Perfectly Imperfect

I had an amazing date yesterday. It was like something out of a movie. One of those great unplanned dates...I call it 'perfectly imperfect.'

The plan was to go fishing in the mountains. But I had a prior engagement that gave me very little time to get ready for the date. When he showed up at my house I was wearing a sundress and did not realize how extremely hairy my legs were. I climbed in his truck and hid my legs with my purse.

We arrived at the fishing spot, but it required us to hike about a mile to get there. I did not know this and only had the sandals I was wearing. Still, we trekked on. Upon arrival, we noticed clouds building that would eventually lead to rain. After he taught me how to cast, we both hopped into the ice cold water to get closer to the fish action. At one point he came over and gave me a strange look. I was in the middle of rambling on about some story not realizing he was trying to kiss me. I laughed and we had an awkward first kiss.

After about 10 minutes of casting and reeling, it finally began to rain. We ran for cover under a tree. He gave me his over shirt since I was cold from standing in the creek and the rain. He was shivering but leaned over for another awkward kiss. We found our groove and sat there cold and wet kissing under a pine tree in the middle of the woods with no one else around. I could not have asked for a more perfect moment.

(It was definitely better than getting murdered and buried in the woods. These were the types of jokes I made most of the day.)

It stopped raining eventually and started again upon my first cast back in the creek. We continued to fish for another 30 minutes before deciding to call it a day. My sandals were very slippery, and I was having a hard time hiking uphill. So he let me borrow his 'toe shoes' (aka skeleton shoes). At this point I had a sun dress on, a John Deer hat, his large plaid shirt, and now toe shoes. My curls had long since fallen out, and I'm pretty sure I resembled a drowned rat. Couple that with hairy legs and, needless to say, I was not feeling very attractive.

We drove into town and grabbed margaritas. We asked about each others' families and friends. Throughout the whole day, we would make these jokes and look at each other with funny faces for awkwardly extended periods of time which made each joke funnier. After margaritas we walked down to the old school arcade. We played ski ball, talked to a psychic, and played air hockey. During the air hockey game he accidentally sent the puck rushing at me and smashed my finger. It is currently blue and purple.

In spite of this great date, I found myself holding back. I would stop short of sharing things or giving affection because I was remembering those feelings I once had for someone else. That someone else took my affection and broke my heart anyway. It feels hard to let go knowing I might get hurt again. Actually, the odds are pretty high that I will get hurt again. I found myself asking if I was really ready for this again. I found myself asking if I really knew I deserved love and deserved to be treated well.

It's weird because even as I wrote that last sentence I wanted to write “...and deserved to be treated like a princess.” Instead I wrote “well”. I felt weird about saying I deserved to be treated like a 'princess'. Gah! Why is that? I feel like using the term 'princess is a little overboard. I didn't really expect a guy to treat me like that. Are my expectations not high enough? Should I be expecting to be treated like a princess?

Either way, I will say my date was a complete gentleman. He opened my car door, let me order first, held doors open, untangled my fishing rod, gave me his shirt and shoes, paid for everything,and made sure I was comfortable. He treated me...like a princess. Maybe he knows something I don't. I think that says something about a man when he will treat a woman like a 'princess' even when she's satisfied with just being treated 'well'.