How to Make Him Love You in 34 Days
Shit. It happened. That moment I was so fearful of finally happened … the one where Jock said the L-word to me.
Well, actually, it didn’t happen.
But it kinda did …
And then it got kinda awkward and complicated.
I should probably explain myself.
Back when One Ball and I were dating, he drew me a doodle one day. It was a doodle of a dinosaur. In fact, why don’t I just show you?
Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, Jock said something to me that went along the lines of: “You only like me because I’m a dinosaur,” and as a rebuttal, I sent him the doodle that One Ball had drawn me, telling him that I’d found it on Pinterest. There are different versions of the same/a similar image on Pinterest so I wasn’t totally lying. Anyway, he laughed, I laughed, we had some dinosaur-themed banter back and forth, and I thought that was the last of it.
It wasn’t the last of it. Far from it.
“I’ve got something to show you but it’s gonna have to wait for a bit,” he said to me in a text. I HATE it when people do that to me: tell me they’ve got something to tell me/show me/give me, but they can’t tell me/show me/give it to me just yet …
RAAAAAAH.
Or, rather, RAWWWWWWR.
It became very apparent that he wasn’t going to tell me what it was, no matter how much I begged and bribed, so I let the subject go. I just figured he’d bought me something, or done something daft. (It’s usually the latter with the men I date.)
A few hours later, he sent me a photo …
Hahahahaha, WHAT??
Someone please tell me that the man I’ve known and dated for 34 days has got a tattoo to commemorate me already? He’s pretty heavily tattooed already so one more isn’t going to make that much of a difference, but oh my fucking god, did that just happen. And let’s just pay attention to the small details here: he changed the ‘like’ in the doodle to ‘love’ in the tattoo.
“Is that a tattoo?” I asked him.
“Yep, it’s on me,” he replied.
Our conversation trailed off for a while. I had to process what the FUCK had just happened. I’d been debating my future with this guy for the past few days and there he is getting a fucking tattoo? I wasn’t going to break up with him, but imagine if that had been the decision I’d made … and then he went and did that?!
Just before I went to bed, I got one more text from him:
“Rawr.”
That’s it. That’s all it said. I didn’t have the mental capacity to deal with whatever the message meant, though I was pretty sure it meant what I thought it meant, so I just ignored it and avoided my phone so I could use the ‘I fell asleep, sorry’ excuse the next morning. Except I didn’t use the excuse the next morning. I felt like I had to tackle it head-on.
“Did you rawr at me last night?” I asked him.
“In what sense?”
“In the RAWR sense.”
“I’m confused, please explain.”
“Well, last night you sent me the photo of your tattoo saying rawr means … well, what it means. And then you said rawr …”
“Would you be freaked out if I did?”
Shit. I AM freaked out. I was freaked out before he even clarified what it meant, so knowing that he definitely means rawr freaked me out even more. Like, couldn’t he have just told me he loved me instead of having some cryptic message tattooed on his body for me to try and figure out? What’s wrong with just saying it the regular way, anyway? It’s a cute gesture and all, but isn’t it a little early for permanent ink-style commitment? We’ve only just agreed to be boyfriend and girlfriend. It’s been 34 sodding days, for fuck’s sake.
Now I’m totally muddled up. I thought I’d got myself in check over my feelings and the up-and-down way I felt about him sometimes. Not that there are many downs, but you know: the penis situation, and then the other penis situation … now this. He’s told me he loves me, without actually saying he loves me, in just 34 days.
WHAT THE FUCK?
Why does this weird shit keep happening to me? Why do men keep falling in love with me at the drop of a hat? I mean, I’m not moaning about that or anything, but when did we stop dating and then starting a relationship? Why is everyone obsessed with moving at warp speed into a new love affair? I didn’t have Jock down as a premature L-worder and yet here we are. I kinda wanted him to say it. Now he’s said it. I want him to take it back. I’m not ready for it.
On the other hand, what he’s done is clearly meant to be a grand and romantic gesture — and isn’t that what I want? Someone to love me enough and so deeply that they’d be willing to shout it from the rooftops … or just permanently etch it onto their bodies in ink? My Mama thinks it’s cute, and then she reminded me of all the things I’ve done in the name of love; batshit crazy, too-fast things. Like moving to The Other Side of the World on a whim for a dude I’d been dating for just a few months, or getting married within a year of meeting some guy who ended up to be a total fuckhead, or ending up in a War Zone just to prove a point …
She has a point. My life hasn’t ever been ‘sane’, I can’t expect my love affairs to be.
34 days though …
That’s fucking fast.
