Cat balance. Also, cats are part of your balanced breakfast.
I had a date last night.
I hesitated to blog about it, because I don't want Ned to feel bad, not that he remotely reads my blog. He's told me that since the day we broke up 4 months ago, he's looked at my blog nonce. But I worry. I worry that people in his life will tell him. Dear People in Ned's Life: Don't hurt Ned's feelings by telling him this. I'm sure he's moving on as best he can, too. And don't tell me THAT, either. FTLOG.
Anyway, it wasn't my first date back out here in the damn stupid dating damn world. It's my second. I had one a few weeks ago, and it went well, and then that very same night, Ned called me. Then I was all screwed up and I told the guy I went out with that I wasn't ready to date yet.
Then I met this other guy on OK Cupid a few days ago, this funny French-ish kind of guy, and he was snooty and funny and snarky and smart, and he asked me to meet him for drinks last night "at 8:32." I was so charmed by that that I said okay.
I still have no idea if I'm ready.
But I got there before he did, before 8:32, and I saw him walk up to the restaurant. He looked fantastic. He was all fashionable, in a close-fitting black coat and skinny dark jeans and pointy black boots. He kind of had Lord Byron black messy hair. Ned would have hated him on sight. "Oh, look at Mr. Fancy, over there. What's wrong with Levi's?" Ned would have said.
I sort of miss Ned.
I found him--my date, not Ned--in the huge crowd as he walked into the lobby of the restaurant. "Oh, I DO like your coat," he said. I explained to him what kind of coat I'd be wearing: a navy-blue vintage overcoat with a white fur collar. "I know I sound like your grandma who you're taking to the Kmarts or whatever, but it's a cool coat," I'd said.
"There's a 30-minute wait," I told him. "Dive bar across the street?"
"Good call," he said, and he loped across the parking lot. He's very lanky and tall. I had that feeling I haven't had in a long time, that "Oooo, I'm with a cool date" feeling.
At the dive bar, he ordered Ned's brand of beer, and I tried not to feel sad, and we decided to go outside in the damp cold night and talk out there. He's extremely well-traveled and sophisticated. I was kind of worried my whole, "Hey, I lived in LA, man" schtick would not be good enough.
But one thing I learned from my relationship with Ned was that I can be paralyzed by insecurities. The whole time I was with Ned, I worried that what he really wanted was to be with someone younger, or hotter, or not-me-er. And I also realized, too late, that that was all in my head, and that Ned really did love me, but I'd been so insecure that I helped ruin things with my attitude.
So I was just myself, god help us, everyone, and we had a great time. "Let's to to Europa," he said, after his Ned beer. Europa is this restaurant Ned goes to ALL THE TIME, and he knows everyone there, as do I, now. But I gathered up my courage and I went.
"French-ish!" the bartender called out as we walked in. Apparently this guy was a regular there, too. Weird. The owner greeted him and then saw me. I could tell he was taken aback. "Hello, June," he said, with the warmth of an alligator. "Chardonnay?"
Ned told me that the first time he went there to eat after we broke up, a waiter said, "And where's that wonderful woman in your life?" and it was all he could do to not cry like a bitch right there on his salmon salad.
Jesus.
Despite that, we had a really great time. And oddly enough, someone HE used to date was there. Small town. Wouldn't want to paint it.
We stayed for hours, exchanging stories and laughing. I'm his first OK Cupid date, the first woman he's even talked to on there. "I paid the nine dollars for A-List," he told me.
"Oh, A-List is worth it," I told him, with my PhD in online dating. With A-List, you get to do more tweaking of your dating search. "Did you know you can set your search to only see absurdly attractive people?"
"I saw that, but who decides that?" he wondered. I said I had no idea, but that I'd always wondered if I showed up with the "Above-average attractiveness" filter going. "Let's do better than that," he said. "Let's see if you show up as hot." There are two filters: above-average and hot.
I was nervous as he got out his phone, went on OKC and changed his search parameters to 50-year-old Greensboro woman, HOT setting.
I WAS THERE!!! There were three of us and I was one of them!
HOT BITCH IN DA HOWSE.
I'm sorry to tell you we high-fived over that.
Anyway, he sipped whiskey and Guinness and we had good eye contact and I thought everything was going great. But at the end of the night, he kissed me on the cheek and said, "Well. Keep in touch" and that was it.
Nothing from him today.
WHAT HAPPENED? I thought everything was going well. I'm not gonna be the needy douchebag who texts him with "I had a good time." Normally I would, only in the afternoon, not the morning, but it ended so weirdly that I don't dare.
Dating, man. The thrill of victory, the agony of "keep in touch."
I leave you now with an important public service announcement video, which announces absolutely nothing other than that I need a life. So bad. Here are my dogs doing horse impressions. Or a horse impresh, as one reader likes me to say often. "Say 'impresh' a lot, June," is I believe her exact quote.
Datefullly,
Joon
