First Dates

How do I start? About a month back, while working an Emmaus men's weekend, I struck up a conversation with a woman (Mary!), who I had met on a previous walk. I thought she was cute and there seemed to be a mutual attraction. Well, the following weekend, at the women's Emmaus weekend, she was working the weekend while I was acting as part church rep and general troubleshooter (I am on the board of directors as well). We hit it off pretty well and I began wondering... I didn't have to wonder much, because after I got back from the National Youth Worker convention, I got an email from Mary. Emails lead to instant messages and eventually she invited me to hang out with her and some friends.

Of course, the couple of times that she invited me, I couldn't make it so we decided to go to dinner and hang out last Monday. Later, we were both wondering if we had just made a "date." Well we went out to dinner and sat and talked for a few hours. We were both pretty nervous. It's amazing even at 38 that I still felt like I did when I was 15 when it came to talking to her. We decided to go out again on last Friday.

So Friday, we went out to the Red Mesa Grill in Boyne City. That was pretty good, but we were still both pretty nervous. We again decided to sit and talk again and our conversation finally entered a point of no return. I began talking about trying not to do anything that would run her off or make her uncomfortable, because I was open to just being friends if that's what it was to be, but eventually I asked if I could kiss her and she said "Yes." !!!

So now, your humble blog writer is in the beginnings of promising, fledgling relationship. I think that a few people were trying to get ask me that before Mary and I went out, because she had commented on my blog several times, however, it wasn't until recently that the giddy excitement of the first dates has actually happened. I'll probably blog later about the spiritual aspects and challenges of this relationship, but right now...I'm pretty stoked!