The Lone Ranger

The Gap

There's been a *slight* gap in my posts since I've been busy getting to know people or weeding out candidates for sexual relations in Clinton-esque jargon. The three bachelors from yore are still around, but my interest in them has abated and they are aware of this. It's not that I always fall for the new and shiny person who surfaces in my life, but when you realize you like someone, the others pale by comparison. My interest in a particular person is relative to the quality and quantity of adult males I'm currently juggling.

The Caveat

I've issued a disclaimer on the site to the effect that I'm getting to know several people and it's probably best not to contact me, but it seems to have had the opposite effect of what I intended. Maybe it provoked the alpha male competitive instinct or inspired the white knight rescue fantasy. Perhaps it's like that phenomenon where people slow down at a roadside collision wondering what all the fuss is about. At any rate, the number of contacts has exploded exponentially.

The Trends

At first, I figured guys just weren't getting the message so I restated it more clearly. Yea, guess how well that worked?  Back to Plan A: I'm leaving that 'don't message me' message up in its original form. If men contact me in full awareness that my time and interest are divided among many, that's their business. To this end, I have started noticing peculiar trends among the unfair sex.

The Lone Ranger

This is a guy's tendency to take distance then check up on me at seemingly arbitrary intervals. For example, this man will initiate contact then pull a disappearing act at some point in the getting to know you process. I  register his absence under the category of "he's just not that into me." So, when he pops back up again on my radar, I used to ask myself, "What's up with that?"

What I've realized is that if someone likes me he might "test" how much I like him by withdrawing and seeing if I contact him in the meantime. I'm not one to chase a man in cyberspace so I don't bother rounding up strays. When the wayward traveller re-emerges in an hour, a week, a month, or whatever time span it happens to be, I'm not exactly surprised to see him. A man can only hide his interest for so long before he feels compelled to act on it.

When The Lone Ranger reappears on the horizon, I generally remember his name, personal details, and my interest level is about the same as it was before his leave-taking but now I've got a question mark in my head about whether he treats dating like being tagged in some kind of catch-and-release program.

You see, there are *other* men who communicate their interest directly. They ask point blank about their relative status. These types have enough confidence to appreciate that whatever answer they get is not a reflection on themselves. They don't play hide-and-seek. There is always a dance of intimacy, but it's a partnered activity where you know your partner's moves.

A gap in communication could simply be a matter of competing real life priorities or new lust interests. If I have too much on my plate or I become preoccupied with the lust object of the moment, I lose track of virtual bachelors. I've posted my 'don't message me' message to avoid such an imbalance. I sometimes slip up despite the best intentions so I don't automatically assign murky motives to the characters who turn up again. Life happens.

Like the other group of guys I describe, however, I'm assertive about my interest in someone. I can't be bothered to play that game of 'who's less interested.' I'll express my interest in someone so that I make myself understood. I'll ask the questions that tell me what I need to know. The Lone Ranger here-you-see-me-now-you-don't could  be innocuous as a transient episode. If it becomes a pattern, however, my interest is proportional to the mutual investment of time and energy.