For those of you who advised me in this thread, I have an update! After a few weeks of wavering and weighing everyone’s advice, I mailed him some literature about an item he’d been interested in, with a note on a business card telling him to call me with any questions. A week and a half later, he stopped in while he was in the mall shopping with his daughter, and made a beeline straight for me. We talked and flirted as before, but this time he was even more touchy-feely…kept touching my arm, my back, kind of cornered me in the clock section. When I sympathized with him about the rigors of shopping with a teenage girl, he mentioned a bottle of wine he was going to crack open later. His daughter came into the store just as I was working the conversation around to asking him out, so he left before I could. But an hour later he called me and asked if I’d like to share the bottle of wine with him, and he offered to cook me dinner, and I accepted, and we had a truly wonderful evening.
Apparently he’d stopped in the store a week before and asked for me, but my co-worker forgot to tell me! He said after he got my note in the mail he finally got the hint that I hadn’t just been calling him about the sale he’d wanted to know about, but that I was as interested in him as he had been in me! So now we are about to have our fourth date (in two weeks) and, for those who have followed my tales of woe in the past, this is not a platonic relationship like the last guy! No, not at all! And for those who advised me on how to tell another guy I went out with about my gastric bypass…well, I had no problem telling this guy, and he’s perfectly fine with it, so that’s a relief! (oh, and the guy I went out with the night before this guy asked me out? He hasn’t called since he abruptly cut our date short after supposedly getting a call that his daughter had been in a minor accident…not a peep since then. His loss.)
So thanks to all who advised me, and remember, kids, 10 years of celibacy is plenty for anyone! Let the rejoicing begin!