Short-lived alone time
Never one to listen to my own advice, my vow of singlecy lasted a total of two days. I think I was short on sleep when I decided not to date for a week, and after a very good night’s sleep on Tuesday night, I was ready to get back to the action.
Wednesday night, I was supposed to have dinner with TheRoommate and a couple other friends. It just so happened that the restaurant that we were planning on eating at was just down the street from the bar where TheSister’sFriend was hanging out for happy hour that evening (she’d invited me out when I saw her over the weekend). I decided to head over to that part of town early and stop by to see her and her friends for a little bit.
I found them easily enough and as soon as they saw me walk over, the friends surrounding TheSister’sFriend on both sides immediately stood up and relocated themselves in order to open up an empty seat next to her for me to sit in; I felt like Moses parting the Red Sea. I took a seat to her right and spent the next hour or so chatting with the group. When dinnertime rolled around, I was more than ready for a change of scenery, so I quickly excused myself. On my way out, TheSister’sFriend asked if we could get together for lunch the next day. Since I didn’t have anything lined up, I agreed; a man’s got to eat, after all.
We had lunch on Thursday near my work. Everything was fine, except that I found myself questioning what I was doing. I don’t really have an interest in this girl beyond just hanging out with her, yet, I can tell that she is definitely interested in something beyond that with me. Of course, her not being able to take that interest to the next level is a whole other issue. I think part of the reason that I haven’t bailed on her completely is that she is associated with my sister and, as such, I feel like I have to treat her somewhat differently. In reality, that’s probably much worse for both of us, in the long run.
Thursday night, I invited Giggles over for dinner and a movie. It’s been a really long time since I’ve cooked dinner for a date, but everything went according to plan. I feel weird saying it, but I actually felt nervous in the hours leading up to the date—a first since we’ve starting hanging out.
She showed up on time (a big make-it or break-it criteria for me, especially if I’m cooking), bearing dessert. I greeted her with a kiss and a glass of wine. I had her take a seat at the candlelit table while I put the finishing touches on the first course. I joined her shortly after and we began to dine. The feelings of nervousness carried over from earlier in the day and it took me a while to calm down and get into a groove. Once I did, things went fairly smoothly; that is, until I was prepping the main course.
Giggles was sitting on the couch, enjoying a glass of wine and watching me run around the kitchen. I was only paying attention to the food at the time and was startled to hear a loud knock at the door. I sure as hell wasn’t expecting anyone and my mind instantly began to run through a list of possible subjects. Really, I already knew that TheNeighbor was probably standing on the other side of the door, but I was hoping that I could come up with someone else and a subsequent explanation to take her place. With great hesitation, I made my way over to the door and cautiously answered it.
Sure enough, there was TheNeighbor. “Hey neighbor! We’re making mashed potatoes and I don’t have any milk, so I was just coming by to borrow some.”
“Uh, ok, I’ll grab some for you. You can come in, if you’d like.”
Please don’t let her say something stupid, I thought to myself.
She made her way through the door and immediately realized what she had walked in on. Suddenly it felt as though someone turned the tension dial up to 10. I introduced the two girls, tried to get a bit of small talk going and poured two cups of milk as fast as humanly possible. Fortunately, TheNeighbor actually conducted herself in an appropriate manner and was gone shortly after. Internally, I breathed a huge sigh of relief.
“Do the two of you hang out a lot?” Giggles wanted to know.
“Not really,” I said, “we’ll run into each other occasionally, but that’s about it.” And, to further prove her undesirability, I proceeded to tell Giggles about the time TheNeighbor came over during my singles party and threw up all over my bathroom.
With that drama out of the way, the rest of the night was quite enjoyable. We finished dinner and watched a movie, all the while wrapped up in each other’s arms. After the movie, we moved onto dessert, which consisted of a couple gourmet items from a local dessert place. Giggles and I fed each other bites of triple chocolate raspberry mousse and white chocolate linzer torte—very romantic and very fun.
She ended up staying until about 3:00AM in the morning. By then, I was barely functioning, so I suggested that we call it a night. I’ll be out of town for the weekend, but I’m hoping to see her again early next week.
Time Out
Ugh, believe it or not, I think I’ve reached my dating saturation point. As such, I’m going to take this entire week off from dating and just enjoy some personal time.
