Khalil the Actor
I almost bailed on this date yesterday. We were supposed to meet when I was in Portland already for a TB test, and then he ended up having early rehearsal, so he wanted to meet at 9 instead. There was no way I would have driven back and forth to Portland twice for a guy I didn't know, except that I had already done my eye makeup and it looked really good and if I didn't go on a date it would have only been for the benefit of the TB test guy.
So I get to this bar (I have now been to the same bar on three separate dates with three separate men and it's only so long before the bartender ladies start winking at me, but I decided it's my good-luck bar since it's right next to the Center) and wait. I always get there before the date, because the only thing worse than waiting for him to arrive and nervously adjusting your clothes every five seconds is nervously walking over to him and not having time to adjust your clothes at all. He ends up sneaking up on me (not on purpose) and tapping me on the shoulder.
He has a lot of bright colors on, which fits the exuberant personality type I expended from his Tinder info (actor, stupid jokes) but it turns out what doesn't fit that is his actual personality. He does make stupid (good) jokes, but his overall demeanor has a weird tinge of gravitas and he speaks in a way that is measured but with weighty pauses just short of being stilted, kind of like Obama, and also like my ex-friend Nassim, which wigged me out a bit, but we'll get to that later.
I am VERY awkward on dates. People I know who think I'm more or less well-adjusted have never been on a date with me. And it's not even cute awkward because I try super hard to pretend I'm not being awkward, like somehow neither of us will notice. And at the end of the date I'm wiped out from faking it and have set a precedent for faking it on the next date. It's not surprising that I don't accept a lot of second dates.
But I have decided that I'm sick on going on ten million first dates that go exactly the same way, and so I'm going to do something fundamentally different for every date. This time I decided to embrace the awkwardness. Own it. Rock it. And hope it came out more Jess from New Girl than Rebecca from Crazy Ex-Girlfriend. "I'm super awkward around new people," I announced boldly (lied; not awkward around new people, awkward on first dates) after the first incredibly awkward thing I said (pretty sure I asked him if actors just cry all the time or something). Boom. Now he knew and I didn't feel as much of a need to maintain a conspiracy that he was meeting a normal human being in this bar.
He had really pretty, deep brown eyes and he was big on eye contact, which meant I kept getting flustered and acting like I was suddenly fascinated by the bumper stickers on the wall and forgetting what I was saying. He had a tiny bald spot (scar) in his stubble exactly the size of the pad of my forefinger and I really wanted to poke him in it. He had a giant shoulder bag made to look like a box of Nerds that definitely didn't go with his weirdly somber-ish-but-not-in-a-bad-way demeanor. He kept using the word 'fool' but once substituted it for 'nimrod.' He told me the most bizarre story I have ever heard on a date (including the campaign manager who got a call about the media release of his candidate's kinks), about how some old guy demanded to know his ethnicity in the gym one time when he was nineteen and somehow became his 'patron' (he actually used that word) and did things like buy him cars and give him thousands of dollars and take him out to dinner and shave his back (yes, actually.) He said he liked my hair. He asked very formally outside the bar if he could kiss me on the mouth, and he STILL DID after I took like a five-minute shrill giggling break before saying yes. He held my fingertips lightly while he was doing it.
Part of me wonders (and all of me is annoyed about it) if part of my attraction to him is because of his similarities to Nassim. (Like a hotter version.) I am so so sick of having any sorts of thoughts or feelings about Nassim, but they still crop up from time to time, like herpes. Maybe I DID have some sort of feelings for him and that's why our relationship felt so intense. I wish the want-to-fuck divide (he did, I didn't) wasn't such a make-or-break-it for defining emotions and the arbiter of what is and isn't considered romantic. I still miss him, WHICH IRRITATES THE HELL OUT OF ME, but he really was basically my non-sexual boyfriend after Amit. Our friends even called me his platonic wife. And even though he was insecure and neurotic and obsessive and the definition of a shitty male feminist, he was also there for me when I needed someone.
ANYWAY. Khalil (KhaLIL not KhaLEEL, which I am so relieved I read on his instagram before the date because I totally read a book recently with a character named Khalil and I was saying KhaLEEL in my head the whole time) makes me feel how I think you're supposed to feel after a good first date, kind of excited and wanting to know more about them. But I've also felt this way about other first dates and had it fizzle on the second. And I don't know how much of it was actual fizzling and not just me letting my anxiety and hesitations ruin everything. But since owning up to my awkwardness helped on this date, maybe I'll just stick to my guns and fess up every time I feel nervous or scared if we end up hanging out more. Which will be a lot.
Hopefully he REALLY likes my hair.
