Dear Tiny Buddha,

When I write down all the things I would want in a man, he is perfect. By perfect, I understand not everything is “perfect” but as far as compatibility, essentially he is everything I was looking for. When I write this, I’m not going to be afraid to write my flaws, because I want genuine and real advice, I can’t get that if I’m not honest.

He is a college graduate, a bachelors in engineering. So I like that he has a good job and is established.

I am attending college. I started my own business in wood working/wood burning. I am a part time barista. But my flaw comes in because I love traveling. I love my work. Sometimes I get frustrated I have to give up 2-3 days a week for him, because it is my main source of income and my passion. It also makes me wonder if I’m just not ready for a relationship because I’d rather be establishing my career.

He has hobbies. I love that. It shows he isn’t afraid to spend time with himself. He isn’t codependent. That was on my checklist. I cannot be with someone that thinks IM the only way he can be happy. If I don’t text him all day, he’ll be doing one of his hobbies and we reconnect later like nothing happened. That’s what I wanted. But where it’s starting to feel smothering to me is I feel like he’s planning my whole month ahead of me out. I dread getting the “when you get a chance, can you send me your schedule?” text. When I respond I don’t acknowledge it. I’ll start to respond later and later. It makes me shut down. I just got home from Thailand and I tried Indian food there for the first time and I told him how it’s one of my favorites. I have no idea what my barista hours are yet, and I mentioned I’d love to get Indian food around here locally this week with him. Since I don’t know my work schedule yet I can’t plan it until I see it at work. This morning right away, “when you get a chance can you send me your schedule?” I talked around it. Then later “I’m excited to try Indian food. When you figure out your schedule, what day and time will we be going?” It just makes me feel like I can’t breathe. I only brought it up last night. I’m still not even over jet lag yet.

This is probably where my ugly, flawed side comes out, because he sounds sweet or like he has good intentions, which I believe he does. But to me it’s smothering. I haven’t even established what I’m doing for the week without setting days aside for him. I have so many ideas inspired from my trip I want to work on but they are fading since I have to put him on the front burner.

A lot of it is me. I think it’s a control issue on my end. Before I left for Thailand, my wood burner broke. I was showing him the 1 I was looking at, because he asked what I was going to do. But I also had this FB forum getting advice from other artists on the best wood burner while in Thailand. I decided on a completely different one. I didn’t feel the need to inform him because I didn’t think he would buy me one. He told me he did a week into my trip and I was so upset. But I just ignored him for a couple days and blamed it on Wi-Fi because I knew that was my issue. I wanted to think everything through thoroughly before I regretted anything I said. Which I’m glad I did. My reasoning for why it upset me: my wood burner is my whole business. So far I have struggled starting from nothing, to selling a piece just to improve my equipment a little. Selling a couple more to afford an LLC, work my butt off to pay for the next couple classes. Work my butt off with my homework, to make and sell more pieces, make time for him, my part time job, my family, I also had 3 funerals when the peak of my business was happening, so mentally I was struggling, still acting fine, and working my butt off. It’s just constant struggle and I’m just finally getting there where money isn’t such an issue anymore, where I can pay for some extras in my life, or chip in on date night finally. I was so excited to have enough money to pay for the wood burner I want, than all of a sudden it’s just handed to me. Not even the one I decided on. So maybe I’m in the wrong, maybe I’m not. I decided I was though. So I said thank you and made sure he knew I was appreciative. It was very hard for me to do. Because along with feeling like I worked hard for something and had it handed to me, my controlling side was constantly telling me “hopefully he isn’t going to look me in the eye one day and say ‘you wouldn’t be where you are, if it weren’t for me.’” I know. I’m crazy. But I lived through it before with family members. So I was so proud to be doing everything myself. I don’t think it’s a weakness asking for help. It’s a sign of strength.

Beyond all that, after my 3 week long trip, I was so excited to see him. I was myself. I was happy. I’m a jokester and look for humor in things because I’m always busy. So I like to laugh when I’m not working. It makes me feel like I’m actually escaping work and school. He made a comment to me about his steel toes always creating issues at the airport. I chuckled because I’ve never known him to NOT where steel toes, even on vacation. So he like stopped his story and was like “wait.. why is that funny?” And it made it sour and so i knew even after explaining, it’s not that funny, and I still did in case he thought I was making fun of him, he didn’t even smile. So it was awkward. But it’s little stuff like that where I feel like we don’t connect.

We like to get dressed up for date night. Write letters and post cards. We like to be old fashion. But we just don’t connect that well. I’ll talk to his family for hours on end laughing and having a good time, but he’ll sit there like it’s painful. Like he thinks I’d rather be with them instead of him. Lately, I been thinking the same. His family is easy to laugh with and talk with. He isn’t. I remember one date night, I was so bored out of my mind I wanted to scream. He loves Roman history. And I LOVE that he loves it. But we’ll be walking through a whole other street in whole other state and I have to hear a fun fact about a Roman ruler that takes 30 minutes to tell. And he talks about it so fast that any question that I think of goes away by his next sentence. Or we’ll pass 7 cool buildings I want to check out but I don’t want to cut him off while he’s talking. Christmas Eve he knew I was waiting for the pastor to stop by at my grandmas and I had to run out and grab something and he decided to tell me an interesting fact, and the pastor was outside and I’m awkwardly walking towards the door to go help while he’s still talking. And then after I help. Go help clean up the kitchen for a mental break, I go back and sit in there by him for him to finish the last 15 minutes of his story. We don’t laugh much. I just get history lessons. And if I don’t know something, he’s in shock and he’s going to educate me. When I got back from Thailand, I was so excited to tell him and his family about salt fields. Because I saw for the first time in my life how sea salt was made. But he wasn’t interested. Because he already finished my story because he already knew and had time to google it so I had nothing cool to tell his parents. I was able to kind of cut him off to tell them a side story of an experience I had with the field. An experience he couldn’t have found on google, because it was mine. But he didn’t look up once, but I thought it was moving. And his parents thought it was moving. But he was unmoved.

Since a lot of what I like about him is a match. I keep thinking if I tough it out it will get better. But it’s almost a year now and I just don’t feel in love with him.