Testing the Waters

I had my first lunch date yesterday with one of the handful of guys I've been regularly messaging since officially becoming and online whore signing up for one of those gay personals sites. Though it was a little bizarre how this particular lunch meeting finally happened.

I'd had a brief chat exchange with this particular fellow on Monday, just to ask about his weekend, because I knew he'd been out of town. We'd already exchanged pictures along with the occasional pleasantries of online conversation. and the subject of meeting had been bandied about, but never quite settled on, since our schedules seemingly diverged regularly. He was off that day and asked if I was working, and I said yes I was, late. He says to contact him when I get done, he's a night owl. Ok, that was that.

Get home late that night and log on and find him online, I send him a message hello. It takes him about 20 minutes to respond. I ask what he's up to, he says, nothing, bored at home. I tell him I just got home from work and I'm thinking of getting to bed so I can hit the gym in the morning.

Then he gets pissed. What followed went something like this:

HIM: I kept my whole night open so we could hang out.
ME: OMG, I'm so sorry, I didn't realize.
ME: How can I make it up to you?
HIM: I'm starting to lose interest.
ME: What? Why?
HIM: I don't really like just talking about hanging out all the time and never actually meeting.
ME: I feel really guilty, I'm sorry. How about this, I'll skip the gym tomorrow and we'll have lunch before I go to work.
HIM: No, its ok, you have plans.
ME: Are you sure?
HIM: I just don't really care anymore.
ME: I'm sorry to hear you say that.
HIM: So am I, you seemed like a cool and nice guy.
ME: I am! Just give me one more chance.
HIM: I'm done trying. It's on you now.
ME: OK, well I said let's do lunch tomorrow. Noon. You pick the place.
LONG pause with no response
ME: I take that as a no.

With that, I give up and go to bed. Although I don't really sleep because I'm so worked up. How did this happen? I honestly don't remember ever promising to hang out with him that night. I can understand his frustration about the slowness of the process, but I was unaware of the deadline he'd imposed on our potential meeting (only about a week after we'd started chatting). And because of course I need everybody to like me, I was (perhaps stupidly) willing to accelerate my own timeline to make it up to him.

Fast-forward through a relatively sleepness night. Still no messages from him, so I go to the gym as originally planned. He had my cell number, but I left my phone in the car, not thinking he'd contact me, and trying to forget about the whole terrible episode anyway.

Of course, as soon as I get out of the gym, there are three texts from him on my phone. One, saying he had an appointment at noon; two, suggesting a restaurant; three, saying "Hello?" since I'd not yet responded to his prior texts (having not seen them). I text him back, the restaurant is ok, later is ok too since I'd need time to clean up and get my work stuff together. He doesn't respond to any of them, but I head for the restaurant anyway, taking one of the biggest chances of my fragile romantic career. And on April Fool's Day, no less. What the hell am I thinking.

When I get to the restaurant, I offer up one more test: "I'm here, you able to meet me?"

A few agonizing seconds later: "Yeah."

Within a few minutes, he's there, we shake hands and everything's good. Like we'd been planning this all along and never had the ugly exchange from the night before. We order up lunch. We talk about our jobs and where we're from and blah blah blah. I'm not really hungry, but I listen and try to come up with enough questions to show my interest. He's even cuter in person, a nice slender body, dressed in a very gay Abercombie shirt and shorts. I'm in my work clothes so we look kinda odd together, I'm sure. The conversation was relatively good, though he talked more than I did, but he was right that it was better to talk in person than to just keep having hit-or-miss internet conversations. I suggested hanging out again later in the week when we both have the same day off, he says sure. He gives me a hug outside the restaurant and I head off to work.

So a relatively successful meeting, I'm glad we did it, though I was essentially guilted/badgered into it. It's probably not a good sign of the drama that's possible with him should things go further, but I'll at least hang out with him again. If he's willing. And I'm thinking he is, since I got a text that evening saying he hoped my work was going well and thanking me for buying lunch.

The thing of it is, being the new guy on the online hookup site, I was pretty popular there to start, so there's a couple of other guys I've been messaging that I might like to meet too. One of them lives a good two hours away, but we'll have the same days off later this week as well and have discussed hanging out. This guy's actually really sweet and also very cute and seems a significantly less demanding/moody, though he also lives much farther away. He definitely seems more like boyfriend material, but I don't know if I want to jump back into the relationship arena with a long-distance thing. I don't think it's too slutty of me to meet him too; it's not like I'm dating the moody guy yet. At the very least, I can expand my circle of gay friends by meeting all these guys. At the very best, I can get a long-awaited boyfriend. At the very worst, I can break some hearts by only being able to pick one of them.

Whatever. Be proud of your AnonyBaby, boys. He's finally following through rather than just sitting home bitching and doing nothing about his lack of relationships.