Better the Second Time Around?

Now that I’ve gotten past that spineless coward of a carbohydrate, I’ve decided to get back on the dating wagon.

I suppose you could say I’m officially dating R.

Now the first time this happened, things didn’t go so well. He’s a college buddy of my high school friend Brian, and I’ve known him for awhile. The first time I met him, I was already involved with S, so I didn’t really think of him as anything more than a nice guy.

Toward the end of my relationship with S at the end of 2003, I invited Brian and R to go with S and me to a party at my sister’s apartment. S was off talking with one of my cousins, and I ended up talking with R one-on-one for the first time. I left the party that evening realizing that I was attracted to him.

When I finally got over my breakup with S (and the fact that he started dating his cousin’s ex-girlfriend the moment we broke up), I decided that R was going to be my next prospect. Unfortunately there was one problem--he had a girlfriend.

However, I continued hanging out with him, Brian, and my friend Beth over the summer, and R and I even met up for dinner a few times (always going dutch, of course). The night of my sister’s birthday celebration, I invited R to go with me. We had a good time talking at the bar, so when it closed, we went to an after hours bar to continue our conversation, and when that closed we flipped a coin to see which of our apartments we should go back to to talk some more. I won.

Over the course of that evening, he had casually mentioned that he’d broken up with his girlfriend a few weeks ago. That night, back at my place, we ended up kissing.

After that, things were kind of on and off, on and off for the next few months. I have some wonderful memories (including a daring escapade involving a model unit in Brian’s condo building--which I won’t get into now), but I also felt really frustrated because he wasn’t acting in the way I wanted him to--namely, like a devoted boyfriend.

That fall, he asked me to go to an REM concert with him, and I accepted. For some dumb reason, I chose the period of time right before the concert to bring up “the relationship talk.” Apparently I was the only one who thought I was in a relationship. He told me that he wasn’t interested in getting serious with anyone at the moment and was just enjoying our casual dating. I got upset, handed him my $70 concert ticket, and left.

I had just been so desperate to have a replacement for S, that I completely ignored all the signs and signals that R didn’t feel the same way as I did.

After that, we didn’t talk or see each other for almost a year. Then this past August (when I was dating K), R e-mailed me and asked if I wanted to get together for dinner. I agreed, but made Beth join us. He and I ended up having a drink afterwards, and we each apologized for our behavior the previous fall. He also mentioned that he’d gotten back together with his girlfriend. So we patched up our friendship and that was it.

Which brings us to January 2006 . . . I had invited a bunch of friends to attend a pub crawl fundraiser, but then decided not to attend (it was the day after I first really hit it off with the Bagel). R called me that afternoon and asked me if I was going. When I said no, he mentioned getting together for dinner the following week. So he, Beth, and I met up for dinner. I started talking about the Bagel and my whole experience with Match.com. R looked surprised and told me that he had just joined too. Apparently he and his girlfriend had broken up at the end of the year, and he figured it would be a good way to meet people.

That was the evening we ended up kissing--I mentioned that in an earlier post. But then I was honest with him and told him I was dating the Bagel but would also love to hang out with him from time to time--as friends.

The night the Bagel canceled our big dinner date, I ended up at Beth’s 30th birthday party, and so did R. We ended up kissing that night, but I still was so blinded by the Bagel. R was always in the background, though, taking me to dinner, calling to chat, e-mailing me at work . . . basically doing everything he could to show he was really interested in me and was interested in something more than casual.

So slowly, but surely, I’ve moved on from the Bagel and am really enjoying spending time with R. I don’t feel the same fascination with him, but that’s probably because I’ve known him for quite a while.

Whatever--I’m just going to enjoy being pampered and doted on . . . and I’ll enjoy doing the same in return!