Comfortable

I'm not sure that I want to blog about good dates anymore. After all that happened with T, I feel really cautious about trusting someone else's signals... even though they seem crystal clear.

So today, I had a date. I broke a rule that I usually follow with dates with this one. I talked to him A LOT before we met. After talking to him, via IM, phone, or email every day since Monday, I was wondering if we would have anything to talk about. So the date... It started at 3pm. We met at the fountain by Borough Hall and walked down Montague street to the Promenade. It was a beautifully clear, warm December afternoon. Amazing weather. So we walked along the Promenade which has great views of the Brooklyn Bridge and lower Manhattan. From there we continued along through Brooklyn Heights down into Dumbo. (Some of you may be thinking... this walk sounds VERY familiar! I do take many people on this very walk.) We stopped at Jacques Torres for some very wicked hot chocolate. The wicked hot chocolate is spiced with chili peppers, and it's quite good. It's well worth a walk. Things were ok at this point. We were talking, making early on-awkward conversation. It helped that he had never been to that area before, even though he used to work right there! It's always nice to have a new audience to show the pretty things and expose to the best hot chocolate in the world. We walked over to Empire Fulton Ferry State Park, which is a small park that is tucked away between the Brooklyn and Manhattan Bridges. It's right on the water, and it's a really nice, quiet place to sit, talk, and enjoy the hot chocolate. We sat for a little while, then walked back into downtown Brooklyn Heights. About an hour had passed by this point, and I wasn't really sure if he was interested, or if I was. If he had said at that point that he had to go home, I wouldn't have been surprised, but he didn't. We continued walking all the way down Court Street, and decided to go to the Tea Lounge to sit and warm up for a bit. We sat at the Tea Lounge and talked for at least 3 hours. Things at that point started to get a lot more comfortable, and we both opened up a lot more.

We stayed at the Tea Lounge until 8pm or so, when we moved the date over to my neighborhood Thai restaurant (yes, my dating one!) where we were the only ones in the place (We passed Joya, and it was WAY too crowded and loud). The food was good, and the conversation continued well through dinner. After dinner, it was around 9:30, and I don't think either of us wanted the date to end. He suggested that we go get a drink, so we walked around and went to a local neighborhood bar, not far from my apartment. We drank wine and talked, and at some point we started not holding hands exactly, but definitely finger-playing and hands on top of hands. There was a lot of hand touching... I don't really know how to explain it. It was very comfortable though, it felt really natural. I mean I guess after 6 hours with someone, it might feel natural with anyone. But I don't know it felt easy. We left the bar around 11:30, and I made a comment that if we spent a half hour more together, our date would be 2 days long. So he said, let's spend the half hour then... We couldn't figure out anything to do for the last half hour, so he decided he'd just walk me back to my apartment and we'd call it a night, 8 and a half hours was plenty long for a first date. (Although we did discuss that probably around the 4th hour or so, it became a second date)

He walked me to my apartment, and kissed me goodnight. We stood outside my gate kissing for quite a while, when finally I asked him to come upstairs. We kissed for a little bit on the couch. We definitely made it past the midnight mark. Around 12:10 I heard my roommate coming up the stairs, and I panicked slightly. I grabbed his coat, and told him it was probably time he got going. I did a quick introduction to the roommate, and practically dragged him out of the apartment. It wasn't that I minded him being there, I just felt a little strange with my roommate coming home, and it was still our first date and all... So we kissed by the door some more, and he made certain that I knew he was interested in seeing me again. So about 9 and a half hours after the date began, it ended.

He texted me not 10 minutes later, asking me for a "third" date. :) I'm happy. Actually, slightly giddy right now. I know I should be cautious, I should guard my heart and not get these damn expectations up.... but it's just hard not to. I felt really comfortable with him and I'm not really sure why, but I'm pretty sure he feels similarly to me.