logo by Monday, January 31, 2005
Read this first if you haven't already done so.
Last week I was nervous. Butterflies in my stomach and all. It was like I was in high school waiting to go out on my first date or something. We'll call her M. She and I must have sent twenty emails to each other over the course of the week, but that was only making it worse. A brief phone conversation Thursday evening temporarily relaxed me, but by Saturday afternoon I was all figety again. We had agreed to meet at the entrance to a certain subway station downtown at 7pm. I arrived at the station a little bit ahead of time and took the escalator up to the street to wait for her. For a few minutes I watched each girl as she came up and stepped of the escalator, trying to match each face to the pic M had sent me. And then I saw her. The first thing I noticed was her warm smile. She recognized me and waved as she stepped off the escalator. Immediately the nervousness vanished and I was totally relaxed. We walked up to each other and embraced.
"I feel awkward," she said. "It's like a first date."
From then on, it was like I was with a good friend I'd known for years. It was snowing as we walked the several blocks over to the neighborhood where all the good restaurants are, and she looked beautiful with the snowflakes clinging to her hair. We found a nice restaurant and got a table with a candle. We talked through dinner and then some, chatting for a good half hour after we had finished our meal. Eventually we glanced at our watches and realized it was 9 o'clock and we had better head over to the blues club we had planned on going to before all the tables were taken.
The club was just a few doors down from the restaurant. It's your typical old brick city rowhouse. The stage is up front, essentially in the window, with a bar along one wall, and candlelit tables leading all the way to the back. There were a few free tables here and there, but we walked all the way to the back and took the last table in a cozy corner by the back wall. And for the next five and a half hours we talked. I'm normally kind of quiet, especially with someone I've just met, but for some reason the conversation just came easy with her. We had an amazing number of things in common. We talked about love and marriage, my wife, her boyfriend, music, kids, our childhoods, our parents, our jobs, her school, our friends. I shared more of my thoughts with her than I think I've shared with anyone in a long, long time, and she shared a lot with me too. The ten-year difference in our ages seemed to make no difference whatsoever. I felt like I could be totally honest and tell her stuff without worrying that she was going to use it against me later on, as is so often the case with my wife.
The band was excellent, and way back in our little corner the volume was just right for us to listen to the music while still being able to carry on our conversation. The evening rushed by, and before I knew it, the band, which had started playing at 10:00, had finished their third set. I looked down at my watch and noticed that it was 2:30.
"We better go, M, if we're gonna catch the last subway at 3:00," I said.
She looked down at her watch. "Oh, you're right!" she said, "I can't believe it's 2:30!"
To get home, we had to take the same subway for a few stops and then I needed to change to a different line to head off to the suburbs while she would stay on the same train for a few more stops to get to her neighborhood. But she lives in a sketchy neighborhood, and so we decided it would be better for her to take a cab than to have to walk the ten minutes from the subway station to her apartment. But what a strange thing: we must have stood out there for 10 minutes in the slush and snow trying to hail a cab, and each time we flagged one down the driver would say, "No way. I'm not driving over there" when she told him where she wanted to go.
Twice I offered that she could ride home with me and then I could drive her over to her apartment, but she's a tough girl, kind of a tomboy I guess, and so in the end she decided to just brave it and take the subway. I thought about riding home with her and walking her to her apartment, but then I'd be stuck at her place, a one-room studio, which would have been awkward, and perhaps a little too tempting. She was, after all, a very pretty girl, and our evening had brought us very close to each other in many ways. In retrospect I suppose I should have offered, but in the end she took the train and I called her when I got home to make sure she had made it OK, which she had.
We caught the last train and rode the three stops to my transfer point in relative silence, sitting against each other, watching the lights fly by in the tunnel. It was the first time all night that we didn't say much to each other. As the train pulled into my stop I turned to her and told her I was really glad we had done this.
She looked at me and said, "Really? Me too," and we turned and put our arms around each other and held each other tight until the train came to a stop and the doors opened. Then we let go, smiled, and said goodbye. There's nothing like a subway train to eliminate the awkwardness of long goodbyes, so I stepped off the train, the doors closed, and that was that.
In the end, the evening was exactly what I had hoped it would be. I had a fun date with a wonderful girl, and I didn't do anything that would make me feel guilty. We talked for almost eight hours straight. My only hope is that somehow I can find a way to tell my wife about M without having her take it the wrong way. I'd like to see M again, but I can't keep sneaking around indefinitely. The one thing that may work, if I present it just right, is that M has a history of working with kids and would love to babysit for us. In fact, the PhD she is working on right now is related to children. She has the references and the experience, so if I can introduce her to my wife as a potential babysitter then maybe my wife will grow to trust her enough that she won't have a problem with M and me being friends.
