Dad jokes

I owe you some new stories.

N was the focus of my December, and you all know how that worked out. As is my wont, I continued to date other people. My first week in the new dating app, I met N and had dates with J and A. Maybe you will remember I liked J a reasonable amount. He was a very sweet a-capella-singing, recreational-hockey-playing guy from Pittsburg. I texted him a few times over Thanksgiving and tried to pull him into a second date but he faded away. I didn’t fight too hard for it.

But then there was A. What I wrote back in November was, “Tuesday was A; he was a surprise. It’s not often that someone is better in person than they are on the internet.” Okay, I thought I had been a bit more eloquent about this, but he did surprise me. And he continues to.
--

My second date with A was probably just a week after the first. He invited me to go mini golfing, at a place he found on Instagram. It’s pirate themed, with blacklights.

My second date with one of my dear friends was also mini golfing. It was one of the worst date activities of my life. I’m excessively competitive and was losing. I always fail at self-deprecating humor and somehow couldn’t lighten the situation. I just got grumpier and grumpier.

It was the opposite with A. First let me note that he played terribly, but I don’t think that was it. He kept up a steady stream of jokes and quips, filling in with stories about his life. It was really sweet. Something about him disarms me. I’m completely at ease, which is not a feeling I experience often.

Our third date was relatively uneventful and then I don’t think we saw each other again until after Christmas. He texts me fairly regularly, and called me out for being slow and unresponsive. A fair criticism.

In a moment of panic, I asked him via text message if he is a feminist. He didn’t have the “right” answer, but he gave me a real and vulnerable answer. He gave me information I didn’t explicitly ask for but was glad to have.

It’s hard to write this narrative without the lens that I have now, which is fairly optimistic. What are his downsides? He’s really goofy. Like, terrible sitcom dad jokes and excessive use of slang. He doesn’t seem self-conscious about anything. Which means he’s unapologetic about being a total doof.

He’s from North Carolina. He opens doors for me and asks me to text when I get home. He calls me “hun” and “dear”. Over Christmas he called me “babe” and I almost flipped out on him.

When my friends forget, I remind them he’s “the corporate HR guy”. I get the impression that at work he’s super buttoned up, diligently climbing the ladder. With me it’s a hot mess of excessive enthusiasm for the little things in life.

“Do you like him?” Player asked me before Christmas.
“Yes, I do. I like him a lot. I would like him more if I hadn’t met N first.”
--

After I got back I invited him to my house. He politely had a drink with me, continued to be charming and crack jokes. I felt I had to level with him.

“Hey, I have to talk to you.”
He instantly sobered. “Yeah, what’s up?” He looked me in the eyes.
I was taken aback, I had never seen him be so serious. “Oh. Well,” I started, “I really like you. I feel very comfortable around you. And that’s… a thing for me.”
“Okay.”
“There are a few things I’m not sure about… I’m worried you might be more conservative than me?”
“You think I’m conservative?”
“Not conservative, more conservative than me.”
“What gave you that impression?”
“Well, like the opening doors for me, wanting me to text.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t realize that was a problem, it’s just the way my mom raised me.”
“It’s not a problem, it’s just- it feels like we’re coming from different places. And the feminist thing?”
“Yeah, I was worried about that,” he said.
“No, it was good! You had a good answer, it’s just- different.”
“I see,” he said.
I think I expressed that these were not deal-breakers, I just want to see how they play out. “I get the idea that you are looking for a boyfriend-girlfriend thing? And I just wanted to say that I’m not there yet.”

This is when I felt a big shift. Or rather a subtle shift that felt big. He was good-natured about the conversation despite the fact that I was describing reasons I didn’t want to commit to him. Now he rebutted me truthfully. “No. I wouldn’t want to rush this. I wouldn’t want to rush anything. If you rush something that’s only going to put pressure on it, right?” His eyes held the question. “And I wouldn’t want to do that. So no pressure. No rush.”

I remember the way we were seated on my couch, facing each other, each with one knee drawn up somewhat. This was the first moment I felt intimacy with him. I seem to remember holding hands but that can’t be true. We weren’t there yet, not at all.
--

The second anecdote I told my mom when I recounted the story of my growing feelings was the bowling story.

We had plans for a Friday evening - I was sure to tell her that weeknights are for first dates, Friday and Saturday are for people you actually like. He didn’t want to drive up to Vancouver, so I asked him to make reservations in Portland. Around 6 I asked when I should drive down.



I’m not sure if this comes across in the message screenshot, but I was fully ready to give up on him. We mostly resolved it via text message, and I got to his place earlier than 8. Once again, he disarmed me. “Hey, I really didn’t mean to upset you earlier, I’m sorry about that.”

God this is such a simple statement, I don’t know why it drove straight to the heart of me. “Wow, it’s like he’s an adult,” someone commented later. Maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s the fact that he’s guileless in the face of disagreement, and this neutralizes my conflict avoidance.

“No, I’m sorry,” I had to tell him. “Really. I was passive aggressive and that’s not appropriate. Ever.”
“No worries,” he told me simply.
--

I don’t know what this is! Chemistry?

“You have an evergreen hopefulness at the beginning of everything, and at a certain point you make a judgment,” Michael told me. “And whatever that judgment is, you continue to find reasons to be okay with that judgment whether or not their behavior matches it. Do you really think something is going to change with this guy?”
“I think we need to give everyone space to surprise us,” I told him. “Because so far he has.”
--

I recounted the story to Aisha, begging her to give me some insight. “What is it I should even want in a partner? Because I feel so good around him, but that’s not what I’ve been looking for this entire time.”
“I think,” she considered momentarily, but she knew her answer. “You should look for someone who you genuinely enjoy spending time with who is willing to put in the work. Because relationships are never easy, and there will be things to work through. Find someone who is willing to work with you.”

Is that exactly who I have in front of me? Y’all, am I stepping right back on this train?



Dating Soundtrack:
Breakdown by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers

It's alright if you love me
It's alright if you don't
I'm not afraid of you runnin' away honey
I've got this feeling you won't