Shit, I'm just starting to feel worse and worse. I am looking at this as another learning experience. I met a really nice woman and we went out a few times and generally had fun and great conversations. This shows me that I can meet interesting women who see me as a potential boyfriend.

This is pretty much how healthy dating works. You meet someone new. There's an initial attraction. You go out on a few dates. You get to know each other better. You decide if this person is someone you want to know more intimately or not. With Elaine, for whatever reason it was not.

It's far better to find out now when it's still early than go out and out and develop stronger feelings for her and then get dumped. There's definitely a bit of karma in this situation. I remember dating a woman named Theresa many years ago from the singles group. We went out about 4 or 5 times and she asked where this relationship was headed. I didn't have strong feelings for her so I told her that I wanted to just be friends.

This set her off and she yelled at me over the phone about how she wouldn't let a friend treat her this way. I think I had backed out of a date or something at the time. To her credit, she contacted me again a few months after her little outburst and when we met for lunch she asked me what went wrong. It was a very mature thing to do I thought. It was one reason I am going to try and stay friends with Elaine after all.

I think this strong emotion is partly based on my lack of sleep from last night and, of course, the sting of rejection. I also think that Lidia may be seeing someone from Ward's circle. He emailed me about whether I'm going to a happy hour next week. It made me suspicious that someone in the group mentioned that they are seeing her and to avoid seeing me. I feel bad that he may be stuck in the middle of my fucked up social life. The pessimist in me thinks it may be Scott.

So here I go torturing myself again. I have no evidence what so ever and I go right for the most hurtful explanation. I wish I could stop doing this. I need another rubber band, I think. Wow, am I glad that I'm going on vacation for a while next week. I really need to distract my thoughts. I am driving myself nuts.

It's good that I'm seeing my therapist tomorrow too. I'm tempted to call her this evening but I really want to practice my own self-help tools. I sure need the practice baby!