First (and Maybe Last) Impressions

First off, I know many of you are wondering how my date last night went.  (Okay, like, three of you.)  If I'm being honest, I'm not sure about how it went.  I had a little nervous chatter before the date (evidence of which can be found on Twitter), but I sucked it up.  The date itself was great.  We talked and laughed and I really did enjoy myself and felt comfortable, but I don't know how he felt.  Oh, sweet mystery of life!  I could just ask him, however I'd rather fixate and make myself crazy. 

For some, the whole joy of dating is the excitement and anticipation of the first date.

Forget. That.   

First dates are nerve-wracking, sometime uncomfortable and a source for my increasingly present heartburn.  My butterflies somehow turn into bats.  What would have been a cute gesture turns into an awkward hand motion that knocks my drink onto his pants. I snort and sneeze like a machine gun and laugh entirely too hard/loud.  Food lodges itself in my teeth with inextractable force.  I start to tell a story I think is funny and forget the humorous part, so it just turns into a tale about how I was made fun of in grade school and woe is me.  While listening to my date, I zone out thinking about how I look at this precise moment and tune back in after he asks a question, which I will inevitably answer incorrectly.  I just want to get the first date over with, because then there is a possible second date where I can feel a bit more relaxed.

I have to admit, I might exaggerate a little about my nervousness for comedic effort, but I really was jittery yesterday.  I really did have a little bit of a freak out in the minutes leading up to actually going into the restaurant. I'm not sure what caused my anxiety, because, as it turns out, everything went just fine.  I was, as many people suggested, just myself and nothing went terribly wrong.  I can't ask for much more than that.

~j