2020 will be a year in which I will dare myself to be even more fearless than I have ever been before.

And I’ve been fearless for about 20 year so being fearless it’s like my comfort zone.

But recently I realized the fears I had before I reached that age in which I became fearless are suddenly haunting me.

And what fears are those?

Ohh well, these are really silly and hard to explain fears for a grown-up myself.

But, basically, back in the day, I didn’t give my curiosity or feelings the importance they deserved. Well, I wasn’t either being myself due to fear of scaring away the guys I liked, so I wasn’t really being myself when I liked a guy.

Surprisingly enough with the guys I didn’t like I had a lot of success, and even got like 98% of any male friends confessing me how much they liked me or even kissed me, including crushes I thought were impossible for me to get so I forgot about them. But only after I refocused on someone else that they started doubting their own existence so much so they had to come and get my attention back again and put some effort in.

The other 2% representing my male gay friends.

So yeah, that fear of actually being my real self died like twenty years ago. I soon realized that what I thought was my worst character traits actually were my best assets ever.

And I hated feeling this way for these crushes because I couldn’t control the way my body reacted to their presence when I finally had a chance to be face to face with them.

Thanks to a five year old experience (Shakira seems to definitely know the feeling) I had with one of those crushes I swore to myself that I would not allow myself to catch feelings for men any men that didn’t follow my standards.

It worked like a charm. I couldn’t care less about men for years on end. And yet the less I cared the more effort they invested in me. More than ever.

So I guess from that moment onwards it was me calling the shots and not the other way around.

And any man who got to be with me… if they suddenly started slacking, showing signs of not being as interested as usual, showing inconsistency and incoherent behaviour I would get rid of. Ensuring he would not waste any of my precious time.

I never got those stupid physical reactions to anyone ever again. My ex-husband was once a mixed-sign crush but because I was confident when I first met him I had no issues being myself. Like, even if I found him intimidatingly handsome when I first met him I had no problem in approaching him and requesting to DJ certain songs for me or engage in conversations with him. When we dated for real, 5 years later after those nights out clubbing in England in which nothing happened, I started gettting a heat rush, but that was all.

The problem? 

I thought those reactions were logical and made sense in the past and logically I wouldn’t have such physical reactions to these guys I truly liked as a grown-up.

And as I moved back to my home country and started bumping into them I realized I was terribly wrong!!

It’s like my teenage self came back when it came to this men. The song below quite represents that horrible feeling.

So annoying!!

I tried to rationalize it in a million ways as I don’t think I physically or mentally find those guys attractive these days. So it’s definitely something of my past self being challenged here.

And I would most likely want to leave it in the past and move on with daily life. But that’s exactly what my old self did in the past and that’s why I guess this situation keeps happening.

I did let these things die in the past, just to avoid stepping outside my comfort zone. And I wouldn’t be writing this had I back in the day gathered 20 seconds of insane courage to step out of my then comfort zone to just show a natural interest in them.

And I’ve been avoiding dealing with this issue for so many years because I moved to another country. Since I didn’t bump into them I didn’t feel this uncomfortable at all, so I never felt the need to deal with it for years.

Then… life, destiny, fate, coincidence or whatever the hell you want to call it makes them cross my way and a deep stare into my eyes from them and I finally got to understand what John Travolta was singing about with “I’ve got chills, they’re multiplying, and I’m losing control, cause the power you’re supplying, is electrifying”.

But it’s not like a turn on feeling like the other girls were singing about. It’s more innocent than that because it’s like just getting their attention back in the day for me was simply enough.

But in the end I always got all my crushes interested in me at some point (usually when I couldn’t care less about them and didn’t give a shit about what could happen because I had found someone else to focus on).

But these days…. I don’t make moves on guys I like. If I’m not their priority they don’t even get to rent any space on my head. Basically they’ve got to work their asses off to get any of my time because I’m not even looking.

What if they too are those kind of confident men that do not want shy insecure women at all? I have had my fair share of bold moves with men, and in the long run I think I’ve regretted them all. Probably because deep down my biologically analytical mind somehow is telling me that it should be the male “pushing the button“.

