5/8/2012
I'm sitting in another man's bed as I write this. Not in any kind of
erotic, post-carnal memoir sort of way (what do you take this for, a sex
blog?), but a comfortable, hanging out kind of way, with his roommate procrastinating
her homework by browsing tumblr on the other side of the room.
With everyone else I've been interested or involved with, there's been
something defining that drew me to them, enough that I've been able to label
them with some obscure but fitting nickname for anonymity's sake, because while
this blog is personal to me, I also very much want to respect the privacy of
the people I'm writing about. No matter how hard I try though, I can't come up
with any kind of silly pseudonym for Ethan.
I find though that I like that.
We've been seeing each other for, gosh, a little over three weeks now,
though it feels like so much longer. Buddha's shining belly, has it really been
less than a month since we were first introduced?! On some level, I feel like
I've known Ethan for a lot longer because I've known of him for over a year
now. We have enough friends in common that Facebook, in all its nosy social
media interfacing, has been suggesting him as someone I might know for months.
Now that we've actually met, I'm kicking myself for not listening to it sooner.
I suppose it doesn't help that upon hearing that he and I are involved,
the majority of mutual friends we have (and apparently there are quite a few of
them) seem to react somewhere in a range between inarticulate excited noises
that can only be described as fangirl-like squees to “Ohmygodyou'resocute!.” He
and I have reached an unspoken agreement that the appropriate reaction to this
phenomenon is death glares with the occasional “Shut the FUCK up” depending on
who's saying it. Feeling like the center of the who's dating who rumor mill in
a campus community can be exhausting, and for us at least unifying.
We met at a party the weekend after Easter that I almost didn't go to.
He'd gone because of his roommate and I'd ended up going because I had made a
commitment to our hostess at the Birdhouse promising her I would show up to the
party.
Unsurprisingly, we were introduced in the kitchen, not because that's
where the booze tends to congregate, but because at parties like this one it's
the place you're most likely to be able to hold a conversation and be heard
over the music/drunk people. That and I'm always drawn to kitchens, bookshelves, or the dance floor. So when he
showed up in the kitchen, I was there.
I think anyone who knew either of us at the party could see that there
was something going on. Once we were introduced, I don't think we were
separated once the entire night until he reluctantly left my side around two in
the morning, sending me his number via his roommate. We even left the kitchen
together a little later in the party, only to end up sharing a chair in the
living room, casting sidelong glances at each other through our conversations
with everyone around us.
I wouldn't exactly say that sparks flew when we met, we are in Bellingham after all: the City of
Subdued Excitement, but I would say that there is definitely chemistry between
us, the kind of magnetic attraction you don't even notice until it's gone and
all you can feel is the lingering pull.
My work in the Sexual Awareness Center has really opened me up to being
very direct when approaching people I'm interested in, because I'm not sure if
it was even a full twenty-four hours before I asked Ethan out on our first
date. We were both busy, but agreed to coffee or ice cream the following
Saturday.
We continued talking throughout the week and somehow “coffee or ice
cream” turned into dinner followed by ice cream. I'd been hinting at that
possibility most of the week and resigned myself to just a simple coffee date
up to the point where he texted me while I was at the grocery store purchasing
ingredients for dinner. Needless to say, I saved those ingredients until the
next day.
I surprised him with a flower (long stem, red gerber daisy if you must
know) when I met him at the Copper Hog. Though he didn't turn red exactly,
Ethan blushed and looked down at the table for at least half a minute before
meeting my eyes. I wanted to kiss him.
After dinner we walked downtown and I treated us to Mallards Ice Cream
since I had cash and it would conveniently fill my stamp card so that the next
time I came in I would get a free scoop. I invited him to my friend's Big
Lebowski movie night. He told me that it was one of his favorite movies. I
felt like this was a sign the universe was telling me it wanted this to happen.
At the movie night, we were relegated to sharing a beanbag chair since
all other seating had been claimed. I don't think we would have complained even
if we'd told we would have to sit on the floor. I felt comfortable enough in
his presence that it wouldn't have mattered. I laughed quietly to myself as he
quoted more than half the film. After the movie, we sat in the dark on our
beanbag chair, an island of sobriety surrounded by a sea of drunk on white
russians, holding hands while a Creedance Clearwater Revival playlist played in
the background
Then he kissed me.
For a chaste, closed-mouth kiss that lasted less than ten seconds, damn
was I seeing stars. When I walked him home an hour or so later, I couldn't help
myself, I grabbed him by the tie and pulled him into another kiss.
Some time after our first date, Ethan talked with our friend Jesamie,
and as she relayed the conversation to me, she'd asked what he liked about me
and he'd answered that I'm the kind of guy who would bring a red rose to a
first date (I would have, too, had I not been concerned about the historic and
literary connotations associated with red roses). As Jesamie put it, “In other
words, his Danny-ness.”
I think that's what I like most about Ethan as well. I could talk about
how I think he's adorable and nerdy, or that I'm constantly amazed by his
intellect and skills as a writer, or his great taste in movies (and uncanny
ability to actually get me watching them) but there's something more innate
than that to which I feel I'm attracted.
We haven't had any kind of formal a relationship discussion yet, on Friday so I
don't now feel comfortable referring to him as my boyfriend, though given the way
we interact with each other, I suppose he'd let me get away with it. For now,
I'm just happy to have someone who wants to hold my hand, who randomly texts me
“:]” on a Saturday afternoon when we have plans for the evening, who asks me
what kind of wine I like before we meet so I can make dinner (and picks a damn
good one, too), regardless of what labels we use to refer to each other.
As I sit here in his bed, a pink stuffed bunny at my side, he's sitting
in the other room on his computer, working on something for one of his creative
writing classes, muttering almost incoherently to himself about the idiocy of some of his classmates.
It's kind of endearing, though that may be the sleep deprivation talking.
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