Change of heart

By the time Dreamy arrived at my house yesterday, I was thoroughly annoyed with him. Not only did he not email me the whole time he was away, but he also did not phone me after he got back; moreover, he lost his car keys and ended up being THREE HOURS late for our date, leaving me to make my sister's birthday dinner cake alone. As the afternoon progressed I began to feel more and more glad that I had my date with Dreamy II lined up as a backup option.

And then Dreamy arrived, kissed me, told me he'd missed me and it had been way too long since we last saw each other, and within about 30 seconds I had forgiven him everything. He's a space cadet; I know that. He told me a story yesterday about one day when he was a kid and he got confused and thought in the middle of the day that school was over, walked home and sat patiently on his front porch, wondering why the door was locked. At the end of the story he concluded, "I was spacey then, and I'm spacey now." But what can I say, I like him, spaciness and all.

So we went over to my sister's house and celebrated her birthday with fondue dinner, and Dreamy made his debut and liked everyone, and everyone liked Dreamy. And then we went back to my house and he met my soon-to-be-former neighbor the Cat Lady, and then... well, let's just say I have a very red chin once again.

Approximately a year ago, I was sitting outside at the Audubon Center in Boston reading the classic book Difficult Conversations. Specifically, I was reading the chapter about people who refuse to have conversations, and how to work issues out with them. At that point I knew that my relationship with La Moustache was kaput, but I was trying to figure out how to have conversations that would close things in a way that would feel as good as possible to me. He refused to have any conversations, and went so far as to suggest I get anger management therapy when I expressed anger at his treatment of me. My feeling was it would be unhealthy of me NOT to feel angry.

Obviously, difficult conversations happen at the end of relationships or in the middle, not at the very beginning. Still, it feels good to be dating someone who not only doesn't avoid difficult conversations, but is a bit of a difficult conversations guru. He must have read the book at least 20 times, and was quite impressed that most of my friends have read it (yay friends!).

I feel a bit strange going out with Dreamy II at this point, but I'm going to go through with it. I have a feeling it's not going to progress past the one date, though.