#287 Date Again
It’s been no secret that recently I’ve been going through past my relationships and really trying to think about where I am in life and who I want to be with.
Awhile back, a girl, Kate, wrote me on OKCupid. She sent me a really nice message about reading my blog and enjoying it. I remember seeing it and I meant to respond, as I always do when someone writes me, but at that time I stopped checking the site. Her message fell between the cracks and I never wrote back.
Now that I’ve renewed my interest in the site, I realized I never responded to her message. I wrote her back and we had a few email exchanges. She left me an opening to ask her out this weekend so I did.
We ended up going to a holiday party that her manager was throwing. Kate makes a living by writing and performing in her own plays, hence the need for a manager. I can’t even imagine having a manager. What would he do? “Greg, eat that dog poop. That would be scary.”
All the holiday parties I go to are usually industry ones. Entertainment or advertising. This one was more on the talent end. It’s interesting to see the differences between the two kinds. Kate mentioned that she didn’t have any friends who didn’t do creative things. I don’t really have any friends who make a living doing creative things.
It was exciting to talk to Kate. She was living the life I wanted. She was making a living being creative. While I didn’t think I could perform shows like she does, I could certainly see myself writing in my blog, writing articles, writing books, writing anything to pay the bills. She did point out how that was not the end-all. That once you reach that point, you still have to figure out who you are. But that’s a place I’d certainly like to be soon. I respected the hell out of her for everything she had accomplished.
Then the fact that someone like her liked what I was doing was pretty amazing. She said what I was doing was performance art. The fact that SYED is considered art by someone is awesome. I guess I can see how some of the more stunty things (dressing up in a wizard costume) could be seen as performance art.
She also said how she respected the volume of my output. At first I was shocked because I’m the guy who used to do everything in his power not to write. Writing is such a soul-wrenching experience that most writers hate the process. But I guess I am writing every day for the blog. And looking over the last 9 months of work, there is A LOT of material. It was great and encouraging to hear.
We had a great time and at the end of the night, she asked if I wanted to hang out again. It was a normal question. One that I’ve asked on dates before. But it all kind of hit me at that point. That this was the first date I had been on since I was with Clara. That Clara was still close to my heart even though I was trying to do what I had to, to move on. While I didn’t think there was a romantic connection, I did want to see Kate again as friends. I was just so thrown by the question, as normal as it was.
I said we could hang out as friends and started to talk about Clara but then realized that was a horrible mistake. In the end, I made an idiot of myself. Hopefully I didn’t make Kate feel foolish because I was the one being foolish.
I’m glad I went out with Kate. Because I think she is a really cool person and fun to be with. It also showed me that moving on is an ongoing process. There’s not a definite point where you say, “Well, that’s that. I’m over it.” You put your head down and just keep moving. Then, hopefully, one day you look back and see how far you’ve come.
