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| Happy 2014! |
Long before I ever decided to do this dating blog, I had erected an online profile on a dating site to try to meet people when I lived in Oz. I found that after a few dates with Australian men I had nothing in common with, I all but forgot about this profile. One day when I was back living in the US, I realized that I had this dating profile out there and decided I would investigate if it had better opportunity for me now that I was back in the States.
As I put in the criteria for my search of who was online dating in NJ I mistakenly hit "women seeking women" instead of "women seeking men." As a bevy of women's profiles popped up, I thought to just close out of search and start over. Then, for a reason I am still not sure of, I began to read a few of the profiles.
Now. . . my sexual preferences didn't just magically change over night. That is not what caused me to put a toe into the lady pool. You see, when I really like a person, I find it is the person I really like. Not if they are male or female, not if they are rich or poor, not if they have a powerful job or if they are a pauper. It doesn't matter to me. What matters is that I have feelings for that person, love who they are, and want to be with them.
My mother raised me telling me that she didn't care if I came home with men or women, just that my hair had to be longer than the guys. I grew my hair as long as I could, and I felt free to date anyone. With my European approach to sexuality I spent my whole life appreciating the beauty of women. I didn't think it was weird to think women were attractive in the same way I thought of men, and because of that, I believed that dating, for me, could encompass an individual from either of these groups.
This mentality has caused me to have great, healthy relationships of varying degrees with both men and women. I wouldn't classify myself as gay or heterosexual; I don't know that I would even call myself bi-sexual. I would say I am an opportunist who just loves people.
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| Or maybe I'm a human squid. I hear they don't have a preference either. |
Getting back to my Knightess. . .
I had sworn off dating women for what I thought was going to be forever after I met a woman a number of years ago I truly loved and cared. I thought that, after her, I would no longer date women as a way to sort of commemorate the way I felt about her. I didn't want to ever feel like I was replacing what I had with her with anyone else, so I just put my interest in women on a shelf after our relationship and thought I would never dust it off again.
But here I was, a few years later, wondering if holding a torch for a past relationship was the best idea. I took a look through some of the profiles of the women on the site. Maybe there were two dozen women seeking women. There were no where near as many profiles as there were of men. I peered through a number of profiles and found the same result as I did with a lot of the men I saw on the site: There were a lot of great people out there, maybe just not the great person for me. As I was about to give up my search entirely I came across a profile that stopped me in my tracks.
She had just one picture and she was smiling like the Mona Lisa in it. She had this cool chick air about her that seemed to be tempered with a good sense of self that was somehow easily conveyed in this lone picture. As I read her profile she seemed to be a down to earth person, who was an entrepreneur, with a myriad of varying interests and a positive outlook on life. I looked back at her pictures; she was beautiful. She had long brown hair, light eyes along slender face and slim build painted with tattoos.
I decided I was going to throw caution to the wind and send her an email to see if she might have any interest in me. I told her that I had seen her profile and it had caught my attention. I can't recall all the specifics because it pre-dates my blog notes, but the exchange via email was kinda just a "thought I would say hi". To this day, I can't recall what she sent me back, but whatever it was, it got us texting and emailing for quite sometime.
For a year we exchanged text messages and phone calls. A year.
She would call me and we would joke about how we were never going to meet. I would tease her about her schedule being worse than mine somehow. She sent me smiling pictures of her out in the sunshine, and I sent her pictures of me in my bartending blacks. It was a sweet friendship that just always had "to be continued" embossed on it.
Throughout all of this, we had never tried to get together to meet. I don't know what we were afraid of, or even if it was just bad timing. . .We just never even seemed to bring up getting together.
With all this time passing in between our communications, I had started writing this dating blog. I think that I either told her I was writing it, or she saw that I was the author of it. She would joke about what I was going to write about her if we ever went out. I thought that we were never going to get together so it wasn't really a concern of mine. . .
After we had crested just beyond a year of periodic phone calls and random text messages she told me that this couldn't go on anymore: we had to meet.
We were two single people, neither of us were seeing anyone, and it seemed like our schedules were going to finally allow this meeting to happen.
I agreed with her that meeting was a stellar plan.
We agreed upon a late lunch. We both owned our own companies and could have a long lunch if we so wanted. Go us entrepreneurs.
