Groundhog Day

I had a date last night.

Let's not get too excited internet. We had a lovely time and we're going to hang out again but I'm not spilling one single detail beyond that. 

But can we talk about how dating is really, really, really weird? Everything about it. And the longer I have to do it the more the whole process is still just as scary and awesome as it was when I was 16 and dying to get started. 

We went to this restaurant last night that is popular with guys of a certain age here in the Springs so yeah, I had been on dates there before. And as I'm sitting there running through my siblings and where they all live and who has kids and who has a cat I can't help thinking that the last time I did this I had two fewer nephews and one of the cats was new. And how many times am I going to do this in my life? How many times am I going to make my joke about how 35 in Mormon girl single years is like 55 in regular girl years? And I don't say that in any kind of whiny or self-pitying way but I'm just so curious how many times you can hear yourself tell the same stories while trying to be charming and funny and flirty and light and have it still seem genuine? 

We texted quite a bit in the last few days. Because that is what you do now. I know all my married friends and people who got hitched in the 50's like to roll their eyes and say that texting is so lazy and "in my day a man called you on the phone and asked you out." Well that's not how we do it in 2012 guys. You exchange numbers and then you text. And frankly, when you are sitting in a meeting and a name you are excited about pops up on your phone, it's awesome. And when he says something super cute and maybe just a little bit brave because texting makes us brave, you can read it over and over for days. The ability to text-flirt all day long is maybe one of my favorite hobbies in the entire world. I will also tell you that it is incredibly satisfying to delete delete block delete when someone breaks your heart. How did anyone know you were ignoring them before there were at least two or three solid social media options for making sure he knows you don't want him to know you anymore?

So there had been texting. Questions back and forth, figuring stuff out, getting an idea of someone. I got out of the car last night for our real life interaction and panicked. Because after a few days of texting I was invested. It was just a first date but we already knew a bunch of things about each other.  So you get to a first date in 2012 and you have already sort of been out on a date and a half. And I'm walking into that restaurant I have been to with someone else on another first date and I'm thinking-as exhausting as it is to be alone, it's exhausting and then terrifying to start the whole process of getting to know somebody new. Can't we just keep texting? I'm really, really good at the texting. 

I have this adorable trio of guy friends who have taken it upon themselves to be my dating coaches lately. They had all been giving me advice all day as thought it was my first date ever instead of another in a loooooooooong string of first dates. Steve called as I was driving home to change, "just make sure you smell good and be yourself and he will literally be unable to resist you." If only sixteen year old me had had such fairy godfathers. 

We talked about a million and thank goodness he was both a good question asker and a willing answerer. The first date at 35 vs the first date at 25 means that you know all the things you want to find out pretty quickly. Or at least you think you do. 

After dinner we walked over to a coffee shop and I am not kidding, walking along the sidewalk in the summer darkness with a boy you are excited about feels EXACTLY the same now as it did when I was 16. And I am so relieved that it does. Because I had a friend once upon a time who said that maybe in our thirties we just needed to accept that we would never feel those kind of butterflies again and it sounded so depressing. I need at least a few. 

I woke up this morning and I had two thoughts-relieved to have gotten through a really great first date. Yay, good job me! And then the feeling of "oh my gosh now what?". Can't I just be a really good first dater and not get any further into waters that might lead to getting eaten by an alligator? Should we quit while everyone is still excited and he really didn't seem to think I talk too much (I do)?

This is why people get cats.