Dating Report

So, I logged into Warcraft last night and immediately got several whispers asking how my dates had gone. Which was pretty cool – makes me feel all warm and fuzzy, knowing that people are interested. Especially after such a long time of struggling with feelings of loneliness and yet needing to keep my life hidden from the outside world.

But yeah, back to the dates. Or dates with training wheels. Or just getting together for a bit with a friend. Or however you want to look at it. They went great. I can't remember the last time I sat down at a restaurant with a single, attractive, available (at least theoretically) woman. I'm sure it happened once or twice in the last seventeen years. Must have. Just been so long I can't remember. But it was really nice. Good conversations, some good laughs, no awkward pauses. I felt relaxed and comfortable (most of the time – more on that in a minute), and I think I did a decent job of holding up my end of the conversations without dominating. Now, obviously, Bell's been a very good friend for over six months now, and Steph and I have been friends for more than half our lives, so unless I somehow fucked the evening up with grandiose fuckosity, things were pretty much guaranteed to be at least okay, so that took a lot of the pressure off. But everything went a lot better than just okay, which is going to help a lot with the not freaking out if and when I get an opportunity to go on a date with someone who isn't a friend yet.

Well, I kinda did have a couple of "oh crap, I shouldn't be doing this, should I?" moments. And I had to take a few deep breaths and remind myself that no, I wasn't doing anything wrong, that it was all okay. No one was gonna get mad or think I was a jerk or anything. And then it passed and I was relaxed and happy again. Knowing I was with a friend helped.

One thing I'm going to have to work on, I realize, is getting used to very different rules on physical contact. After years of marriage, I'm pretty used to it being able to just reach out to the woman I'm talking to and stroke her hair or touch her knee or whatever, because she's my wife and it's okay. And all three of the relationships I've had in my life started with some degree of physical intimacy before moving on to dating. But with a woman I'm just getting to know, it's obviously going to have to start with pretty much minimal contact, and stay that way until …. I dunno what. But something. Like I said, gonna have to work on this at some point.

Steph told me before we said goodbye that she expects monthly reports on my dating progress, although she won't be grading me. At first. Oh, and she suggested I try meetup.com as a starting point for creating a real-life (as opposed to on-line) social life. So I checked it out a bit, and found a few groups that look interesting. So we shall see.