Weekend Recap - The Date.

I know it's Tuesday afternoon and a little late to being a recap of the weekend, but I guess better late than never. This might be sort of a long post and I apologize in advance, but I have a lot on my mind and need to get it out. I've found that this blog seems to be a good place to do that...mostly because I'm pretty sure barely anyone at all reads it.

Let me start off by recapping the weekend. It was a busy one, but also a great one, so I'm not complaining one bit.

On Friday night I went with a few of my favorite girls to see My Yellow Rickshaw, a cover band that we discovered while hanging out at the Claddagh on St. Patrick's Day. This band has a fiddler (I know, how cool) who used to be in an Irish band that we enjoyed and so it makes seeing this band even more fun, because for one thing he's awesome and for another he's hot. Unfortunately, as I've recently discovered, I'm too old to go out on Friday nights anymore and was ready to curl up and turn into a pumpkin at 11:30. Lame, I know.

On Saturday I traveled up to Ft. Wayne to meet my sister, brother-in-law, and a few of my sister's friends and their families for a day at the zoo. There were seven adults and seven children, the seven children belonged to two families, were all under the age of eight, and were all boys. It was an interesting day. But the zoo always promises good people watching and Saturday was no exception. I think my favorite sighting was that of a very overweight seven year old (estimate) girl trying to position herself into a red wagon to enjoy her large plate of fries and large drink that I am guessing was not water.

I had a great time with my sister. It's so nice to be able to do these types of things with her after the year of hell she had. For those of you who don't know, my older sister suffers from an autoimmune disease called Scleroderma. Her form is systemic and affects her intestines, so she has lots of gastrointestinal problems and has spent many agonizing days (sometimes weeks) in hospitals trying to figure out how to best treat it. The medication she's on now, along with a restricted diet seems to be doing wonders as she has not had a hospital stay in almost six months and in March had her IV port removed from her chest. Yesterday she had numerous appointments at UM and we were all relieved to hear that the disease has not spread to any of her other vital organs like her lungs and heart. I'm so thankful to have her, and have her in good health and finally feel like we are moving in the right direction in terms of her treatment.

I left the zoo around 4 o'clock (sadly missing the kangaroos) to come back to Indy and babysit for my good friends Jen and Tom. They had Gavin back in December and like most new parents, don't have the opportunity to go out just the two of them often, so I offered to watch G while they played trivia on Saturday night. I got there around 6 and from probably 6:30 - 8:30 he snoozed in his swing. When he seemed to be waking up, I fed him and played with him a little and by 9:15 or so he fell back asleep for the rest of the evening. It was pretty much the easiest babysitting gig I've ever had.

On Sunday I had a JCI Indy planning meeting and we were able to establish some direction for the remainder of the year, even though there were only four of us who showed up. I'm feel more confident about having this direction, but am still extremely disappointed with the lack of commitment I'm seeing from others on the board.

Sunday evening was my big date. Before I go into the date, I guess I should give a little background on the guy (whom I've yet to create a name...maybe I'll let Erin do that). I met him through OKCupid, a free dating site that I've been on and off for a few years, mostly off because of the lack of quality of guy I keep going out on dates with.They always seem to really only be looking for one thing and not really thinking long-term. But knowing two people who have found love on that site, I keep holding out hope that eventually a good one will come along...and that's maybe happened.

This guy messaged me last Monday, introduced himself and made intelligent conversation in the first message...more than I can say for many of the guys who have contacted me. We messaged back and forth the rest of the day and then he asked if he could call me. He seemed to meet all the criteria for being talk-worthy - complete sentences, proper grammar, a general interest in me - so I said yes.

We talked on the phone basically every night last week. He's 34, has never been married, has no kids and has a job at a lab on the NW side. His parents own a bar in Carmel and he's very close to his family, which is very important to me. He's been very direct in the fact that he's looking to meet the right person, settle down, get married, and live happily ever after. However, he has yet to mention where kids fit into that equation and I haven't brought it up either, since in the past my general stance has been, ew.

So we went out Sunday night and had a really good time. He's very funny, much cuter than his photos, and very attentive. He remembered many of the things I told him and made it very clear that he's interested in me. VERY. CLEAR.

Which brings me to my reservation. It's been a week. He's very into me. Telling me that he hopes he can eventually be my boyfriend and that he's thinks I'm amazing and I'm everything he's been looking for and that he believes in fate and so on and so forth. Don't get me wrong, I think he's a great guy, but I'm not sure I'm as invested as he at the moment and frankly his openness about how he feels about me is FREAKING ME THE EFF OUT. Now, maybe I'm just being silly because I'm not used to being treated so well by a guy, but I'm really getting nervous. I'd love to keep seeing him and see where it goes, but I think I need him to back off a little. Last night I had a minor freak out and told him that I'm prone to put up walls with guys and if he didn't think he could handle that than I'd totally understand if he wanted to walk away. You'd think I'd just ended a 10 marriage with him. He was completely worried that I was ending it and didn't understand why I would say something along those lines, not blaming him if he wanted to walk away.

In hindsight, I'm wondering if I was trying to sabotage it. I have this preconceived notion that I'll always be alone and that I'm not good enough for this reason or that reason. Maybe the way this guy is treating me is EXACTLY how I am supposed to be treated and I'm just too damaged to see it? I don't know. We're going to a baseball game tonight, so I'm hoping that hanging out with him again will remind me of how much I enjoy his company and how attracted I am to him.

Deep down, I want to be with someone. I want to have a life-long relationship. I want it more than anything. Now its potentially staring me in the face and I'm backing away from it? Am I really that messed up or is this guy coming on too strong?