Anxious

So Nikolai will be back in Cincy tomorrow night. I probably won't actually see him until the weekend, though, early next week at the latest. In any case, I should be happy to be seeing him again after his one-month goodbye. But in all reality I'm more anxious than excited. His return brings up questions that I'm not sure I can answer, considerations that I'm afraid to consider.

This is so not Alex II. With Alex, friendship was the consolation prize for rejection of something further; and the friendship wasn't all it was cracked up to be. With Nikolai, I am not sure if I want to stay friends or go further, and the scary part (the part I am almost afraid to consider because of fears of being too optimistic) is that unlike Alex, my friendship with Nikolai maybe could go further. And what does "further" mean? Casual dating? Something serious? Sex? Marriage? The thought of actually having a love life is thrilling and daunting at the same time. It brings up all of my issues with intimacy and trust. It brings up the issue of my own inexperience, six years since doing anything romantic (dating, relationship, etc.). And I'm scared to death.

I think that Nikolai is a good person, and I like him a lot. Ambitious and driven, yet caring and selfless. He's smart, interesting, mature, down-to-earth, and trustworthy. He's just a really neat person...no, not perfect by a long shot, not even the closest thing to perfect, but just really cool. And attractive too. I can be his friend, I wouldn't mind being his something else. I would just hate to mess everything up.

The worst thing that could happen with Nikolai would not be rejection, it would be that we would end up hating each other. As can be seen by my earlier posts on Alex, my feelings are intense - when I love, I love with all I have, and when I hate, I hate with the intensity of a thousand suns. I think that with Nikolai, I'm afraid of my feelings for him becoming too intense. While I like him, it's not an intense like, but if things did work out in terms of romance, it could be like that. Like all human males, he's bound to do something stupid that'll piss me off. No, I'm not a nitpicker, but every person is bound to let you down in some way, shape or form. I don't want my love to be misplaced, and I don't ever want to hate him.