[luxinterior]

I try to avoid starting threads like this (or starting threads in general), but I am in need of some urgent advice and I hope some of you will reply.

My mom's best friend Jane wants to set me up on a date with this guy named Ryan who used to babysit for her kids. I've known him for a while, but we are not close in any way. I think he's probably 22 or something, I don't really know. Apparently he's been interested in me, or something, and Jane left me a voicemail last night asking if it was okay if she gave him my number. About a month ago she threw this idea by me, but she was drunk at the time so I didn't really take it seriously, and just said sure, whatever. Well it seems as if she wasn't drunk enough to forget what I said, and must have told Ryan I was cool with it. This in itself is not a problem. I have nothing against this guy. He's nice, he's attractive, he's clean, and Jane tells me our personalities are very similar, and I take her word for that. I feel odd about how this has all been arranged, because I feel like I have little control over it, and almost no privacy, but then again if he turns out to be a great person I could probably brush all of that off. So the real problem is that my interests at the moment lie elsewhere. There's this guy who is in both of my art classes--let's call him Robert, because that is his name. At the beginning of the semester, I didn't much care for him. I thought he was kind of a tool, and this wasn't really based on anything because I rarely talked to him. I literally looked at his sandals and thought, God, what an asshole, and proceeded to give him crap about various things from that point on. I even told him later on that I felt this way about him at first, which he thought was funny. So at first I was kind of a bitch to him, but he never seemed to mind, and would either just brush off my insults or send a few inoffensive ones back in my direction. Eventually I decided that he was all right and kind of endearing. He's very nice to me, helps me out in class all the time, and still does not have a stalkerish mentality (always a plus). And we actually have quite a bit in common as it turns out. Also, I've just realized that he's very fit and quite good looking. He's 19, the same age as I am.

About a week ago the art department took a field trip, and my friend Chelsey, who works at Six Flags and is in the same sculpture class as Robert and I, took me aside during the trip and asked me if I liked Robert. I didn't really know how to respond, because at that point I had not pieced all of this together in my mind. I did like Robert, but considering how weird I feel about commitment of any kind, I had not put the two ideas together on my own. Chelsey then went on and on about how she noticed Robert acting differently around me, and how he obviously liked me, and all of that. That's all good and fine, but he hasn't made any kind of move, and Chelsey thinks it's because I'm too intimidating. Robert is not a shy person, so she thinks that I just need to make myself a bit clearer before he does anything about it, because he might think it's a one-sided kind of thing. I am not good at this part, so any suggestions are welcome. To me, it's obvious that I give him more attention than I do any other guy in class, but he probably does not realize that, even though I have told him that I am very fond of him. If I were him, I would be scared of me. So I can understand. With all of that said, this is not some huge problem. It is more like something that may figure itself out eventually once one of us grows a pair. The problem is how this is happening at the same time as all of the stuff with Jane setting me up with Ryan. If I had to pick I would choose Robert, because I do not know Ryan as well as him, and I don't know how comfortable I would be around Ryan, if at all. Basically I need to reply back to Jane ASAP, stating whether or not I want to be set up on a date with Ryan. I don't want to hit it off with Ryan if the thing with Robert will actually go somewhere. But I also don't want to miss this chance with Ryan if it seems nothing will happen with Robert. The only downside about pursuing this thing with Robert that I can see would be if we were to date and then break up and I would have to see him every day in class, because we are both art people. Although the strangeness of that would all depend on how it ended I suppose. Anyway, responses please. This turned out much longer than I had intended for it to be, but I wanted to communicate the situation as best as I could.