We'll see.
Last week I was nervous. Butterflies in my stomach and all. It was like I was in high school waiting to go out on my first date or something. We'll call her M. She and I must have sent twenty emails to each other over the course of the week, but that was only making it worse. A brief phone conversation Thursday evening temporarily relaxed me, but by Saturday afternoon I was all figety again. We had agreed to meet at the entrance to a certain subway station downtown at 7pm. I arrived at the station a little bit ahead of time and took the escalator up to the street to wait for her. For a few minutes I watched each girl as she came up and stepped of the escalator, trying to match each face to the pic M had sent me. And then I saw her. The first thing I noticed was her warm smile. She recognized me and waved as she stepped off the escalator. Immediately the nervousness vanished and I was totally relaxed. We walked up to each other and embraced.
"I feel awkward," she said. "It's like a first date."
From then on, it was like I was with a good friend I'd known for years. It was snowing as we walked the several blocks over to the neighborhood where all the good restaurants are, and she looked beautiful with the snowflakes clinging to her hair. We found a nice restaurant and got a table with a candle. We talked through dinner and then some, chatting for a good half hour after we had finished our meal. Eventually we glanced at our watches and realized it was 9 o'clock and we had better head over to the blues club we had planned on going to before all the tables were taken.
The club was just a few doors down from the restaurant. It's your typical old brick city rowhouse. The stage is up front, essentially in the window, with a bar along one wall, and candlelit tables leading all the way to the back. There were a few free tables here and there, but we walked all the way to the back and took the last table in a cozy corner by the back wall. And for the next five and a half hours we talked. I'm normally kind of quiet, especially with someone I've just met, but for some reason the conversation just came easy with her. We had an amazing number of things in common. We talked about love and marriage, my wife, her boyfriend, music, kids, our childhoods, our parents, our jobs, her school, our friends. I shared more of my thoughts with her than I think I've shared with anyone in a long, long time, and she shared a lot with me too. The ten-year difference in our ages seemed to make no difference whatsoever. I felt like I could be totally honest and tell her stuff without worrying that she was going to use it against me later on, as is so often the case with my wife.
The band was excellent, and way back in our little corner the volume was just right for us to listen to the music while still being able to carry on our conversation. The evening rushed by, and before I knew it, the band, which had started playing at 10:00, had finished their third set. I looked down at my watch and noticed that it was 2:30.
"We better go, M, if we're gonna catch the last subway at 3:00," I said.
She looked down at her watch. "Oh, you're right!" she said, "I can't believe it's 2:30!"
To get home, we had to take the same subway for a few stops and then I needed to change to a different line to head off to the suburbs while she would stay on the same train for a few more stops to get to her neighborhood. But she lives in a sketchy neighborhood, and so we decided it would be better for her to take a cab than to have to walk the ten minutes from the subway station to her apartment. But what a strange thing: we must have stood out there for 10 minutes in the slush and snow trying to hail a cab, and each time we flagged one down the driver would say, "No way. I'm not driving over there" when she told him where she wanted to go.
Twice I offered that she could ride home with me and then I could drive her over to her apartment, but she's a tough girl, kind of a tomboy I guess, and so in the end she decided to just brave it and take the subway. I thought about riding home with her and walking her to her apartment, but then I'd be stuck at her place, a one-room studio, which would have been awkward, and perhaps a little too tempting. She was, after all, a very pretty girl, and our evening had brought us very close to each other in many ways. In retrospect I suppose I should have offered, but in the end she took the train and I called her when I got home to make sure she had made it OK, which she had.
We caught the last train and rode the three stops to my transfer point in relative silence, sitting against each other, watching the lights fly by in the tunnel. It was the first time all night that we didn't say much to each other. As the train pulled into my stop I turned to her and told her I was really glad we had done this.
She looked at me and said, "Really? Me too," and we turned and put our arms around each other and held each other tight until the train came to a stop and the doors opened. Then we let go, smiled, and said goodbye. There's nothing like a subway train to eliminate the awkwardness of long goodbyes, so I stepped off the train, the doors closed, and that was that.
In the end, the evening was exactly what I had hoped it would be. I had a fun date with a wonderful girl, and I didn't do anything that would make me feel guilty. We talked for almost eight hours straight. My only hope is that somehow I can find a way to tell my wife about M without having her take it the wrong way. I'd like to see M again, but I can't keep sneaking around indefinitely. The one thing that may work, if I present it just right, is that M has a history of working with kids and would love to babysit for us. In fact, the PhD she is working on right now is related to children. She has the references and the experience, so if I can introduce her to my wife as a potential babysitter then maybe my wife will grow to trust her enough that she won't have a problem with M and me being friends.
We'll see.
