When is our next date?

Ever since our last date, D has been asking me when the next one will be. She has not been terribly subtle about it. Up till now I've been telling her probably late November, because I was expecting to have to take a business trip near Thanksgiving that would have made a convenient opportunity. But no actual date was set, and no tickets were bought. She has been fretting and moping.

Yesterday I discovered I really won't have to take that trip after all. There is no particular reason I can see that I'll have to travel for work until maybe January. But I have not figured out what to tell D yet. I mean, I suppose I could just make up some reason to leave town anyway, and we have a short vacation together. But I'm not near as good at making shit up on the spur of the moment as D is. Or I could tell her it's going to be a while longer before we see each other. But then I'll have to deal with her depression and anxiety.

Sometimes I think this is why I need to stay out of romantic involvements at all -- I start thinking it is up to me to manage her emotional life, to take care of things so she won't be upset. To make things better for her, out of sympathy or pity. [We have a whole discussion about pity -- with respect to Wife -- that I keep meaning to post. I'll get around to it some day. But meanwhile ...] Then I end up feeling manipulated, and I get grumpy and bitter. Not a good pattern.

It's not that I don't want to see her. Of course I want to see her. But it's not such a big deal for me if it's this month or next month. When it happens, that's nice. When it doesn't, oh well. It will later. She doesn't have that same equanimity. It seems, sometimes, like she depends on me to keep herself on track, like I'm her whole world. But I don't want to be her whole world.

Maybe she just needs to find a guy closer to home ....