monday morning quarterbacking

i hate dating. really. i mean, hate it. and i don't hate many things!

in the interest of getting right back in the game, i had a date on saturday. funny story, someone who had visited my work a few years ago who i thought was attractive showed up on match. i winked at him, he wrote me right back, i explained that we'd met before, he called me, we planned a date. we watched a little baseball at my house, then at his suggestion, we went to a pub and played pool and this fun ice hockey-meets-foosball game over a beer. he brought me home a little after 11, walked me to the door and gave me a peck on the lips.

we have a lot in common in terms of our work, both like sports, i found him attractive (again) though i wouldn't say there was a ton of chemistry right away but i'm definitely aware of how that can build over time (and my track record for relationships that start with really strong chemistry is not good anyway!). at the end of the date, there was no statement about "i'll call you" or "let's get together this week/next week" and i always feel a bit insecure when a date ends with no discussion of "next steps." (clearly, my ability to deal with ambiguity still needs some serious work.) i guess i shouldn't expect people to act the way i'd act, but i'm a fan of knowing what to expect. perhaps it's the east coast in me...

when we planned the date originally, he suggested monday as an option, but at the time i had dinner plans with a colleague. he mentioned he was going out of town on tuesday for a few days. so when my monday night freed up and my plans included only watching my hometown football team on TV, i made the (perhaps unadvisable) decision to drop him a line:

From: J
Subject: futbol...
To: R

hey there,

sorry about the charger game -- in particular, the fact that you had to watch it in the company of pats fans! ugh.

my dinner for tonight was canceled so i get to watch the eagles real time (yay!). let me know if you want to join in...

cheers, j

to which he replied, in about an hour:

the charger game was disappointing. but the pats exploited the weakness
that charger fans know about - secondary. Payton Manning and Tom Brady can
take us apart. How we can address that, I do not know.....

go eagles!! I will be working tonight as I had too many personal work items
to take care of today. enjoy the game.

R

so now, i introduce an expression that pretty much captures how i feel:

Mon'day morn'ing quar'terback

Informal.
a person who criticizes the actions or decisions of others after the fact, using hindsight to assess situations and specify alternative solutions.

in this case, i'm assessing my own actions...i probably should have just waited to hear from him -- or not hear from him as the case may have been. his reply doesn't sound to me like there is a lot of enthusiasm there. so while i'm second guessing myself, i also feel like if the interest was there a simple, short e-mail from me shouldn't have extinguished it. but perhaps i also need to learn to control my impulse to reach out...as mom says, you have to let the man decide what the next step will be, but that approach offends my feminist sensibilities!

ack, i don't know. my gut tells me the right person for me is going to be pretty damn psyched to find me and to find that i am indeed still single and that this wishy-washy-ness and monday morning quarterbacking will all go away when that happens...

aren't you glad i'm single again?

oh, p.s., mr. three strikes called me this evening. ringer was off as i was watching the game, though i wouldn't have answered anyway. (even though i removed his #'s from my phone, i did recognize his cell number and he did leave a message.) at this point, i'm not interested in talking to him. though there is very much about him that felt right to me, he's clearly not taking care of himself enough to make a serious relationship possible and without that, i don't see us being friends.

so we shall see..........fun, fun, fun. ; )

~md