When I try to “play it cool” I suddenly feel like I’m back to being an awkward 13 year-old standing in front of my French class. “Cool” is a second language to me, and although I’ve tried in vain to present myself that way before, I will always be a very clumsy girl who tends to over-think and over-share in awkward situations. I’ve come to accept this (and I will tell you that it actually takes talent to trip over nothing).  The fact is that I can only laugh at myself, because if I took myself seriously I would spend every day in bed, under the covers.

Case in point – my second date with Brent. Now, although I foreshadowed a tragic ending to the 3 months I dated Brent, things actually started out really well.  The first date had been great, he is a gentleman when he wants to be and has excellent date etiquette. But this second date was already putting me out of my comfort zone because it was a lunch date, which meant it was in the middle of the day. I am not used to being out at the same time as the sun; I enjoy the mask of darkness on a date.

The actual lunch portion of the date was typical with decent conversation, but here’s where I go off the tracks. After lunch he offers to walk me home (because he’s a gentleman and doesn’t want me to get attacked in the daylight). I live downtown and walk everywhere, this restaurant was honestly 3 blocks from my place. Somehow we walked past my street and I didn’t notice until we were two blocks past it…. then I spent another 4 blocks trying to decide if I was going to tell him or if I was just going to pick a random building and pretend I lived there. (I swear I’m not an idiot, I was just busy over-thinking things). The problem with picking a random building was that my key wouldn’t work in the door, and then I thought that would be even harder to explain. So 6 blocks past my street I finally told him I lived waaaay back the other way.

Then things got worse when we actually got to my building. We hadn’t kissed on the first date; naturally I figure this date would end with a kiss. Except it was the middle of the day and I wasn’t entirely sure what ‘day date’ protocol is regarding a first kiss. I thanked him for a nice time and I thought he was just giving me a hug goodbye, so I turned my head away returning the hug – unfortunately realizing too late that he was actually trying to kiss me. I jerked my head back trying to fix the situation, over-correcting a little too much and ended up kissing his nose. (Dear god.) He actually said “Wow that was terrible.”(It really was.) So we tried again, with much more success the second time, but being the spaz that I am I decided to end the date by saying, “Ok, I should probably go inside because my neighbours are going to be like ‘Really Becca? Making out in front of the building… again?!’”. He smiled politely, humoring me…
I was a little unsure why he actually called me for another date, but I like to think I came off as endearing.  And the great thing was that I knew he actually wanted to go out with me, and not a ‘cool girl’ version of me.