Here, on the eve of the date, where everything and nothing are possibilities, I am a bundle of nerves. I don’t recommend the feeling, frankly. And since I’ve started eBaying again recently–peddling the product I couldn’t move, back in January–let me put this in like terms: “F+ for the jitters. Avoid if possible. Would not feel again.”
Normally, through overthinking and sheer insistence, I enjoy a base level of confidence, sure in my footing, certain of my convictions. Why isn’t this the case here? Conversation, plain and simple. She’s shy, especially in person. Said so herself a few times. This shyness manifested in texting, too, with an initial 3:1 ratio of my word count to hers. That’s right–I counted words, by hand, in an attempt to get a grasp of the situation.
That was earlier this week. Since then, the tide’s been turning, courtesy of a few things. Meta-talk, where you talk about talk itself, has been immensely soothing. The Rawketeer also suggested a quantity play: knocking out as many simple questions as possible to find that conversational fodder and simultaneously increase comfort level. This has been huge. I’ve also grown more comfortable about talking about myself. These steps, taken in concert, have created the raw material I need to improvise.
But all these approaches won’t amount to much, if they aren’t driven by a genuine interest in her. And I’m absolutely hooked. She likes the outdoors, but not the heat. One of her favorite movies is The Holiday, but she’s current on Game of Thrones. Loves grammar, hates spelling. Can’t throw a Frisbee, but can hit a golf ball. In moments when she opens up, it’s like punching through the canopy to a wide, blue expanse–to a place I want to be.
Call it sloth or, for a real tongue twister, communicative malfeasance, but my behavior this past week-and-a-half has been reprehensible. First and foremost, I abandoned you, only to salt the wounds by promising to return on a certain date, before abandoning you again. I apologize, deeply. The limited writing bucks I’d normally invest here have instead been spent on my day job and my other job: sailing the harrowing seas of online dating.
Bakespeare and the Professor’s dog, a beagle mix with sad, soulful eyes, is curled up next to me right now. She’s been witness zero–and an attentive, unwitting recipient–to some of my worst and best cheeseball lines, written, rewritten, and polished to a cheeseball sheen. But the reason why I’ve even needed to craft these lines, I suspect, is because of a selfie I took with Cheshire. It was wholly her idea, a gambit to capitalize on the core tenets of “mate poaching” theory, and by golly does it seem to be working.
I’m taking another leviathan-class match to dinner on Saturday–native Texan, blonde, and way the fuck out of my league. I initially suspected she hit the wrong button on her app or something, and it’s a sentiment echoed by the “She reached out to you?” refrain expressed to me not once, not twice, but three times now. My ego has sufficiently scabbed over, however, and is primed for fresh slights.
Turns out it wasn’t an app malfunction, we completed the gauntlet of questions from eHarmony, and after canvassing Earth Chick, the Chief, and the Rawketeer for counsel, here we are. Does it take a village? Not usually, no. But she’s gorgeous and she has grammatical pet peeves, particularly with dangling prepositions. Let that sink in. She would’ve let my last sentence slide, too, because select prepositions get a pass. Oh, I’m in trouble.
Secondhand Rants will return on Saturday, July 12.