butterfly migration

Oh that I might one day actually learn how to step cautiously in the game of love. I held back on sharing about the last suitor that came up because I did what I always do, I got excited, and I told myself I wouldn't jinx it, and then, well, reality set in. The thing is, it had a lovely start. We had been trading music recommendations for awhile (I've been going to see him play for a couple of years in a local restaurant on Friday or Saturday nights from time to time), and at some point our messages (I tell ya, myspace is worth its billions) began to indicate there was a level of intrigue that extended to the individual, not just the music taste, and he asked me out. But since a happily ever after doesn't appear to be too forthcoming in my life, there was a catch. He'd recently gotten out of a relationship, and wanted to be careful. While the main breakup had happened last summer, they'd briefly reconnected this fall, and had broken up for good only about 3 weeks before. So after we saw each other briefly at a show he had encouraged me to attend, he wrote me honestly expressing his interest, but also his hesitance to jump into dating full on. His honesty was extremely refreshing, and I wrote back and told him a bit about where I was at - that I've been single for over a year now, that I'd dabbled in dating but wasn't very good at it, and would love to get to know each other in whatever way he was most comfortable.

We threw around some non-date but date-like ideas and settled on going to look at Christmas lights a couple of weeks before Christmas. At this point we'd been coming across each other for a number of years when I've gone to see him play - we've exchanged very minor pleasantries from time to time as I've requested songs or chided him for not knowing any by my favorite band (aside from that our musical tastes are almost spot on) and had one slightly more significant interaction when he and my roommate almost went out a couple of years ago. So it was funny to see this guy I'm used to watching over a glass of sparkling wine or a mojito arrive at my house, open the door for me as I got into his truck, and trundle off in search of festive lights.

It was a lovely date. I say date, because when he left at the end of the night, he said, "this was a date, wasn't it?" as if he was kind of tickled by how well it had gone, regardless of how cautious he was trying to be. We'd spent time discussing where he was at, where I was at, and everything in between - including two of the so-called untouchables, politics and religion. He sent me a note the next day saying how much fun he'd had, and how he thought it was really impressive we'd covered both bases and not ended up wanting to strangle each other in the end (even though we initially come from different viewpoints we found a lot of middle ground). I was, as I am prone to be when confronted with someone who gets my brain going like that and is cute to boot, on cloud nine.