This whole “dating” thing: who came up with this crazy scheme? What sadistic prig managed to hunker down and spit out a social scenario where a palpitating heart, various sweaty body parts (some parts, of course, normally bleed water when one’s nervous, but you know something is amiss when the spleen starts showing signs of a hydrated diffidence) and the latent ability to completely appear like a tongue-tied fool whose greatest accomplishment thus far in life is to splutter the ever-hopeful entreaty, “Duhhhh, I had a nice time tonight. Wanna do it again?” are the norm? I’ll throttle him! (Or her. I have this sneaky suspicion that it was a woman who engineered this horrible juxtaposition of a lack of self-confidence and romantic yearnings. Not for any specific reason, understand, but because I have an even sneakier suspicion that I’m a closet misogynist. I’m closeted as yet because I’ve not mastered the requisite loathing of the fairer sex. Unless she’s Lorena Bobbitt–then it’s just plain old rough sex.)
So, seeing as that I’m still doing the breast stroke in that middling pool of life they call the “Mid-Twenties”, I figured that I’d go on a date this past weekend. (I mean, I asked her. I just didn’t show up at a place, point at a girl that made the ol’ pants tight, and say “You’re it!” all the while giving her my best “come hither” look. That look, I’m afraid is a bit too representative of my orgasm look. No sense in frightening them off before that unavoidable time where she turns on the lamp because “We always do it with the lights off! Let’s do it with them on this time and—ahhhhhhhh!! WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?”) So, I asked this one woman out. We’ve had great conversations when we’ve chatted and a lot of our nostalgia moments tended to coincide. (Not like my previous girlfriend who, when the past was brought up, was unabashedly single-minded. “So,” I’d start out, “I use to have a red bike that I pretended was the red lion from Voltron.” She appeared confused at first, so I nodded reassuringly at her. Then, voila! she smiled and spoke:
“My father had a great knife collection.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, I’m not sure I understand; are you saying you pretended that one of those knives was a…lion…from…Voltron…?”
“My father,” she continued, “also had a great collection of kitten–”
“Oh God,” I whispered in supplication, “I know I never believed in you until now, but pleeeeeeeaaasseeee don’t let her finish–”
“–heads.”
So I learned quickly that conversations were a no-no. But I still dated her because she put out and my penis told me to.) Anyway, this current woman for whom I have a lech is very intelligent and ain’t so bad to look at. (All right, she’s gorgeous. Just plain “Holy Crap! Can I touch you and…never stop?”) Part of her beauty stems from her intelligence, but even if she went the other route with her I.Q., gave herself a crew cut, sat me down on a bench and went on about her mom and boxes of goddamn chocolate, trust me, she’d still be pretty enough to elicit a solitary stream of desirous drool. So we met up, this woman and I, had dinner and, then, a drink afterwards. We talked until very late about the usual first date stuff: ever been in jail? Maybe. Do you have handcuffs? Yes. Because of jail? Maybe. Killed anyone this week? No. Have a collection of kitten heads at home? Maybe.
See, I thought the whole night went pretty well. But I’m not sure. No first kiss, true, but also no first homicidal rage/let’s call the police before she goes for the hatchet/too late, she’s got it/run, motherfuckers! Not that the first date needs to end with a first kiss, but usually one can judge the success of the first date as “exceptional” when one feels the other person’s tongue softly playing tag with one’s uvula. Throwing out the goodnight kiss as evidence, I have to use the remaining senses to figure out if the night went well.
And that’s the problem. Because my last official date, blessedly so, was a year ago. I’m rusty, I say. Like many other poor saps out there, when it comes to judging another person’s romantic interest in moi, I’m a fool. Hell, I’d better start offering people boxes of chocolate. Still, she did say “yes” to another get-together, but I’m just not sure if she said it because:
A.) It was late, she was tired and, short of kicking me in the sensitive area (you know, the place where my penis sits in its command post and tells me whom to date), she could think of no faster way to exorcise me from the immediate area.
B.) She was being nice and didn’t want to crush my boyish enthusiasm in one fell swoop. (Alternately, she could be just plain evil and wants to rip me and my ego to shreds over an extended period of time. Kinda like mom. Ahhhh…)
C.) Maybe she thought that I thought that she thought we both understood the night went well for (get ready) “being friends” and the next outing would be purely a “friendly” one with very little if no chance for uvula carressing. (Little does she know that my uvula has been doing push-ups and is ready for an oral wrestling match between her “Tanya, the Tongued Terror” and my “Ulysses, the Universal Unguent of Unbadness”.)
The other problem (Yes, I know I previously wrote “And that’s the problem” in an above paragraph; whose wording indicates only one problem and here I am going on with more than one problem. I lied. get over it.) is what if she’s shy, too, and both of us are thinking the other person doesn’t like the other and we spend the few, fleeting dates we have wishing for the other person to do something other than engage in a bout of useless, wishful thinking?
My god! You know, if I inherited this thinking from both my parents, I have to wonder how they ever managed to have sex.
Anyway, enough about me. What the hell do you guys/gals think about me? And her. And our uvulas. Oh, and tongues, too. (Oh, I suppose, you can also throw in a few thoughts about our chances for…you know, something.)
(Whoo-hoo! I was the first to recognize your name. La-da-da-da-daaaaaa!)