I went to this thing at church. I'm trying to get more involved at church. There are several different locations of my church and this forum was at one of the locations in mid-town, where Seth attends regularly. When I saw him, I gave him a hug and made small talk. I hadn't seen him in a few months, since I moved out of his parents' house (they took us both in when we lost our respective homes).
A few days later, I got a text saying, "Hi, Elle. I got your number from my parents. Would you like to have coffee sometime?"
I was perplexed because:
A.) we had never hung out without his parents before
B.) Seth is one of those people who is immensely sweet but whom I don't "click" with on a deeper level... like, there's only so much I can talk to him about, so I never saw us being good friends.
Nonetheless, I knew that he worked in Midtown and since I live nearby, it wasn't a big deal to meet him for coffee. I came from the gym, wearing athletic shorts and a ratty Harvard sweatshirt. Seth was NOT dressed in his work uniform and had apparently driven from 35 minutes away, where he was pet-sitting. Oops. Oh well. I refused to see this as anything more than a coupla' sort-of friends hanging out to shoot the breeze. I grilled him about why my ex-boyfriend was trying to make my life hell by reminding me he exists, even though he has a girlfriend. Seth said Derek did come over to the house one time months ago for "counseling" or something, after I'd moved out. And then he opined that it was probably a classic case of wanting to keep someone on the back burner, keep your options open. Then I asked him about this girl he was interested in when we lived together.
See? Not date-talk.
After an hour and a half, I told Seth I had to go because daylight savings was killing me and I promised myself I'd go to sleep early. He hugged me goodbye and I drove off, feeling pretty ambivalent, but also smug. I didn't know what just happened, but I had navigated it fairly shrewdly, I thought.
But then the next day, I got a text saying, "So, I had a really good time last night. We should do it again."
Isn't that what people usually say after dates? Am I reading too much into this? If it were just an ordinary guy, I could blow him off. But this is a guy whose parents I adore and would never want to offend.
2 comments:
I have enough experience with in-limbo dates to answer this with full certainty: That is what people usually say after dates, yes. He's old enough to politely accept a respectful decline. If he doesn't, it'd be silly for his parents to hold you accountable for that.
I decided to just not reply to the text. I will act blissfully ignorant if I see his folks...because if I said that he asked me out and I respectfully declined they could say, "Oh, well we told him you guys should be friends since you're both at the same stage of life..."
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