Just met

[wierdmunky]

When do people who JUST met stop being strangers. This was so much easier in high school. People weren't so easily labeled as a possible predator or someone just interested in you for sex even though there were the people who would say something REALLY out of the ordinary, and it would strike you as a person with some issue going on. I feel like times have kind of changed and that there is so much more of those kinds of things happening with more subtlety. I might just be more aware of it lately: / I get almost paranoid since I have that feeling of you never really know about people. Plus the news/media and their continuous crazy kidnapping stories have been getting to me. I don't feel endangered since my workplace is pretty public, and the guy doesn't know where I live, or even my number.

 

So the story is I met some people (2 guys) who came into my work, who visit me often now (I work in sales) I can tell we have great chemistry and that he finds me attractive. I'm not sure if I'm interested in dating him. At first he was really really attractive to me. I'm a lot older than him though, so I dismissed that idea, but he is kind of putting it out there openly, and not obviously.

 

I guess you can also say I'm pretty sheltered, and my family likes to keep it that way. Sometimes I feel gullible and am, but I know that about myself, and I try to always remember that. It's a little difficult to make friends that way, esp potential partners. I've heard stories of people meeting at different places, and my own parents met at a library, but lived close to each other in a SMALL town. Things were very different.

 

A little more background is my dad is HIGHLY protective. He will not give any guy a chance and thinks most strangers are crazy. So, I get almost paranoid thinking/knowing it will always be when you least expect that something bad can happen to you.

 

I also know a lot of guys who are friends of mine, who the only way I've got to know them is through IM chatting. Those are mostly friends of friends and co-workers. I've never got to know someone in the "relationship" of being a customer which to me is a stranger. Since I don't want to be a lone with them or go out on some pseudo-date. So, for this situation, I'm not sure if it's my intuition talking, or my innate sheltered fear. There never seem to be flags for what could be deemed a possibly dangerous guy.

 

He is really really nice about that fact too. I said to him one day. "I'm gonna be honest, I'm probably not going to go anywhere with you." We were talking about places we've been to, and he said there was a place where he'd want to show me, but obviously not at the moment. He also said that was the reason why he would keep visiting me, so we could get to know each other more. He brings his friend with him sometimes. So, I don't know. I like him, but I'm also trying to be safe and not paranoid. Am I being paranoid? He hasn't asked me to go anywhere with him. This is all conversation.