So what am I going to do about it?

I’m going to risk stepping outside my current comfort zone.

I do not even want a relationship with anyone at this particular point in time because all I want is to earn my own money and stay focused on my business goals.

And if I wanted one I already know someone fantastic for that purpose who already has proven to meet 95% of the the sooo many high standards I require and need to reconsider my singleness status. So it’s not like I’m desperate for male attention.

It’s just something fun to work on, I take it as self-sacrifying research, so I can test my theories on men.

For this research I had to stop dating the man that gathered 95% of the standards required, because somehow, deep down, I feel like I owe it to myself being single way longer than what I had actually been before that amazing guy found me. If I can’t keep a promise to myself I won’t feel able to keep any promises to anyone else. I also owed myself the time to explore all the options out there and the full extent of my mind power.

And I’m going to follow whatever my gut instinct tells me I should do to break such a spell. Even if it goes against my current standard of not making a move when it comes to men.

Because all I want is to get my usual power back when in the presence of these two crushes that are haunting me from the past so I can make peace with it and continue being my authentic unapologetic fearless self.

And I know I’m fucking worthy and amazing. And yet, shit happens when I bump into these men and it takes me to the times when I didn’t feel all that amazing.

And how will I find out?

So I’m going to focus on the one I was focusing on to attract without realizing he was my youth crush. Let’s call him S. I know he’s divorced, so not sure if he’s got a girlfriend already, but at least is not married, as I know the other one is.

Background information

S… from Stranger. As I was on mission to demonstrate anyone can get any person they want without even really do anything about it other than actually doing your stuff and let them come your way.

As this was more like a hypothetical thing unlikely to happen and not me getting a crush form the past interested… the moment I realized the stranger I had eyes on actually was one of my first crushes ever… I had to abort the original mission and started focusing on this one of figuring out why I feel overpowered by these crushes from the past.

I kept noticing S in the mornings to the point that we started acknowledging each other’s presence in the distance with a nod and a smile before I realized who he actually was.

So now what?

I don’t know if my mind powers are all that strong that I turned that seemingly total stranger into someone I knew and someone I could one day have to contact or get in touch with… but that’s exactly how it happened. It went from stranger to someone that wasn’t all that strange to me at all. And I went from not knowing a thing about him to actually even know where he lived and more.

That fear of not knowing how to be myself made me try to avoid him as much as I could.

But the planets aligned somehow and a phone conversation and face to face encounter happened. But the reason had nothing to do with us, it was a side effect of my original mission of drawing S closer to me.

Since I knew it was inevitable that we would have to talk face to face I had time to try to relax and think of plenty of ways to try and strike a normal engaging conversation, be my cool self. But nah…. when he came instead of the natural relaxed authentic self the unintentional standoffish bloody ice queen self showed up.

And I love that one too, don’t get me wrong, but I thought “look, perhaps my body instinctively knows which one is the right one one to bring out in his presence. And if that’s me around him… so be it. I can’t help it”.

I felt like texting him back that night apologizing for forgetting to offer him a drink or a lift back home that day but then I remembered…. “Hello? you don’t chase men at all. If he’s bothered, he’ll do something about it”. Really when it comes to people no action at all is an action in itself. So I told myself “just let it be. Who cares what he thinks of you now? if he likes it great, if it makes him feel uncomfortable great. If he doesn’t give a fuck even better!!”. So there…. me just doing me.

The instinct kicked in with a response

As days went by I started to feel like bombarded with his energy, like I couldn’t literally stop thinking about him and he was even getting in my dreams. And I guess my gut instinct said that in order to break the spell perhaps I had just to be honest with myself and with him and admit I had a crush on him in the past and that his presence makes me nervous. 

I started finding loads of excuses to talk myself out of it, though.

“So why am I talking myself out of doing this? what am I afraid of? I’m afraid that he rejects me? what would fearless Laura do to avoid feeling this way? why do I even care if he cares or likes me at all? I’m not even sure he’s my type or if I like him physically now. I just want my ability to be my genuine self”.

