Whoops, so I forgot the most important part of my epiphany: how I came to it in the first place! bitchygurl jogged my memory about that, and this is what I said to her in comments:

Oh derr, I forgot the key part of my epiphany! Which totally relates to this and is: I say I want to be pursued, but I have had a problem with every guy who's ever pursued me. I've been in painfully few relationships, gone on a pathetic number of dates in comparison, and mostly all with guys who pursued me. And I've shut down 98% of those dates/relationships. So I was discussing this tendency with mailekai one day, and I thought--"well, self, maybe you actually don't like being pursued. Have you ever thought about that?"



Or, perhaps I don't like the types of guys that want to pursue a girl like me. Or the type of guys who pursue girls, period. Maybe my whole only-child control issues stretch to the area of dating, as well.

So then I started thinking about it--created "Dana's Ideal Guy" and imagined two scenarios: one where he pursues me, in similar ways that I've been pursued in the past, and one where I think I'm all hot and sexy and awesome and pursue--or, in other words, control. Connnnntrrroooolllllll. And I was sort of surprised to realize that I even felt creeped out with Imaginary Ideal Man calling out to me on the street, or writing a solicitous email. I MUCH preferred the scenario where Imaginary Me said, "I like you. Come over here."

So then I was all, "well, what you need for that to happen is to start saying 'I like you. Come over here.'"

It was a little disappointing, initially, to sort of give up on that dream of being the crush object, but the more time I've had to live with it the more comfortable it seems.

I'm not saying this IS how you should feel, it's just the weird crazy thought process that happened to me.