Hell is other people. Seriously, it feels like my brain is under occupation. It takes a concerted effort to divest myself of all that, and to feel like I've enough space in my head to stretch my arms.
The party referenced above and earlier in this thread -- for a bit over a month, I completely avoided her. Then for another month I stopped actively doing so, yet when I happened to encounter her, I kept it brief and civil. More recently the hints have been thick and substantial enough that I've begun to resume some attention. Though I am proceeding with some caution.
We seem to be becoming a bit more comfortable around each other. We've declared our fascination with each other, and we've both danced around how attracted we are to each other. I've expressed some interest in the modeling work she's doing, and sent her the occasional compliment or bit of encouragement. In return, she's begun to call me fairly frequently. It's almost a hair trigger, really.
I had to think a moment about how this started, as it's been fairly rapid. I knew she was up for an audition, so a little under a week ago I sent her a brief note, basically saying, hey, let me know how it goes. Somewhat to my surprise, she called me at length. Previously, any phone conversations between us had been brief, and mostly at my instigation. Most often they consisted of me and an answering machine.
Toward the end of the call, I asked if she had anything overly exciting planned that evening. She was hesitant, but called me back later to suggest maybe we go get something to eat the following day. Since then she has been calling me at about a 3:1 ratio of my calls to her. Which isn't as frequent as it sounds; it's just surprising me.
Last night, she called ostensibly to ask someone's number -- though I'm pretty sure she knows the other girl's number, and I know she has her email address. Then she sort of asked me out. I say "sort of", as her phrasing was more like "Not tonight; I've got a bunch of stuff I need to do, but: this weekend, if you want to..." And then she began to trail off. And I followed the train of thought and said, oh, that sounds swell. It sounded like that had taken a bit of effort for her, as her response was fairly abrupt. The equivalent of "Okay, did that. Getting off phone now."
So I guess we'll see where this goes. Offhand I'm not completely sure what's happening here, but it's not so ambiguous that it's driving me batty.
Also it doesn't feel like I'm being asked to jump through hoops and dodge fire just for the privilege of being knocked down a peg. So that's something.