Long term on again off again, trying to make the right decision here.

[nunyanunya]

To make a very long story short and get to the meat of it, I've known this girl since early college. We are now in our mid late 20's. We had a casual physical relationship for a year or two at the beginning. I wasn't interested in her more than that and made it clear, so when she would get more attached I would break away. After a dry spell, we would spin it back up again. This happened countless times, usually trending towards getting more emotionally invested and divested as time went on. End of college brought a particularly painful (for her) headache-inducing (for me) separation that lasted for a few years (the separation quick and early, the duration long). After a relationship or two (of which I've posted about here) we decided we both had nothing going, and spun up again. We both knew our history and decided to try another casual thing. This time, it lasted for real and seriously from then till last year. We were exclusively dating, feelings and all. Last year we had a big falling out breakup, but once the dust settled we continued to see each other very rarely. Recently, since things weren't going bad, we got to talking about exclusivity.

 

Ok I'm ready to ask you a question. This is **** or get off the pot time.

 

She is physically attractive enough to me that I obviously enjoy going to see her for sex. Since we have a very long history, our sex is very personal, we're tuned to each other, we are very open, giving, experimenting, well versed in each other's bodies and what we like and what to do to tease. I will be honest though, the sight of her doesn't necessarily turn me on. It might now be from a pavlovian response. She has a cute face, but her body isn't very flattering. I am being blunt here on purpose because I feel this is one of the things I need to consider when making "the" decision. Do I have a body chiseled by Michelangelo himself? No. I'm currently sporting bald spots in unnatural places due to cursed psoriasis thankfully not noticeable from the front, and I believe my bodyfat is near 30%. I feel I can cure this in a year and cut a fine enough figure, but I've been told that I hide my size well, whereas it is clear that she does not. Again, I of course have never said any of this to her, I am being blunt for our sakes. I'm not saying I'm repulsed. Obviously that would have made this easy. I can and do enjoy myself physically with her. Would I pick her out of a lineup of, oh, say her friends? Nope. Oddly enough, I wouldn't date many of them for very long, they might be hot but their personalities are rather not.

 

She is very sweet, perhaps a little immature (this used to be very true until the past few years), girly. Elegant, refined when the situation calls for it. Dirty when it calls for it. She can be bashful which is I find endearing. She listens, she asks, she can tease or soothe. We can have very frank discussions about most anything (other than this topic because its just one of those things). I'm pretty sure she'll make a great wife and mother some day. So I've really been racking my brains here. Do people go out and casually date until they find a girl with a personality like mine and then settle down with her? Do they realize that they've had their fun, but ultimately when they want after all that is someone who is tuned to them, someone they can tune in to? Am I actually throwing away what I'll find myself looking for in a year or two or five from now? I don't know what love is. I only knew what a highschool first love was, and after that only knew what a flirt turned lusty extra-marital emotional affair turned lopsided crush turned horribly wrong for me thing was. I've kept myself to myself since. I don't know what its going to take to open me up. I tried it with this one before and closed up again, (that went great... what do you mean you didn't mean it when you said you loved me??)

 

After going through all that, she's not rushing me out of myself, she understands that I don't know whats going on inside, and we both know I'm doing some work to keep it that way. I'm afraid I'm going to lead her on again. She thinks I'm scared that I "know that we are very right for each other"

 

Up until a few weeks ago, I was acting on the understanding that I was single, and attempting to pursue other women. I haven't lied to this one, I haven't slept with anyone since her (not for a lack of trying mind you), but once it came up that she wanted to be exclusive and said that we'd have been done if I'd slept with anyone, that she'd stopped seeing other people because she loved and wanted me, well now here I am and need to make a decision. By the way, she didn't outright give me an ultimatum, it was discussed more along the lines of "Here are my boundaries, did you cross them? No. Do you want to cross them? ...Well... What so you're saying I'm not good enough?"

 

I could use some help sorting through this.

 

Thanks for reading this far.