Heading down a dangerous road … July 23, 2006
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Friends, Men, Single Girl Cliches, Tales of Online Dating.14 comments
Friday night I had dinner with a friend of mine that turned into drinks with a group of friends. I’d been telling myself all week that I was not going out and that I was not going to drink, but it seemed like a good idea at the time.
The theme of the night was “I don’t care that The Nurse didn’t ask me out for this weekend.” And I was trying my hardest not to care, but it was clear to everyone that I was a touch hurt, because my crush is quickly becoming more substantial.
Saturday I ran errands and enjoyed relaxing. I regularly go on “e-mail silence” until Saturday afternoon as a way to not feel as if I am working too hard on the weekend. So I was pleasantly surprised when I had an e-mail from The Nurse apologizing for not calling and saying he hoped I was feeling better. We exchanged a flurry of text messages later that evening.
Since B didn’t have to work on a Saturday for awhile, I was to meet him and some friends at a bar. By the time I’d dressed and left my apartment, they’d decided to go home because they said the bar wasn’t fun. So I strode into B’s house in my favorite dark jeans and a stretchy shirt with batwing sleeves that is oh-so late 70s/early 80s chic. I’d deep conditioned my hair and let it air dry for an hour or so, so the pretty natural curls and waves that it has when I just let it be were bouncing down to my shoulders.
“Damn, it has been awhile since I’ve seen you,” B said.
“What do you mean?”
“You have long hair now.”
“I’ve had long hair for awhile.”
“But, um, it isn’t always, so wavy.”
“I know. I deep conditioned.”
“It’s very pretty.”
I beamed and grabbed a Dos Equis from the fridge. I’d hoped my friends would at least be lively, but they were lounging around being boring.
“You’re very smiley,” he said.
“I’m sort of casually seeing someone. Very casually.”
“Oh … so you’re not seeing him tonight?”
“I might see him later. I didn’t want to look too eager.”
And then The Nurse sent a text message that he was finished at the hospital (it was almost midnight) and he was going to a costume party at the bar where we’d met last week.
I joked about what his costume was and we bounced messages back and forth. B’s ears seemed to perk up each time my phone notified me of a message. (I might have imagined this, but it would have been cool.)
After some chit chat about what each of us was doing, The Nurse messaged asked what I though about seeing a play his friends were in next month. I played it cool in my response, but I was secretly thrilled that he was making plans with me so far in advance and to do something that seemed very girlfriendy. (I keep trying not to get attached, maintain my distance, but it is hard.) Plus, the good kissing.
A few minutes later I bowed out gracefully and left B’s house to meet The Nurse for one last beer. I walked into the crowded bar and made my way through women in animal ears and various hats and capes.
He smiled when he saw me and gave me a sweet kiss hello.
And he barely let go of me for the rest of the night.
An Open Letter to Myself on the Occasion of a Growing Crush July 19, 2006
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Daydreams, Men, Open Letters, Random Musings on Life, Single Girl Cliches, Tales of Online Dating.29 comments
Note from CBS: It’s been awhile since I wrote one of these open letters … and I am definitely in need of one, methinks.
Dear Charming,
I know that you are quite taken with – dare I say smitten? – A certain Medical Professional who is a great kisser and smokes a good cigarette. He is attentive. He is dorky in the best kind of way.
And the chemistry is there.
That said, I encourage you to stop the freefall plunge into Attachment just yet. It is perfectly fine to want things to work out. You do deserve a nice guy who is capable of having an adult relationship. But you can’t confuse this lusty flirtation with anything more than the beginnings of a really good crush with fun extracurriculars.
Because at this point, that is all that it is.
And until he shows his hand, hold yours close to the vest. Call me a cynic, dear, but there’s nothing that says that slowly giving into your desires and developing feelings is bad. In fact, truth be told, it is probably much better to take a step back and wait for his next move. You are stuck in the haze, my dear. You are having the inappropriate daydreams about his involvement in your life, aren’t you? (I know you are. And that one about a rainy Sunday was fantastic, if I do say so myself.) You are settling for his last-minute plans with you when you are deserving of some forethought.
Make sure he’s right before you get attached. Don’t put the dreams of a relationship before the right guy.
Put down the phone. Stop checking your e-mail obsessively. He will call. And while you’re waiting, you should plan a date with another suitor for sure.
And if he doesn’t call, then we SERIOUSLY have to talk about your approach to dating.
Right after we have a cosmo and two Camel UltraLights.
Sincerely,
Charming
Sharing a smoke July 18, 2006
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Men, Really. Bad. Habits., Tales of Online Dating.18 comments
From CBS: Probably not the details y’all were hoping for …
“Does anyone have a cigarette?”
The Nurse tapped his fingers on my knee and asked his question again, this time to me directly.
“You don’t smoke,” I said, the words floating playfully from my mouth.
His friend agreed with me. The Nurse got a devilish grin on his face and the tapping became more intense.
“She doesn’t either,” he told his friend, motioning to me with a nod. “But look, I’m sure she has some.”
He squeezed the back of my neck, just below my hairline, seeing my playfulness and raising it with a smug grin.
I set aside the leather flap on my hobo purse so he could see inside, proud to prove him wrong.
“Sure don’t,” I beamed as he peered into my straw bag and around my lipsticks and cell phone and compact. I rubbed his knee as to punctuate my smirk.