When I arrived at Urban Table she was running late. I was happy to sit and surf Pinterest till she got there (as I now find it a hobby like some would needlepoint).
When she arrived she was cloaked in her long wool jacket and a scarf. It was particularly cold for this time of year and she was as bundled as I was for our evening.
She immediately spotted me, came over waved and plunked herself down across from me. I think that for the first few minutes we both just sort of stared at each other nearly in disbelief that we were finally meeting.
As she took off her coat and got comfortable we made small talk about the weather, our arrivals there and our respective days to this point. I immediately felt at ease talking to her. . .Something even MADE ME want to talk to her like I had known her my whole life. I would say it was the months of back and forth mini communications, but it wasn't that. She was like Oprah or Barbara Walters: You just wanted to tell her your life story and you weren't really sure why. Maybe it was the way that she asked questions that made me feel like I was the only person in the whole building. Maybe it was how engaged she looked when she listened to what I had to say. Maybe it was because, for once, she seemed to be running the show as far as questions and the flow of the conversation. She seemed inquisitive about legitimately getting to know me, and genuinely interested in what I had to say.
I, was equally fascinated by her. At times we both had questions for the other and had to politely excuse ourselves for cutting the other off. We had so much to share. Stories of our travels, our friends, our businesses, our dating experiences. We had so much in common! I think that the only things that we didn't agree on were that she loved coffee and I didn't, and she had a small of militia of pets that I was potentially deathly allergic to.
Our lunch date turned into afternoon drinks. Our afternoon drinks now turned into an early dinner as the sun set. I think that the waitstaff even changed hands to the night shift and we were still sitting there sipping our martinis, and chatting. I think that we may have barely drank our first drinks because we were chatting away so much.
This was a great date!!
I found out that we had both dated men and women and how interesting it was that we had found each other. "What are the chances," I thought.
One of us looked at our watches. It was nearly 8pm in the evening. We had set out for this date HOURS ago. There was some work that she had to do, and I still had some things that I needed to wrap up for clients for my work.
My initial feelings of skepticism of going out with another woman had totally washed away. Maybe this could work out. . .We had so much in common and seemed to want the same things. . .The only tough part seemed to be our schedules being so demanding of us. It took us over a year to get together, but here it was, seemingly well worth it.
As we were departing the restaurant we went back and forth who would walk who to their car. She won: we ended up walking me to my car. Our night ended as most date movie endings do. She and I both stood by my car kicking stones, shimming our legs nervously, shuffling in place doing the "when do we get to go out again" dance. We determined that we had a great time and we should see where this went moving forward. I agreed. This had been one of the best dates I had been on. She stepped in and gave me a big hug and kissed me goodnight. I was entirely OK with this.
We were like high school kids saying good night. We backed away from each other waving goodbye and smiling. I was really happy that we had finally decided to get together.
As I got into my car I noticed that I felt flush. I thought perhaps it was the feel good high I was on. As I put the key in the ignition I couldn't help but keep blinking and squinting my eyes because they were itching. By the time I was half way down the block, my hands, my neck and my face were itching terribly and covered in red swollen hives. I was now starting to wheeze.
HOLY SHIT. I AM HAVING A MASSIVE ALLERGIC REACTION!!
As my left eye started to swell up and my throat itched like I was being rubbed with sandpaper it occurred to me: This had happened before with my friends that had cats and dogs that I was allergic to.
In the past I had occasions where I hugged someone goodbye and the cat or dog fur that was on their coat or shirt threw me into an allergic fit. Tonight was no different. I guess her scarf or jacket had some of her pet's fuzz on them and when she hugged me goodbye, wa la.
Yes. I am really that allergic to fuzzy creatures.
How could this be!! Everything had been magic!
As I drove off itching and scratching, fumbling for my emergency Benadryl and inhaler, I couldn't help but feel like this dating thing was just never going to work out for me :(
She would call me and we would joke about how we were never going to meet. I would tease her about her schedule being worse than mine somehow. She sent me smiling pictures of her out in the sunshine, and I sent her pictures of me in my bartending blacks. It was a sweet friendship that just always had "to be continued" embossed on it.
Throughout all of this, we had never tried to get together to meet. I don't know what we were afraid of, or even if it was just bad timing. . .We just never even seemed to bring up getting together.
