Oh right, dating's weird and I'm bad at it

So, dating. Specifically first dates. That’s a thing that happens. Should be the simplest thing in the world, really. Go out with a person who has expressed an interest in you and in whom you’ve also felt an interest. Eat something (probably.) Talk to each other (more than likely.) Get an idea of who this person you’re with is, and whether you want to get back together some time in the future for more of the same. Simple, clean, easy. Shouldn’t be anything to worry about, right?

Well, you’d think so.

(Fair warning up front, this is one of those “just spill the guts onto the page and hope it's not too embarrassing later” type posts.)

This one was kind of starting off running uphill anyway, for reasons She explained here. Magoo had blundered again, only this time his light-hearted myopic antics had managed to hurt his wife in the process. Not a lot, mind you, and not enough that we couldn’t talk to each other about it and patch things up later. But still, for someone who had a handful of reservations to begin with and now realized he had managed to cross a line without even having gone on a date yet...not a great start. And then of course there’s the fact that I’m a complete knob when I’m nervous. In the Thomas Harris world, Hannibal Lecter is described as wearing “an immaculately tailored person suit.” I’m not a serial killer (as far as you’re concerned,) but sometimes I feel that way when I’m in a social engagement. The only difference is that Hannibal’s suit is to cover up the homicidal maniac/inhuman monster/possibly the devil that is hiding underneath his skin, and mine is to cover up how painfully introverted I am. I am the embodiment of the metaphorical “duck-on-water,” gliding along through the conversation free and easy with no hint of the frantic kicking that’s going on beneath the surface just to keep the whole thing afloat. Often, when I get done with one of these soirees, I come home so exhausted that I can barely muster the effort to put complete sentences together. So I knew ahead of time that this was going to take some effort on my part.

"Rose," as we're calling her here, makes this part much easier. Part of what had been interesting with her was simply how easily we clicked with each other once we started chatting online. Normally when I meet someone through online dating, I try to say something about their interests in the opening message. With Rose I tried something different, starting out flirty and going from there. To my shock, this had actually been successful rather than receiving the non-response that most messages earn. It helped that she was genuinely interesting and interested in me, which always makes things move smoother. After only a couple of days, I was shocked to see that our number of messages back and forth had climbed into triple digits. It seemed stupid not to ask to meet up somewhere in person at that point, but I did ask my wife first rather than cut her out of the loop. Once things got the green light, I contacted Rose and the date was set: dinner at a restaurant close to her town (she lives about an hour away.)

So we had some conversational chemistry, but for an anxious fellow like me you can imagine what a first date is like. You’re trying to be engaged with every word they say. You’re trying to not let your attention drift to the colorful chalkboard of local microbrews printed on the wall or the TV with the football game in the corner. You haven’t mastered the rhythm of conversation with this new person, so you step on each other’s sentences and interject in the middle of a story because you thought they were done speaking. And, of course, you’re trying to put your best foot forward the whole time so maybe this person will want to see you again (and maybe see more OF you at some point in the future.) It’s sort of like a three-hour long job interview, really, where you don't know the job requirements beforehand and no one validates your parking at the end.

Ok, I’m getting negative. If it was that bad, no one would date. I went into this looking for interesting people, and everything beyond that point was a bonus. And “Rose” is definitely interesting. It also sounds like I had a bad time. I didn’t. The conversation flowed pretty freely between us despite how I'm making it sound. We talked about our jobs, our families, what it's like for her to manage her own BDSM dungeon out of her living room.

You know, first date stuff.

She and I chatted for about 3 hours without my even really noticing the passing of time. That kind of ended up being the other problem, as I was supposed to be checking in with my wife via text during the date. That's something we learned from a meeting of a local poly group. It really does help your partner to know that, while you're out having fun without them, at least you're still thinking about them. I was picking up the phone to do so as I was in the car waiting for the date to begin, but looked up as Rose was pulling into the spot next to me and forgot. The next time I took the phone out, the damn battery had died and I had to borrow a charger to hurriedly send a message apologizing for being such an absent-minded dick. Which, of course, added another sour note to the evening.

And then, of course, there was the end of the date. Christ. If you’ve seen an awkward teen romantic comedy you can probably figure out where this is going to end up. “Hey, I had a good time tonight.” “So did I! Thanks for coming out with me!” She reaches for a hug aaaand….like an asshole I go for the awkward kiss.

Yeah, kinda like that.

Now, I don’t think it was awkward because she wasn’t into it. Or, fuck, at least I hope not. I think I just caught her flat footed. This maybe shouldn't have come as a surprise since, as my wife put it to me later, “That’s sort of your move, isn’t it?” Very helpful, but not entirely wrong.

Anyway, mortified, I jumped in the car to drive home after a vague "We should do something again soon," giving the wife a call to make sure she  knew I wasn’t A) Dead in a ditch or B) Heading to Rose’s dungeon. I can hear that I screwed up in her "Yeah, I was starting to get a little worried" response, and I feel like a jerk. I have to pee all of a sudden, and have to stop in a gas station to do so. I take the wrong exit to head home. I do everything else that I can wrong, because I’m an idiot and everything is bad and ohgodohgodwhydidIeverdothis?

Just kill me now.

*deep breath* Ok, got that out. I feel better now.

Really, I swear the date wasn’t that bad. It’s just a matter of my not having been on one in several years and not being terribly good at them even before the hiatus. Rose and I had a good time. The problem is that, as a generally anxious person anyways, the one thing that goes wrong will always color the rest of the experience for me. I went on a fun vacation to San Francisco several years ago when my wife and I were first dating, and I don’t like San Francisco to this day because of a fight my Dad and I had one night while we were there. One argument, and a whole vacation through wine country and one of the coolest cities in the world turns sour. Likewise, if a date ends on an awkward note, the whole experience subsequently feels weird to me and I spend the rest of the car ride home convincing myself I'll never hear from Rose again and maybe, just maybe, this whole open marriage thing was a really terrible idea in the first place. 

I know, I know. Chill out Spaz.

I was more or less laying this out to Her on the porch an hour or so later after I got home, feeling generally like crap, when my text alert went off. Rose had sent me a message to say that she had a nice time. Going by the policy “If you’re afraid to say something to someone in a relationship, you need to say it now,” I went ahead and apologized for the awkward kiss. Rose said I was fine, and not to worry about it. I wasn’t sure if she was just being nice, but the next day I got another message spontaneously from her to start up another chat, and I finally let myself believe it was really ok. I was being too hard on myself, as usual, and we really were going to try and meet up sometime in the future to do something again. Maybe even a double date with our spouses.

I’ve struggled with what to write about this since then. Is there a lesson here? Sure, don’t be such a spastic jerk, but does that help anybody besides me? I guess a lifetime of sitcoms have taught me that I can't be the only one who locks up on a first date, so I decided to just go ahead and put it out there, despite the embarrassment. So, give yourself a break, new-and-old poly people. If someone meets you for a date its probably because they want to be there with you, and you’re not going to blow it in one weird moment. Also, I need to remember to charge my damn phone and, at the very least, text my wife at the start of any future dates. So maybe, overall, the thing to keep in mind is that there’s something to be said for knowing your own failings and making plans ahead of time to compensate for them. Maybe that’d be a good thing for me to keep in mind for the whole process, come to think of it.