I went on a date last night. A good and proper “pick me up, take me to dinner, open my doors, kiss me on the doorstep” date. The kind I don’t think I’ve been on since I was seventeen years old. Every romantic encounter since high school has taken place in major cities and as a consequence neither my dates or I had cars, and most everything else about them was non-traditional as well. Thus the novelty of being driven to dinner at a pre-arranged time, wearing a dress, and knowing you’ll get flowers.
My only real hopes for the evening were that we get through the night without too many awkward silences, and I ended up having a very nice time talking to him until we were literally the only people left in the restaurant. But our wealth of conversation only served to highlight all of the things we don’t have in common, and even though both of us are world-class babblers, he was so passive and sweet that I had no idea if he was really attracted to me. In the interest of establishing a precedent once and for all I literally grabbed him and kissed him as he was about to leave me at my front gate.
After some very obvious surprise he very politely went along with it. But there were no sparks. No fireworks. I was way too aware of his hand on my waist and his mediocre attempts at kissing me back. Then he abruptly interrupted things to ask whether my parents were watching us through the window. While I understand the concern, does it really matter if you’re in the middle of kissing me? So, I’m thinking maybe I’m not the only one who was distracted. And, actually, that’s ok. It’s perfectly all right that we didn’t fall madly in love on a first date and that he obviously is not the future father of my children. Hopefully he thinks it was worth buying me dinner, and I certainly don’t regret spending my Saturday night with him.
People seem to expect crazy, sexy drama when I talk about my love life, but most of the time it really isn’t that exciting. Granted, I have discovered that grabbing your date and kissing him is a little ballsier than I realized, but only compared to other people- compared to myself it’s entirely commonplace. And it’s when you find someone who you can be just as happy with when you are both boring and adventurous that you’ve hit the jackpot. I haven’t found my perfect person yet, but I have no objection to a few more free dinners while I try to find him.
