About two months ago, I met up with a new person for a “coffee date”. I didn’t really consider it a date; we’d first met at a munch and they seemed uncomfortable, so I wanted to give them a more comfortable environment to talk in. We hung out for about an hour, and they were then comfortable enough to talk to me at Frolicon and, later, at that same munch the next time it came around.

Then, a week after the munch, they messaged me on Fetlife and asked, in a sort of roundabout way, what my intentions were with our meeting. I told them what I just said — that I wanted to help them out and give them a more comfortable place to interact, but also that I was interested in getting to know them better. They told me they were interested in hanging out again, and I said, in complete honesty and transparency, that I would be busy for the next several weeks — work, TASSP, kid custody, trip to FL — but that we could try to fit something in. They said they understood.

Then, later that day on Fetlife, they posted a status update to the effect of “men only are interested if you’re not interested, but if you show interest back they aren’t interested anymore.”

I felt a little called out by that. I don’t know if they were directing it towards me or if it was towards someone else, but my anxiety started revving up and I immediately felt awful. Now, this particular person is a very direct communicator, so if they had an issue with anything I’d said, I’d expect them to just tell me, but then, humans are complicated. Maybe they felt offended about the way I said I was busy. I don’t really know, and if I bring it up, I might make things worse, or weirder, or whatever.

The worst part is that creativity, at least in my case, is so precarious a thing that when I read that Fetlife status I immediately felt deflated, like I couldn’t create anything for the entire day. I mean, I forced myself to write a story, but it was difficult to get into it because my brain was running around in circles. Anxiety usually kills my creativity.

What’s the lesson here? If you’re thinking of subtweeting someone, and you know they’re going to read it, don’t do it. Instead, tell them directly what you’re thinking. Hell, maybe this person did; maybe the person they were subtweeting got a message that was more direct. But my anxiety is going to make it all about me.

Hooray.