Looking and Looking

I feel like I'm not letting myself be satisfied.
Then again, aren't I supposed to be hard to please?
Isn't there some maxim that goes "never settle, never be satisfied" or something like that?

I'm really torn between feeling like I want to find something to calmly, relaxedly grow comfortable with and used to...and thus be contented.

It's evident that Jarod likes me.
I'm flattered by that.

I feel like some moments I like him while at others I am getting this painful sense of dissatisfaction. Like once again I'm getting into someone only because they showed signs of affection first and I feel the flattery of a longing touch.

During French class a couple of days ago I was attempting to capture some of the residual feelings from my reactions to the previous night (Jarod and my first date) and wrote something I find to be prosaic but very true.

"I feel inept in attempting to write down what it is that I experienced last night. I feel as if I stepped into a scene I thought I had memorized only to find I was in a completely different play." - Tues. Nov. 27, 2007

I guess I owe it to my literary honesty to explain what that previous section was referring to.

On Monday night Jarod picked me up to go find me something to eat after having a long day of class, work, then class again.
I was looking forward to spending time with him in person because we had had a really great phone conversation the night before.

We talked for a little over an hour and it was very smooth and involved. We both had meaningful input and laughed and I felt like I had a very clear, witty command of my verbiage.

I felt like a live and in person date would go much the same way and, in serving my hope of gaining trust and openness, I was very unguarded in my topics of conversation and personal disclosure.
I thought that if I made the point of being open and figuratively naked in front of Jarod he would experience the anticipated relief of knowing that I wasn't afraid of him knowing the intimate details of my own life thereby feeling liberated to exercise candor in his own self-disclosure.

This was dead wrong.

I found that after I broached the subject of past relationships and sexual mistakes Jarod began to visually shrink down and close off as seen by his self-contained retreating body language.
I immediately halted and he began informing me that he just wasn't ready to talk about such personal information.

I was a little flabbergasted.

This method that I had come up with- yes, it was a tried and true method- had failed me.
It was like I had gotten so deftly used to playing the part of the "first date mold-breaker", the "guy you could instantly be comfortable and open with," someone "everyone can easily and dependably trust."

All of these hoped for, and in essence, assured results were all but actualized by the time I was finished wolfing down my chicken sandwich.

As Jarod told me of his discomfort I felt the blood drain from my face. It was like my stomach just decided that it wanted to eat me from the inside out.

Everything was going wrong.
I was ruining a perfectly good opportunity.
I was burning a bridge before I had even crossed it.