i just can't wear dresses any more

I used to very much enjoy wearing dresses and looking like a girl. I don't believe I can handle it these days.

Oh, my, YOU again? First it was the fingernails, now this oh-so-not problem!

Understood. Folks who are not privy to the workings of my mind may well scoff when I state my newly-minted problem. Said problem is specifically this: When I wear a dress, I see myself as very "girlie" and I tend to act accordingly. I become overly flirty and somehow believe myself to be irresistible to the opposite sex.

Oh? You find men drawn to you in droves when you are dressed as a woman?

No, at least I hope not. If I were to have men "in droves" putting the moves on me, I just might have to gain weight to recover my defensive wall against such action. Once upon a time, I would have been just fine with heavy flirting with strangers, but those days are separated from these by sixteen years with one man. I am very much out of practice with flirtation and I'm convinced lately that I'm doing it wrong. Or, rather, I'm flirting with serious aim and that isn't the spirit of flirting.
Besides which, I wasn't speaking of me dressing like a woman. Women ARE allowed to wear pants and suits and pretty well whatever. No, that was not my point at all. My problem arises from my image of myself when I wear a dress, and only of late do I have this image in the forefront of my mind. It's starting to make me feel a bit out of control.

Maybe you just need to avoid mirrors. Perhaps if you didn't know how you looked, you might behave differently.

I don't know if that would work. Besides, the problem isn't particularly every time I wear a dress, but just sometimes. When I wore a dress to class during the last week of school, I didn't see myself as "girlie" in front of the students. However, I did find myself getting girlie and shy at times when there...

Ah, now we're getting somewhere! Why ever must you talk in circles instead of straight out? Never mind, give discourse further of thy plight!

I have found myself drawn to a new ocean, an ocean I had not noticed before, as its waves were below the surface, not cresting, much like a lake, still and unruffled. Some few months back, the surface broke and I have not been quite the same since. It may have been early November, maybe shortly after, that I first felt... a kinship stirring the air. I had been strolling in the arboretum, as was my wont, taking a break from the chill of my office on a fine afternoon, a little indulgence in the depths of the natural world prior to my evening class. As a rule, I wander along the inner paths, alone, rarely seeing anyone else. But not this afternoon. He was also strolling, taking a break from I know not what, and we happened to talk. Not simply exchanging pleasantries with each other; we talked. And, as I recall, we talked long enough that I had to break away to make my appointment with twenty-nine students. I chalked that up to a nice encounter, but didn't allow myself to dwell on it too much. Well, not too much, but I did send him an email about the roses on campus and the way they smelled in the sun, and he did reply.

And then?

And then pretty well nothing until February. I must admit that he was on my mind at times, but as a person of interest in the department, a person I didn't really know much about, but he was vocal during meetings and had well-thought-out statements and questions. Even so, we might smile at each other, but we didn't pursue anthing more until after the second quiz bowl at the school. We had both volunteered to work with the kids that Saturday, just as we had both been volunteers on the last Saturday of the previous month. This time, I had made sure I could stay for the entire session, rather than leaving at lunch as I had in January. We somehow ended up together for the final round, with me reading questions and him standing beside me as the judge. He hadn't started out standing beside me, but he was by the end of the session. I thought it was pretty nice that Kat was there taking pictures of us, especially when she and another woman remarked on how good I looked in the fuchsia tones I was wearing that day. (They had previously seen me in blue when I dedicated the two seats in the Jenkins Theatre.) I don't know if that remark was overheard, but perhaps it was.

Wait a minute... So you're saying you and he weren't really hanging out yet, conversing in the halls or such?

No, no, that didn't begin until just after, starting slowly and building over the next few mnnths. I had "friended" him on a social website and he had accepted. Made daring by knowledge gleaned from a comment he had made to another, about the women here not giving him a chance or something like that, I invited him to an event with the kidless group that I've belonged to for the past five years. My intent was honorable: introduce him to some of the lovely and smart women I knew, broaden his horizons, so to speak. I knew he was younger than me, though I did not yet know his age, and harbored no thoughts that he might have an interest in me, but I thought he might well like a couple of the others in the group.
And he did attend that gathering in March, dining at a downtown locale with a long-standing reputation for burgers and beer. And he did enjoy himself and had good conversation with all. And shortly after, he did start coming around my office for more conversation with me - and I loved the attention from him. I still very much love the attention from him.
And that is the source of my concern now. We have great conversations, talks which diverge from topic to topic, sometimes never returning to finish a tale begun because another has branched and consumed the path. We have conversations which continue for hours, closing down theatres, bars, and restaurants. Incredible explorations of each other's past and present are undertaken, learning likes and dislikes, myths and theories, loves and loves lost.
And I find myself unwilling to part from his company. And I find myself stealing touches. And I find myself wearing dresses and being girlie and flirting seriously.
And I need to stop that behavior, because I don't want him to leave. I need to stop that behavior because I want the conversations to continue, I want to learn if he is a new best friend or ... But slower is such a difficult pace for me, as I more often run full tilt boogie or not at all... but I will try. I will, for this new friendship is very important to me.
I just can't wear dresses any more.