literally the hyper independent in me

so anyway, due to this, I knew at a pretty young age I’d probably be alone the rest of my life. I made my peace with that well back into my teens. I’m just not super comfortable around other ppl being in my space for a long time. and if something magical happened and I did end up with someone, I can’t be their mom or older sister in the relationship because I done did all that growing up alr.

as such, even if I tend to be a hopeless romantic, I’m super bad at reading like flirting signs or if someone makes a move I can be quite avoidant and just oblivious. I also think give off a vibe so it doesn’t particularly happen too often

however, since turning 30/31, I have had ppl hit on me more. they’re all quite younger than me because I’ve got a baby face and it happens with girls and guys (I’m birom so doesn’t matter). like I went to a bar one time with some friends and we played cornhole—me v them because I was good—and some girls came and asked if I could show them how to which I did and my friend ended up coming over jokingly upset like why is u flirting and I was like but they just wanted to try playing bruh and then after a moment I was like no u right damn they were flirting huh

usually I just think ppl are naturally wanting to strike up a convo 😭 maybe they wanna ask something or are lost or want me to show them something and I want to be helpful and it’s usually when someone points it out or after the fact that I realize that oh they were tryna flirt actually huh

so ANYWAY, I broke my foot two months ago to this day funnily enough. I missed the first week of the new school year here because of it and showed up with crutches the next week after my surgery. there’s a guy on a contract who comes and teaches a pe class twice a week (Thurs & Fri) and when he saw me he was like 😳 and asked what happened. before that, we didn’t really interact besides a smile and a wave. but my new schedule means that I do interact with him more every Friday because he teaches some of my students and I need to pick them up

also my manager asked me to make sure my kids are more calm in the hallway, so after, I make them sit outside the gym and calm their bodies before we go back to class & then he and I will start talking a bit. he ended up asking for my ig and we found out we have a mutual cause she teaches at another school he goes to Mon and Weds apparently

so we’ve been learning a bit abt each other through our like 5min convos & at this point I’ve kinda had an inkling he’s been showing interest & on Friday we were sitting and we’re talking about our weekend plans. and I showed him something from my ig because it was related to my plans & he ended up like gently putting his hand on mine as I held my phone so he could see better and said that after a thing he has to do in June, we should go on a hike together, and I was like bruhhhh and since then I’ve just kinda been short circuiting.

not in a bad way. like he’s cute and nice & I’m always down for a hike, I’m just not used to that kind of attention and esp not used to noticing the attention right away and idk bruv we’ll see how I handle that

then also, on the way home literally tonight with some of my coworkers, but one of them had called me pretty & I can’t remember what exactly I had said (maybe something along the lines of oh it’s nice that u think that) but then she was like oh I *know* ur pretty and I was like damn I don’t think I’ve ever really been told that outside of the literal children we teach like idkkkkkkk