Ok

Breathe.

No, not you, me. I mean, you should still breathe. But so should I.

Oh man, I'm already not making sense and this story is SO going to drag out over a few days worth of telling and I don't even know...

Alright, let's back up a minute here.

(Beep, beep, beep!) (it's the backing up noise y'all)

So it's last Sunday, no, wait, I have to back up even more, damnit! Sorry

(*shoulder checks* beeeeeeep beep beep)

So it's a couple of weeks ago and I've been chatting with a few guys here and there on the online dating site.

There's a guy who looks like he could be cute and we've had a couple of good email exchanges and I'm nervous but excited about the idea of meeting him that weekend and? He disappears.

Just randomly up and closed his account with no notice or sign off or anything.

I was pretty disappointed and a little sad, but, more often than not I've been brushed off by guys online so I kind of shrugged it off.

So imagine my raised eyebrow of surprise when he showed up a few days later online again.

He explained that he'd had reasons to change his profile name (the name he'd chosen was getting him flak) and then life had gotten busy and he was sorry he'd disappeared on me. Was I still interested in meeting?

Was I?

I thought about it and while C-Dawg's initial instinct was that something fishy was up, I didn't get that read and thought that, yes, I'd been interested enough when we first started talking to consider meeting him.

He was gentle in his approach (some guys are pushy; "Hey! Call me! Let's meet! Now!) and we exchanged cell numbers and a thought that we might meet over the long weekend. (Oh long weekends, how I love you so.)

He sent me a text on Saturday and you guys? I laughed out loud when I got it.

It was funny. But not like "hey I'm obnoxious and a stand up comedian" funny, just... funny. Like, cute funny. Does that make sense? His text was cute and made me laugh and smile.

We texted back and forth a few times Saturday night, just a few messages continuing our email conversations from the site and he suggested we could maybe head down to Symphony Splash together or something in the next couple of days if that worked for me.

I smiled a lot that night. He was funny and nice and was interested in meeting me. I mean, who doesn't smile with positive attention from an attractive man? (Or woman, if that's your thing.)

But as I went to bed that night I reminded myself that if I did end up meeting him, he probably wouldn't be as cute as his picture suggested he was. I mean, the truth is that people never really look like the pictures they put up on their profiles and to be honest, I'm usually just a little bit disappointed.

I even wrote it in my diary that night (yes, I keep a diary, stop laughing) "if I do end up meeting him, I don't want to be disappointed by how he looks, but I think I might be. Probably. Maybe."

(Yes, I did just let you read my diary. You're welcome.)

I mean, I thought he looked cute, but I've thought that before and then met the guy and gone "oh" and so I didn't want to expect something and be disappointed because that can kind of throw things off, so I was expecting him to be cute enough. Average-ish. (While still secretly hoping he was cute)

So, yeah, I went to bed Saturday night, smiling from a series of cute texts from a guy I thought might be cute and that I thought I might meet.

And then I woke up Sunday morning and went and helped C-Dawg start her move.