Things have been going pretty well, otherwise. Last week, I had a couple dates with Giggles, and a date with Carrie. Over the weekend, though, things got a little too busy and I ended going on three separate dates in the span of 24 hours. First up was, believe it or not, was TheSister’sFriend, who I met up with late Sunday night. I was bored and she’d been trying to get me to come out with her for a couple weeks, so I figured it wouldn’t hurt anything since I’d just be hanging out with her and her friends at a bar. The night was pretty laid back and I spent the majority of the time talking to her and her friends. We did end up on the dance floor for a little bit, but things remained pretty innocent.
At the end of the night, I offered to drive TheSister’sFriend and her roommate home. We arrived at their place around 2:30 in the morning and her roommate promptly left us alone and went up to go to bed. Considering that I’d been in this position not once, but twice and things had ended disastrously both times, I wasn’t going to make any sort of move; in fact, I kind of just wanted TheSister’sFriend to get out of the car so I could go home and go to bed. Unfortunately, my internal wishes went unanswered and she remained in the car with me. The atmosphere was a bit uncomfortable at best. I could tell that she was waiting around for something to happen, but like I said, I’m only willing to put myself out there so many times. And, in my defense, I was doing everything in my power to make the opportunity available for her; I was leaning well into her personal space, I let my eyes move back and forth between her eyes and lips, etc. Instead of taking advantage of the situation, she just continued to make pointless small talk. Eventually, she came out and asked me what I was thinking. Is there a good answer to this question? To be honest, my thoughts were something along the lines of,
please get out of the car so I can go home. My bladder is rapidly approaching critical mass and I really, really don’t need first hand knowledge of what happens when it finally bursts.
Of course, nothing ended up happening and I was able to finally get her to vacate the car. She wanted me to meet up with her the next day, as well as sometime during the week. I told her both possibilities had big question marks next to them.
The next day (Monday), I had a lunch date with Carrie. I opted to meet her at her place and then figured we could go eat somewhere nearby. We ended up at a little café just down the street from her apartment. Things were fine while we were eating, but I began to feel like I was starting to lose interest in her. Nothing in particular brought this about, but I think the initial excitement of meeting someone new had worn off and I was beginning to evaluate her more critically.
After lunch, we went for a short walk and then made our way back to her place. Once inside, I took a seat in the middle of her couch and proceeded to make myself comfortable. She came and sat down next to me and within minutes we were making out. Whatever had come over me at the restaurant returned with a vengeance and I found it hard to get into the moment and I certainly wasn’t getting turned on. It didn’t help that we were making out on the couch and the door opposite the couch, which opened to the courtyard of her complex was wide open. Nothing like making out while all your neighbor’s have the option of looking on. After a bit, the whole scene really wasn’t doing it for me, so I told her I had to get going and got out of there as quickly as I could.
Giggles’ birthday was that evening, so she wanted me to come out with her and her sister to celebrate. I called up a buddy of mine to even things out a bit and the four of us met up for drinks. That night was probably the most at ease/affectionate I had seen Giggles. While we were hanging out, she repeatedly put her arm around me, held my hand as we walked and, while we were sitting at a table in the bar, she kept putting her hand on my leg and leaning in close to talk to me. I was really happy to see her coming around because, of the three girls, she is the one I’m most interested in. Since everyone had to get up early for work the next morning, we all left the bar fairly early. My friend went straight home while I gave the girls a ride back to their place. I went inside to hang out alone with Giggles for a little bit.
We were alone in her room, talking, and I happened to glance up and catch a glimpse of her open closet and its contents. On the far right, were a few business suits and, as my eyes made their way to the left, I suddenly realized that I was staring at a few pieces of racy lingerie. Just as a rush of dirty thoughts flooded my psyche, Giggles picked up on what I was looking at and shot across the room to close her closet doors as quickly as possible. She was obviously embarrassed at the situation and tried, immediately, to change the subject to anything else she could think of. I let it go, of course, but the thought of her wearing some of those things will be stuck in my head for a long time.
Fortunately, the level of comfort that she had exhibited earlier continued into our alone time and we finally made some progress in the bedroom. Before I knew it, it was 1:30 in the morning and I realized I had to get out of there if I was to get any sleep that night. Having felt like we’d finally connected, it made it that much harder to leave her, but the siren song of sleep eventually ended the night.
Like I said earlier, I don’t plan on seeing any of the girls this week, as I need to just spend some time alone. This weekend, I’ll be heading out of town to visit my sister. I’m supposed to go wine tasting with her and a bunch of her friends, so hopefully things will turn out like they did
last time.
