Third time's the charm

Since the beginning of the year, I have gone on three dates -- exactly one per month -- with three different guys. The first was pretty innocuous, which is not a good thing for a date to be. The second was the source of much entertainment for my friends, although I still shudder a little every time I think of it. The third, well, the title of this post really says it all.

The beginning, of course, was a little awkward, because that's how beginnings always are. But by the end, I was definitely smiling. In fact, I still am. There was a lot of walking (about 8 miles as best I can tell), a lot of talking (about six hours of it), and a little flirting. There was joking, there was seriousness, and most of all there was good times all around. I definitely have questions -- and I'm working hard to turn the over-analytical part of my mind off before my questions undermine the whole process of getting to know someone new -- but I also had a lot of fun.

I'm realizing that this is what I've been missing all these years. In my overly serious adolescence and in my jump-all-the-way-in-way-too-soon adult relationships, I never got this part of it: dating is fun. And flirting is fun, too. Somewhere in my conservative upbringing this sort of fun got a bad rap, and so I simply steered clear of it all, taking high offense when people called me flirtatious. I've decided I'm over that. I like to flirt, and I am no longer ashamed of this fact. I take great pleasure in the banter, in the mildly antagonistic back-and-forth, in the subtly suggestive teasing that is flirtation. I'm pretty damn good at it, too.

And today, I think I found someone who just might be able to keep up with me in this regard, someone who might in fact be a worthy object of my skills. At the very least, he's worth a second date.