I could make this the world' longest post to cover the last two weeks, but I think that I will break it up in chapters. Let's start with going back over the highlights that I covered all too briefly earlier - which was the third date with DD.
To refresh, I had booted SmartyPants to the curb on a Thursday after a very successful day-date with DD over lunch on a Wednesday. DD and I made plans to go bowling (with the necessary disclaimers in place regarding my atrocious bowling abilities) on Saturday night - the night which my son was spending with his grandparents. A whole night. To myself. I knew it was going to be trouble. I felt it in my bones.
And then he showed up with flowers.
Let me just talk about flowers for a second. That first love of my life guy had a ridiculous opinion on flowers being a waste of money since they died a few days later. He also didn't believe in cards. I love cards. It's the THOUGHT behind them that counts, not the longevity. You build something by a card or a gesture. There's a reason that he and I didn't make it. I'm far less romantic thanks to my relationship with him, and to watch him age and start making home-cooked dinners and mixed tapes for subsequent girlfriends made me believe in some sort of relationship trait swapping that occurs between two people. More on that later.
The flowers make me swoon. No joke. Grin on my face, can't contain my happiness, think that I might hear angel choirs swooning.
Bowling is fun. We both suck. We play two games and each win one and then head to the bowling alley bar to chat over a pitcher for a long time about relationships and past relationships. I learn he was married for 8 years at a very young age. His ex wife is a couple of years older than him. He had a great relationship with her as the mother of his children. This is key. There's no bitterness. He admits that his first real heartbreak was NOT his wife but a subsequent long-term relationship - of which he's had two since his wife, each lasting about 1.5 years. I do this math and start to peg him as a relationship guy, until he talks/references all the different type of women he's dated and what he's looking for and realize he's definitely 33 and has been around the block a few times and I should shut up and listen.
We talk about our kids. A lot. I love this. It makes me like him more to hear him go on about how important being a dad is and the things he loves about his kids.
We end up back at my house and I make us both a couple of VERY strong gin and tonics which reminds me briefly of my last boyfriend with whom I had a similar scenario. This was the same night I had discovered with him what sexual incompatibility was - something I hadn't experienced before. (I have a brief flashback to a humbling moment of BJ failure which I quickly try not to think about even as the words "it's not you" echo through my skull)
We chat some more until finally we're just sort of smiling like idiots at one another and he finally kisses me. Kissing begets more kissing...and before I know it we're retreating from the couch to my bedroom, clothes trail being created in movie-esque fashion (I'm not sure how this happened - I blame the beer)
I'll spare you the gory details except to say that things escalate until I remember my brain and my son and pause in the half-second before anything REALLY serious might happen to say, responsibly, "do you have something?"
This is an awkward question. It always will be. And I don't want to go dig in my bathroom cabinet for the surely expired condoms that are hiding down there from days gone by. I'd just like for there to be some new code - maybe not even a verbal one - that responsible adults can avoid breaking a hot moment with this clunky question.
"yes..." he says, but I hear the "but" coming before it escapes his lips and feel myself brace myself for some sort of bomb.
"Yes..." he says "but, I guess I should go ahead and tell you this before we go any further....I've had a vasectomy."
I pause and consider this briefly.
"So, did you ever want to have more kids?" he asks hesitantly, as if this is a dealbreaker question.
Oh, no no no.
"Are we going to have this conversation now?" I ask. "On a third date? In the half second before sex? Could we table the "are we having children?" conversation for the fifth date?"
"It's been an issue before," he persists, clearly looking for validation.
I'm fumbling, sex high receding.
"I don't know...I mean, I never thought about it except that I guess I always thought that I'd have more kids. Not tomorrow, but...someday. Are you...you have no desire to have more children," I say awkwardly.
"Well, I had it done after my girls were born. I'm not saying never...just that it would take some planning...and some science," he says.
I'm naked, in the dark, and talking about having children with a man I only sort of know via artificial insemination. It doesn't get anymore real than this, folks.
"You know, honestly, a planned pregnancy would be a nice change of pace for me," I joke. "And...actually...the first thing I thought when you said that you had a vasectomy...for a girl that people look at funny and gets pregnant...is "hot damn! he can't get me pregnant" That's just where MY brain is at...here...right now...on date 3."
That seems to satisfy him and thus ended by very very long period of voluntary abstinence.
Now, date 3 is freakin' speedy considering that I did not sleep with my last boyfriend for our entire relationship due to my hang ups with the motherhood/sex issues.
It just...felt right though.
It felt right again the next morning before I kicked him out unceremoniously so that I could go retrieve my son.
...And the next night when I had a brain clot and allowed him to come over after my son was asleep. Seeing somebody twice in two days? UNHEARD OF.
We stayed up late chatting, fell asleep and then he was up and out of my house before my son was awake given that I'd told him "I don't have a plan of action where this is concerned for a 2 year old. and I don't want him to walk in here and have to explain your presence."
Strangely, he seemed to understand this personal dilemma.
And that made me like him even more.
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