How do you curb your enthusiasm in a romance?

When I first met my husband, I was instantly attracted to him. By the end of our first date, I was in love with him (and he with me). It was fabulous and scary, all at the same time. Both of us were very enthusiastic with each other, and marvelled over how much we liked each other and enjoyed our time together. But neither would say anything ‘permanent’ (like “I love you” or “Next year, we should…”) for a good long while because it just felt too soon. Obviously, we ended up married. ;)

I guess my point is, you feel what you feel. Show it! You don’t necessarily have to say so just yet, but don’t try to temper your feelings. There is always a chance that you will get hurt when you’re head over heels like this, but that’s just a fact of life. Don’t let worrying about it ruin this feeling. Enjoy it!

Try to keep some balance in your life. Continue to see your friends. Share your feelings with him, but tell him you are finding it a little scary too.

If he likes your real personality, be real.

I would hold off on using the L word or thinking long term until you are both in the same city and you have some relationship time under your belt.

Live this experience to the fullest. It doesn’t happen often..

Wow! I can’t express how happy your responses have made me. Maybe I’m not crazy after all. I have so many butterflies it doesn’t seem real. Do things like this really happen? The fact that @marinelife points out that “things like this don’t happen often” must mean that I’m not excited for nothing.

In terms of a relationship happening, I’m still not sure what it all means. I don’t have a set expectation, and won’t be venturing towards the L word any time soon… I actually just got out of a long relationship and this is all entirely unexpected… It’s was only suppose to be dinner with an “old friend”!

Maybe I should just go with it…. Although it seems like I need to get use to sleep deprivation (thank goodness this has happened to me after all my final exams :) ). Thanks again for the advice,

It does sound exciting. Brings back good memories for me.

Listen to yourself when you are alone but allow yourself to feel. And this is a thing to be savored. So like auggie says sometimes holding back words and just showing him with action and reading what he shows you is so importent. Gobbling up something so rare would be a sin and like you said it is bad timing.

You could be a devil’s advocate to yourself, or realist, or even a little negative, to the degree that it still fits your personality. You could take into consideration how you would feel if it turned out that he wasn’t equally interested or if he was smothered.

Haha…well….just wait til you are in men-0-pause.
Nature is perfectly designed. Meet, mate, procreate and then…..who gives a flyin’ fuck. lol
IF you learn anything on your life journey by the time you are 50 something romance will take a huge backseat to personal bliss, doing your own thing and not caring because you are so content and grounded within yourself that you don’t need anybody to make you feel complete. Aah grasshopper, keep on hopping, ‘tis the journey of a thousand miles and begins with the first hormone surge. haha

Okay, okay, I will answer the question.
You remind yourself that you are under the heavy influence of romantic fantasy and hormonal lust and that no matter how sweet the meat, it can be tainted in a heartbeat. lol

@Coloma Love the riff. Got the stylings beat poetry. Which from me a compliment. GA GA

^^^ Thanks…humor is everything. :-p

Hey, welcome to Fluther.
I have been engaged in a completely unexpected romance for the past month…I was resolutely not looking for a relationship, but I bumped into this guy who seems as excited about me as I am about him. But it’s a guy who is good at expressing his feelings, which most straight men are not socialized to do. We have talked about the future a little bit, but we are both also trying to remain realistic and just enjoy the moments we share together.

I think part of the excitement and thrill of the situation might be because you only see each other a few times a month. The rest of the time, maybe you are letting your imagination run wild. You are thinking into the future, and then getting paranoid because you allow yourself to imagine all sorts of possibilities. You are clinging to this new and exciting feeling that you’ve had for 5 days, and then imagine losing it. This is counterproductive. I think it is important to keep a balance as much as you can. Maintain your own life apart from him. Keep working hard on your studies, see your friends, do fun stuff on your own. Try to remain reflective as much as possible. Don’t be paranoid. Your feelings are valid, but you must have control over what you do with them.

Just curious, why did you say “this has bad news written all over it”? Just because of the age difference, or because he seems too good to be true? I can absolutely understand being excited about being with an older guy—I’m in my mid-20s, and the great majority of guys my age are still children.

@bookish1

With regard to “bad news” I’ve known him long enough that he has ample experience in navigating women. At the same time, whenever he has had a girlfriend, he hasn’t been inappropriate as far as I know. Lets just say, I’ve never really dealt with a guy who seems so capable and confident. (This is new at my age!)

I feel like I’ve calmed down a little today, and we haven’t spoken at all – I’m going to be sure to leave some space especially as this is all brand spanking new. We never talked non stop daily before, so why should we now? To avoid being a repetitive mess, I’ll just play it a little cool, and let things progress naturally. He doesn’t seem like the type of guy who would want to be smothered, and does not seem needy. After all, if I did that it would no longer be very exciting.

Does this sound like a reasonable way to approach this, considering how new it really is?

It sounds reasonable to me…

Being that the ‘bad news’ is your experience, or rather, knowledge of this man, and the fact that you are so young, you probably need to be careful. This man is experienced, and in his prime (as he well is) he knows how to use it.

Having got that out of the way, use your head, you appear to be a smart woman. You know if you are wearing blinders and if you are looking straight (in regards to knowing him). However, don’t try to over think the situation. If you feel that you are thinking straight, and you have these feelings for him, well GO for it! This is an opportunity for you to do what you feel. Life is full of experiences, take them. Take the initiative, just be honest with him and tell him how you feel.

Happy hunting!

Thank you for your response! We have seen each other since, and it was even better….we are now together, and he seemed to be even more enthusiastic about exclusivity than I was (wow!). Now the only problem is that I’m away for a month, but I suppose it may prolong the exciting period….:). Going by how expressive and attentive he has been, maybe this whole thing was not such bad news after all. I’m still keeping my eyes open though, attempting not to wear the blinders….