#youbetterreadthis

We went a couple of weeks without seeing Cheetah. He has been so busy with work, and he's working on getting a promotion so he has to work extra hard. We have also had some plans on weekends or evenings too, and he was sick for several days in a row. For lots of reasons, it was a couple of weeks. Finally we had a date planned for last week. We decided to take him out for sushi, and we had to meet fairly late because of all of our work schedules. Well I had a crisis at work that day. I was doing an assessment, and during it the kid I was assessing disclosed homicidal thoughts. He had been threatening his parents multiple times a week over the last few months, including threats with knives and a gun. So I had to file an involuntary commitment order on him, and ended up staying way longer than originally planned. Even with that we still made it to dinner on time. And it was so good to see him again. We again ended up having a fairly long dinner, our treat this time. I did have to spend about 10 minutes in the middle talking to the hospital about this kid. Apparently when he got to the hospital he denied any homicidal thoughts, and mom changed her tune and agreed with him. Mom told the hospital nothing like that had ever happened before, and she thought he was just angry when he said it, that he probably didn't have access to weapons, and that she didn't think he would do anything. So she was going to send him home with his dad. I had to tell the hospital everything they had told me during the assessment, and they agreed with me and upheld the IVC. So I'm glad that I did spend the time talking with them because now that kid and family are safer. And while I was on the phone Raven and Cheetah got to bond a little bit more.

Cheetah is a very very busy person. He works like 60-70 hours every week at the gaming company, especially lately because they're doing some type of multiple week event that he's working on. So we just try to see each other whenever we can, and keep talking essentially all day every day. One day he came over late after one of his work events, and stayed until almost 3 in the morning. Again... Things happened. And again, it was great. We both feel really comfortable around him. I know this is really cheesy, but it really does feel like he's someone I've known my whole life. He just seems to fit, like a piece we didn't know we were missing.

So Cheetah and I keep talking. He says he had a great time on the date, really likes us, and really wants to see us again. My favorite thing he said was "I am so absurdly attracted to both of you." So I spent the next few days just a mess of giggles and so happy and completely distracted. Raven would ask me how my day was, and I couldn't remember anything that had happened at work, but updated him on all the texts with Cheetah throughout the day. He also added me on Snapchat, so we started exchanging pictures and messages on there too. We set up another date, and decided that we will have him over to our house and Raven and I will cook for him. Which was not easy, because he is lactose intolerant, and we apparently live on butter and cheese, but we figured it out.

Did I mention that he loves dogs? He has a black lab mix just like we do. He and his ex used to foster dogs all the time and would train them to help them get homes. So he's really good with dogs. And our dogs are a mess. The black lab mix is super hyper and anxious and barks at every little thing, but she's super sweet and loving, and crazy smart. Then we have a Carolina dog who is also very sweet and loving, but she jumps and is very demanding about needing attention or wanting to sit in our laps. She's 45 pounds.

So he comes over. And the dogs do jump on him a little bit, but for the most part are good. We sit down to dinner and again just have an easy conversation. We decide to go to the living room and watch something. Raven and I are sitting on the couch, and Cheetah is sitting on an ottoman. And our black lab mix goes up to him, and climbs on the ottoman with him, precariously perched right behind him. So he sits on the floor leaning against the ottoman, to see what she would do. And she stays sitting on the ottoman, but slouches so she's leaning up against him. She loves him. This dog usually has a hard time liking people, and an even harder time with men, and she already loves him. I figure that was a great sign.

I am not an anxious person. I don’t really understand anxiety and rarely feel it. But the date of meeting this guy, I was completely freaking out. I had known him for 4 days and was completely in love with him. He is everything I want in another human - he’s just as open as I am in all ways, maybe even more, we have so much in common, he’s bisexual, he’s responsive and doesn’t seem to be playing games, and he likes Raven too. I made Raven drive there because I was too anxious, and he spent the whole car ride laughing at me because I’m shaking and buzzing and going “aahhhh anxietyyyy,” which he has never seen from me before, usually that’s his job. 

Walking up to the restaurant, I’m jumping and shaking my hands like I can shake off the anxiety, and still talking about how anxious I am; Raven continues laughing and seems totally cool. Butthead. And then we see him. When meeting people online there’s always the huge possibility that they don’t really look like their pictures, or they don’t communicate well in person, or there’s just no chemistry once you actually meet them. And fortunately we didn’t have any of that. He looks just like he does in pictures, maybe even better. He hugged both of us, and there was just instant chemistry (even with all of my anxiety). We ended up staying at dinner for over 2 hours without even realizing it. It was just one of those easy conversations that just works. It was one of the best dates I’ve been on, and probably the best first interaction I’ve had with anyone. He walked us to our car and we stood there talking for a while before we all really had to go. 

So I hadn’t actually done anything with anyone other than Raven in a while, over a year. I was having some health issues and depression and just not feeling confident with my body, just a lot of things going on that kept me from wanting to socialize with anyone. And finally a month or two ago I started feeling a little bit better, so I got back onto Tinder and started swiping away. I got a few matches and started talking to a few people, but more so for friendship. I wasn’t finding a lot of people that I was super attracted to physically. 

Then at some point I matched with Cheetah. He immediately messaged me with a challenge. In my profile, it says “I’ll kick your ass at Borderlands or Catan.” And he says “I hope you’re really good at Catan, because you’ll never beat me at Borderlands.” I am not the type of person to back down from a challenge, and I actually am really good at both games. So we start talking. And this boy works for a major game design company. He used to play video games professionally. Like, he was so good that someone paid him to play for their company and to win tournaments. Soooo we haven’t played any video games together yet. 

So my best friend requested that I start a blog so that she can keep up with all the crazy things that happen in my life. 

It started because I called her early one morning with “We met someone.” 

So I’m living in North Carolina and my bestie is in Wisconsin. We try to keep up as much as we can, but we are both busy working people and don’t get to talk as much as we would like. So whenever we do get to talk, it’s usually a several-hour long conversation trying to get caught up on every single thing that’s happened over the past few weeks or months. For Butterfly (come on, I have to change names here..), that’s usually some minor changes in work, stuff at home, stuff with her husband, or occasionally things with her family. For me it gets interesting.