The Firefighter

Things were pretty darn slow for a bit there, but they have definitely picked up immensely over the last few weeks.  It’s like I have stated in previous posts, this eHarmony thing is a rollercoaster!  Activity comes in waves.  Well, the waves have been rolling on in lately, so I figured I’d share a little of what they’ve been bringing in…

This isn't actually him,
in case you were wondering.
That would be amazing though.

Pat, 34, Orlando is a firefighter.  That’s just plain HOT.  No pun intended!  Okay, maybe kind of intended…  He initially sent me one of those Icebreaker thingys, something about how my profile made him smile.  (That’s usually the one I get and the one I send, as the rest are really really lame and in many cases, completely inapplicable.)   So I looked over his profile and found him interesting enough to respond to, and then when I saw his pictures, I got the distinct impression that he was from Colorado!  So I figured instead of sending the normal ‘5 Closed Ended Questions’, I’d go ahead and jump straight to email, that way we could chat about the homeland!  Well, as it turns out, he’s not from Colorado, but went to college there and spent some considerable time living up in the ski resort towns.  We exchanged emails for about a week or so, and every communication was awesome.  He actually sat down and wrote to me, which I loved.  So many guys either don’t have the attention span or the typing skills to actually write out a decent email, so this was refreshing.  It was apparent he was smart, and well spoken, and had a great sense of humor – these are three must-haves, for sure.  And he seemed to really enjoy my emails to him as well.  It must have been the “I have to admit, I really look forward to getting an email from you” that clued me in.  We found that we have a lot in common; we both correlate life to music and movies and television shows, both have a tendency to jump from topic to topic in conversation, and both actually enjoyed the whole email phase of getting to know each other better.  



I love stock photography...
When does a 1st date ever look
like this??

After a number of emails, we exchanged numbers and consequently a number of texts over New Years Eve weekend.  Not necessarily extremely flirtatious, but always cute and playful.  He was witty, and sharp.  Again, must-haves for me.  All in all, the whole thing was leading up to the kind of first date I get nervous about.  Now there are a few different kinds of “First Dates”.  There are the ones that I’m going on because I feel like I ought to at least give it a shot, even though I wasn’t completely sold on our compatibility prior to actually meeting.  There have been plenty of guys who weren’t repulsive or abhorrent, and who seemed like good guys, but just didn’t grab me, you know?  I feel like meeting is at least worth it to see if there’s any reason at all to explore things further.  Best case scenario, there actually is something there and he’s just not super articulate via email or texts.  Worst case scenario, I get a few free glasses of wine and a flatbread and we never speak again.  So really, when you think about it, it’s kind of a win-win for me!  There are also the first dates that one dreads going on.  These are usually the result of some set-up a friend insisted on, on a night when you’d really rather be at home on the couch, wrapped up in a Snuggie, watching reruns of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.  These are the kinds of dates where you don’t really go all out with the hair and makeup, and picking out an outfit is really easy because you don’t even care enough to change out of what you wore to work that day.  Granted, these dates could potentially turn out to be amazing, leaving you wishing you had actually washed your hair and put perfume on.  But generally that only happens if there is a camera, a crew, a script, and you’re Katherine Heigl or Ann Hathaway.  The last, and in my opinion, best kind of first dates are the ones you can’t wait to go on.  These are the ones that you were anxiously waiting for him to ask you on, the ones you just know are going to go well despite the ridiculous butterflies you have an hour beforehand.  For these first dates, you spend days picking out the perfect outfit, making sure it highlights the good features and downplays the bad.  You try it on in a number of different lighting scenarios, just to make sure it’s perfect.  You pre-plan hair and makeup options, and might even fake sick at 3pm at work, just so you can get home and have enough “getting ready” time… even though you’re not meeting for dinner until 7:30.  Obviously, weekends are optimal as it generally causes less stress at the office.  These are the kinds of dates where I have to blare Broadway show tunes in the car and sing at the top of my lungs on the way to dinner, just to calm my nerves.  Why does this calm me, you ask?  Yeah, I have no idea.  It just does.

