Second date

I was just downstairs grooming, which is something I have not done for a date in many years.

Second dates are like that.

Here is how the first date went. I got off work, changed into running shorts, went to the gym and worked out for over an hour. I sweat, that's what I do. I went back upstairs, still kind of sweaty, changed back into my "work" clothes, still no shower, put my magic beanie on, and walked the the restaurant where I met my blind date.

In previous times of my life, a date, especially a first date, required all sorts of prep, because first dates are filled with promise, with a little mix of dread.

When I met the first real love of my life, she was leaning out her window, I caught her attention and she screamed out a date request. First time anyone had every screamed out a date request from a dorm room. Strangely enough, that same exact thing happened to me last week.

When I met the soap opera actor in Los Angeles, it was complete happenstance that we met, my car broke down, soap actor picked me up, got a little pissy that I did not recognize a well known soap opera actor and we spent the next year being anti-social. All very romantic.

I met my wife on a blind date. While that relationship crashed a burned, the meeting itself was possibly the most joyful in my life. We had been set up for a lunch date and I was supposed to meet her at her work place, ironically a cancer research facility in Seattle. As I waited in the lobby, scary nerds and unhealthy looking people kept flowing out of the ever opening elevators. Then, as I was watching all movement, the door opened and this beautiful woman walked out and in my mind i kicked myself, thinking that I never get set up on blind dates with beautiful people. Mostly at that point in my life my dates were a step away from homeless and years away from the last dentist visit.

Anyway, the beautiful woman that walked right past me ended up being my blind date, we met, married and for a few minutes, all was swell.

I met a couple of dates in unhealthy environments, which should have been warning enough, but addicts are always charming. Which reminds me, I got the funniest letter from a blog reader about her weak chinned husbands attempts to grow a beard to hide his weak chin. Her question was about male ego. I will get to that. When I met Sketchy the Addict for the first time, it was off a hook up site and we met solely for pleasure. Had I not been completely wasted when we met, I would have never continued on that destructive path. When we step back from failed relationships, everything seems so obvious. Actors are self involved, artists egos always come first (this I know from my own limits) and addicts are always sketchy.

Anyway, I think tonight is a second date and, as I said, for the first time in a long time, I was just downstairs prepping. It's 7 AM and I am prepping for a possible date, mostly possible because I work out after work, and my window of availability slams shut fairly quickly.

I am not big on putting out a false front on dates. That is, I don't generally do a lot of prep, no haircuts or anything, just because if this turns into something more, the last thing I want to be is one of those people who is amazing for the first month, but human after. I am nothing if not secure in my neurosis, at this point.