First Date Fever

With me, when it rains, it pours.  After years of an intense drought as far as men go, this week I have too many to handle!  Looking back, the quick exit of Mr. Saturday may have been a blessing in disguise, because quite honestly, he would have lost out to my options this week on almost every level anyway. 

After several email communications and a few days of text messaging, Mr. Braves Fan is quite interested in meeting up for dinner or drinks after work.  He seems very impressed with me, unlike Mr. Saturday, and was crazy considerate and friendly, for as much as you can tell via messages limited to 160 characters on a handheld communication device.  And, after literally months of on-again-off-again communication, Mr. Dalton is also asking for a few minutes of my time to get to know me better.  Mr. Dalton was a match during another "I'm fed up with my life, what am I going to do about it?" stage when I was willing to pay almost $60 a month to change it and became a member on eHarmony about eight or nine months ago.  We were matched right at the completion of both of our memberships and then caught up through facebook.  The communication slowly dwindled, but he popped back up in my matches this go-round, and I guess he also thought it was too coincidental to overlook.  Mr. Banderas, named such for his Antonio-like good looks, has been emailing and very chatty, but we haven't conversed about taking it to the in-person stage just yet...but I think I can see it in the very near future.  Whew!  And keeping them all straight has not been easy!  Half the reason for this blog posting is so that I can try to get a mental handle on all these details...

One thing that I've come across in my electronic journey to coupledom is the different ways that people are comfortable communicating.  I've decided, despite any male protestations to the contrary, to utilize the female's prerogative and not actually speak on the phone with any of my potential matches until we've met face-to-face.  Weird? Yeah, probably.  Especially considering that I was a communications major in college and should be able to handle such basic interactions. But, I've noticed something especially fascinating about myself.  I'm a such an old fashioned girl.  Although I'm literally forcing myself into this strange social sphere of internet friend-raising, mentally, I'm staying true to the way I want things to be deep down:  The Old Fashioned Way.  Sure, I'll find out you exist on this planet by reading your "About Me" section of a webpage, but I want to meet you in person before I'm expected to carry on a conversation on the phone longer than "Can you meet at 7:00 pm on Saturday?"  Talking to someone I don't know at all on the phone is awkward.  And an awkward beginning, to me, leaves a lasting impression.  I'm so much better in person than I am on the phone, that I don't want to jeopardize what could turn out to be a wonderful time with a bad phone call full of awkward pauses, probably due to the other person glancing back to my online profile to find something to ask me about to generate conversation. 

Do I deserve this new found attention? Heck yes! Can I handle it? Uh...I don't know! I love the fact that I have some irons in the fire but am a little bit scared as to whether or not I might get burned by all this. These new guys are all very different, which I know is good because it makes the playing field level. They all have equal opportunity to impress me with their own individuality, and I have the chance to say "Wow, I really like this guy for X quality," having never known that was something that interested me since I was cooped up in my little single world for so long. Options are good. What are the rules though? Should I just be focused on one of my new matches at a time?  Or should I keep the mix and be fun, single Melanie for once?  We'll see how much of those communications classes stayed in my long-term memory and whether or not that memory is good enough to keep all these guys straight, because I'm going with Fun, Single Melanie and throwing myself into this game, whole-heartedly.