He feels, She feels

The dreaded words in a relationship:  We need to talk.  Any other variations of this also invoke the same kind of fear.  In my case the words were, "I need to talk to you about something."  

I'm the kind of girl where if ambiguity is dripping from your words, I will over analyse until the end of the earth.  The text that contained that sentence sent my mind into a frenzy, I kid you not.  Suddenly nothing in class was interesting, all I could do was wonder what Kirk wanted to talk to me about.  My imagination ranged from one extreme ("I realized I don't like you and we need to break up ASAP, you hag!") to the other ("Leslie, I can't take it any longer!  I'm in love with you and we need to get married NOW!  TO THE TEMPLE!"  And then we ride off on a white horse, because, ya know, white horses are in abundance on BYUI campus.)  When we finally did get together so Kirk could "talk to me about something" he does what he does best: beat around the bush.  This is my harsh way of saying Kirk is really good at distracting and avoiding serious conversation.  Sometimes I really appreciate this quality, sometimes I don't.  This week, not a fan.  Just tell me what SOMETHING MEANS, DANGIT!  Geeze.  

Here's his dealio:  He feels like he needs to date other girls for a bit so he can "see what it feels like" to make sure this (this being us) is something he should progress with.  He'd only felt that way for about 24 hours, but he felt like he needed to tell me asap and that we needed to cease being exclusive (ex.clu.sive adjective: Boyfriend/Girlfriend, only date one another, hold hands, kiss, get jiggy with it in a Mormony way).  Here's the kicker: He wants to still date me while he dates other girls.  His feelings for me haven't changed, he still thinks I'm wonderful and beautiful and funny and all those other awesome things Kirk knows how to say in the most flattering way.  He says he doesn't know why he's getting this impression (his word for it, not mine) but he feels like he needs to follow it.  When I heard that I thought, "Well, he still wants to spend time with me and see me.  That works, because that way I still get Kirk even though we're not exclusive!  Perfectamente!"  My thoughts have since changed, but more on that in another post.  Essentially I told him this: 

"I don't like this, it's not my ideal situation.  But I'm not the only one in this relationship, so I can't dictate things the way I want all the time.  If you feel like you need to date other girls to get confirmation that this relationship, you and me, is right or wrong, then you do that.  I can see what you mean, I understand where you're coming from.  I really don't like this, I want you to date just me, but I'll give you the time you need."

And then he and I talked and talked about all sorts of stuff, like how we met and how we really like each other.  It felt normal and comfortable and I kind of hated that he made it so ease to feel at ease after he told me he didn't want to be exclusive.  Overall, though, I felt really okay with it. 

Until the next day...but that's going to be another post.  Stay tuned!