Red Light, Green Light

What signals do I choose to heed and which do I figure are misleading?

When a guy close dances with you and asks for your number, then calls a week later to hang out that says to me that he likes me.

When I call him back and he says, call me when you want to hang, to me that says he's blowing me off.

When he says over and over how glad he is that I called him, that he wouldn't have shown up to a particular club if I hadn't been going, if he then talks to me for hours, and says he's embarrassed to say how glad he is that we got to hang out and then kisses me at my car, that tells me that he likes me.

When he sends me a text message at 4 am saying he's wanted to kiss me forever and that he's glad to finally be able to tell me how wonderful he thinks I am that he wants to see me soon - that tells me that he likes me.

When he says, again, to call him when I want to hang with him - that tells me that he's still playing it safe.

This is K. A guy I met a year ago and who I assumed had a girlfriend. He was always just friendly. He'd say hi, how's it going, and then go about dancing with other people. I'd usually have to corner him to get a dance. This whole time apparently he was just afraid that I wasn't interested.

To be fair for a very long time I was intently focused on J and I might well have turned him down. Even now, I'm a little hesitant.

Things have been weird with thinking that I'll run into J at any moment. If things don't go well with K (if I end up crushing his poor heart under my 3" dancing heels) how will I deal with the social fallout?

Also, I'm feeling that this might still be a symptom of feeling rejected - particularly now after the texting debacle with J, I wish I hadn't replied, I wish I hadn't replied with that reply, I keep wondering if he got the text because I haven't heard from him - and of seeing BMG in pictures on-line (there is one of her sitting - she's not even looking at the camera, it's just of her legs in that short white skirt. WTF?) and knowing how many guys are ga-ga for her. It's nice having someone who a) told me that I'm beautiful b) that he thinks so every time he sees me and c) how nice and non-stuck up I am (is it bad that I was thinking "ha! take that BMG!" in my head while he was saying this to me? and that if he knew my secret of being uber-catty he'd reasses that last one). I'm afraid that maybe I'm replacing the X - who is moving in less than a month and for whom my attraction is waning - with K. I'm afraid I would just use him to make J more interested in me.

I don't want to be a man eater. I don't want to lead this guy along. Especially if get the guts to pack up and move this winter. But it's nice to have someone that I like say these things to me. Maybe he's the one I need to get me over J, but is that really fair to K?

L has asked me out to dinner. I've been nice to him, and he's been talking to me at these clubs that I've been going to lately. He also texted me while I was on vacation. I texted him back last night. The club that I was meeting K at was dead (I ended up leaving with K and his friends and hanging out with them at somebody's house) and I was waiting for K to show up so texting was the natural fall back - that and the "Bubblesmile" game on my phone.

Today he emails me - maybe I want to try a new place on Wednesday and we can get dinner before hand. Sigh. I haven't meant to lead L on. It was just nice to talk and be friendly with him. I can't very well tell him, "Look, dating you will lead to fooling around, which I do not want to do with you. You're a bad kisser, it takes too long to get you off, and I'm not down with insulting you to turn you on." But I like him as a friend. Even a flirty friend.

It's funny. I'm obsessed with BMG and how "every" guy seems to think she's so hot. And when it comes down to it she only hangs with show off guy, and dances alot with the other guy (I have no good nickname for him) otherwise it's just the passel of other girls with Show Off guy. When I think about me - I can come up with 2 girls that I hang with one of whom is out of the country for a while and the rest are all guys - CF, CF's Friend, A (the very complimentary dancer who always tells me that I'm "all business" on the dance floor), K, L and more recently Older Inner Circle guy. So yeah, Younger Inner Circle guy takes her photo a ton, and she wears trashy clothes to show off her body - but I think it comes down to that old addage of girls not dressing up to impress guys, but to impress other girls. I wish I could believe the guys that like and compliment me to my face instead of my own head.