A thought.

A couple hours ago, it occurred to me, as I sat on a beautiful woman's bed, that I really need more practice with this face-to-face friendship/relationship stuff.

The conversation was making me really uncomfortable, for various reasons, and I had this intense urge to... well, log off.

Oh, how I wish I were kidding.

In the past, whenever I've had such a deep conversation with someone and gotten that unnerved by it, it's been online. Usually, emotions have been running high between me and the person and, for whatever reason, I tend to think that logging off is the answer. And sometimes, it is.

Trouble is, in "real" life, it's a lot more difficult to just turn off the conversation like you would log off of the chat/IM program.

I told her I wanted to run. That I didn't really want to, but that every molecule of my being was telling me to run.

"There's two kinds of situations like that," she said, "where you want to run. And in one, you stay and face what it is that's making you want to run and in the other, you just go." She looked at me. "Can you tell which one this is?"

I blinked back tears (emotional, frustrated tears) and took a deep breath. "It's late. And we're both tired. And you need to get work done. And I have work tomorrow." I finally looked back up at her. "But I know I should stay."

So I stayed.

We talked. We laughed.

I'm glad I stayed, because when she finally did kick me out of her place at 3:50am, I felt a lot better and a lot more comfortable.

Of course, I'm writing her a neurotic email now, but that's beside the point.

Bed soon, work tomorrow. Pray for a short shift.