Esoteric Part III: The Formula and The Finale

The Nurse looks over at me, after her perfectly genteel date with the Hot Doctor and a promising kiss has resulted in his disappearance from the face of the earth.

And all the right signals she is sending out to the Other Boy have only been caught half heartedly. And believe me, I have seen the body language, and the body language is good. But that's another story.

So what gives?

I'm stumped. Truly I am. I wonder if it really is me. After an equally promising date with Esoteric, I'm now in a quandry.

Usually I can tell, can see the signs before they happen and manage to excuse myself from the table before the final blow. Save face and teeter out the back door with my head held high and my pride, oftentimes wounded, but never scarred too badly, still intact.

This time, I hold back from rushing in too quickly. I feel like a teenager, holding hands, an innocent sleepover with just the right amount of fireworks in case I want to overstep that line. I do, believe me I do, but I'd also like to know this strange young creature a little better before things get tangled up in bedsheets.

In the morning, he tugs at my curls. Pulls me closer for a kiss and wakes me with "Good morning, beautiful..."

I know I am not falling, I know that the young man curled up beside me with the smile on his face will never grow old with me, never help me host a dinner party or choose bedlinen, never walk the dogs or borrow my car, will never get far enough under my skin that he leaves a mark on me whenever he walks away.

And it takes me a while before I know for certain that I have already written the formula. After his initial first contact, his subsequent volley of emails and IM's, when he was stalling in asking for that elusive date and I took the initiative, called him and asked him out for drinks, I put down the first few numbers of the equation.
I already knew when he was asking me to stay, just a few minutes more, and kissing me goodbye without asking when he would see me next that any further movement in this would likely result in my having to lay further groundwork. That should this result in a subsequent date, and then another it will be my follow through, not his. And as days go by, I am distracted by work and trying to find time to see friends and family, that his attempts at communication are random IM's with no promise or substance is when my interest wanes.

Shaking her head over Saturday morning cappuccino, The Nurse asks... "So where do you draw the line between having fun and finding a match...?"

I know I'm only there for the fun, at the moment; I have nothing more that I can give. And when an invite to the beach with some fabulous new friends for a Sunday afternoon BBQ seems like a perfect opportunity to extend an invitation, Esoteric accepts.

Then subsequently flaps and faffs down the phone "Where did you say it was again?", repeating myself the fourth time, and he forgetting to call until exactly the last minute to say to go on, he'll call me later and meet me there. And that, then, is the last I hear. The finale. Le fin.

I realise that I have made all the moves, written down all the sums and am left holding nothing. That the first few moves determines the formula for the remainder of this relationship, that should I persevere I will be making all the moves. The theory is thus, if you are always the one chasing, making the dates and taking initiative you've already played your cards. Relinquished a little control, because it's been established you don't mind doing a majority of the leg work from the get go.

And that is a position I feel somewhat uncomfortable with.

I am not willing, nor am I interested in chasing something less than tangible.

And I am most definitely rewriting the formula next time.