The Giddiness Factor

When I go on a date, there are several ways in which being giddy plays a part: The giddiness before, the giddiness during, and the giddiness afterwards.

The Giddiness Before
There's something about the anticipation for a date that is really great.  I get really antsy and my stomach becomes full of butterflies.  At least this is what happens when I'm excited for a date, when I'm anxious to see him and the possibilities.  With my date with Sam I felt a little ansty, but not as much I usually feel.  My friends were more excited for me to go on this date than I was, but maybe that's because I didn't know him as well as they did.  I don't know what it was, but I just wasn't as jazzed as I was hoping to be.

The Giddiness During
When you're out with someone you like, sometimes you lose the ability to hold a decent conversation because you're so caught up in wanting to say the right thing.  At least this is what used to happen to me.  I'm not sure when I changed, but over the past year or so I've kind of decided that there's no reason for me to allow giddiness or a desire to impress hold me back.  I have nothing to prove to these guys, I simply just have to be myself and that ought to be enough.  If it isn't, there's another guy out there.

On my date with Sam the conversation wasn't ever lacking.  We talked a lot, shared a lot about our families, and over all it was really fun.  Sam is the kind of guy who knows how to put a girl at ease and treat her well. He opened ever door for me, paid for everything (with giftcards) and didn't dominate the conversation with facts about himself, but rather allowed us to both share the spotlight.  It was really fun, Sam is a top notch kind of guy.

We talked a little bit about the age difference, since he's two years younger than me, but he said he respects my maturity.  I'm not bothered by his age, it's not really something that factors in unless he's super immature, which is not the case with Sam.  After this conversation, however, he came out with the big guns.  "When was the last relationship you had?  What happened?  Do you want kids?  How many?  Do you want a career?  How will that work with having kids?"  Oh. My. Gosh.  Really?  This was our first date.  Slow down, sparky!

The Giddiness After
When I returned from my date with Sam I texted a bit with a friend of mine about a date she went on that night.  She said it was alright, but she just wasn't feeling it.  He asked her on another date and she said yes, but she felt pretty hesitant.  In my eyes, if you don't come home from a date with a grin plastered on your face, you probably shouldn't go on another date with that person.  If you're feeling pretty neutral about a date, doesn't that mean that there isn't the spark that everyone wants?

I want a spark.  I want someone I can't get enough of.  I want someone that after a date I have trouble falling asleep because I can't stop thinking about it.  Yes, I'm a romantic.

So what did I feel after my date with Sam?  Really neutral.  He's a great guy, he makes me laugh, and he's clearly into me.  Even so, I'm just not jumping up and down.  We're going to watch a movie together tonight and I hope I'm not making a mistake in spending more time with him.  I don't want to lead him on but I don't want to assume that there won't be anything there.  We'll see how things go for a little bit.  If we don't become something more, he has potential to be a really good, solid friend.

You just can't force a spark.