I had my second date with TheLibrarian Saturday night – it didn’t go at all as anticipated…

On our first date, which, as it turns out, was his first since splitting with his wife, he was (particularly at the end of the date) a bit on the shy and nervous side, unsure if it was even ok to hug me goodbye. I wasn’t sure yet whether this was due to the “hasn’t dated in 11 years” factor, or if he is just generally a timid guy when it came to matters of intimacy. Having had no physical interaction with him on our first date besides that hug goodbye, I had no inkling about whether we’d have any physical chemistry to augment the good interpersonal chemistry that was building between us, but experience has taught me not to get my hopes up, so my expectations were low for date #2.

( Read on to see how it goes )

A reader asked in a comment on my last post whatever happened with Sean, the previously married guy I'd met at a friend's party and reconnected with shorly after his separation.  Well, that fizzled quickly.  We had a couple of very nice dates and while we seemed pretty compatible on a lot of levels, I was questioning our physical chemistry (the few kisses we shared were pretty uninspiring).  Before we went on another date, he emailed me and said he'd decided to pursue things with someone else he'd met, he was a one woman guy, blah blah blah.  He said he'd still really like to be friends and hang out.  Since I hadn't been planning on diving into anything more than friendship (perhaps with benefits) until he was much further post-separation, friendship sounded fine with me.  I responded to his email and told him there were no hard feelings, wished him luck with the other woman, and said if he was serious about wanting to hang out, to get in touch about making plans, I'd be happy to get together.

Two dates in the past two days, and they can be summed up as such: a big bunch of MEH.  I just got in from my second date with the Chem PhD guy I went out with a few nights ago. It was...  well, meh.  It was pleasant and all, but totally unexciting.  No sparks, no chemistry.  On our first date I chalked it up to him being nervous and gave it a second try with a second date, but the guy's just got no game.

When he first asked me out for the second date, he asked that I give him a few days to come up with some actual plans for us.  I thought "well good, he's taking the initiative and planning something. I like a guy who knows how to take initiative."  A few days later when I asked what the plan was, he basically admitted that he'd not yet come up with any ideas beyond dinner (which was not encouraging).  For dinner, since we'd talked about his french heritage (mom's from France), he suggested a french restaurant I'd been wanting to try for a few years , so I thought that sounded spiffy.  He said he'd come up with some ideas for post-dinner plans.  I figured he had a good start to the evening, and was hoping he would come up with some interesting post-dinner activities for us.

After The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, I wasted no time in making dates with a couple of guys who I'd been chatting with recently.  I had the first of those dates this evening, with a guy who's got a PhD in inorganic chemistry.  It was... well... good. ish. I think. 

Here's the thing.  There was no immediate spark of chemistry, you know, like when you meet someone and you instantly feel like you've known them forever and you can just talk about anything and everything with ease.  But I suppose that is hard to find.  I could tell he was a bit nervous, and our conversation over dinner was definitely very standard "gee what should we talk about" first date fare, work, places we've travelled, books we've enjoyed, things like that.  He's attractive, but I wasn't hit by an instant electric attraction, he was friendly and interesting, but didn't, at first glimpse, have the sort of confident, outgoing, charming, assertive personality that I really groove on.  But like I said, he seemed pretty nervous in that first date stumbling-over-yourself-in-conversation kind of way.  I couldn't tell how interested he was in me, and when he walked me to my car and said goodnight, I wasn't sure if he was going to say goodnight and walk away or what.  He'd been so, well, non-forward and non-flirty, that I didn't know if he was disinterested, or just nervous and shy.  I think it was nervous and shy, because when the conversation wound down and we said goodnight, he asked if he could have a hug (and I did), and asked if we could do this again sometime (I said I'd like that).  

I'm really not sure how interested in him I am.  Our first date was so... nervous first datey that I have to see more of his personality, more of what he's like as he gets to know someone and becomes more "himself" before I decide whether I'm into him or not.  He's working in a job he hates (computer admin at a car dealership) because he can't find a job in his chosen (but highly specialized) field, so that gives me pause, but he claims to be actively looking (and being willing to take lower non-PhD level job in a related scientific field), so... good for him, I guess?  If he actuallly DOES it of course.  (Hmm...  this sounds familiar - almost like working a low-level job because you just can't seem to find one in your field for a PhD is analagous to not being able to find a job at all for someone with a GED.  I guess the most important distinction here is that unlike Nate,  he is currently gainfully employed.   But he must not be doing allll that well, because he lives with two roommates, but mentioned saving to buy a house soon.  

