Pretty, red, zen.

I like directedness. Not when it’s rude, but I don’t like it when people beat around the bush for too long. The young man still has been asking me out every week. He asks informally to just hang out. Last week he asked me to go hiking with him. Today, he made it a point to interrupt me and say “hello” and “goodbye” to me in class despite the fact I was talking to the person behind me both times. He didn’t look me in the eye, and also didn’t sound happy as he was saying it. It was very very awkward, and he almost sounded mad at me. I guess he’s starting to get more aggressive about things. I was unable to sound enthusiastic about it myself as I replied, “hi” and “bye,” respectively. It is not a huge source of stress, but I somewhat resent having to feel like I’m involved in high school shit when I’m almost 40 years old. I guess, in a way, I wonder if I’ll always be in weird situations like this for the rest of my life…

I’m going to have to shut this down, because it’s making me uncomfortable. I need to tell him I’m not interested… but in a nice way. We’ll see how it goes. Hopefully it doesn’t become awkward since he still might continue coming to class and taking notes. I emphasized I was 38 years old multiple times to this 23 year-old guy. I wonder if some young guys think I’d be happy to date someone so much younger than myself? No. I remember being 23. I’d never want to repeat that phase of my life, nor date someone going through it.

I don’t feel like I’ve handled this well at all. Hopefully, I get better at weird things like this with age! I hope the dude isn’t bummed. I feel bad.