it's rainin' men

half of this is because i need to get my thoughts sorted.

and half is because it seems everyone enjoys a little bit of boy gossip. ;)


Toby - teacher crush. shows up at disney, and i admit i'm falling.

Ro - the guy from the party last weekend. there are phone conversations and a date.

Vinny - Mr. S's son. met here.



i worked with Toby for two and a half years. we started working at the same time, and became friends even though he only worked a couple days a week. he's from nagano and the eldest son of three boys. we're the same age (me: march, him: september) he has a car and would give me rides to the train station if we happened to be leaving work around the same time. sometimes that turned into dinner or bowling or a trip to the batting cages. since deciding to quit, i've found myself falling for him. he makes me smile. he's not the sharpest crayon in the box, but he has this simplicity about him that is cute. he can't speak any enlgish aside from "okay". okay, he knows more than that, but it's not much. starting in april, he became a homeroom teacher and has his hands full with his class and everything else he has to do at work. he's not much of an initiator but will go along with something if you suggest it. Mr. Disney says i should go for it, that Toby won't reject me (which is totally different from actually reciprocating the feeling, no??). Ms. Ohio thinks he might like me a little bit. Cheer seems to be neutral, but could tell i was starting to fall for him. i don't know how he feels, other than back in february or march, at dinner one night on our way home, he said that even if he liked someone, he doesn't have the time to actually commit to a relationship, that it's all he can do to keep his head above water at work. i daydream about moving to the country with him. (gah, i know, i'm ridiculous) oh, and he smokes, a total turn-off. he hardly smoked when he started working, but Mr. Disney and another coworker take smoke breaks all the time and he joins them.

i met Ro last weekend at a party i went to with Mr. Disney. he was very forward and really put on the charm. i was tipsy and wasn't going to pass up a chance to be flat-out flirted with. we ended up coming home together. he tried to kiss me on the train platform, and i shied away. we cuddled that night and morning, until i had to leave for the school festival. he's a good cuddle-er. he appreciates the "nonsexual" touch: holding hands, rubbing my arm, laughing when i told him about "eskimo kisses", etc. he calls me every night and we usually talk for about an hour. he also smokes, but makes an effort not to around me. he knows about Toby and pursues me all the same, if not harder. he's 30. he was an exchange student in california for 4 years and can speak english. we speak mostly japanese, but when i don't know a word or the mood strikes him, he'll speak in english. we went on a date yesterday and the restaurant was wonderful, we had wine, he paid, then we walked around ginza/yurakucho and ended at hibiya park, on a bench in the dark. we just sat on the bench, his arm around me, talking, laughing, just being. some of the topics of conversation scare me though. as in, when we stopped in the pet shop and he made some sideward comment like "if we lived together...", or talking about future children names we like. we walked hand in hand back to the station, where his eyes said "i want to kiss you goodbye" but he knew better than to embarrass me at the bottom of the stairs in the train station.

this past week, my part time job boss introduced me to his son, Vinny. last year, we joked about him introducing us and nothing came of it, but then wednesday, the three of us went to dinner. he is really good looking. (i may have already known what he looked like from a facebook photo from last summer, but he's even cuter in person. and looks good in a suit...haha) he speaks english, and over the course of the evening, a little bit of english came out, and from what i can tell, his english is really good. he played soccer and was surprised that i played soccer too or like watching baseball in the stadium. he didn't smoke at dinner, but maybe that's just in front of his dad? he's the mystery boy, and maybe that's half of my attraction? the unknown? we're the same age (he's an august baby). his family lives in tokyo, but he lives on his own on the west side of tokyo. when i mentioned i wanted to go to the ghibli musuem, he said he hadn't been but said i should see x movie before going. i'm trying to work out a way to 1. see the movie even though i don't have a dvd player and 2. make a date to go to the museum together (such a schemer).


someone once told me that falling in love is three things all being in line and happening at the same time:

happening*
feeling
timing

(*japanese english? "happening", as in, meeting, or some event occurring that jump starts the relationship?)


i guess when it gets right down to it, timing isn't exactly on my side with Toby. even if he's interested, if he can't reply to texts, or make a tiny bit of effort, i'm only going to doubt if he actually likes me. which is too bad, because i think that Toby is the one who knows the "real" me (and vice versa), since we worked together, and neither of us were putting up pretenses and just being ourselves. i wouldn't hesitate to introduce Toby to Bee and Style. there is the english thing though. having met two guys who can speak english, it reminds me that that's kind of a big one in my book.

without even writing about Ro, i think i've decided that i need to go on a date with Vinny and see what's there. i think most of my attraction is based on the possibility that exists in the unknown. if only i didn't have some lecture tonight. what do we think, lunch tomorrow?

and really, there's no sense in trying to figure out "what will i do if things go well?!" right now. we'll cross that bridge when we get there....

when it rains, it pours, eh?? not that i even have any right to complain about too many boy choices. complicated just means life gets interesting. ;)