My latest dating adventure has me pretty convinced- there are no decent guys my age left out there. The good news is, in case I forgot to mention it, my career woes are no longer. I found another teaching job, at a school much better than where I am currently teaching (and trust me, I am counting down the days until summer). I said I wasn’t going to date for a while, and even though Mr. Muscles was asking me to hang out a lot (and I was tempted), I turned him down. I did meet Mr. Almost-Perfect for dinner one night. I know, I shouldn’t have done it after how awful he was, but he really wanted to and he had even made me a cd of pictures from our Gatlinburg trip (this time I was assuming there were some pictures of me in there). So we went to a crappy Mexican place because it’s what he wanted, and he was 15 minutes late. When he arrived, we made little small talk, and I mentioned that I knew that his favorite band was having a concert that weekend, which apparently he forgot about because he spent the next 45 minutes on his phone trying to find tickets. I was so annoyed and his saying “there probably isn’t anything new you want to talk about anyways, right?” didn’t help matters. Even the waiter noticed how rude he was being; when he brought the checks while Mr. Almost-Perfect was in the bathroom he said to me “I’m gonna assume this is separate checks, right?”. Riiiiiight. He only paid for one meal the whole three months we dated, and I doubted he was going to foot the bill this time, regardless of how much I deserved it. So I promptly paid and left, I didn’t even say goodbye, and hopefully that will be my last encounter with Mr. (So Far From) Almost-Perfect.
So this brings me to a new guy; now, I know I vowed that I would not date anybody I work with after the last disastrous dating situation I tried that with, so don’t get upset when I said I met my latest guy at my future school. He’s not a fellow teacher, he was there to talk to administration about getting volunteers for his job, and I was dropping off my paperwork to the principal. We both had to wait in the office for a few minutes and struck up a conversation, me about my new job, and he about his job- working with people who had mental handicaps. He was a job-shadower of sorts, helping people with disabilities get settled into jobs so that they can be self-sufficient- I was sold, does it get cuter than that? When I got called into the principal’s office we said our goodbyes, and I was very surprised when I left the school about 15 minutes later to find him waiting for me in the parking lot. Well, maybe not completely surprised, we really had hit it off, but I was flattered that he wanted to stick around and talk to me more. So we decided to go have drinks at a nearby bar, and I have to say it was probably the best conversation I’d had on a first “interview”. Very intellectually stimulating, we talked about politics, religion, volunteering, the education system, and we saw eye-to-eye on so much, and had some fun bantering about the things we didn’t. It was a good interview, and I definitely wanted to see him again. So the next week we hung out two more times, going to dinner and again for drinks. I found out that he made a lot less money than me, so they were definitely budget-friendly dates, but I didn’t mind, I thought his job was so honorable and sweet I wouldn’t have cared how much he made (although I definitely didn’t want to be stuck paying for everything like I did with Mr. A-P). After our third date we had our first kiss, and it was REAL good, and I was left thinking so much was great about this guy. During the days that we didn’t see each other we had really long phone conversations, and I often hate talking on the phone, we just didn’t seem to run out of things to talk about, and we had the weirdest things in common. For example, we found out we both loved oldies music, and listening to Christmas music throughout the year; we both thought getting a goat would be an awesome solution to having to mow the grass, that pickles are one of the best vegetables out there and that being in a relationship with someone who you can argue with and challenges you is way more fun than being bored. In addition, he knew that I was a commitment-phobe and seemed definitely fully understanding about my need to go slow.
So I was pretty smitten, but it wasn’t until my girl’s weekend with my college friends that I encountered our first problem. I was talking about my new guy, and about how he was having a college reunion weekend of his own, when I was asked how old he is. I honestly had no idea, but since he had told me that his friends were talking about marriage and kids like friends were (and falling asleep by 1am) that I ascertained that he must be my age. I had a great weekend with my best friends (what a lucky girl I am to still be so close to my college friends- the girls I met my freshman year at school- love you girls!!!), but made plans with my new guy for a happy hour on Tuesday after school. So we were having a great time again, and I remembered that I had to ask him his age. And I was floored when he told me the answer- 25 years old! 7 years younger than me, and even though it was apparent that his maturity level was the same as mine, I couldn’t stop thinking about the fact that I could have been his teacher. I started teaching high school when I was 22 years old, so there’s no doubt about that. I even looked it up on Google and found I would be considered a puma if I dated him.
He couldn’t believe that I was 32 (like he could’ve said differently) and didn’t think it was a big deal at all, so I tried to not focus on the fact that he was younger than my youngest brother and didn’t know what the TV show Fragglerock was (I tried to tell myself to “dance your cares away, worries for another day…”).
But I couldn’t forget it, and he told me he could tell when he texted me the next day. It’s just a number he said, and he said he wished I’d never asked, or that he had lied. So I tried to think past it, and invited Mr. Young’un to my house on Thursday. But that seemed to be part of his demise in the end; when he got to my house, he couldn’t get over how “nice” it was, and proceeded to tell me that he never wanted me to see his apartment because it was so gross, and he and his roommate usually just sat around and played video games. He also told me about the day before when his friends and he drank all day and night, because none of his friends had “real jobs” and that he worried that if I met his friends, they would all tell me that I was too good for him. None of those things helped reassure me that our age difference wouldn’t matter. Even kissing him that night didn’t seem as good, I kept thinking about how I had had my first kiss while he was still in diapers. Our maturity level might be the same, but it was suddenly so apparent that we were at very different stages in our lives. That whole weekend I couldn’t get it off my mind, and he sensed a change in me too. So I told him I would definitely want to be his friend, but that’s all I could do. “Friends with benefits?” he suggested. Oh, so young, so pretty, but definitely not what I’m looking for. And so the search for who will be Catching Katie continues…
