First Date Feels
I can’t help but feel as though I take everything for granted. Even love. Don’t we all to some extent? It’s quite impossible to maintain hyper self awareness for every instance of your conscious life. Especially when it comes to dating and the mystical quest to find “The One.” Yet that’s what we’re constantly sold:
Stay alert at all times because anything could happen. The greatest events unfold when you’re not paying attention. Look your absolute best anytime and every time you step out because you never know who you’ll meet. The person you could possibly bump into at the grocery store? They just might be the love of your life.
But still. It can feel good to fade into the background every once in a while.
How often we forget the romance of languor and letting things be— of letting things arrive on their own time. I’ve come to deeply appreciate the luxurious state of feeling unbothered in the glow of my own design. Like sitting at home on a hot, summer day watching the plants sway in the wind. Collecting thoughts by the pool, sensual patterns of water droplets trickling down tan skin. Or the way the clouds in the sky change color by the minute during the grand procession of the setting sun.
Or when you’re on a date with someone new and you smile out of politeness while your mind wanders momentarily. Perhaps back to someone you wished was in front of you instead, or no one at all. After long, laborious periods of self love and careful discovery, the notion of dating can become alien and even inelegant. But because it’s the start of any decent love story, we try and try again to muddle through the bleak routine of first date feels in the earnest pursuit of something real.
You’re sitting down at the newest restaurant in town with someone you’re meeting for the first time. Weeks of text messages have been exchanged. Or has it been months? Some X rated conversation paired with basic pleasantries. Daily dramas and funnies betwixt the both of you. Nothing inside screaming “He’s the one, the one, the one.” He’s handsome enough, but you barely know each other. In a way that matters at least. Today is the day you learn if you care to know more. After greeting each other with smiles of strained sincerity, you glance at the waiter setting a table for new guests, wondering if they’re about to endure a first date as well. The glasses on your table perspire with a cool, ghostly sheen as the ice cubes inside them melt away. How you wish that you were melting that instantly. It is just the first date after all. You bring your attention back to your date, returning to the little orbit you had mutually agreed upon testing out. There’s an eager, albeit naive and slightly annoying enthusiasm in his eyes—he wants you already. His softly inquisitive eyes look directly at you, with a glint that says “I’m ready to move along as quickly as you are willing to.” And you sigh and avert your gaze in slight embarrassment. You know fully well that for some reason, he already likes you a whole lot and this makes you uncomfortable. You warn yourself that this will soon end in flames. Everything feels uncertain, yet you certainly know what you like, which doesn’t seem to be him at all. Was this all a mistake? But for the kindness of chance, you toss your fixed certainties like petals in the air to wonder: Maybe he’ll impress you yet. Maybe he’ll surprise you, you can’t have him figured out already. Or … maybe you’re just not the kind of person who falls for someone after the first date. Maybe . . . his tangible attraction towards you is just a tad overwhelming. Perhaps . . . you’re not ready to be on the same page. There’s still time to sneak to the bathroom, call your friends, and back away from it all.
You look at him again, giving kindness another chance. Wondering with a curious eye now: could this be the face of my future lover? How would I feel waking up to this face every day? To have stolen pictures of him in my phone? Pictures of us at Disney World or having adventures in foreign lands. Could I see myself on a road trip with him upstate? Would I laugh or be upset if he judged me for blasting Taylor Swift on the way there? Hiking wondrous trails, wading within waterfalls, winding down at various wineries. Would I lick off watermelon sugar if it dripped down his lips? And wash away the sticky sweet stains on his billowy linen shirt? Would he be the one I’d want beside me and the Christmas tree? Or would all this drive me insane? Or worse, bitter and resentful?
After some moments of silence, you glance at the glasses and watch the water trickle down. An uninspired conversation carries on as you fail to fully disguise your lack of enthusiasm. It’s not as if his voice is an incessant drone of endless boredom or that you find him offensively vanilla. But the minutes are ticking away, and there’s still too much time left to pass. What could I have been doing instead? He hasn’t taken his eyes off you for one second. As much as you wish it didn’t, this still bothers you. Finally, the food arrives. You pray your audible gasp didn’t give you away. You ordered the house special pasta with a side of crispy garlic bread and a humble plate of olives and organic hummus. While he glows over the squash flower pizza and a side of home grown onion rings, accompanied by a scrumptious garlic pesto. The awkwardly awaited arrival of the rustic fare brings you relief, providing a brief respite. Enough time at least to gather your thoughts away from any necessary conversation. You ask to taste the pesto (your second choice), as a fruitless olive branch. “Delicious!” you proclaim with enough politeness to express gratitude, but with minimal energy so as not to inspire in him the idea of offering you more. Now you start undressing your inhibitions and allow yourself to fully luxuriate and enjoy what’s on your plate in front of you. Consciously, you decide to let your fingers get messy. Your mouth a little greasy. Your napkin a little stained. If anything, he may just find you less attractive. So savor every flavor, every speck of sauce, every delectable crumb, every satisfying crunch. As if he isn’t even there or nothing else matters. For these are acts of love. To take your time and absorb every moment. Smiling and enjoying the abundance of flavors made to gather just for you. Let it be said that the Lord has proclaimed, you must never take good food for granted. Because this is how love is supposed to feel. You know it and you show it. You even smack your oily, pesto glossed lips to prove it. Yet why can’t you say that love is possible with the sir that softly stares in obvious adoration?
After delighting in the tastes of your own heaven, it’s time to re-engage with the person in front of you. He’s human, remember? Acknowledge him for real, instead of the illusions you’ve created to represent him. Let him really speak. Simply listen. He’s been complimenting you all night, clinging to the barely thirty words you’ve spoken throughout. This time, try exercising patience as you observe. Ask him more engaging questions this time. And ask yourself different ones.
Like, do I like his smile?
How do I feel about his demeanor?
Do I like how his hand feels in mine?
Is this someone I would deny anyone else for?
Is this someone I would wait for? And would I want him to wait for me?
To wash my hands in the bathroom when all the bills are paid and everyone’s ready to leave.
To grab the groceries I forgot on the other side of the store when he’s next in line to pay the cashier.
To buy my favorite snacks when the movie’s already started and the cinema is jam-packed, though it’s merely a matinee.
Would I want him to really wait? For me to get my shit together. To stop spinning round in clouds of impossible expectations. To deal with the unpleasant echo of my own uncertainties that clang beyond my carefully constructed realm of self love. The ones that dwell deep and cause shame. Reckoning with my insecurities and weaknesses. Removing the rot from my roots to restore my peace. If I ever had it.
Would he wait? For me to see him as worthy? For me to be honest with how I feel and who I have feelings for? To explain what I want and don’t want and how much of it I care to be available for. Must I wait? For myself to believe the truth. Which is that nothing in love nor life is certain, except who you’re willing to stumble through it all with. Through its messes and disasters, its silences and aggravations, as well as its moments of heaven, fleeting though they may be: greasy ecstasy and sugary bliss, nature’s divine and watermelon kiss. Seeing each other as friends before lovers. Starstruck undercover. The rest is up to God, but I know that I can try. To be kinder to semi-strangers with purity in their eyes. Though I may take him from granted, the seeds have been planted. Blooming flowers deserving of hours, from one devoted. Not from one whose attention has floated on murky waters.
When the right one comes and my attention is slanted, I pray the flowers will have grown to leave me enchanted. Because I’ll regret, I’ll regret, ever losing what it was that I took for granted.