Japandamonium!!!

So I had a date on Friday. That’s right, three weeks in and I get my first date on foreign shores. Not too bad for an ol’ country boy (or, you know, me). It was a pretty crazy experience, very exciting but very odd at the same time, but who knows, maybe that’s what dating is supposed to be like. This is pretty much the first date I’ve ever really been on. Usually it’s worked from the other way around, where I’d developed a personal intimacy with someone and then we saw if we wanted to share something deeper; this was kind of the opposite way, where two people are essentially supposed to pretend at having intimacy until they discover that reality will either adhere to their idea it or won’t. Two days gone though, I’m still not sure which direction reality decided to go in. I will tell of.

Juliet, from Glasgow, dynamite to look at, sweet voice, friendly to talk to, works at the fitness center. I’ve been chatty with her since I started going there for aikido on like my third day in the country, and we have gotten nice and friendly like. So last Wednesday I go in for lunch-hour class and we start talking; it seems that she lives right close by to me, and both of us to campus, and she bemoaned the fact that she never gets to go home and feel like she’s really getting away from school. Kinda before I can rethink it, I ask her if she wants to come over to my place for dinner some night, since me and my buddy are top-notch Iron Chefs, and she'd thereby get to escape campus a bit more. So she says that would be great, and why doesn’t she give me her number when I come out from the gym. Pa-fucking-ching! I couldn’t really believe it. The second we bowed out from aikido I searched like mad for a breathmint or some gum (one of the girls on the mat had some) and went back down to see Juliet; she already had her number written down for me. Colossal, right? I was skyin’ all the way home, and put on Ludacris and sang along and danced around my room for like ten minutes as soon as I came home. I’m totally like fourteen years old. Whatever yo, at the time I’m just really freakin happy with myself for ignoring the instinct to flee and cower from cute Scottish women, and that I have instead beaten out reason and might be on my way to making a new friend. Rock. The. Party.

So this was Wednesday, and it took me till Friday to realize that what we had agreed on was, in fact, a date. Thank the good lord I hadn’t really figured that out on Wednesday, I might have had an aneurysm before she even gave me her digits. By the way, Thank GOD for voicemail. That’s what I got when I called her to actually set a time, and LORD was it a mercy. It's a much less anxiety-ridden thing than an actual conversation would have been. Not that I'm saying I would have necessarily screwed up the actual conversation, necessarily, but it's much easier to be cute and rambley on a message, and one’s nervousness and long-windedness are infinitely more allowable since everyone is like that on voicemail. Anyway, she got back to me and set the day for Friday, which, when I woke up that morning, means that it’s actually a date. Dinner on Friday night, with open plans for afterwards, and mention of possible clubbing? Date.

So my plan, and I did plan, was to try and walk the thin line between an intimate date and a more relaxed general-social atmosphere. I mean we don’t really know each other, so I thought maybe we could do with a nice non-threatening balance, like not coming on too strong and getting to interact somewhat naturally in a relaxed environment (and I was confident that I could pull off charming and funny in the kitchen with my impressive cheffery and jokey dynamic with John). This plan fell to pieces within the first few minutes of the date. So I show up to her place right on time to pick her up (right on time after loitering in the across-the-street bookstore for half an hour). She looks fantastic, and has put too much effort into how she’s looking to appreciate having dinner with my buddy in our pubic kitchen. She has also picked us up two bottles of wine, and her words when I tell her that I’d got us one too are, “great, let’s go to your place and get drunk.” Them straightforward Scottish lasses, right? Well, not really, as it turns out.

We come to my place and start in on the wine and start talking about this and that and every other thing, and we’re really kinda hitting it off. The best example of this is (and you’ll love this if you know me): who’s her favorite musician? None other than Johnny Cash I’ll have you know, that Man-in-Black hero of my America (I rejoiced, but inwardly cursed that I hadn’t worn my Johnny Cash black cowboy shirt). Yeah man, we are just hitting it off great. We go on like this for some hours, lots of really good talking and stories and things, and then at some point her phone rings. And it’s, drumroll, her boyfriend. Boyfriend, you ask? Boyfriend, I ask too. Boyfriend? Boyfriend. So we keep at it as we have been going, drinking and sharing, for a few hours more, but from that point on (and he text-messages her TWICE later on) I am pretty much baffled by what may or may not be going on. I mean, it’s great to be sharing a fun time and good stories and things in common with a new person from a new place, all that is great. But, I still feel like what the fucking fuck was going on? I mean, am I mixing up my signals here? So on her Friday night she wants to come out with me, she gets dolled up looking damn good and damn sexy for it, she brings TWO bottles of wine over to my place, has no interest in doing anything but being in my room with me drinking it and having a good time, and has a boyfriend? Yo, I KNOW that can all be nothing more than friendly, but come the fuck fuckin on, could you maybe be a bit more freakin direct about some part of it? Any part of it! Eeeeeeyyyyyya.

So I think, based on things that she said and the general climate (and the paranoid way that her dude kept messaging her) that she is not really certain about the relationship she’s in right now, and maybe her coming out with me was an experiment or something, and that’s all great, but it sucks being guinea-pigged on something like that. Because also it leaves me wondering all, “did I just turn her off somewhere, or did she have a relapse of love for her dude, or was it all not supposed to be a date, or whaaaaaaat the fuck?” So I have been moody about it since, and confused. I will probably see her again on Wednesday and hopefully she will be friendly and will say she had a great time, and maybe it will turn out that we get to be great friends, and that would be scoretastic. To tell the truth, I like the idea of being able to date and everything in this new environment in these new situations, but I’m mad not ready for anything more than just casual dating or friendliness; Robin and I are still hugely in love and hugely loving each other, and even where we’re not trying to carry through a strict long-distance relationship it still sure feels strange to be meddling in new intimacies that don’t involve her and I. Oy, the complications of love, and having it. Maybe though, this "date" went all for the best.

I mean, it's pretty great all by itself that I got a date. Feels ballsy and brave and good, and you know what, it was a very fun time. Really neat discovering that I can do that, I can get a hot girl’s number and bring her out and have a great time with her, make her laugh and feel pretty. I’d never been in that position so spontaneously before, and for all that I can be cocky about stuff like that it was still new and scary and exciting and fun, and weird. Boyfriend. That bastard, what the hell is he thinking? Well, anyway I got (probably) a new friend, a Glaswegian to boot, and had a fun time and drank like a gallon of wine in my room, legally and happily (and resourcefully figured out how corkscrews work; thank you spatial aptitude tests in 7th grade for making me not look like an idiot). Chris gave me great advice and peace of mind in an email, saying among other things, “dude, you're freaking out over one date.” And he’s right, it was just a date and a fun time, and probably I didn’t just scare her off like I’m thinking in my head, she probably had a good time too. So word. And things are still close and wonderful with Robin, and not as grey as they might be otherwise. And I love her, and that’s scorefreakintastic. And I had my first date ever, and it was with a Scottish lass. So for all that I’ve been bitching, hell, a fun night and good date. And I went out with a Scottish girl.