Because this year I’ve set up on a goal to be 100% in control of my life. And that definitely includes tackling whatever it needs to be tackled. These powerlessness feelings included.

So I texted him.

Making the most of an excuse I had to text him due to something else and the fact that he usually replied straight away… I said to myself ; OK THIS IS IT.

I first thought I should tell him in person… but I thought that was another excuse to get me out of doing it and I just want this stupid chapter of my life over and done with. So after discussing what we were talking about… I said;

“Ohh and sorry, last time we met I was thinking on giving you both a lift back home and I completely forgot. Not sure what is it with you but I get nervous when I am around you and I think it’s because when I was little I never dared to tell you that you caught my eye even I don’t know exactly what for. So if you ever felt anything weird when around me…. it was that. Now I hope to be able to be my usual self”.

That was it… I did it!!… I let it out and since I got busy straight away I couldn’t even think or wait for a reply. I was just happy I got it out of my chest or out of my head. You can see how other people feel when they do such a thing in the video below;

His reply?

“Hahaha. Don’t you worry. Looking forward to meet your usual self”. 

I honestly didn’t expect any reply back at all. His reply was cute and it was just like the instant reward and gratification for those 20 seconds of courage I had just mustered to let my real self go.

We had two more messages back and forth and that was all about it.

BUT I DID IT!! And it’s worked like a charm…. like… perhaps what I needed was just to let myself be seen being real and vulnerable with my feelings and not even expecting anything from it. Just letting him deal with it.

What was at risk?

The connection I had with the other man who met 95% of my standards, but being honest I’m not ready yet to settle down again. In fact… I don’t know if I ever want to settle down with anyone at any given point in the next few years.

The weak connection I had with S which really wasn’t made organically by us but always with an excuse… if it’s meant to happen it will. But I won’t do anything else to get it back.

Has that action got rid of the spell? I won’t know until I have to face him again. And I’m really not looking forward to it. Lol

Anything to regret?

Oh yes! I wished I could have just waited enough to say it to his face… I didn’t really wanted to say it via text. But oh well.

And also I’m slightly afraid he’ll find me attractive now for being authentic, genuine and vulnerable enough to do so and me not liking him enough or not finding him really interesting if I get to know him deeper/better.

But that’s all about it. I’m definitely not going to lift another finger in that sense with him.

By the way …. writing all about it and broadcasting with the possibility of them both two actually reading it…. it’s the second fearless action of the year!! ;D.

Hopefully they won’t. But all I ever felt for those guys was the undying curiosity to get to know their real selves to be able to form an opinion as to whether I liked them or not and what for.

I just did this experiment to sort of erradicate a fear and abort the mission with someone when I realized my standards had changed and it made no sense to continue leading him on if I wasn’t sure I would like what I would find.

It happened on the second week of January and I have no updates… If any more fearless actions this month…. I will be posting them below or in the month of February.

2022 update: Actually… that was before corona virus, I didn’t say or send anything in months. I tried in mid March, wondering if he was ok with all the corona virus thing, and then it’s when the message never got the double tick. Unsure whether he blocked me or just changed his phone number. I never tried to find out.

Haven’t seen him since face to face ever since. Funny though since then we don’t see each other as often as we used to see us back them. A sign that we both have probably deactivated our Reticular Activating System to each other. And whatever that was there is lost for good.

Also… the good news is that doing this with him allowed me to also lose the powerlessness feel I had with the main crush I ever had in my life. The one I bump into the most. I mean so much so that from September 2022 I even have the chance to bump into like six times per week for at least two years in exactly the same place I used to bump into S. Amazing, isn’t it? One goes, and the other one comes. But now I can handle it with style and finally be myself with him, which in a way is all I ever wanted. To get to be me and get to know more about him. These random encounters will let him see what he missed out on for not pushing the button all the way through when he had the chance. I mean, he did call, he did ask me to go to the cinema, he came to search for me with the most stupid excuses ever, and stuff like that. But I wanted a definite move, one I didn’t need to second-guess or doubt if he was really into me. And when one day that seemed to happen… he said he would call and he never did. So I am going to be his weekly reminder of how one should actually follow with actions what they say.