And so it was a date after all!

We agreed that I would meet her at her place and then we would drive together to the event (not very far from her home).

I arrived and found her waiting on the sidewalk for me. Why? I'm not sure if I was late (I was well within the 30 minutes she gave me to arrive) or if she was just trying to be helpful so I wouldn't miss her place or ... something devious....

Regardless - she looked better in person than in her pictures but I can't say that I was attracted to her. In fact, my immediate thought was, "Oh good... I can still be single for a while!" And I didn't have to worry about those "making out" teases that she'd sent in e-mail form.

We entered her car and I found myself immediately able to talk to her. Usually, if somebody intimidates me in the slightest I clam up, my voice changes a slight octave... and I'm just generally not that interesting. But my voice was fine... the conversation kept coming.. and she kept giggling. I couldn't determine if she was a natural giggler or if it was some sort of nervous giggling.

We got to our event, parked, got our food and waited for doors to open. It was clear to me that this chick would make a great friend and I decided to play the evening as 'potential great friends' but every once in a while she would throw in something about my pretty eyes or "well I'm glad you didn't get that job out of state because then we wouldn't have met." I tried to continue to play it as 'potential great friends' but those little one liners would weird me out. I wonder if it was clear that I wasn't returning those lines.

During the show I started to get a stomach ache and thought to myself, "This is a great excuse for me to use if I need to." I didn't want the excuse to come up suddenly and seem like a fictional excuse so I occasionally put my hand on my stomach and made a face and hoped she'd notice.

We watched our show. We left the parking lot and continued our conversation.

I told her about my relationships (the 3 girls) and she did seem a bit shocked that I'd only been physically away from my now-ex for about 3 weeks. (Note to self: Good excuse for excusing myself from future interactions. The "It's just too soon!" excuse.) I asked her to tell me about her relationship history. This was a mistake, in retrospect, because it probably sounded like I was interested in her romantic history for my own romantic reasons... but I'm just nosey.

She told me that she'd never actually had a relationship with anyone - just dates and sex. I didn't really know how to respond to this... so there was some awkward silence. When we later got to her parking lot she said, "Do you think I'm a tramp?" I assured her that no, I didn't think she was a tramp. Had she asked me if I thought she was sad and lonely.... I'm not sure how I would have responded.

At the arrival to her parking lot she said something that additionally made my heart leap... she said, "I'll walk you to your car." Which meant THANK GOODNESS... NO AWKWARD MOMENTS ALONE WITH HER IN HER APARTMENT!!

She did walk me to my car. And then we gave each other a good-bye hug. And then before I knew what the hell was going on- she kissed me. And that was when I finally knew, 100%, that we'd been on a date.

Now, dear reader, you might remember that in my past history - I ONLY kiss someone when I'm in love with them. In fact, one of the 3 girls I dated never got to kissing stage. In this way I'm like a Julia Roberts prostitute, "Do anything you want - just no kissing on the lips!"

So... I was weirded out. Tried to play it off. Said something stupid (!!) - "Let's do this again. We click!" Went home, now slightly nauseous (from stomach ache and weirded-outedness), and brushed my lips.

Now the question is... how can I go out with this chick again (remember, we got along great, I could talk to her, we were "potential great friends") and also say "but I'm not interested in you romantically so can we just subtract that from the equation?"

I suppose I could just say that .... but I'm too nice in real life!! Damnit!