Happy Writing

There's a reason why most great writers were miserable human beings, and at least if we're speaking about Great American Literature, why most great writing is pretty damn depressing.  It's really hard to write well about happy things.  In fact, I remember listening to an NPR interview earlier this fall with a songwriter who said that in order to ready himself to compose a song, he has to first settle into a melancholic mood.  For most people, writing usually comes from a place of confusion, sadness, or anger.  The same is true for me.  A couple of days ago, I tried to write a blog post about my date on Friday (which went pretty well, as you might be able to infer), and the sentences that came out of my fingers were terrible.  Juvenile at best.  Literally, I feel like a twelve year old girl when I try to write about something great that happened to me, especially when it's related to the male species.

Dear diary,

Today a boy held my hand.  Eek!  I wonder if this means he'll kiss me soon.  Maybe I should practice on my mirror, like my older sister told me to.

Just kidding, he already kissed me.  Also, I have no older sister.  And as the oldest sister, I would never encourage using a mirror for that sort of thing.  I would recommend the back of your hand, right behind the webbing between your thumb and index finger.  It's warmer and also more life-like.  Personally, though, I prefer to practice on men.

As I said before, the date on Friday with "Jack" went really well.  The movie was weird, but good fodder for conversation later on, and when we went out to Finns afterwards to get a drink and talk more, we ran into some of his friends.  This gave me a significantly better sense of him as a person and as a date.  Not only did he not ignore me in favor of his friends (100 points), he also didn't turn into a douche bag trying to show off how manly he is (1000 points).  In fact, he sat beside me the whole time and told me interesting and vulnerable stories about why he became a vegetarian and how he got into Tibetan meditation.  For all of you who have met any guys I've ever been out with, this is very unlike my usual type, which I consider to be a good thing, since I tend to go for flakes and douchebags.

Yesterday he called me (again, on the phone!), and we talked for a little while about dried tears and coconut oil (long story) before settling on Cafe Minh as our lunch date locale for today.  Before hanging up, we pretended to set a time earlier than the actual meeting time (him: 12:00, me: 12:13) so that neither of us would be late.

I got there at 12:21.  In my defense, I didn't realize that parking on Canal Street in Mid City is so hard, and so despite arriving to the general location on time, I had to drive around a while in order to find an open space.  Nonetheless, I felt terrible.  When I got into the restaurant, he was in the bathroom, and I had to wait.  Serves me right.

Lunch was really delicious (I got a pork Banh Mi sandwich.  He got some tofu thing), and afterwards, we took a walk down the street, which led us to the cemeteries and mausoleum at the end of Canal.  Which I'd never been to despite my twenty plus years in New Orleans.  He hadn't either.

Don't worry, we didn't make out in the cemeteries.  We thought about it, and then we decided that in addition to likely being disrespectful to the dead, it was probably bad luck.  So we just walked around and talked.

He did hold my hand at one point, which I was pleasantly surprised by because it was only our third date.  While sex on the third date seems to be a common landmark in American relations (didn't happen), for a lot of people, hand-holding doesn't become part of the equation for a while.  It's kind of an intimate gesture, I guess.  Anyway, he reached for my hand early on, and then later, I initiated more hand-holding.  Our hands were kind of sweaty both times, but we held on anyway.  Maybe when we're less nervous around each other, our hands will be less sweaty.  Or maybe we'll start wearing gloves.

A little while after we parted, he texted me to thank me for lunch (I paid this time because I'm weird about the whole who-pays thing).  I vacillated on how to respond in a way that (a) was cool and casual, (b) indicated that I wanted to see him when he was off next, and (c) was cool and casual.  I settled for a text sandwich, following the very format I just described.  So I typed:

You're welcome!  Maybe we can hang out on Friday, if you're not busy.  Have a great time with your family tomorrow!

And then I died a small death because I am insecure enough that I assume men have other, better things to do than hang out with me, and am therefore terrified to put myself out there.

A couple of days ago, my roommate and I went out to breakfast/lunch together on a whim (it was lunch time but we ate breakfast food), and during our conversation over omelets and crawfish, we ended up talking about a website called Barking Up the Wrong Tree (bakadesuyo.com), which has science-based posts about a wide variety of things.  Upon returning home, I found the website and read their article on flirting.  It states that eye contact, smiling, and touching are the three most effective tools for flirtation, and that you have to go out of your way to make eye contact or smile for a longer period of time than for many of us is normally comfortable.  In other words, you have to be kind of obvious when you flirt.  This is, obviously, why I am a terrible flirt.  I make eye contact and hope that the other person will look at the same time.  But on the rare occasion that they actually do, I tend to look away quickly before my cheeks turn a solid shade of pink.  The problem with being obvious about flirting is that you're obviously flirting and therefore obviously setting yourself up for potential rejection.  Of course, as we've established before in this blog, you can't win if you don't play the game.


Oh wait, he just texted me back!

Yeah, I'd like that.  I'll call you Friday afternoon.