So....  I'm willing to go out on another date with him and keep an open mind and learn more about him, but I'm still very much in "wait and see" mode..

When he got home, he IM'd me and we chatted for a few minutes, and he asked me to get together again this weekend, so we decided to get together Saturday  (since I have a date with the lawyer/PhDstudent on Friday, heheh), and we'll see how it goes.

While it's a step in the right direction to be meeting 2 well educated intelligent men, it would be much better to be meeting said well educated intelligent men who are where they want to go with their careers, not just on their way there.

-Vixen

It's been a bannnner week.  Really.  Oh wait, maybe you couldn't see the sarcasm DRIPPING from my fingers there, so let me just be clear.  It's been a shitty week in my dating world.  In that short time, I ran through a whole year's supply of jerky, dishonest, disingenuous assholes (hell, it should have been a lifetime's supply, but I'm being realistic).   Here's just a sampling, in no particular order, of the lies assorted men have told me in just the past week alone:

 I had double dates last night.  No, I didn't go out with 2 guys at the same time, I went out with 2 guys in one night *grin*.  I had dinner plans with AirForceGuy from SexSite last night, and expected it to be a meet-n-greet dinner and nothing more, so I didn't expect to be out late.  But for the past week or so, I've been talking to TheRealtor, a guy I met on PayVanilla.  TheRealtor and I had exchanged a bazillion emails & IMs, and had talked on the phone several times for long periods - we've talked a LOT, and seemed to have tons in common, but that left me really skeptical, because my Adventures in Dating have jaded me such that I figured since we seemed to be hitting it off so well before meeting, that was a sure sign that when we met it would totally fizzle, he'd be unattractive or otherwise unappealing and it would go nowhere. 

TheRealtor and I had a date planned for Sunday, and as we were talking yesterday (Tuesday) afternoon, we got into, shall we say, a very interesting conversation.  The long and short of it was that both of us were trying to gingerly feel each other out as far as sex and kinks go, since we met on PayVanilla, we each figured the other might be, well, pretty darned vanilla, and we were each worried about freaking the other out with our kinks.  And, as it turns out...  we share a lot of the same kinks and similarly open minds, so, yay! That's all good.  He made a comment about Sunday being awfully far away and being free after he finished a class late in the evening.  I turns out that that would be right about when I was finishing up my dinner plans with AirForceGuy, so I suggested that we meet up for some drinks, and he readily agreed.

I figured that after posting yesterday with a healthy dose of both skepticism and optimism about my 4th date with Chris planned for last night, I should post a little followup.  I was keeping expectations firmly in check, figuring it was just as likely that Chris would flake out on me as show up.

But all was well!  Not only did he show up, but we had a great evening together.  I still have my doubts about our long term/romantic potential, and we're still on a fairly slow path to getting to know one another deeply, but there's a certain relaxed feeling to just hanging out together enjoying one anothers' company that's quite nice.  Oh, and then there's the sexual chemistry, which is... just... WOW.  

I made us a  nice dinner, and somehow, while we were waiting for it to come out of the oven, we started to get distracted by one another... I think he was delighting in turning me into a quivering pile of mush standing in the middle of the kitchen.  I took the food out of the oven, but it was quickly forgotten... as it sat cooling on the counter being more and more ignored, he suggested that it wasn't going anywhere, and instead lead me off to somewhere more comfortable (and more horizontal) to finish what we started, and... holy WOW, Batman, I'm glad he did.

And that was only round 1 ;)

So... between a good meal, good company, good snuggletime, and several bouts of GREAT sex, all in all, it was fabulous evening.

-Vixen

I'm used to getting into relationships with people with whom I felt a pretty instant interpersonal connection with when I met them - you know, where there's a no end to things to talk about and it feels like you've known each other forever.  So when I meet someone in my Dating Adventures who seems perfectly nice and all... but with whom I don't feel that instant connection, I find myself wondering if that means I should pass them by.  Some might argue that I'm expecting too much, that it's just as likely to take a few dates of getting to know someone before you're going to really connect.  Some might also argue that based on the ultimate success rate of my past relationships (which, considering I'm single, would be roughly zero) that perhaps that instant connection is not indicative of a successful relationship.

So when I recently met Frank, after our first dinner, I found myself debating whether he was shy or just boring.  He was perfectly nice and all, and we seemed to get along OK, but we did seem to struggle a bit to find things to talk about.  I decided to give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he was just a bit shy, and we just needed to get to know each other better.