The dinner date.
I called Joyce on Monday and we made a date for dinner at Elements for Wednesday evening. I was very happy and looked forward to seeing her again. By noon on Wednesday I was very anxious again. [I now have thought more about this feeling and I believe it to be a combination of excitement and fear. Excitement because I am in fact very excited about knowing Joyce and hopeful that overtime we both grow to care very much for each other. And fear because I worry that I don’t have the skills to make it work having never been in a relationship like this! Further, even though this feeling is very intense at times it disappears as soon as I am with her and is replaced by feelings of calm and the easy conversation.
On the way home from the office on Wednesday I did call Ruth to talk to her about Joyce and asked her for suggestions as to how to approach my inexperience. Ruth laughed at my uncertainty and recalled her own adult dating experiences. In the end I decide that I would tell Joyce that I not dated (I thought she probably had figured that out) and my concern that I was kind of a bumbler in the dating and romance area.
We met for dinner and I had the best time. We talked a long time before we even read the menu and then we talked after the meal and finally we drove up to my house and we continued talking until 10:30. It was the most enjoyable four and one-half hours I can recall. We talked about lots of things about our lives and our thoughts.
Through the evening I told her that I had not dated like this ever and that I had only recently started to consider that I might be ready to meet someone and begin dating. And then I met her! She said that she had, in the spring, decided to look for someone to date based on meeting him through her friends and that she considered not going to Alisa’s party but she did. And she was glad. She told me that she thinks I am easy to talk to (making me feel good) and she enjoys me to.
After the discussions I feel like Joyce and I almost certainly will become good friends and it that was what it came to I would value her friendship very much. She is smart, interesting, dynamic and very pretty and she fun to be with. Even more I think there is a fair chance that we can become more than friends. I don’t really have any particular expectation but a general feeling that I would like that very much. Although both of us left this unstated I imagine that we share similar thoughts.
I have urges to spend more time with her but between my schedule and hers that is not realistic and probably not a good idea anyway. I was attracted to her in large measure because she has a busy and active life and was not looking for someone to take care of her or to take over her life. And the converse is also true, I think I want her in my life but I don’t want to make her (or anyone else) the focus of my life right now. So I think (hope) we will be able to carve our a fair bit of time to be together and then see where it take us.
All in all I am very pleased with the possibilities.
