I just received a phone call from one pregnant Captain Kate of the Fifth Armed Bucket Brigade. I blog about it here because I'm conflicted. Read on, faithful reader.
A few weeks ago I visited one pregnant Captain Kate and her husband one Sneaky Pete. Among things discussed, Capt. Kate mentioned an acquaintance of hers with whom she might try to set me up. Of things related, the girl in question, too, has an action figure collection, including Star Wars figures and a display case she had recently purchased therefor. I did not inquire much, leaving it to the Capt.
Capt. Kate's call a few minutes ago was to tell me that she was going to be calling me tomorrow with the action figure girl's phone number so that I could call her and set up a date. Apparently Capt. Kate had met said a.f.girl (today presumptively) and gave the rubber stamp for me to proceed.
I am of equal parts trepidation/fear and hope/happiness/anticipation. I feel conflicted.
It seems that Capt. Kate already told the a.f.girl my otherwise-eliminating attributes (i.e. I live at home, I collect action figures, I'm a geek) while also relating other, positive attributes too. So apparently the harder revelations have already been revealed to some degree. And, in mild irony, the a.f.girl, too, currently lives at home. So perhaps that cancels out for each of us.
I guess what really troubles me is the first phone call. I think I can be rather good once I've gotten past the introduction. Get me in and I can be most of myself, enough to charm. Go ahead and toss me on a blind date - tell me to be somewhere and look for the girl with a copy of Pride & Prejudice. But tell me to call her up out of the blue and make a date? Well, you know what, --I can do that. Beyond the ostensible, I will do that is the more significant I can do that. I have to.
Sometimes I wonder if I didn't miss learning something when I was growing up. I never learned how to approach girls/women. I never learned how to do any of that or how it works. Hell, when I went out with a girl in college, I spent the following week waiting for her to come see me. (That was how I learned to never wait and be the chasee, must be the chaser.) It's as if I missed some critical component of development, or at least that sometimes I feel like I missed something.
What's kind of strange with this is that I've had a girlfriend before, once in college and once in law school. You'd think I learned something, and I did. But the ironic part of course is that I'm probably good once I've "got" the girl, it's the getting part, or at least the meeting part, or maybe the approaching-someone-you-don't-know part, that I'm not good at.
Sheesh.
Remember when I said I tend to get a *little* OC with things like this? Yeah. Just a little, and I have only begun.
Anyways, I'll have to try not to dwell too much on this and just roll with it, let it happen. Otherwise I'll spend all my free time imagining this, that and the other, contemplating scenarios, concocting incidents and conversations, replaying in my head events that never occurred, that sort of thing. I am prone to it at times, when I get worked up like this. If you get another post or two about this before said blind date, do not be surprised, though I shall endeavor to make any such posts less speculative than I might otherwise. And I know better than to relate too much, if any, incriminating aftermath material on this blog. For those who are truly interested, I might recommend an e-mail or a phone call the day after. What happens in the blog rarely stays in the blog.
-- I'm out.