If 2022 was the year of misfortune for me, 2023 could be the year of missteps if I’m not careful. It may be unsettling to some to learn that I’ve been on a handful of dates this year. For the most part, they were surprisingly easy. Whether I did them “right” or not doesn’t matter. At least it doesn’t so long as no one felt slighted. I hope no one has. This is a good reminder to be mindful of this sort of thing in the event I go on another date at some point.
I thought the hardest part would be the getting-out-there part. I was wrong. The hardest part was understanding when something was platonic and when it wasn’t. And I mean that from my perspective. What was I looking for?
On one date, I had dinner with a nice woman who was a joy to talk to. We didn’t talk about anything of consequence that I recall. That was refreshing after months and months of mostly heavy conversation. It felt good to talk about things that don’t really matter for a little while. We just had a pleasant evening and she had the kind of eyes that are easy to look into and I found myself paying close attention to her lips when she spoke.
I found myself paying close attention to her lips when she spoke.
I’d be lying if I said I got butterflies or any of the other clichĂ©s surrounding stories such as this. Not that I was looking for that sort of chemistry in the first place. I think on some level, I was seeing if I could even do this sort of thing again. But I would also be lying if I said that the embrace we shared after dinner didn’t feel great. It felt good to be held. It felt good to hold. It’s unfair at this point in the game to speculate as to whether it was the holding that drove the good feelings or who it was doing the holding and being held.
It’s doubtful that we’ll see each other again and that’s okay. I had a good time with her. I think I was still working on how to live after death—I guess in some ways, I always will be—and maybe she picked up on that. If she did, she didn’t let on. As I said, she was kind for the brief time that I knew her. I did my best to be a gentleman who left his griefcase back at the house.
Lately, I think I’ve unpacked that thing and dealt with most of its contents. After all, grief, like love, matures. It may never die, but it also won’t always drive you to do irrational things. We integrate it and it becomes who we are. With any luck, we continue to be someone people enjoy being around.
