July 11th, 2009

It’s our second meet. Since Monty is an outdoors kind of a guy, I suggest walking and we set out in a surprisingly bitter wind for September. I warn him my nose will be running, I’ll be wiping. Not pretty. He laughs. I’m aware of us looking and watching and measuring, not in a judgmental way, more to reassure ourselves. Was I really attracted to this guy? It’s like joining the French Foreign Legion and getting shipped off to Sardinia with an inadequate dictionary, this getting to know one another. In my head it swirls: he’s cute he’s smart he’s been around how much has he been around?

I am trying to suss him out, but I already know I like the part of him that is laid back, gentle. There is his work, which is basically handyman stuff, projects, steady clients and specialty clients. He has more work than he can keep ahead of, people waiting for his services. His previous job entailed heavy, long travel periods, so now he has found a way to support himself and stay home. Well, not always home. Some of the jobs are house/dog sitting stints. His gigs he calls them, as if they are all play. After a while he suggests lunch.

We contemplate food types—he likes sushi, wow, an outdoor guy who’s into sushi—so I direct him there, smoothing my hair on the drive, the girly part of me coming out, wanting to make a good impression after all the nose-blowing. The day has grown darker and the damp chills my bones. I am waiting for a night shroud, wondering if he’ll be moved to kiss me. He’s a good kisser, good kisser. This little ditty bounces in my head as if I can tell a man who can kiss by reading his e-mail. Well, it’s not unfathomable. His e-mails over the past few days have been provocative, daring. He has been professing intense like for me, teasing, massaging gently my ego. All this after only one meet. Post sushi, there is coffee, more teasing, playing, verbal sparring. “Well, I could have invited you to my house for coffee, I suppose,” I say, thinking aloud. I haven’t truly considered this, barely knowing the man.

“Yes,” he says staring at my mouth. “Why didn’t you invite me to your house for coffee?”We finish the day at Stop and Shop where I choose Clementines, pears, and bananas and can feel him looking at me; he looked at me this way while we were walking.

“I like coming here with you,” he says in the checkout line. “This is what I want, to be a part of your life. Shopping. Doing these things with you.” I stare at him and smile. Is my mouth hanging open? A romantic Stop and Shopper, I’ve found one.

Outside, I stare at the hood of his car, parked next to mine. “Your hood doesn’t close,” I say noticing it pops up a few inches. “Maybe you need to get that fixed. It could leak or something.” He laughs. “I bought it that way. Five hundred I paid. It runs great.” Then he stashes the groceries on the floor up front as I climb into my car, start it, and open the window. He sticks his head in to kiss me, slow, gentle. Then says he likes shopping with me and does the whole kissing thing again. It is slightly awkward but only slightly because of the angle. “I really like you,” he says. He is still looking at me. “Maybe we should take our profiles down.”

I say nothing. I don’t know how to respond to this—is it an invitation to action? The act of ripping our profiles down from the dating site?

“I know. It’s too soon.” I nod. “We’ll talk about it another time,” he says backing away.

I drive off smiling. He is a good kisser and his beard tickles. But what about the profile question? Too fast, too easy. And what’s that he said about infatuation on our first meet? I get infatuated easily. Red flag red flag red red or at least a pink flag.

More playful e-mails the next day. I want to kiss you very slowly. The man has my imagination roiling.