Adventures in Dating, Part 2

I have "officially" been single now for a year (although the reality of the ensuing ten months or so made feeling and/or adjusting to being "single" rather difficult...so no matter what anyone says, even though it's been a whole year, sometimes it still feels pretty fresh, and in the grand scheme, a year is really like a few minutes). I have really needed to do this at my own pace (seven years is a long time to invest in someone to just shrug it off). I know continuing on with my life is important, and I've really been trying. And I know part of that includes dating. But let's be honest: it is really, really hard to meet people once you're out of college, and (confirmed by many other single friends) it's especially hard in Portland (maybe big cities in general? Which seems kind of backwards...). So I've tried to go into this whole "dating again" thing with the mindset that I'm willing to try just about anything for a little while, just to give it a shot.

I am a traditional girl. I want to meet my knight in shining armor in a traditional way (you know, at church/school/work/volunteering/retreat/etc), but in today's world, I also know it's not necessarily going to be the way it happens. So I'm open. Or really, really trying to be, anyway. Lots and lots of friends and family members have encouraged me to try online dating. I don't at all love the idea, but as one friend (who tried it for awhile) said, "it might help get the awkward out." Fair enough. So over the summer, feeling lonely and bored, and against my better judgment, I tried it out. To be fair, I know it works for some people. I have quite a few friends now who are happily married after meeting Mr. or Ms. Right online and emailing their significant other for awhile and going through the process. I guess it's the traditional part of me...it's just hard to get over. Nevertheless...

I met a few decent guys (you have to weed out the total weirdos...eek!), but hardly any in the Portland area. I started talking to one guy, who we'll call "Lee" for the sake of anonymity, around the end of June. We emailed back and forth maybe half a dozen or so times, and then he sent me his phone number. I sent him mine, too, and he called me. We hit it off okay on the phone. He seemed really nice, he definitely liked talking to me, he didn't seem creepy, so I figured it wasn't any big deal to get to know him a little better. "Lee" is not from Portland; in fact, he lives in a town where one of my best friends lives, but it's not anywhere nearby. "Lee" started calling me just about everyday and wanted to talk for an hour or two each time. If you know me well at all, you know I don't really love to talk on the phone in the first place (unless you're one of my really close friends, family, or I'm on a long, boring road trip by myself), and I'm a pretty busy person, so there were plenty of nights when I couldn't answer his phone calls. Anyway, mid-August he started hinting that he would like to come to Portland to visit. Ohhhhh, geez...

So I put him off for a week or two, but every time we talked he mentioned it. I had sort of figured if we really hit it off, maybe eventually I could go visit my best friend, see some other college friends who also lived there, and maybe he could take me out to dinner or something, but he was having none of that. He wanted to come to Portland. I made quite sure to never encourage it, but eventually he pinned me down to a weekend he would be in town, and next thing I knew, there was an email in my inbox with a flight itinerary...followed a few days later by another email with MY MOM'S flight itinerary FOR THE SAME WEEKEND.

Stay tuned for the next installment..."Lee" comes to Portland....