"You can have me"

Two months ago I was at the birthday party of a guy from the friends group that I'm now also part of since the night I met Edward (see It's a small, small world). The party was in the bar where generally on evenings and weekend some of this group can be found drinking something together. At the party some people arrived who, I learned, also belonged to this group, but who lived outside the city. One of these guys was Gareth, a friendly, sophisticated guy whom I soon had a one-on-one conversation with (see I'm very me). We talked for about an hour.

When, a week later, there were festivities in my city for a few days, Gareth said he and some friends from his hometown were going to join the party and asked me to join as well. And so I did. It was a fun evening and the next day I went out with a different part of the extended friends group, which was later joined by Gareth and his friends again.

I was standing outside the bar when Gareth walked up to me and said, "I want you to know that you can have me." It puzzled me a bit what he could mean by that. I tried out several interpretations in my mind, which led to an awkward silence in the real world, a silence I knew I was supposed to end. "The first few responses I wanted to give are not suitable to say out loud," I finally said, "In fact, I don't know really what to say, mainly because I don't think I completely understand what you meant there." I felt as if I was saying, "You're not being vulnerable enough yet; I want more potential embarrassment from you."

"I meant that you can have me as your boyfriend if you want," said Gareth, "I'm sweet, loyal, faithful and I will stay with you for a long time, if not forever." Most of all, this made me feel quite uncomfortable. Nevertheless, I said that I was flattered and that I thought he was a nice guy too but that I wasn't ready for anything serious yet after having broken up with my boyfriend only a few weeks earlier. When I added that also I didn't believe in long distance relationships, Gareth told me that at the end of the month he would move to my city; I was glad I hadn't used that as my main excuse.

Gareth obviously felt he had embarrassed himself: he blamed the booze for him "talking nonsense" and tried to suddenly act slightly intoxicated and threw in a fake hiccough. I was well aware that he was far from drunk. He had been serious even though he couldn't possibly have meant what he said. It's the same thing Alan did a few weeks later (see Only for my cock) and it also happened to me twice before earlier this year: normal well-educated guys who look fresh, healthy and happy, and who have better social skills, more friends, and a better job than me, offering themselves as my boyfriend while not intoxicated by alcohol or drugs. It puzzles me; how can people like that be so foolish?

I asked Erdem this question and he said he understood them, "Listen, Jackdaw, there aren't that many genuinely good people in the world, so when you find one, you wanna hold on to him and never let him go." I treasure the implied compliment and I accept most people don't need to have a long conversation with me to convince themselves I've got a good heart, Still, I cannot understand how they can be willing to initiate an attempt to take such a big step so extremely. I myself think I'm usually very fast making up my mind about whether someone is a suitable boyfriend, but I need to have spent at least two hundred hours with a guy before I take such steps, not two.