A Nerd Like Me

I recently had a couple dates with a half-way decent guy.

His profile stated that he was always a gentleman and someone with a sense of class. As Madonna would sing in Sorry, I heard it all before. But something in his pose seemed to say that he may be for real. Of course plenty have done a great impersonation of a good guy. But since I still haven't been totally jaded by men (despite their best efforts), I thought I'd give this one a ride.

It wasn't long after our initial exchange that Aviation and I exchanged numbers. I quickly learned that Aviation was a southern gentleman that was currently a flight attendant for a major airline. He spoke with a heavy southern accent and sounded a bit dorky. Yet something about him was endearing.

Aviation mentioned that he had a bad habit of starting relationships with "needy" folks. He told me how one of his dates started with the guy asking to borrow some money. His last significant ex, who he said he legally married and divorced (wow), almost put him in bankruptcy with his obsession with living the fine life. His ex had to have the latest designer clothes and also styled Aviation, who himself is more of a jeans & t-shirt type of guy. It had gotten to the point that they were unable to pay for basic necessities because of this. Crazy!

So Aviation was immediately attracted to me because he perceived that I was a guy that can hold his own. Someone that wouldn't need to be bailed out of bad situations. In a lot of ways, I'm a bit dorky myself. So could two dorks make things work out? *LOL*

We decided to meet at a halfway point between our houses for our first date. That half-way point happened to be Oakbrook Center. With many choices in fine dining, we agreed to meet at Cheesecake Factory. My last time at CF was during my company's holiday lunch last December. We agreed to meet around 4:30 for a late lunch. Things didn't quite work out that way. I got there at about 4:20 because I was off work that day. But Aviation called me while I was slowly inching my way through the bitchy traffic, telling me that he would be a little bit late because he was getting his A/C fixed at his place. (That reminds me I need to take care of mine before the end of summer...*LOL*)

He wound up getting there at 6:45. Since I was at the mall, I killed time window shopping and actually buying some shirts at Eddie Bauer. I was very hungry, though, so I was desperately hoping for a food court. Unfortunately there didn't appear to be one. At around 6PM, I moseyed towards CF, thinking that Aviation would arrive around that time, but he was stuck in traffic. I decided to make a reservation in my name, telling the hostess that my "friend" should be arriving shortly. To kill some time, I called Eugene. After twenty minutes with Eugene and another update from Aviation, I decided to go towards the bar. I had one glass of Merlot. I was feeling the effects of the Merlot right away since I hadn't eaten much that day so needless to say I was feeling loopy. But I had enough self-awareness that I'm not loopy if I'm around strangers. I guess I needed one more...*LOL*.

I get a phone call from Aviation saying that he's in the mall. So after finally pinning the bartender again (it took me ten minutes to get an order from her), I paid for my drink and headed back towards the lobby area of the restaurant.

Maybe five minutes after that, Aviation walked in. I think it was mostly the wine but I was really happy to see him and instantly recognized him. I walked up to the hostess and told her that I assumed the reservation I made almost an hour earlier was gone. But she told me no as she handed me the CF pager, telling me that it should ring momentarily. It did within two minutes so we were ushered to our table/booth. I found myself having to focus on my walking to keep from falling. (Imagine if I had two Merlots...*LOL*)

So I'm sitting there laughing at Aviation's corny jokes and just laughing for no reason. Aviation does have the gift of gab as he talked on and on about his family, friends, and job.

Focusing on the food for a moment...*LOL*...One thing that disappointed me about CF was their buffalo wings. I remember years back (I'm talking 1995/96 so wayyyyyyyy back) that they used to be so good. They were big and juicy and almost was a meal in itself. I ordered them with their buffalo sauce and they come out with these tiny, dry, drenched with too much buffalo sauce wings. Normally I rarely bitch about the food I receive, even if it doesn't turn out to be what I expected. Avaition agreed and we told them to take the wings back. The waitress said she'd give us a new batch. She bought them back and we could tell they just drenched them up more. So we took those back and scratched our order of that and got some calamari, which was okay. I was disappointed that the wings weren't the same as I remembered.

But Hemingway Aviation and I concluded after our dinner date, that we would like to see each other again. That date was on August 3rd. Since then, we've kept in contact every now and then to see how things are going.

We even discussed going on a trip together next month for him to see some property in White Bluff, TX. He got the info based on some infomercial that Erik Estrada (he used to be so hot in the 80s) was in. Aviation just wants to go for the free trip and hotel stay. I have to be careful with this because I don't want to fall into the trap of having sex with him so soon (especially since we're staying in the same room). Historically time and time again, whenever I've given myself up to a guy, I never see them again. I don't know...maybe I suck at sex...*LOL*. But every single time, I doubt it.

I want to spend time getting to know other aspects of Aviation before doing that step...for once. He has also said that he wants me to decide when that moment is right so that's cool.

I also told him that before we go to each other's places (where no sex will occur immediately ... maybe a little mack session...but that's it...*LOL*), that we should go out in public at least three times.

On that note, our second date was this past Wednesday. We decided to also do it at Oakbrook Center again, this time opting for Wildfire. The second date was cool, though it felt a bit different since I was more sober. The way Aviation was talking, I kept getting the sense that he wanted us to have a future together but it just seemed too fast for me. When I called him on it, he stated that he was just talking in general. He really got into talking about designing his new home and then having his partner (a word he repeated often) pick out the colors all the while looking at me. Maybe I'm overly sensitive...*LOL*.

Hemingway so that date ended okay. I like Wildfire but you definitely get the sense that they're trying to rush you out of the restaurant, which got a bit annoying.

We haven't kissed or anything on either of those dates. We haven't planned a third date but I'm hoping it'll be something we can do during the day, like on a weekend. The main obstacle to this is since he works as a flight attendant, his weekends are usually spent working. And when he's off during the week for a few days, I'm working. I think he may have a free weekend coming up soon, so I definitely hope we can talke advantage of that and go on a breakfast or lunch date, maybe even do some indoor activity (that's not sex...*LOL*).

I'm cautiously optimistic and am treating this like I would a job interview. I'll keep you posted.