Have I mentioned how much I hate dating?
I don't do dating.
I do, however, go for randomly meeting, talking all night, only leaving each others side to go to work, school, and the bathroom, falling in love within a couple of weeks, and living happily ever after.
That works for me.
Okay, I guess it's not fair to say I hate dating when I've never really dated.
I hate the process of looking for dates. Ugh!
As I was showing a curious friend my online dating account, showing her the guys on there (i.e. how about only half of them can spell ... not that I'm perfect, but my errors are typos, not blatant, incessant, misspellings), I happened upon this profile that keeps popping up. The website really wants us to get together.
Do y'all know where this is going?
I look at it. I think, "Well, he's kind of cute. He can spell. He seems pretty cool. Oh, and he rescues cats! And loves God. Alright, we'll see what happens." So, I start emailing him. I hate this part, where I have to be the one to initiate whatever. Guys out there: please don't be shy. You're supposed to do the pursuing. I'm just Southern like that.
I get towards the end of my email. Then ... do you know where this is going?
You do if you guess I start having dating flashbacks from a little over nine years ago. I had just turned eighteen. Some guy started chatting with me on AOL. He seemed pretty cool, so I went along with it. He wasn't a perv or anything, and we chatted for a while before he asked for my number. He even knew a classmate of mine, so it wasn't totally creepy. We eventually talked on the phone and he asked me out. This would have been my first date date.
Would have being the operative words.
He canceled on me. I don't know if it was my suggesting if there were still tornadoes in the area by the time for our date, I would rather cancel. I don't know if it was the age difference then (there's a big difference between 18 and 23 or whatever age he was then, not so much between 27 and 30-something). I don't know if he just decided he didn't like me. I never heard from him again.
No big deal. I don't care what his reasons were then. I don't really care if he emails me back, but I would like him to so I can confirm if I have actually experienced dating deja vu. So, yes, I do care if he emails me back. I HAVE to know if it's the same person. (Even though I am 90% convinced it is.)
I took a really close look at his profile. He was about the right age. Some of the things on his profile matched what I knew about him back then. (Gotta love my inner-Bones!) And as I looked through the pictures, in which there were LOTS, I became fairly certain he was the same person.
And, yes, in the email I brought up the possibility he was the same guy from years ago. It was kind of hard not giving away too much information in case he wasn't and still giving enough information to jog his memory if he was.
I'm a very forgiving person. It was also a long time ago. I'm all grown up now. Same nice person, but much more mature. (Not that I wasn't mature then, I just understand the world a little better now. That's the nice way of saying I'm cynical and jaded.) Let me be honest: I was a MESS back then. As in Cold Mountain when Ruby Thewes tells Aida Monroe of her being a catastrophe back in her school days. Yes, I was a near catastrophe. And I didn't get to be near normal until I got this thing called a boyfriend. I don't know how much, or little, it had to do with having a boyfriend, but I recall things settling down a good bit when The ex-Boyfriend came around.