When the day finally arrived for my first date with Pat, 34, Orlando (aka ‘The Firefighter’), I was ready.  Nervous, but ready.  Had the outfit, had the makeup, was having an AMAZING hair day (Praise Jesus!!!), and had my iPod ready to go.  So I drove downtown, Jason Robert Brown’s ‘Songs for a New World’ and the vocal stylings of yours truly blasting down I-4.  He beat me to the restaurant (phew!) and we talked and ate for what seemed like hours.  Well, it was in fact hours, as the waitress was obviously getting a little antsy and needed us to pay out and go before they put all the chairs up on tables.  I suggested going next door for one more drink, if he was up for it, and he said “Sure”.  So we sat at the bar and before long we weren’t just facing forward, torsos turned to talk.  We were full-on facing each other, my knees pointed towards him, and his outside leg propped up on the lower rung of my barstool forcing our legs to touch.  This kind of body language was a good sign!  After our ‘one more drink’, he walked me to my car, we exchanged the standard “Thanks so much, I had a really good time”s, and then he kissed me.  It was so awkward and so weird that when it was over, I couldn’t help but point it out.  “Dammit!  Why does the end of a first date always have to be weird?!?!” I exclaimed. “You never know what’s going to happen, if it should be a hug, or a handshake, or if there’s going to be a kiss, or where to put your face…  It’s inevitable that it’s gonna be awkward!”  To which he responded “Wanna try that again?” “Yes!” I said.  So he kissed me again.  And it was wonderful.  Damn, he was hot, smart and funny, a fireman, AND a great kisser!  Score!  When we finally parted lips, he asked if I’d be interested in hanging out again sometime, and I said “Absolutely” and got in my car.

Now the next few days were of course complete agony.  I’ve determined that I am good once I get 2 dates under my belt.  But between the first and second dates I turn into a ridiculous psycho.  I admit this freely.  I bombard my friends with emails and phone calls, reliving the first date over and over again, and seeking advice as to how I should proceed.  Since I have absolutely no shame, and no problem displaying my tendency to act like a complete whacko on the World Wide Web for all to laugh at, here is an example of my particular brand of crazy.  This is an excerpt from an email to a friend, wherein I have recounted an entire 2-day long text conversation between the firefighter and I.  I have since apologized profusely to her, for subjecting her to the following insane dribble:

:

1.       No contact on Tuesday.  But I was the last to text Monday night with the ‘Sweet dreams’ thing, so it was his turn.  I made it through… barely.

2.       He texts Wednesday morning with ‘So how’s the battle going?’ This was in reference to how I really didn’t want to come back to work after almost 2 weeks off.  I texted back that I was surviving, and asked how the firehouse was.

3.       He texts back like an hour later with something about how his job is cake and he’s exploring the beaches in Cocoa.

4.       So I wait like an hour and HALF and then text back something about “Man, it’s obviously really rough to be you!”

5.       The next text I get from him (2 hours later) is about how he just got out of the space shuttle launch simulator, and again how much he loves his job.

6.       So I wait another hour or so and text back with “How cool!  I just finished a very boring webinar.  I’m sure you’ll be having awesome social time at the station tonight too, and I’ll be toiling away at the gym…”  This was the last correspondence yesterday.

7.       He texts this morning with “So did you show the gym who is boss?”

8.       To which I reply “Well, I decided that I was much more interested in wine than working out.  I feel kinda guilty… but not much. :-)” while I’m on a break from this morning’s webinar.

9.       When I finished the webinar, I texted again with “Phew!  So glad I’m done with classes for the day.  Enjoying your day off?”

10.   He replied right back (well, like 10 minutes, but that’s pretty much like right back) with “Yes, I’m watching TV, then powernap, then gym time.  Rough day.  What you up to tonight?”

11.   I crap my pants with excitement, hoping that means he’s going to ask me out.

12.   I wait 20 minutes and reply with “Ah the charmed life. :) No real plans for me tonight actually.  Unless I end up in the ER soon for frost bite… my office is freezing!!  I can’t feel my toes.”

13.   He texted back at 12:02pm with “Yeah, after 4 days of this cold weather crap, the roommate and I decided to turn on the furnace today. I slept in a track suit the other night.  WTF”

14.   To which I responded at 12:23pm with “Yeah, I either need these people to turn a furnace on up in here, or someone to warm me up!”

15.   1:11pm he replies with “That could be a fun job…”  AHHHHHHH!!!!!

16.   So I wrote “It’s not a bad gig, if I do say so myself. :)  But you have to have the right qualifications.”

17.   To which he replied with a sarcastic comment about Excel and Microsoft Office 2010… then FINALLY said that we should definitely go on a second date.  PHEW.

18.   3:47pm - I collapse from both the mental exhaustion of carefully planning my texts, and the physical exhaustion of all the texting itself, and typing these emails to you.  I plug my phone in to charge, as it has now died.

As you can see, it makes absolutely no sense how I manage to pay a mortgage, a car payment, a number of other pertinent bills, get up in the morning and get myself ready for work, AND care for a pet without adult supervision or heavy-duty medication.

