It's OK to fail...

Kids, I'm really good at giving good advice. Friends listen to me, or they ignore me and later tell me they should have listened to me. But I do a pretty lousy job of listening to my own advice.

I recently was trying to convince a friend who has been looking for a job that it's OK to interview for a job that you might get offered, even if it's almost a certainty that you wouldn't take the job if you did get the offer. My rationale being that it's not at all expected that you'll take it, or that the job is a perfect fit, but that shouldn't stop you from finding out more about the job in the process.

Of course, being the philosophical muser that I am, I immediately apply this same line of reasoning to dating, and think it's complete and utter bullshit. Admittedly, the two situations are far from identical, and in the dating world you have a lot more personal feelings to be concerned about. But on the other hand, isn't that what dating is all about?

If you knew the person you were dating was the perfect person, there wouldn't be a point in dating... you could just skip right ahead to the rest of your life and happily ever after, knowing confidently that it would work out forever. Reality of course states that it's never that simple.

I think part of my problem is that I'm scarred from past relationships, and the overwhelmingly common situation of me having to be the heartbreaker rather than the heartbroken. It's so much easier to give up early on, before things get too serious, than later on when stronger feelings are at stake. But as a result, I almost have this innate fear of being put in that situation, so I shy away from relationships that could potentially work out really well.

I still wouldn't date someone knowing it wasn't going to work out... but I need to get over giving up just because I'm unsure... because who isn't?

This is the fun part...

Kids, they say the fun part of dating is that feeling you get when you meet someone new for the first time... the excitement of waiting for the next time you see her... and that constant nagging in the pit of your stomach. Is she really the right person for me? How does she feel about me? Could this possibly work out?

So I met her again today... outside of her day job she's an actress who does community theater, and we went to a play that some of her friends were performing in. It actually was really good, I would have enjoyed it whether she was there or not... but I enjoyed it more with her there, of course. Afterwards we went out to dinner and had a good time chatting about this, that and everything else under the sun.

I think the true test of how you feel about someone requires you to get over that initial excitement and see how your feelings are after that. It's so easy to be like "oh yeah, she's the one!" when you first meet, then you come down off your high and reality sets in and you go "what was I thinking? She's OK, but not all that." Fortunately, I didn't reach that dramatic low. I've definitely lost a little of that high I had after the first date, but that's to be expected, I think. She's still pretty impressive to me. I think things are going well at this point, but it's hard to tell just after two dates.

Of course, history being a good indicator for me, if I reach the third date with someone, there's definitely some quality there. I have almost always given up if I don't find any chemistry at all by the 2nd date, it's just not worth it.

No plans for a third date yet, but we preliminarily had discussed Thursday night. I think she's still interested, but haven't discussed again after today. I can't say I wouldn't be disappointed if I didn't see her again, nor that I can decrypt what I just said considering how many negatives were in it. Still hoping something good can come of this. If nothing else, I can say it's at least the most exciting my life's been in several months, and that's worth something.

This is the fun part? It really is, but the funny thing is you never really realize it until after it's over.

Fear of the unknown...

Kids, it's funny how much you want something to happen, then when it actually does happen you aren't quite sure what to do. I recently met somebody. Not sure if she's "the" somebody, but she's certainly "a" somebody.

Now, normally I don't write much here about the dates I go on, simply because they are either so unmemorable they aren't worth mentioning, or they just don't lead anywhere so they still aren't worth mentioning. But the other night I met someone for dinner, and she was charming. I met her online, and had gotten to know her a bit in the few days leading up to it, but then meeting her in person she was, dare I say, exactly like the person I thought she was.

Let me digress a bit to explain... I've had bad luck with meeting people online. In the vast majority of the cases, people don't turn out to be the same person in real life that they represented themselves to be online. I don't think a great many people intentionally mis-represent themselves, but I think a lot has to do with the fact that so few people are mature and know who they really are, rather than the person they think they are or want to be.

I've found that I'm most attracted to someone who is very comfortable with herself. I don't care if you're a supermodel, a genius, or a girl from the other side of the tracks... be who you are.

So back to the date... I wasn't certain at the time if the chemistry was really there. You never really know when you meet someone you originally met online for the first time. But for some reason this time was markedly different from all the other times. We really seemed to hit it off, and oddly enough, I didn't expect it. I thought it would be a nice evening, then we'd go our separate ways and figure it wasn't meant to be. And now ever since I haven't been able to get her out of my mind. I haven't felt quite this same way about someone in a very long time.

Yet I still doubt if it's right. We'll meet up again hopefully this weekend, and see how spending more time together goes. She's nice, cute, cares about other people, a UW grad (hey, never hurts), and is just fun to talk to and get to know. I can work with that.

More to come... maybe... :)