With all this time passing in between our communications, I had started writing this dating blog. I think that I either told her I was writing it, or she saw that I was the author of it. She would joke about what I was going to write about her if we ever went out. I thought that we were never going to get together so it wasn't really a concern of mine. . .
After we had crested just beyond a year of periodic phone calls and random text messages she told me that this couldn't go on anymore: we had to meet.
We were two single people, neither of us were seeing anyone, and it seemed like our schedules were going to finally allow this meeting to happen.
I agreed with her that meeting was a stellar plan.
We agreed upon a late lunch. We both owned our own companies and could have a long lunch if we so wanted. Go us entrepreneurs.
When I arrived at Urban Table she was running late. I was happy to sit and surf Pinterest till she got there (as I now find it a hobby like some would needlepoint).
When she arrived she was cloaked in her long wool jacket and a scarf. It was particularly cold for this time of year and she was as bundled as I was for our evening.
She immediately spotted me, came over waved and plunked herself down across from me. I think that for the first few minutes we both just sort of stared at each other nearly in disbelief that we were finally meeting.
As she took off her coat and got comfortable we made small talk about the weather, our arrivals there and our respective days to this point. I immediately felt at ease talking to her. . .Something even MADE ME want to talk to her like I had known her my whole life. I would say it was the months of back and forth mini communications, but it wasn't that. She was like Oprah or Barbara Walters: You just wanted to tell her your life story and you weren't really sure why. Maybe it was the way that she asked questions that made me feel like I was the only person in the whole building. Maybe it was how engaged she looked when she listened to what I had to say. Maybe it was because, for once, she seemed to be running the show as far as questions and the flow of the conversation. She seemed inquisitive about legitimately getting to know me, and genuinely interested in what I had to say.
 |
| I think my Knightess could definitely replace her on daytime TV. |
Our lunch date turned into afternoon drinks. Our afternoon drinks now turned into an early dinner as the sun set. I think that the waitstaff even changed hands to the night shift and we were still sitting there sipping our martinis, and chatting. I think that we may have barely drank our first drinks because we were chatting away so much.
This was a great date!!
I found out that we had both dated men and women and how interesting it was that we had found each other. "What are the chances," I thought.
One of us looked at our watches. It was nearly 8pm in the evening. We had set out for this date HOURS ago. There was some work that she had to do, and I still had some things that I needed to wrap up for clients for my work.
My initial feelings of skepticism of going out with another woman had totally washed away. Maybe this could work out. . .We had so much in common and seemed to want the same things. . .The only tough part seemed to be our schedules being so demanding of us. It took us over a year to get together, but here it was, seemingly well worth it.
As we were departing the restaurant we went back and forth who would walk who to their car. She won: we ended up walking me to my car. Our night ended as most date movie endings do. She and I both stood by my car kicking stones, shimming our legs nervously, shuffling in place doing the "when do we get to go out again" dance. We determined that we had a great time and we should see where this went moving forward. I agreed. This had been one of the best dates I had been on. She stepped in and gave me a big hug and kissed me goodnight. I was entirely OK with this.
We were like high school kids saying good night. We backed away from each other waving goodbye and smiling. I was really happy that we had finally decided to get together.
As I got into my car I noticed that I felt flush. I thought perhaps it was the feel good high I was on. As I put the key in the ignition I couldn't help but keep blinking and squinting my eyes because they were itching. By the time I was half way down the block, my hands, my neck and my face were itching terribly and covered in red swollen hives. I was now starting to wheeze.
HOLY SHIT. I AM HAVING A MASSIVE ALLERGIC REACTION!!
As my left eye started to swell up and my throat itched like I was being rubbed with sandpaper it occurred to me: This had happened before with my friends that had cats and dogs that I was allergic to.
In the past I had occasions where I hugged someone goodbye and the cat or dog fur that was on their coat or shirt threw me into an allergic fit. Tonight was no different. I guess her scarf or jacket had some of her pet's fuzz on them and when she hugged me goodbye, wa la.
Yes. I am really that allergic to fuzzy creatures.
How could this be!! Everything had been magic!
As I drove off itching and scratching, fumbling for my emergency Benadryl and inhaler, I couldn't help but feel like this dating thing was just never going to work out for me :(