Finally the second date arrives.  We meet for lunch and it goes very well!  It was apparent we were both much more relaxed than we had been on the first date, and conversation is flowing freely.  I give him the rundown on my business trip to SC and how one of my trainees magically disappeared from the last 3 days of class.  He tells me about the friends he plans to see on his upcoming trip to AR to pick up his truck.  At the end, he walks me to my car again, we hug, but no kiss this time.  Which didn’t really bother me because it was A)broad daylight out, B)Wednesday, and C)the parking lot was directly across from a high school. No need to be makin’ out in front of all the kids.  Now that the second date was out of the way, I felt instantly more relaxed about the whole situation.  Or so I thought…  Second date was on a Wednesday, I didn’t hear from him again until the following Monday!  Thursday and Friday I was fine,  I knew he was out of town, but I did start to wig out a bit by Sunday.  By Monday I had all but written him off when POOF!  He swoops back in with a “How was your weekend?” text.  Monday and Tuesday were actually pretty light as communication goes.  Then I get a text Wednesday morning that says “Hey, do you have plans tonight?  Sorry it’s last minute, but I wanted to see if you’d like to grab dinner.”  So I accepted.  I figured it would be okay to be available on a weeknight for a last minute dinner invite, but had it been a Friday or Saturday, I totally would have been busy.  Even if I weren’t busy.  Gotta play the game, right?  Not that the rules are written anywhere…  but I’m almost positive one of them says something about making sure you don’t seem too available.

By the third date I’m more nervous about finding parking than I am about seeing him again.  I’m just excited to see him again at night, with the possibility of another kiss!  We have a great dinner at a Thai place, and talk and talk and talk some more.  I take this third date opportunity to bring up some of “the majors”; Religion, Politics, and Goals (which is my nice way of asking “Do you want to start a family fairly soon?  ‘Cause if you’re not looking to make babies, I’m not the chick for you.  I’ve got one hell of a ticking biological clock here, and if impregnating me is out of scope for you, then I don’t think this is gonna work.”)  Interestingly enough, he’s kinda neither here nor there on the subjects of politics and religion.  Which is fine!  I just expected one of those topics to fire him up, based on our communication thus far.  And on the topic of “Goals”, he did say that he saw himself settling down and starting a family in the next few years, but that he wasn’t necessarily feeling that whole “biological clock ticking thing” that a woman probably feels.  And let me state for the record, I was playing it waaaaaay cool here.  I hadn’t mentioned a word about my baby fever.  I often wonder though, if it’s written on my forehead in an invisible ink that only those with a Y chromosome can see…   So we finish dinner and he walks me to my car (the consummate gentleman).  We chat briefly about how my hamstrings hurt from my recent obsession with kickboxing and how I never realized how much fun pretending to slice someone in half with a samurai sword could be.  Then he kisses me.  YAY!  I was totally hoping for a kiss!  On my way home I call a girlfriend to update her on the events of the evening, and he sends me a text that says “I really enjoyed dinner.  Hope you have a great day at work tomorrow.”  To which I respond, “Me too!  Thanks again!  Oh, we forgot to discuss one more major though!  Favorite ice cream flavor! :-)” This was in reference to an email exchange we had prior to actually meeting wherein I said I’d save discussion of taboo topics such as religion, politics and favorite ice cream flavor (me=the consummate smartass) for a face to face conversation.  I also said “Hope you have a good day tomorrow too.  No bad calls.”  As a firefighter, a ‘bad call’ means someone is dying.  That’s no bueno.

So, you’d think that things were progressing quite nicely, right?  Well, the jury is still out.  I haven’t heard from him since Date #3, and that was 5 days ago.  I sent him an email a couple days after the date with a link to a clip from The Today Show about extreme snowboarding (he’s big into snowboarding).  I thought he’d get a kick out of it (hence the subject line “I thought you’d get a kick out of this”) but no response.  Luckily, I’m past the initial phase of “Why hasn’t he called me?!?!?!?!?!?!”, so I’m not crying myself to sleep or anything.  But I have to admit, I’m slightly annoyed at this latest Disappearing Act.  Did I say something wrong?  Was the invisible ink glowing like a neon sign in a bar window, thus scaring him away?  Really, who wants to stare at a neon sign?  That would leave the annoying light trails that get temporarily burned on your retina.  Was the email too much?  There have been others that disappeared without a trace, and as much as that sucks, I was able to brush it off.  This one is bugging me though.  My initial thought is to call him out on it.  Question the lack of communication. “So no 4^th date huh?”  or “Where exactly did you lose interest?”  Not to make anyone feel uncomfortable, but just to satisfy my own curiosity.  If he’s not feeling it, he’s not feeling it.  The normal, logical, rational side of me completely understands that and would never try and force something.  Especially because that would make me look like a desperate loser.  But wouldn’t it be nice to know WHY?  Who knows, maybe I’ll get a surprise text today.  But maybe I’ll surprise myself, throw caution to the wind, and see what his deal is.  Only time will tell…  and then once it does I’ll post an update and tell you.  Especially if my cajones do drop, I ask him “So…What’s up with the silence?”, AND he actually tells me.  The way I see it, that would be one small step for me, but one giant step for ‘women-who-wonder-why-a-guy-disappeared-on-them’kind.