Horse Shoes

Okay back to the important stuff of datingridiculousness. Here’s the first of many status reports:

THE OLDER GUY:
Date #2 last night. It was super nice. Average restaurant, average bar, a little trepidation on his part (maybe on mine too, I can’t quite decide) and a little awkwardness looking for things to talk about at first since we don’t know each other well. And then it just clicked. This time we were drinking but last time we weren’t so I’m not chalking the ease of conversation up to booze. Last time it started a little slow too but then turned into 4 hours. Same thing this time. He was a total gentleman, which in this case included NOT walking me to my car. This was the gentleman’s high road in this situation because we both want to take things very slow, and we were at a hotel, and we would have had to walk a while to get to my car so being in a far-away parking lot at 1am would leave awkwardness or opportunity, and nothing else. We wanted neither.

The bad news: he’s still moving.

The good news: it’s only temporary as it turns out, until someone retires at his workplace and they have the open position they were anticipating for him. Also, his daughter still lives here anyway and he’ll be back and forth to see her at least every two weeks. I don’t have much time to begin with and it’s taken us the better part of two weeks to get to Date #2 anyway, so nothing’s really lost here.

A funny story came of the date, though. He’s moving today, and all his stuff was packed yesterday so he stayed in a hotel last night. I told him to get sorted out and let me know where he wanted me to meet him for dinner, somewhere nearby where he was staying. This was my tactful way of saying “I’m not meeting you in your hotel room.” He didn’t quite catch on, though. I didn’t want to make it a big deal, and I feel totally safe with him or I wouldn’t be going out with him in the first place, but I’ve never met a man in a hotel room before and I don’t intend to start now, so when he mentioned that I could just meet him at his room so I would have some time flexibility after my shift at work, which I understand was him (mostly) trying to be considerate, if a little clueless, I told him, “I’m not wearing my whore shoes, so I’ll just meet you at the restaurant.”

He thought I said horseshoes and couldn’t figure out what I was talking about. At the same time, I decided that my whore shoes comment was utterly inappropriate so I let him be confused and didn’t explain myself. I figured he’d forget it. He’d been moving all day and it seemed like a little thing like that would slip from his mind fast once we changed the subject.

He’s a Leo, a fixed sign that doesn't forget stuff. I should have known I wasn't off the hook.

When I got to the restaurant, he asked me about the horseshoes. I explained and he found my original comment wicked funny, but the cat was assuredly out of the bag. At this point I worried that the whole night would regress into some sex talk debacle, but it actually worked out really well because it acted as a release for any sexual tension building up while being completely understood that since I didn’t wear my “horseshoes”, we couldn’t possibly proceed any way but chastely. It also sets up a great precedent for future dates, since unless I tell him I have on my horseshoes, I’m totally out of the woods on the sexual pressure front.

I didn’t even know I was this strategic. I’ll likely use this tactic on other people since it worked out so well the first time.

For the record, I think this is the first time I’ve been out with someone twice and not so much as kissed him. Well, maybe he’s the third person in that category, but he’s the first person I liked.