Love, Dating, and Other Things I Don't Understand

So supposedly I have a date tomorrow night. Plans have not been confirmed, but post-making out at a club, a cute boy took my number. And then texted me and I texted back. And then called and left a message. Then I called him and left a message. And then we actually you know...talked on the phone.

He was saying cute and romantic type things, but I wasn't buying it...not that I necessarily think he didn't mean it...maybe he did, but these types of phrases don't have the same impact on me as they did the first time.

The first time...

I guess the first time was the boy I dated for three years. I guess he was the first real time. I mean boys said "romantical" things before that, and I wasn't as swept up in the whole ordeal. I guess that means I was really in love? Maybe it means I only believe someone if I've known them a long time.

I remember being sixteen on the subway in New York and I had just finished telling my friend how no boy ever really made me feel pretty. A random boy walked up to me and told me I was beautiful... I don't know if he heard my complaint. I was convinced he must have, or why else did he come up to me.

When I was seventeen, I really wanted to be in love. I had a really great first kiss with a boy. Little did I know, that first kiss would be eclipsed by many other first kisses. I didn't love that boy, we never got that far. We broke up because I wouldn't have sex with him.

When I was nineteen, a boy told me he loved me and I couldn't say it back. I know I didn't love him. He was a kind, thoughtful, and communicative boy and I wish I had treated him better. But I wasn't in love with him. I was nineteen and in Europe and for the first time I was learning how to be ok with flirting and men and the whole club scene.

When I was twenty-one, I think I might have fallen in love. But it never went anywhere. I could barely talk about it coherently with anybody. I even tried to tell the person. That incident was like a deer caught in the headlights. I asked my friend if being in love counted if you never actually dated the person, if they never really knew what you were thinking.... she said yes, it still counts.

When I was twenty-two, I definitely fell in love. And it was long, and dramatic, and wonderful and horrible. And I'm finally getting over it. I think I might mostly be over it...I'm not sure. But I'm not still in love with this person. This first kiss put all the other first kisses in the world to shame. It will be the first kiss by which I will judge all future first kisses. I was the first person to say "I love you" and I whispered it late at night, wrapped in a blanket, sitting on the floor. I whispered it while snow fell outside and it was a wonderful feeling. And then 3+ years later it fell apart.

But I'm still okay; I'm even better than okay, and I think I still believe in love.

So the next question is...can you be in love with two people at the same time? I think I was. I think it happened when I was twenty-two for a little while. Another first kiss - not perfect in the John Hughes movie way, but kind of perfect in the Judd Apatow way. In a piazza. In the most romantic country in the world. Maybe it was real, maybe it was the lighting in the piazza.

Now I am twenty five, and statistics say I am at the ideal age for marriage... or was it the average age for marriage? The truth is, I'm probably further from marriage then I've ever been. But I still want to believe in marriage.

And tomorrow, maybe, I'm going on a date. With a medical student I met in a club. Do I like him? Maybe. Will it go anywhere? Maybe, but I lean towards probably not. Why? Circumstances. Will I believe him tomorrow if he says something romantic? I would like to. I would at least like to not roll my eyes if he he busts out a line about my eyes.

So I will go home and I will choose an outfit, and I will wear mascara, and I will get nervous. I will hope that if it isn't forever, the butterflies will happen at least for a little while and I will believe, even just for a minute, that love is possible and I will stop being cynical, even just for a minute. And if he says "you look pretty" I won't look for alterior motives, I won't judge him because he said something moony, I won't try to sneak a look at myself in a window to see if he is lying. I will smile and I will believe him and I will say "thanks."