Continued from this post.
Guy:"I got behind with everything today. So, if you still want to go out we can. But, I have to take this thing to the upper west side. I won't be back until 9:30. If you think that is too late then we can go out another time. What do you want to do?"
Me: (thought:Excuse me?! This is why we made plans to prevent this from happening.) That is too late. I have to get up in the morning for church. Let's just forget it.
Guy Ok. I want to see you, I wish I could. How about Monday? What are doing then?
Me: (if you really wanted to then you would.) Yeah ok. I have plans in the afternoon but I'm free at night...
We re-scheduled our Saturday night date for Monday, a school holiday that we both had off. We made our plans for the weekend earlier in the week. I hadn't seen him since the previous Saturday, which was the first time we got together since we had the incident. He had Purim festivities with his family and friends beginning Thursday night and going through Friday night. We hadn't set a time for our date. So, around noon I called him. Got his voicemail. That was weird. I called back 30 minutes later. He responded with a text: "Sorry I can't talk now. I'll call you'll later. How was the party?"
When I hadn't heard from him by 6 pm I started to get annoyed. Did he expect me to wait at home for him all night? Screw that. I called again and left another voice mail asking him to call me so I could know if he still wanted to go out. Half an hour later he did. The excerpt above is from the conversation. I'm a bit slow when it comes to my emotions and processing events as they occur. I rarely get angry immediately, usually it takes a few moments to realize I didn't like what just happened.
The call peeved me. How rude to cancel on me at the last minute like that. Obviously I was less important to him then whatever his delivery happened to be. And less important than hanging out with whoever he spent the entire day with. That was not cool. And he did this right after we had the big talk about how he needed to show me that he is not in fact embarassed to be with me. What was he doing?
I called him back after stewing for a few minutes.
Guy: Hello?
Me: Hey
Guy: What's up?
Me: Umm...Just for future reference, I'd appreciate it if you tried not to cancel on me at the last minute again."
Guy:What?
Guy: Oh wait. We can go out if you want. I can see you instead of delivering this.
Me: Really? Are you sure?
Guy: Yes. I want to see you. I'd rather see you than do this.
Wow, he listened to me. He even seemed to care that I was upset. AND he wanted to make it right. He shouldn't have been so rude in the first place, but this was a good sign.
He came to my house to watch a movie. When he got here, I told him it feels not nice to be brushed off for a courier errand. He said that he was really sorry, he wasn't thinking. He is so used to making his list of things to do for the day, it's always longer than he can do, so he usually goes down the list in order. The delivery was before me. That sounded reasonable, he was used to being single, these things take time.
We watched Napolean Dynamite. I wanted him to have some exposure to my Mormon "culture." He couldn't believe it when I told him that the high school dance in the movie exactly resembled all the singles dances I had to go to in college. He also couldn't believe that I had danced like that more times than I could count. (For a description of these heinous institutions, the singles dance, go here.) Then he asked me to dance, he wanted to try it. We did the missionary shuffle(slowly walking in circle with our hands on each other's shoulders) in the middle of my bedroom, by the light from the tv. After laughing at the silliness, he pulled me closer-- leaving no room for the Holy Ghost. We danced, or swayed rather, with our cheeks touching. I found it hard to breathe.
He didn't notice when the music stopped. Being the romantic that I am, I told him there was no more music so we should stop and watch the movie. When it ended he said that we came from different planets. I agreed. How a Mormon from the south with pioneer roots and a non-practicing Orthodox Jew from Brooklyn have lasted this long. . . .
His behavior had completely changed. That night, he gave me more compliments than I can count. He actually told me that he 'really likes me'. He had NEVER said that before. In fact, in February when I asked how he felt about me and told him that I liked him, he said, "I wish I could be that straightforward." Huh? He also told me he really missed me. He said it twice even. We had only seen each other once in the previous two weeks. So, was this a portent of things to come? I liked it a lot. The two weeks of distance must have done something. Maybe almost losing me made him realize he cares?
The next Tuesday we met for dinner in Brooklyn Heights at an excellent restaurant, The Greens, it's the best vegan chinese I've had in the city. Dinner was really nice. He kept up with the compliments and sweet behavior. Then we took a romantic walk on the Promenade afterwards.
The Promenade is often filmed in movies and has the best view of Manhattan. It's a stretch of boardwork south of the Brooklyn Bridge and the Watchtower--J.W. world headquarters. Despite almost getting run over by the police car driving on the walkway with its lights off, we had a lovely time. The wind had picked up and made the night a lot colder than it had been, so we had to snuggle as we walked. Returning to the neighborhood, he showed me some of the memorial plaques on the houses designating that some famous writer had lived or died there. I said that I wanted a plaque put on my house after I died. He said he'd make sure I got one. I told him it had to be bigger than Norman Mailer's, because you can't even read his from the street! He promised it would be.
Here's why I gave him another chance. I had never objected to the teasing jokes. He had no way to know that they bothered me. It's not fair to dump someone for crossing a line he didn't know was there. Yes, he should have known, but there are good reasons we are both still single, this is likely one of them. Now that I told him how he made me feel, he has shown a willingness to alter his behavior, and that he doesn't want to hurt me. If this proves to be temporary then it's over.
