You Know This is a Date, Right?

Subtitled: “Paranoia is My Special Gift”

And despite this, the Date went amazingly well.

I picked Athena up, for it seemed to be the thing to do, and we headed off to the beach cafe to begin with. We had a beer, and with grace and finesse I broke a glass within ten minutes of being there. Beer + empty stomach + sitting in the sun + nervousness = not exactly co-ordinated.

The cafe and surrounding beach being inordinately crowded (it was a hot Sunday, so barely surprising) we decided to head off to a different, more secluded beach. We walked through the sand dunes and nearby forest and through the ocean at some points, smoking a joint and telling each other about our lives. All very beautiful. After a while, she pointed out that the new Matrix movie would be screening soon, so we decided to head along to that.

The movie was, ugh, so bad unfortunately, but it gave us something to bond over – shared suffering promotes closeness!

We were both famished by this time (it was nearly 9pm), so we grabbed a Thai takeaway and headed back to her place. She had a very nice Gerwurtztraminer (aren’t you impressed that I can spell that?) in her fridge, which we opened up and shared. So we ate and drank and talked until almost midnight, and it was all very lovely.

No jumping into bed, not even any snogging! Which is what lead to the paranoia. I mean, it was a good thing. It didn’t feel right to rush things at all. But the next day I was all, “oh no, what if she doesn’t think it was a date? What if she’s thinking, yay I’ve got a new buddy?”

I’m such a dumbass.

So yesterday I accidentally asked her out again. I was ringing her cos she was going to see if she could switch shifts and come and play for our soccer team on Wednesday. Once I’d ascertained that she couldn’t, I somehow found myself saying, “so what are you up to tonight?” Which is how we came to play pool for many hours. It was just nice. There was a steady stream of people we knew, so sometimes we played in a team, and sometimes we played against each other. Always we played very very badly! Between shots, we were snuggled up together on a sofa sharing beer. When Jax commented on the beer sharing by saying, “awww, communal beer, that’s so sweet!” neither of us blushed at all, and Athena explained Ree’s brief appearance before Jax and Sina showed up by saying “I think she kinda thought two’s company, y’know”. And I smiled away happily.

After some serious pool playing, Athena took me to the restaurant at which she is a chef and served me brulee-d lemon tart. She introduced me to all her workmates, which was almost like being introduced to her family for Athena freely says that her restaurant is like her second home. I could feel her workmates’ eyes on me, examining me and seeing how I measured up – which partly made me feel nervous and partly made me grin… because she must’ve told them about me. Excellent!

At the end of the night I walked her home and she made me the weirdest cup of tea ever. Earl grey with citrus and cornflower, and chocolate soy milk instead of the more standard non-flavoured dairy milk. We giggled a bit, and she graciously offered me a place to sleep – on her couch – which I politely declined. We parted with a lingering hug and I smiled all the way back to my car (the walking being in order to walk the beer out of my system, you see).

Not rushing is good, you see. And is quite fun when all the nice positive signs are there.