The second date is already arranged for next week. Then I run into her at my local bar tonight, with a female friend, and discover that my dating confidence has a very limited operating range.
I can apparently manage a date. An unscheduled appearance by the same woman requires further research.
I'm 46. She's 40. We met at this lounge last week, had one really nice date earlier this week, and kissed. My first kiss in practically forever, which is a fairly small event to report and a rather large one to experience.
Now there's another date on the calendar, and I'm excited about it. Not politely interested. Really excited. After 23 years without dating anyone, even having a next date feels like information I should handle carefully.
I haven't acquired 23 years of recent experience in the meantime. I've acquired 23 years of not needing to work out what to do when a woman I like turns up somewhere I also happen to be. These are different qualifications.
The place itself isn't the problem. It's my local bar; being here is ordinary. It's where we met, too. Neither of us has wandered into an improbable location. The surprise is seeing someone who has already become a highlight of next week standing inside tonight.
Her friend is the detail that makes me hesitate. They have their own evening. Our first date doesn't automatically make me part of it, however pleased I am to see her. I know she's someone I want to spend more time with. I don't know what place, if any, I have in this particular outing.
If I go over, a quick hello could be perfectly natural, or I could linger and become the man who has mistaken a second-date booking for an invitation to every intervening social event. If I keep my distance, I might be giving them space, or appearing oddly uninterested after that kiss. There seems to be a remarkably narrow strip of floor between crowding someone and acting as though we haven't met.
The scheduled date at least takes one pressure away. I don't need to secure another meeting tonight; we've already done that. For once, my problem isn't getting a date. It's encountering her outside the appointment.
The kiss matters to me. It doesn't tell me whether she wants a conversation tonight, and it certainly doesn't tell me whether her friend wants one. That's a considerable amount of authority to give a kiss, even one I've been waiting a long time to have.
So here I am: a grown man in a familiar bar, with a lovely second date ahead of him and no idea what the protocol is for the unplanned bit in between.
