Date Night

Hello loves. I hope you all had a great weekend.

Mine was very eventful!

As the title indicates, I had a date; my first in nearly four years.

It was with a lady (let's call her Carol) with whom I've been talking to for a few months now. We met through a mutual friend (who likes to play matchmaker with her single friends).

Initially, I believed that we would only amount to being friends. However, she has continued to message me and complain about how the men in her life have been treating her (she gets asked out constantly by men from all walks of life but they all seem to only want one thing).

Therefore, I decided to ask her out to show her how a "true gentleman" is supposed to act on a date (since I'm genderfluid, I put true gentleman in quotation marks lol).

She knows about me being pan and genderfluid. I was open and honest about that from the very beginning. She always says how refreshing it is how open about myself I am around her. While I wouldn't be so open around everyone, our mutual friend assured me that Carol would be accepting of me and I felt no need to draw things out with confiding in her.

Without going into too many details on Carol, I will say that she's a very lovely person. A little rough around the edges but that's honestly a great quality of hers. She is tough because life has made her that way. She doesn't put up with nonsense and isn't afraid to let you know exactly how she feels. This is very appealing to me because the greatest quality of other people is their honesty. Too many people can't just tell you their true feelings and that's a major irritant of mine.

She has four kids that are all nearly grown. I've met her one son, who seems nice (quiet and reserved but polite). They all seem very interested in the arts. Whether music or art, their whole family seems active in them. Carol always talks about going out to sing or dance whenever she can.

As for the date, it was my standard first date menu: dinner and a movie. We ate at a Ruby Tuesday (she'd never been to one) and opened up more to each other. We then went to see the new movie Caught Stealing (crazy but fun movie). Carol had never been to our local theater and was super impressed by their comfy, reclining seats. 

Once the movie ended I took her home. I think it put her mind at ease whenever I told her that I didn't expect anything extra after the date was over. For one thing, she was irritated that men would take her out and immediately expect sex. I don't believe in going that far on a first date, so she was safe in that regard.

I messaged her later to let her know I'd made it home. She mentioned in her reply how she had a great time and how sweet of a person she thinks I am.

Where we go from here is up for debate. Neither of us is in any rush, so there's no pressure to take things to a major level so soon. I will say that this was a major issue with my marriage and why it failed: we went too strongly too fast. We moved in, got engaged and got married before we really tried to get to know each other.

Since Carol and I have gone through a divorce and are much more experienced with dates and relationships, we know what we want and to take our time. She said it perfectly: "we can stick together until we find our people." Pressure's off unless we continue to click and make it to the next level. I told her that it works for me.

People I've told about the date seem happy for me. My coworkers told me to keep my guard up. I told them "my guard's always up because I don't trust anybody completely." I got an amen from both of them.

I also told Griffin, my crush, about it. His response was interesting and left me with plenty of questions.

But I'll talk about that tomorrow.