It’s Monday morning, I have a nasty head cold which means the outside world is filtered through the several layers of cotton wool that someone’s managed to stuff into my head. I refuse to take medicine on general priciples unless I’m in imminent danger of death, and I got way less sleep then I’m used to last night, so I’m generally feeling pretty damn bleary-eyed and groggy as I slog through the usual pile of work on my desk. But despite all this, the world is a wonderful place this morning, and life couldn’t be better.
Why, you ask? Because last night I went on a date for the first time in ages.
See, there’s this lovely little Italian girl who I met through an on-line dating agency. This was the first time that either of us had joined one of these things, and we were both a bit nervous and a bit wary. After initially reading my profile on-line, she thought I sounded nice and sent me a message, and from there we started emailing each other, then texting each other, then calling, and finally we decided to take the plunge and arranged to meet up for dinner.
The whole thing was entirely out of character for me - I’d always balked at the thought of on-line dating before, but now that all my friends are married and settling down, I thought “What could it hurt?”.
Yes, I was nervous - I hadn’t been in a relationship since breaking off a two-year engagement a year ago, so it was safe to say that I hadn’t dated in at least three years, and that I was feeling pretty rusty. So as I was walking towards our agreed meeting place, my heart was doing the cha-cha and my stomach was doing it’s impression of a full-on, high-kicking chorus line.
So to cut a long story short, we met, we had a nice candle-lit Italian dinner while we chatted and got to know each other. Then after coffee we went for a stroll and chatted some more, found a park bench and chatted some more, finally as I walked her towards her car, I asked for a good-night kiss and was rewarded with real lip-smacking, knee-trembling smooch that robbed me of the power of speech.
We stood in that car-park for at least another half-hour, just holding each other and cuddling and kissing. It felt so good to finally hold someone close again and feel them hold me too. We finally managed to tear ourselves away from each other’s embrace, and then I began the long drive home in sort of daze.
We’re meeting again this Sunday, and I guess it’s going to be a long week…
