Catch and Release, Part I

No more than twenty minutes had gone by since I’d walked out of Whole Foods when my phone started ringing and an unfamiliar number popped up on the screen. My heart started racing – would he really call so fast? Sure enough it was him, and after making small talk, he came right out with it. “I’d really like to take you out for dinner or meet you for coffee some time this week. Would that be okay with you?”

Would that be okay with me? Heck YES that would be okay with me Mr. Buhgorgeousnesspants. “Yeah, sure. I think that sounds fun.”

We agreed to meet on Thursday afternoon for coffee near the mall. Good public place, lots of options, it seemed like a great plan. We set the time for 6:30 p.m., and I started counting down the days.

When Thursday finally came around, it was all I could do to think straight and get through the day. I was going on. a. date. A real, live, hey-do-you-wanna-go-out-with-me-sometime-and-I’ll-pay-for-it-because-I’m-a-man kind of date. I played out a hundred different “what-if” scenarios in my mind trying to prepare myself, and my emotions were all over the place. Nervous. Excited. Scared. A little gassy from the nervous and scared. Woozy. You name it, I felt it.

About 4:30, my phone rang (Jason). I figured he was just calling to confirm our plans. And he was, sort of. He was already at the mall. I get being punctual and all (actually, that’s a straight up lie – I’ve never been on time to anything in my life), but two hours seemed a little extreme. He said he’d needed to pick up a few things from the mall anyway, so he just figured he’d let me know he was already there, and if I got out of work early we could just meet sooner. I told him I didn’t really anticipate that happening but I’d let him know if something changed.

Sure enough, nothing changed.

About 5:30 I wrapped up and gave him a call to let him know I was on my way. “Oh,” he said. “Well, actually… (pause)… um, yeah I had this emergency. And… I had to leave. I have to go pick my Mom up.”

“You have to go pick your Mom up?”

“Yeah, it’s like this weird thing or whatever. I’m not really sure what’s happening. I’m sorry though, would you like to reschedule? What are you doing tomorrow night?”

“Well,” I thought about it for a second. Usually I kept my Friday nights open because it always seemed like something fun came up at the last minute. “Nothing I guess. I could do tomorrow night. Should I just call you when I’m leaving here?”

“Yeah, that would be perfect!”

It was settled. I’d call him on Friday after work, and we’d meet up then. I knew there was risk involved when I agreed to give him my number,” I reminded myself.

Well, Friday afternoon came before I knew it. I shut down my computer and packed my bag. And then I stared at my phone. This is the part where I was supposed to text him, but the more I thought about it, the more it didn’t feel right. He’d been so smooth when he picked me up with that line about my shoes. And he’d been at the mall two hours early yesterday with hundreds of beautiful women aimlessly roaming around. It started to seem a lot more likely to me that his “emergency” had something to do with one of them and not at all to do with his mother.

And even if it did… I’m no expert at the dating game, but isn’t there some rule about not being so readily available on Friday nights? That’s the best night of the week, and I’m just going to give it away to some guy who basically stood me up the night before? I didn’t really want to do that.

Just as I was sitting there trying to figure out what I’d text him, my friend Steph called. There was a blues dance downtown starting at 8.

Perfect. I knew exactly what to text him.

“Hey Jason, I totally forgot I’m going out blues dancing tonight. Let me know if you want to meet up some other time.”

I didn’t know it then, but there was somethingone even more fun than Jason in store for me that night.

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