"Sorry, that's my lung on your plate."

I would imagine at this point at least a few of you think that I'm making all of this up.  How could one girl have stumbled across so many dysfunctional, abnormal or just plain weird situations in such a short period of time?  If you know me personally, you have already said to yourself (at least once), "Well, that's really par for the course for Melanie."  If you don't know me, you might have an inclination that either I have a ridiculously clever imagination or that somehow I'm doing something to attract such strange behavior.  I assure you that neither are the case.  Sometimes I've wondered though, especially in the last couple of weeks, if The Blogging Goddess herself has put said occurrences in my life to provide me with the material necessary to keep this blog alive and kickin'.  She's probably somewhere smiling down, hand-picking the next weirdo for me to go out with, giggling contently at the thought of my follow-up rants and raves.

So, I owe you an update.  I realize that I'm four days past due at this point, so I hope you'll forgive me.  I haven't noticed any Girl Scouts outside of my local Wal-mart in hot pursuit of funds for a computer, but I digress. 

Thursday evening, I met Mr. Banderas at a local restaurant.  I was running late (great first impression, thank you Atlanta rubber-neckers) but eventually arrived, almost sweating all of my makeup off in one fell swoop in the short walk from the car to the door.  He was polite, courteous and amazingly attractive.  So attractive, in fact, that I got nervous.  Way nervous.  As in, not able to put together a complete sentence nervous.  Halfway through my flautas, I must have gotten some of the tortilla caught in my throat and commenced to hack like an old woman for what seemed like twenty minutes.  After my sixth attempt to act as though this couldn't possibly be happening, he politely suggested that I take a sip of water, which I did, and which only made the situation worse.  I tried to continue talking through my gasps and chokes, only to sound like I'd just finished smoking an entire carton of Marlboros.  To the delight of the entire restaurant I'm sure, he took over the conversation at that point and let me recover.

We had a lot in common, he complimented my dress, we knew some mutual folks associated with my local alma mater, and there were very few awkward pauses (one of my biggest fears, second only to jugular vein attacks by moths).  But, it was crazy quick.  About halfway into the "date," I got a slight inclination that he was laying the foundation for a quick getaway.  I may certainly have misread this casual reference to something he needed to get done...right now...but it was odd to me that my drive to the restaurant was actually about twice as long as the time I actually sat across from him.  Hmm...now that I think of it, it also might have been due to the presence of my lung next to his plate full of tacos.  I'd imagine that's usually a date-ender.

I will say though that this is by far the most successful experience I've had in the last month as far as meeting new men goes.  Much to my surprise, he text messaged me within an hour of meeting and shared that he'd had a good time, and he hoped to see me at a Meetup.com group in the future.  Good sign, right? (This particular gentleman initially strolled onto the set via Meetup.com and then recognized my profile picture on Match.  He's a big fan of the Meetup scene.)  I think I'll keep an eye out for any upcoming Meetup events in the area, "stumble" across Mr. Banderas again and see where it goes from there.

I'd also like to introduce you to Mr. Baggage, a ridiculously cute local Singleton, also from Match, who shares an almost insane love of my favorite baseball team.  The texting marathon (thank you, Lord, that I was smart enough to switch to unlimited!) began yesterday and in a very short time, I learned a lot about Mr. Baggage.  And by "a lot about him," I mean his previous relationship.  I consider the sharing of emotional baggage at the onset of a new friendship/relationship/whatever to be a pretty big red flag, but never saw one quite this large.  I'm talking football-field size.  Mr. Baggage's fiance of six months (and girlfriend of four years) recently left him.  Recently as in Memorial Day.  Less than a month ago.  He lamented his empty apartment, added expense, how she'd just walked out, disappeared without explanation and his desire to literally skip town, all within the first ten texts.  But, added that he'd like to meet me.  He continued sharing his story with me multiple times through the course of the day.  And that he'd like to meet me. 

So, my fellow Singletons and Marrieds, I ask you:  Is there light around the edges of this red flag? Or should I let Mr. Baggage sort things out without getting in the middle?  I just imagine a first meeting filled with "ex-fiance" talk and bitter stories of break-ups and loneliness.