Living Happily Ever After

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Never Underestimate A Second Date

“Who knows how long I’ve loved you, you know I love you still. Will I wait a lonely lifetime? If you want me to I will.” (The Beatles)

Believe it or not, despite a declaration like that, things continued as they had before. (One benefit of dating a queen of denial, I guess!) However, we went from seeing each other once a week, to seeing each other 2-3 times each week, depending on our schedules. Each time he took me home, Bachelor #5 said, “I would marry you tomorrow if you were willing. But no pressure, I can wait as long as it takes you to decide.”

I still wasn’t sure he got it, that he really realized what he was saying or that I understood what he was saying! I wasn’t even thinking along those lines, so I took him at his word and didn’t allow myself to feel any pressure. But one night, when I joked that he moved really fast to say something like that within a week of deciding he was interested in me and taking things to a new level, he disagreed. He said it hadn’t been “fast” at all. When I asked him how he could possibly think that, he told me he had known how he felt and what he wanted for a long time. “How long?” I asked. He replied, “Our second date.”

Our SECOND date?

And the entire time we’d dated, I’d believed he was simply trying to mentor and befriend a newly-divorced single mom! I’d never even thought he was interested in me! I couldn’t believe it. I asked him how he’d pulled that off. He said, “I’ve told you all along I have more self-control than you can imagine. Besides, what would you have done if I had told you how I felt and what I thought?”

I replied, “Run the other way!”

He nodded his head in agreement and said, “Exactly!”

It turned out to be true after all: men always have a plan. (Gee, who told me that? My brilliant Psychology degree male co-worker…and I had laughed at him, the perceptive and wise man who shared that vital bit of information with me!)

But this time, I was too shocked to laugh.

I’d also learned a very important life lesson, unexpected or otherwise: never underestimate men! You see, “There are three kinds of men. The one that learns by reading. The few who learn by observation. The rest of them have to pee on the electric fence for themselves.” (Will Rogers)

However they get it, they get it…and I’d been the last one to know.

Hot Date

“I don’t understand why Cupid was chosen to represent Valentine’s Day. When I think about romance, the last thing on my mind is a short, chubby toddler coming at me with a weapon.” (Author Unknown)

Valentine’s Day weekend. I was back at work, but still on antibiotics and cough medicine. Before I left work that Friday before the holiday, a co-worker asked, “So, do you have a hot date for this weekend?”

I said, “No.”

My co-worker looked shocked. “What do you mean you don’t have a date?”

I replied, “I didn’t say I didn’t have a date. I have a date with Bachelor #5.”

He raised his eyebrows at me and in his best Psychology degree voice said, “What is up with that, by the way? You’ve been dating him a long time.”

I told him nothing was up. Bachelor #5 was just a nice, older man who didn’t “like” me, but dated me; so it wasn’t a “hot” date.

My co-worker (a man) disagreed. “Andrea, he’s a man and men don’t do that! They don’t date women they don’t like and they don’t date women they don’t like for months! Everything this man does for you demonstrates he likes you, actually more than likes you, in my opinion.”

I challenged him on that. I presented my case very well. I listed all of the reasons and ways I knew Bachelor #5 wasn’t interested in me. I drove home, older and wiser than my co-worker. I knew better than he did how the men I dated thought and felt. I pulled up to my house and stopped. In surprise.

Sitting on my porch was a beautiful flower arrangement. (And a box of chocolates.) For me. From Bachelor #5.

Just when I thought I had it all figured out.

Isn’t life like that? Especially the unexpected one.

“Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” (Soren Kierkegaard)