Marking the calendar by the moments spent with you, by the moment I knew.

I am happy, I think, and it comes with a lack of anxiety- a lack of dopamine. Without a reasonable expectation of anticipation. It’s so strange.

I met a guy. A man. NYE guy, I have been calling him, as we had our first date on New Year’s Eve. Very creative, I know.

The first date was quick, I had a party to attend so we arranged to meet briefly beforehand- a low-pressure date on an otherwise high-pressure evening. I mean, what a way to end a year.  It went shockingly well. I was surprised by how handsome and charming I found him. There was one moment where he totally won me over, and I know he could tell he had- he was talking about his work and he leaned his head back and said “I love my job” with this beaming smile. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anyone talk like that about their work.  God, how sexy, to see someone devoid of misery. That moment, the smile, was the one I mentioned later that evening, to my friend Christoph at his party. I said, “I have such a good feeling about this guy, which is weird because it was such a short meeting.”

NYE guy messaged me and said “It was a really very nice last day of the year with you, even if it was only 1.5 hours. I really enjoyed it.”

It’s been two weeks and I have seen him more or less constantly, only pausing while I was away on vacation.
He texted me two days into the trip,
“Time to come home, Vienna missed you.”
and when I saw him he admitted
“I missed you.”

He seems to be pretty crazy about me, which is exactly what I want. On our second date, he had to show up a bit late for a work emergency, which I later found out was, in fact, a real work emergency. But he chose to go to work the next day, on a holiday, rather than skip his date with me, and he made time to see me again the following day. Ritz Carlton Energy at its finest. He is in the busiest time of year for him, working 6 days a week, 60+ hour weeks, and yet always making time to see me. He is basically the postal service, Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night will keep him from me.

But, it’s only been a few weeks, and the anxious voice in my head keeps telling me to wait- to see if it stays this way.

Then the love-drunk-sex-crazed demon in me tells me to attack him.

I’ve tried to take it slow with him. I’ve managed so far. Didn’t even kiss him until the third date. To be fair, we were on the third date within a week of our first. He clearly wants me.

“When I see you tomorrow, I will give you 1000 kisses”

The poor guy, I don’t think he knows what he’s getting into. Actually, I think he knows exactly what he is getting into.

But I have been good- so good. I’ve been a goddamn saint.  I’ve been praying to keep it this way. I’ve been praying for a man like this to come along and stay. I mean, I’ve been praying for strength and patience and staring into the distance thinking about un-buttoning his shirt with my teeth, but you know, that’s almost a prayer. The lines between prayer and fantasy get blurred sometimes.

But I literally went to church last Sunday, a really churchy-church, not my usual hippie witchy UU church. I went to a real church and took communion and sat there telling myself I could be good.

I invited him over to my place on Friday night, hoping to prove to myself that I am capable of inviting a man in without, you know, inviting him in. But, as things tend to go with me, well…you know. We were standing in the doorway, kissing goodnight, his coat was on, his scarf around his neck. Then, suddenly the scarf was on the floor, and the coat was unzipped, and he told me to unbuckle his belt and he turned me around, threw me down over the edge of my desk, pulled my tights down, and just when he was about to I told him to stop. And he did.

So, I don’t know if it still counts as taking it slow at this point. I spent the better part of Saturday morning spaced out, staring at the desk, and sighing. Panting, really. I don’t know if I can ever enter my apartment again without thinking about that moment. I may be beyond saving.

But who cares, and who am I, making intercourse some arbitrary demarcation of whether I have been good or bad or patient or whether I am still deserving of love in the morning? It is completely out of line with my values. Plus, I have a sneaking suspicion he has seen through my nun-charade, that he’s onto me. I am positive he is desperate to be inside of me.

So I set out for date night on Saturday, ready to forego my plans for absolution and absolutely ravish him. The plan was to have dinner, and then he was going to show me his office, where I was probably going to behave in a way that risked getting him fired.

In the car on the way to dinner, we had a delightful conversation, about how he was fine with waiting as long as I want to, how he knows that with me there will always be a tomorrow. How he felt confident that when we do have sex, “I know it sets some expectations up on both sides, but I feel very strongly that it’s going to be very good, and very passionate, when it happens, no rush”.  I nodded, peacefully, running my thumb across the black lace garter belt I had on beneath my dress. 
“Mmmhmm, when it happens, no rush.”

Then, at the restaurant, God decided to intervene. Well, god or celiac, it’s hard to say for sure which.  But, at dinner, I started getting horrific stomach pain, and he clued into it right away from my face. I was crushed- this was not the date night I had in mind.  Two friends joked that maybe it was the universe’s way of helping me to take things slow. He handled it so well, grabbed the check, and whisked me off to his car. It was an embarrassing nightmare, but he was such a gentleman. He put my address into the GPS, looked at me, and said “okay, look, I will have you home in 13 minutes!” then gave me a quick kiss before driving off.

In the car, my stomach was getting worse and worse, and I was in a bit of a panic, trying my best to keep a straight face, to tough it out. But he saw right through me. “How are you? Okay- I will stop asking.” At one point, a stabbing pain came on and I actually let out a small pained yelp. By then, I was really praying, terrified this evening would turn into a date worst-case scenario…in his car. But I realized, in the course of those 13 minutes, that I don’t actually think it would be the end of the world. I actually think this guy is so crazy about me that it wouldn’t have changed anything.

He got me home in time, and just said “It will be okay, I will see you tomorrow.” It seems the crazy is mutual because I spared a half-second of borrowed time to give him a kiss goodbye.

I realized, later, while crying and conversing with the universe, sweating and begging it to tell me why- that despite all my misery I was still happy.

Fuck man, the guy got me. I texted him later to say as much.
To say,
“You being so good in the situation is actually a really big deal for me. You stole my heart a little bit.”
He replied,
“That means we have something in common, you stole my heart a little bit too.”