I used to hoop, but now I hop.

For a while, drawing and making comics was this thing I did on my spare time, for my own entertainment. But last year it gradually became the main activity. And as I started putting more and more expectations and worries on it, I felt the need to find a new hobby to take the space where comics used to be.
 
I felt a huge need to get immersed in an activity that is different from what I do everyday, and that I'm motivated to learn but don't feel pressured to be good at it. It also has to be something that I'm not sharing with that many people. I must do it just for myself. 
That's why last summer I started hula hooping. 

(If Robyn hula hoops then it must be cool)

There's a huge hooping community on the internet, full of people posting tutorials that look either super impressive or super ridiculous. And I like activities that mix both things.

But now my new house is not as spacious and I stopped my hula hobby (at least until I'm brave enough to go practise in a public garden) and I'm getting super invested on my lindy hop classes.

 
I've been taking them since December. When you enter, you have to sign up either as leader or a follower. Leaders are usually men, and women are usually followers. The trouble is that there's a waiting list for followers. Whereas leaders are always welcomed, so I signed up as one.

Although I did some dancing before, I only took up partner dances very briefly, and rarely as a leader. And it's super fun! And interesting. Right now I see the whole thing as a problem of communication that we are constantly trying to solve. Like a moving puzzle. There are a few steps that we learn and can use to make a choreography out of it, but the interesting part is learning how to convey those movements to the other person. How to make her jump, or slide or stop without telling her out loud that she has to jump, slide or stop.
How to move my body in a way that the follower understands what's going on and where to go?

 
You can guess that most of the dance is controlled by the leader. And it's cool to have that power. But with great power comes great responsibility, and if the couple is out of tune, or trips and falls, or makes some mistake, it's probably the leader's fault.
Leaders make most of the mistakes.
I'm pressing on that because, the funny thing I've noticed, is that guys are usually the worst at taking criticism on their dancing.

I know I'm generalizing, and there are some super nice and humble leaders that I've danced with. But really, from my experience so far, having danced with both men and women in a number of occasions from classes to parties both here and back when I was in Vilnius, I can tell you that it's very common that whenever I tell men they are doing something wrong they get defensive about it, or at least feel the need to thoroughly explain why they did that mistake and how that happened because of something that was out of their control.
Whereas girls are always saying they are sorry, even when the mistake wasn't theirs!

I think that says a lot about our society and stuff, and I'll leave that for to you to think about. Meanwhile, I'm deepening my gender research and going out with my dancing shoes, because tonight's a swing night!

I hate dates.
Not the fruit,

Those are fine.
I mean when there's someone who's a possible love interest so you meet to talk and figure out if you have enough stuff in common and can stand each other's company for more than a hour and a half.
This all sounds like a plausible grown-up thing to do. And I can see why most people I know get excited about going on dates.

But I have a problem. If I fancy someone, the LAST thing I want do is to be completely alone with them.
Even talking while in a group is hard.
I will want to be near. But not ready to interact yet.
Like a love sloth.


I think I need a sort of progressive exposure for my charm to work. The amount of time we spend together has to gradually increase over, say, a month.
I made charts to compare it:

In my approach, on the first day we only see each other for 5 minutes (so there's very little I can say to hurt their first impression of me). Then day 2 is 15 minutes (the stakes are a bit higher, I may have to talk about the weather) and so it goes up and up, to a solid 2 hours time or maybe even more.

So far, most people I like liked were kind of in my friendship group zone... So I didn't really have to set a time and place to get to know them better. I wasn't lazy either: I did make a huge effort to be with them and went through amazing loops to get them invited for things without having them know I was the one inviting.

But, still, less pressure and it was never said out loud that we were going on dates. We were just doing things, together. sometimes. not even romantic things, necessarily. Unless you count washing a dog in a bathtub, or going to the supermarket as a romantic activity.

If that wasn't enough, I'm also very nervous to be on the other side of the situation and getting asked out. For all the above reasons and more:
Generally when someone invites me to go for a drink I say yes. I like meeting new people, and I like drinks. Both are great. But then, occasionally, I find myself in a dim lit place and wondering "where the hell are his friends?" and realizing I was the only one invited and this looks like romance.

This happened a few times when I was new in Vilnius, and therefore had no friends and had to go around meeting a lot of people in bars and film sessions and parties and night things because apparently that's how you make friends when you are not in school anymore. And making new friends outside school is really hard, and I was constantly worried I would be sending them the wrong vibe.


Maybe it's not just a coincidence that most people I ended up being friends with, in Lithuania, already had boyfriends or girlfriends.

So, I'm putting this two dilemmas on your competent hands, dear readers. I don't think I can or should avoid dates, but I would definitely love to have a magic card trick that would turn them less hmm "daty". Any ideas?

And, also, how to be friends with someone who's also single, and meet them, and have them know I really enjoy their company, without making it sound like it's something else? 

Gaaah, this is hard. I should probably just give up and stay home.

This starts with me having a bad day.
I live right next to my old faculty and will occasionally go to work there, although I don't know anyone there anymore.

I was having this lame day, and eating a ham and cheese sandwich in the school cafeteria and started crying.
You see, I've cried in schools before. Nothing new about that. But this time was so much sadder because I don't EVEN STUDY THERE! I'm just this random older person sitting in a school I don't go to, and tearing up WHILE EATING A SANDWICH!

Anyway, I go home and decide to heat up a frozen pizza to cheer myself up. (I realize now a pattern of eating ham and cheese things when sad) I was very hungry and bit the pizza right out of the oven.
This was of course a terrible idea and it burnt the roof of my mouth.

(This image goes to show that I'm not the only idiot in the world to whom this things happen)

My palate was all swollen and red afterwards.

The thing is, I had only bought 2 things in the store earlier.
One was the pizza, and the other was a big bag of oranges.
That was all the food I had.

I don't know if you ever tried eating citric fruits with a burned mouth but it stings a lot.
For the rest of the night I felt like I was in some sort of some sadistic experience:
"Let's leave a hungry person with an inflamed mouth in a house full of oranges and see what she does."


I ate one. Because I'm that tough.