As you may have gathered from the little preview I gave you in my first blog entry (DF and I are now engaged, living together, and co-parenting his daughter), we DID end up seeing each other again after that night despite the fact that I had no interest in pursuing a relationship of any kind. We had a really good time the night we met, I had a blast hanging out with him, and I thought he would be a fun person to maybe spend some additional time with in the future – end of expectation. I was very happy when I got a text from DF a few days later saying how much he had enjoyed meeting me and that he hoped I was having a good week, and a couple of days after that he called and we scheduled our first "official date” for the following weekend when his daughter would be back with BM.

I have to say I was really impressed with how DF operated right from the beginning. I had dated a number of people (nothing serious) between divorcing my first husband and hooking up with the dreaded ex boyfriend a few years later, and in that time I developed a number of “pet peeves” when it came to what I considered to be casual dating, the biggest one being guys who started calling / texting / emailing obsessively as soon as I gave them my contact information. I cannot tell you how many times I would meet someone, think they were interesting, give them my number, and then within minutes of walking away would receive a text message from them that said something to the effect of “I miss you already……”. I truly wish that were an exaggeration, but it ACTUALLY HAPPENED (more than once), and that particular guy then couldn’t understand why I never responded to the text and never answered his calls after that. He was apparently just heartbroken by the loss of me and all that could have been after that brief five minute introduction made by a mutual friend. Another guy (also an attempted fix up through another mutual friend) told me that he loved me at the end of our THIRD phone conversation, and we had never even met in person at that point. Nor DID we ever meet after that, because once he spit out THAT little ball of fire not only did I stop speaking to him but I also stopped speaking to the mutual friend who thought it was a good idea to give the wackjob my number in the first place. Now I realize that I’m pretty spectacular and all (haha!), but I’m also reasonably intelligent enough to know that if a guy is laying that crap on THAT fast they are either desperate to get laid and not smart enough to realize that I’m not that girl, OR they are trying to cover up the fact that they are a complete loser / idiot / lunatic / some combination thereof. Either way it’s pathetic, it’s unattractive, and it has NEVER worked on me. End rant.

The way DF handled things, on the other hand, was perfect. He contacted me soon enough after we met to let me know that he was interested (within a few days), but not so soon that he appeared needy, clingy, or otherwise nuts. He followed up a couple of days later with a nice phone conversation and proceeded to initiate plans with me for the following WEEK. This told me that he had a life of his own, he understood that I did as well, AND that he didn’t expect me to drop everything to get together with him RIGHT NOW, which happened to be another “dating pet peeve” as far as I was concerned. Several days later I heard from him again (another nice, casual, simple conversation) when he called just to chat and also to confirm that we were still on for the weekend. I have to admit that at this point I was starting to like DF more and more, and was REALLY looking forward to our first date. It wasn’t until several months later that DF confessed to me just how much effort actually went into the planning and execution of those first few conversations, because one of the friends that I was with the night we met had secretly advised him that I scared easily and would bolt if he didn’t proceed with caution. By the time the truth came out it was too late…… I was already smitten!!!