Saturday, the first day of my professional association’s conference this weekend, a married gal pal introduced me to a colleague of hers. He was tall and good looking. We only said hello as we scurried to our sessions.
I had reserved a table for 10 for Tuesday night’s gala and invited her to be my guest. She said she’d promised to sit with him since he didn’t know many people. I said to bring him along, as I had a well-positioned table and other fun guests.
He stopped me Sunday to thank me for inviting him to my table. He told me his name again and I said, “No need to reintroduce yourself. I always remember handsome men’s names.” He said, “I’ll have to hang out with you more.” We laughed and parted.
At the gala dinner he looked particularly smashing in his tux. But he was sitting two people away from me so I couldn’t really chat with him. I did get a sense of his class and depth in our full-table discussions — and learned he was unattached. I wanted to get to know him more, so devised a system that wouldn’t make it quite so blatant.
Since I’d assigned the seats alternating men and women, after the entree was cleared, I announced we would be doing a “man swap.” Everyone looked at me quizzically. I said, “For us to get to know more people, each gentleman will take his napkin and water glass and move four seats to his left so he has a new woman on each side.” They were delighted.
I’m afraid I nearly ignored the man on my right, as Mr. Handsome was on my left. We chatted and laughed easily. But all too soon the entertainment began. We whispered comments throughout and had a good time.
We’ll see what evolves. He didn’t ask for my card but he knows how to find me in the association directory. My friend said he told her the next day how much he enjoyed meeting me. If he doesn’t make any further contact, oh well. I got to spend some time enjoying a handsome, articulate, intelligent, funny man’s company. If he does follow up, we’ll see where it goes.
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For ideas on how to look for signs that a man may — or may not — be a possible match for you, download your copy of Check Him Out Before Going Out: Head Off Dud Dates.
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DG was interviewed in an article titled “Sex After 50: Getting Back in the Saddle Returning to Intimacy After a Divorce, Death of Spouse, Can Be Awkward and Joyous” at ABCnews.com. (Look for the quote at the bottom of page 2.)
Comments
3 responses to “The tingle of possibility”
I hope for the best for you in this. Sadly, I have had my hopes up way too many times when I did meet someone who was attractive, interesting and “appeared” to be interested in me. What I took for interest was maybe them being polite. Since posting recently, I put my profile back on Match.com and started corresponding with a man who looked decent and appeared to have a good profile, was around my age and I “thought” he lived about 50 miles from me. Turns out, he lived 100 miles one way from where I lived, had MANY tattoos which were not evident in his photo and was ALSO unemployed. When I added up all three red flags, I decided there was no point in conversing on the phone again. He had planned to call me one night last week and then I decided that I did not want to pursue anything further with him. I wrote to him that while I could get past someone who had tattoos, (as he asked me how I felt about them and I told him I’d never dated a guy with tattoos), I told him that he lived about twice as far as I thought he lived and that him being “in between” jobs was not a good way to start out with anyone. I wished him luck and didn’t give it much more thought. That evening, the guys calls me at my part-time evening job (I didn’t give him the number nor did I ask him to call me there). He looked up the number for W-Mart and asked me if it was because of the tattoos that I was not interested. I had other phone lines lit up by then and told him I’d said all I had to say in the email and that I needed to take the other calls. When I got home, I had another message from this guy (I had given him my home number but he could have found it anyway since it is not unlisted). His message said that he was just trying to get to know me and that I didn’t have to be mean or anything. That call plus the one I received at work was too much. The next day, I closed out his profile, but before doing so, I sent him an email which said that it was not my intention to be “mean” but that I had said politely and honestly as I could in my email why I did not want to pursue anything further with him. I told him that it was inappropriate to call me at my job and then leave me another message at home. I also told him that for the future, he should be realize that when someone is honest and is not into game-playing, to take them at their word and leave it at that. I wished him luck in all areas of his life. Then I blocked him from contacting me. Maybe he’ll get a clue that finding a job is a lot more important to his future than trying to start up a relationship with an unsuspecting woman who wouldn’t be interested in him if they knew he was unemployed and seemed to be fine with that. Anyway, that’s my story for the week.
All I can say is I go on the typical “coffee date” for a first meeting and often enjoy the people I meet, but seldom want to pursue anything. I am probably picky, but that’s just me.
I had one two days ago. Nice lady, interesting, but I didn’t feel any attraction to her.
Bon courage!
I always appreciate the manner in which extroverts navigate a group. Your suggestion for the seat swap was very clever. I would have just stayed in place and done the coy “eyes-meeting-across-the-table” thing. Well, either that or, when I got bored enough with the small talk, I’d have conked him over the head with a wine bottle and dragged him off to my cave.
Good luck!