it's hard to feel like it'll happen again when I'm 30 and don't meet people and this is the first time, but I hope you're right. I'm not quite ready to focus on the things I've gained from this experience (recognizing this feeling in the first place! learning a lot about what I actually like in a romantic prospect, and what's less important than I used to think!) but I'm gettin there

I'm not happy that you relate cause, it sucks, but it's good to know I'm not alone. I always enjoy seeing you around online dogmantra <3

I'm glad you're able to feel your feelings

I tend to rely way too much on escapism and nonfeeling to deal with stuff so this resonated with me weirdly a lot and helped me to let myself actually feel things, thank you for saying it

I could kill that guar. These boots are ruined.

god it lives so deep in my brain meats

my favorite innuendo for it was the game grumps calling it the backstreet boys reunion tour. wanna see how the historians deal with that one.

i know that getting it out of the way is better than spending an unknown amount of time thinking that this person miiiight like me back (and being wrong) but right now it fuckin sucks bigtime :(

powerful they may be but these pigeons are powerless to help me unless they are going to date me >:0

lol yeah but it was good for helping me find my resolve. I wallowed for a bit and probably have a bit more wallowing to do later but for right now I'm doin ok and feeling like it's good I got it out of the way

(will probably say sad words later cause this is one of very few online communities I do not share with them)

the moon IS my friend

I'm doing it!!!! >:)

HI DOGMANTRA it always makes me do a big smile when i see you around

oh it's still there I just changed the name to toasthaste-art! https://toasthaste-art.tumblr.com/ maybe I should have set up the old url to redirect

Part of my issue is that like... I do genuinely enjoy what we're doing now, and don't think I want an Official Online Relationship with someone I haven't met irl, even if they are also into me. So saying "I have a crush on you but I don't want to date you at least not until we've met in person at least once and seen if we also vibe irl and even then the distance thing might make it untenable" is, idk, it feels rude and unnecessary, to me? Like just muddying the waters without any gain. But I also know that it's a thing for people to be able to separate out "has a crush on this person" and "wants to date this person," I just... don't tend to be very good at that, like, historically. Very all-or-nothing.

Maybe this is a good time to practice balancing that, idk. Something like "hey I've got a crush on you, I don't really intend to do anything about it in the short-term and don't expect you to do anything about it in the short-term either but :fingerguns:

(My relationship experience is: very few, very long-term, pretty-serious relationships, with a few short-term ones sprinkled throughout because the relationships were poly ones... and nearly all spawned from okcupid, so they came pre-charged with "maybe we will date" energy. Very consistent throughline of "get to know someone and develop romantic feelings for them = date them.")

My one last piece of advice is to say that you have a crush before you visit them. A situation where they think they're hosting a friend on a visit, and you think you love them, is gonna get both of you hurt.

Oh yeah, for sure, this was always the plan. Considering we'd both have to be fully vaccinated before we could do something like that, I figure I'll have plenty of leadup time. But yeah, before any tangible plans for meeting up got made, I'd want to make sure it was out in the open.

Thanku for sharing this advice dev, given me some stuff to think about

i don't like pizza very much

not a fand

if you find it let me know cause i have no idea what you're talking about but I want to