So Here Is Something Interesting...

On May the sixteenth, I wrote this sad, pathetic, self-indulgent post. I don't need to justify that post's existence in the world because Hey, this is my blog and I can be sad, pathetic, and self-indulgent if I want to. And on May the sixteenth, for about an hour, that is exactly how I was feeling.

Eight days after that post was written, I met someone.

It was a setup that I was not interested in being set up with. I had zero interest whatsoever the first time he messaged me on Facebook. I figured I could get out of it by inviting him to drive over an hour to sit by a fire beside three people he had never met. I gave him specific instructions to text me later in the day, and he made the grave error of calling me instead. I came home to a voicemail on my phone and stewed for a moment. My mother's exact words: "He called you in VOICE? Doesn't he know that's a deal breaker?"

Clearly he was unaware that calling me to talk is not OK. I do text, I do MSN. Talking in person, not so much.

But, I called him back and gave him very vague directions to my house. As in, I said "I have no idea where you are but you can google my address".

Somehow, he made it. He passed the driveway three times because the driveway is kind of hard to see, but he made his way up our bumpy driveway and sat by the fire.

Beside three people he had never met before.

What a trooper.

I decided I would never see him again.

And then, the next day, I had to face the individual who had set us up.

To say that her level of excitement was high would be the understatement of the year.

I couldn't bear to tell her the truth. Look, he's really nice. And he is tall and blonde and kind of cute. But, you see, I can't do this. I don't do this. I'm the single girl with the horse and the Beagle. Haven't I shown you pictures? The cute Beagle, with the rolls of fat and the adorable face? The one I cuddle with every night? I sporadically date people and then return to my Beagle. Because she loves me and she never judges me when I spend the day laying in bed eating cookies. In fact, she loves it when I eat cookies. Because I share them with her. I do not share my cookies with boys. Beagles. I share my cookies with Beagles. Now please, let's both go on with our work and never mention this again.

I wanted to tell her all that. But she kept grinning at me. All day. Happy little smiles, like, I just set someone up!

And then he messaged me and said he had a good time. Yep, I've gotten that message before. And he wanted a date. I've heard that before, too.

So I arranged our date. I was going to take this poor sucker to barrel races at a local fair. He's from the city. I figured he would last about ten seconds watching horses run around random barrels and be done.

And I was waiting for that.

So I made him watch.

And watch.

And watch.

For two hours this poor boy sat at the barrel racing and eventually I felt kind of bad for making him endure what no normal person wants to endure. Only horse people watch horse things. But he just kept watching.

So we went to dinner and we talked. There was a lot of talking at that dinner. And some laughing. We laughed. Lots. And also, we talked. And then we laughed. And then I managed to coat the entire table with food because I am a messy eater. And after our plates were cleared away and there was a pile of crumbs on my side of the table, I laughed and started brushing them away and I said "Yeah, I'm a really messy eater." So he laughed his laugh and told me to embrace it. A huge, embarrasing part of me was exposed there. I can't eat in mixed company. But he told me to embrace it.

So we started seeing each other. He can tolerate horse events and messy eating. He can embrace a love of cookies. He can make food that I like to eat and he can hold his own at a music night in the Berry Cave with the Berry Queen. We went fishing on our third date and I am not making this up: I couldn't figure out how to work the fishing rod and when I finally caught a fish I was so hysterical that I reeled it into the boat and smacked him in the head with it.

I SMACKED A MAN IN THE HEAD WITH A FISH.

My father would be so proud.

And now, rather than spending my Sundays curled up on the couch with Dixie, my trusty deer hound, I spend them curled up with this character. He begs for pieces of my beef jerky just as much as she does, only without the drooling. And also, he typically smells better than my Beagle what with the whole bathing on a daily basis thing. We go fishing, we go camping, we go cottage-ing. We play guitar together, although his playing is somewhat better than mine and I can't harmonize with him. He hates my job and what it does to me and that both bothers me and makes me happy. We both love eggs benedict.

And he fully supports my love of cookies.

My work situation keeps me up every night, my horse's health is failing, I've dropped the last course I signed up for in school, my car is not running very well and I have not accomplished any of the goals I had set up for myself earlier this spring.

But the whole boy thing?

It's kinda going pretty well.