A Welcome Change From Past Disasters

Long-term readers of this site must surely by now have accepted the fact that when the words “coffee date” appear in a post they will be followed almost immediately by the words “disastrous”, “horrifying” or “bad enough that my soul tried to crawl out my opposite ear.” So awful had it been that I almost preferred to stay in that state of early relationship grace which exists where anything is possible and no one’s been pissed off. But hope springs, as it does, eternal, and in the fullness of time I succumbed to the desire to meet up with a new man.

This is a mistake I thought while dressing for the date. You should have left it at emails and phone calls I lectured myself in the restaurant, pretending to read while side-eyeing the parking lot. Why couldn’t you have been happy with the interesting conversations alone, which will surely be extinguished once you meet and realize he is a great big freak — or he decides the same about you?

It crossed my mind to scurry away but before I lost my nerve he arrived. An hour’s worth of face-to-face conversation showed him to be as attractive in every way as I’d expected and when at some point during the second hour he took my hand to make a point I wanted nothing more than for him to keep on holding it.

Where do we go from here? I have no idea, but frankly the future matters not nearly so much as my overwhelming joy¹ at getting through even one coffee date without wishing to Brillo off my skin.

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Programming Note: I’m still enjoying a little time off here, so expect posting to be light through the holidays.

1. and relief [↩]