With great potential comes great … anxiety

The flip side of the blissful limitless-potential feeling that comes along with a new relationship is the maybe-this-isn't-going-to-work anxiety that crops up occasionally to warn you that things may indeed not last.

As much as I consciously know not to pin all my hopes on someone so early on, I couldn't help but do a little pinning (scotch-taping, perhaps?) since he and I have been getting along so well. It's almost strange how easily and quickly we've fallen into a comfortable couple mode, so when he dreamily mentioned that it seemed a little weird a couple weeks ago, I just smiled and agreed.

Then, when I saw him last, he mentioned it again. "I have kind of a weird feeling about us," he said. When I asked him what he meant, he couldn't quite pin it down. "I think part of it is that we feel really close but don't know each other very well yet." I could understand that, of course, as we've only been dating for about a month, but then he said something more concerning. "I feel like I've been holding back a little bit just in case the worst-case scenario happens and it's too weird."

Wait a minute. In my head I was doing a full stop and realizing that "weird" had suddenly become a very ominous and annoyingly vague word. Would he actually want us to stop seeing each other based on some indefinable feeling? His last serious relationship, a few years ago, ended badly, so I wondered if this was some recoil reaction to intimacy. I asked him to let me know if I could do anything to help him work that out, but since he was still pretty fuzzy on what he was trying to say, the conversation more or less ended there.

We went about the rest of the day as if nothing had happened and had another fun date (it sure didn't seem like he was holding back), but the word and its implications were never far from my mind. The next day, he left on a planned two-week trip overseas to visit a (female) friend, and that anxious feeling really reared its ugly head. (The timing of that serious conversation could have definitely been better.) I started having bad dreams … dreams that he was seeing someone else, dreams about being chased, dreams about a swarm of bees invading my apartment. My subconscious is apparently not happy. He's been emailing me periodically, which has helped, but there's still a week to go before he comes back. Until then, there will just be plenty of time to ponder the word "weird" and try to get a good night's sleep.