The friend passed a single Marlboro Red across the wooden table top and I moved closer to him on the corner bench. I watched The Nurse light the cigarette and take a long, slow drag, enjoying it like a smoker who only reluctantly quit because he, like me, was too smart to start to smoke in the first place. He paused to let tendrils of smoke swirl out through his pink lips and rise upward to the ceiling and his hand grasped my knee tightly.
“You want?”
I looked up from the cool brown bottle and nodded and he slid his hand over to my mouth, touching the cigarette to my shiny lips as it balanced between two of his fingers. I took it between them. It felt sexy and intimate to breathe in the smoke through his hand. Almost warmer than the quick peck we shared when I found him at the bar, when our bodies had barely touched, but I could feel his hand almost rest against the brown fabric of the shirt covering my stomach.
Taking a drag felt like the beginning of intense, teasing foreplay and the small bit of nicotine I allowed myself went straight to my brain and I felt clouds moving in like before an afternoon rain shower.
The fingers from his other hand drumming on my leg quieted the voices in my head that chided me for dabbling in the nasty habit I’d worked to quit.
I let my hand graze his arm as I pushed it aside, tilted my head away and shot him a sideways glance, our eyes meeting in a shared stare.
And I quickly forced a column of smoke from my half-smiling mouth and into the bar in one long breath.
Diving in July 17, 2006
Posted by charmingbutsingle in Dating, Men, Tales of Online Dating.18 comments
Note from CBS: Edited for grammar. Don’t blog while running fever.
I entered the weekend with some doubts about the status of things with The Nurse. He hadn’t asked me out for the weekend after our second date and I was questioning his intentions. I was psyching myself out and the best thing would have been to not think about it and go out and have dinner with a friend.
But when have I ever done the best thing?
So after dinner, I sent off a text message asking what he was doing. He was at work until 11 and then he was going out with friends he hadn’t seen in awhile.
I was crawled up in bed and, of course, took his response as a blow off since he didn’t invite me or suggest we hang out on Saturday. But my work week had been long, and before I could think of an appropriate response, I was fast asleep.
I shouldn’t have been so offended, but I was. Perhaps it is because of the flurry of e-mails exchanged and the time we’d spent together. Perhaps he hadn’t felt the chemistry I had. Perhaps Match.com had lulled me into a false sense of intimacy. (I’m sure I wouldn’t be the first to fall this way.)
Saturday I had plans to go out with Southern Belle and some friends. I relaxed all evening before pulling myself together to head to the bar with my friends. The Nurse had text messaged to find out how my car shopping was going that day. (I’d told him that I was looking.)
Around 9:30 p.m., as I brushed a golden shadow across my eyelids, The Nurse text messaged to announce that he got off of work at 11. We volleyed messages back and forth as I finished prepping for my evening out. I left things open, not promising to meet him, but not saying that I wouldn’t.
I had two beers with my friends, who quickly decided that they wanted to go dancing. I wasn’t in the mood and The Nurse had texted where he would be, so I decided to meet him. (My friends understood.)
As I pulled up to the bar where he was, I was underwhelmed. It was clearly not my scene at all. I took a deep breath, clipped back my long hair and applied a light layer of Clinque gloss to my lips and a thin layer of powder over my face. I stepped out of the car and balanced on my high heel, adjusted my shirt and headed into the bar.
As I reached for the door, it swung open and a guy I know from childhood came lumbering out in a black bowling-style shirt with some sort of motorcycle cross on the back of it. A big hoop hung from one ear and a stud was in the other – clearly his straight-laced mother had a heart attack when she saw that. I chuckled at that thought. But his face and his slightly curly hair were the same as when I knew him years ago, when we swam on the neighborhood swim team together.
We both stopped and smiled. He looked me down and said, with disbelief, “What are YOU doing here?” motioning to the bar with his eyes.
“Um, I’m here to meet a friend.”
“Oh, well, okay.”
We talked for a few minutes and he seemed weirded out by my presence.
I entered the bar, which seemed to have a relatively normal crowd, a little less polished than what I’m used to for sure. But no one bit me, although a few people did toss a glance my way. The bar was small and it was decorated with skull and crossbones that were more Pirate than Harley Motorcycle Gang. I figured that with that new Johnny Depp movie, pirates could possibly be the new black.
I found The Nurse, he gave me a hug and snagged us a booth. The fashion was still very much lacking (untucked polo and khaki shorts that were possibly a bit too small), but he had come from work, so I guess that I should be glad that he wasn’t in scrubs, right?
He was drinking PBR out of the can, but I settled for a microbrew I love that I don’t think can be legally sold where I live. We had a nice chat and bar regulars came by to say hello. The Nurse introduced me as his friend, but it was clear (to me, I think) that he was interested in me as a date. He was quick to include me in his conversations and explain things to me and I felt him rub my knee under the table when he flirted or thought I needed reassurance. We talked to another regular, The Waitress, and her boyfriend for at least a beer or so.
We paid out, I went to the surprisingly clean ladies’ room and joined him outside of the bar. He gave me a sweet kiss.
“You know, when you weren’t looking, [The Waitress] told me that she liked you,” he said and kissed me gently again.
“Really?” I said with surprise. I hadn’t thought the regulars would be impressed with my dressy shoes and taste for wine, especially since I’d joked that I normally order cosmopolitans at bars.
“Yeah, really.”
We kissed again.
“So, where are you headed?” I asked softly.
“Well, that depends,” he said. “On you.”
He rested a hand on my hip.
“Well, my place is just a few minutes away,” I said.
He pulled me to him and kissed me again.
And I just giggled and pulled away, swatting his hand away.
“Just a few minutes away,” I emphasized.
