S: Well Done, Mr. November

What a great date!

I haven’t had that fantastic a date since…well, you know…Mr. Old News.

It didn’t even feel like a date. It had all the trappings of a date, but it just felt like hanging out and having some laughs with a friend.

I don’t mean to put Mr. November in the friend category, I just mean that it was comfortable. We spoke the same language. There wasn’t all that awkward date pressure.

I never even checked the time. Instead of 45 minutes feeling like an hour and a half, 5 and a half hours felt like 45 minutes. We closed down a bar on a Tuesday night.

I’m guessing that part may have helped. Dinner wine and after martinis got us to relax a bit. Hopefully we don’t always have to be enjoying beverages to have fun, but for the first time at bat, the nectar of Bacchus prevented any “Oh my God it’s the longest time anyone has ever gone without speaking!” moments.

Not that we got schnockered or anything. We are responsible adults. And it was a Tuesday.

Anyway. Fantastic date. Kudos go to Mr. November. I had so much fun that I am looking forward to the next time we go out. No obligatory second date this time. I actually want to see him again. Not because I hope he’ll do better, but because I don’t think he could do any better.

And really, at this point, we have such a long list of restaurants we want to eat at that we’ll probably have to go out for a year just to get to all of them. Which doesn’t seem like a bad idea, other than the sheer quantity of calories consumed.

Judging by our first meal together anyway. Our dinner was delicious. I twisted his arm to get a particularly tasty appetizer, but he loved it so I’m sure it only endeared me to him. That’s the hope, I guess. Our dinner conversation was good. Lots of good get-to-know-you stuff without just sticking to the obvious, boring crap, but also avoiding the kinds of things you just shouldn’t talk about on a first date.

After dinner, as planned, we went down the street for drinks at a fun little neighborhood martini bar. There was laughing. There was chatting. There was arm touching. And, I even got recognized. Yes, that’s right, Little Miss Thang does some internet videos and independent movies sometimes and every once in a while, people in her not-so-big city recognize her from these things when she is out. This is always a strange experience. And never before have I experienced it on a date. I tried to be cool about it. I then demanded loudly that everyone stop staring at me…there was nothing to see…I’m just a person like they are. Do you think that seems cocky?

Time flew by and we decided since we were the only ones left, they may want to close the bar. And now we get to the ever-popular end of date random chat until he decides what move he is or isn’t going to make.

I have determined that there is absolutely no way to avoid the awkwardness at the end of a first date. From now on, I’m just going to call attention to it. I’m tired of ignoring the elephant in the room. I have a new theory on how it should be handled, but Jane made me promise to write it in a separate post, so I can’t tell you what it is right now.

Anyway, we fell victim to the typical first date ending. We stood outside awkwardly making goodbye sounds while he tried to decide what the best move was. I just wanted to say good night and head to my car. He wanted some sort of physical punctuation to the evening.

I’m not a first date kisser. If I remember correctly from the early days of Guy, I was mocked for my physical distance over many of our first encounters. What can I say? I’m slow. It takes me a while to feel comfortable with that sort of thing. I have to assess the situation and see how I feel about everything.

I have a circle of safety.

Because it was such a great date and I am interested in future great dates, I was kind and didn’t just rush to my car, but I really didn’t want a kiss. Or anything. The result of this was a strange half hug and what amounted to him smelling my hair.

People always like how my hair smells, so this probably worked in my favor anyway.

After this tragic denouement, we good nighted and made our separate ways. I wasn’t bothered by it because it was to be expected. I was enjoying the after glow of a very good time. I thought it might have bothered him a bit though.

It is because of this that I allowed myself to be the first to text. This is not usually how it happens, but I thought maybe I’d throw him a life preserver after that. The text was random and meaningless, but it opened the lines of communication and after a short exchange, he apologized for the awkward end to the date. I told him I wasn’t worried about it because that’s just how it goes and that we’d power through. It was certainly nothing that required an apology.

This seemed to set his mind at ease.

At this point, we have already determined what our next date will be, we just haven’t discussed when. And I'm very much looking forward to it. More food and fun is slated and I’m guessing it won’t disappoint. The disappointment will be how busy our schedules are this month and how long it might take to be able to get together.

In the meantime, we will continue to have text and email conversations. He has become the one who I always hope the dinging on my phone is heralding. He’s the one I want to hear from now.

This is the delightful side effect of a good date. Forward movement. There was some static from Guy over the last week. A couple of times he came close to asking to come over. And guess what. I don’t want him to.

Come over that is.

I do want him to ask. Because, for the first time, I could tell him that I’m seeing someone and I don’t want to screw it up by carrying on some stuck-in-a-rut affair with my ex-boyfriend. For the first time, I’m more interested in someone else than in him. For the first time, I can see how somebody else might be better.

Well done, Mr. November.