The story of Comb-Over Guy

Story time! We now get to take a trip down memory lane as I regale you with stories of past bad dates. Not surprisingly, most of them will be blind dates. But that does not mean that all blind dates I've been on where bad. Two of them turned out real well. You could even describe the boyfriend as having been a blind date at one point. But that's not the topic of this story.

This story will be about a date I went on with a guy that has ever after been referred to as "Comb-Over Guy" (he will be called COG for this post because I don't want to type that out every time).

This date was set up by a couple in my ward. The husband went to school with COG. They were studying to be computer scientists. I worked with computers for my job. And since both COG and I liked computers, were single, and belonged to the same church, the wife decided that COG and I would be perfect together. While this is slightly better than some people's requirements for setting up friends (same marital status, same religion), the wife did break one BIG blind date rule - I get to decide if we are perfect together, not the people setting me up.

But the date was arranged. The date would involve married couple 1 (that did the setting up), married couple 2 (the husband also knew COG, and the couple was in the same ward as couple 1 and I), myself, and COG. We went to dinner at a restaurant and then to a movie before going to the apartment of couple 2 for dessert.

The events themselves were not bad. But I had to constantly remind myself that I was on a date with COG and should probably look at him. Which then resulted in me having to remind myself that staring was not polite. I was also constantly reminding myself that since I was on a date with him I should probably talk with him.

COG was not a bad person, and other than the physical characteristic that resulted in his pseudonym, he wasn't bad looking either. But there was absolutely NO connection between us. If you have to remind yourself you are on a date with someone, the date is NOT going well.

After the date he took me home and we said good-night. I did not say we should do it again, but rather that I'd had a nice time and said thank you. If there was any touching in the good-night saying, it would've been a simple hand shake, but I can't remember that. I honestly didn't expect to hear from him again. Surely he must have noticed how extremely awkward the date was.

Nope. He called me up a week later to ask me to go ice skating with him. I told him that since I was still recovering from a sprained ankle from three weeks ago, ice skating was not possible, but thanked him for the invite all the same. I never heard from him again.

Wife from coupel 1 though got extremely mad at me for how rude I was to not go on a second date with COG. I never did understand that.

The end.

A-freaking-MEN

First, I will admit that sometimes I have a penchant for the bad boy. There's just something, perhaps their raw animal magnetism, that gets me. But I know they aren't for keeps. And now, research proves it.

Second, and most importantly: One morning, I was on the train with a blind date. We were headed into the city to do some sight-seeing for our date and chatting about who knows what. Somehow, the subject of porn came up. Now, I've seen, first hand, how it can mess with relationships of every kind, and I do not care for it one bit. So, when my date replied to whatever I'd said with "I love porn!!", I was floored. Why I didn't stand my ground, get off the train at the next stop, and go right back home, I'll never know. That was at least the second strike to what turned out to be a rather tortuous date.

So, today, when the Art of Manliness posted this - The Problem with Porn - it says exactly what I've been saying for years. Read it. Share it. It's EXACTLY how I feel.

Of course, it's rather impossible for people to have never seen it these days, and it's not an immediate dealbreaker (there were other reasons I should have gotten off the train that day), but I do not like it, Sam I Am. Not on a train, not in the rain, not in a box, not with a fox. And I won't apologize for it.

I did say

I did say, but he said it first.

This evening, after our usual Sunday evening stuff, we had the following conversation:

him: I love you.
pause
pause
pause
me: Really?
him: Yeah.
me: I love you too.

I had kind of hoped that when that moment came I would be more clever or romantic than I actually ended up being.

The butterflies I got when he said it are still with me.

Related: What we will say. I won't, but I did.

When someone calls me mom

Today is Mother's Day. And I'm finding myself struggling with mixed emotions.

For six years I was in a ward that honored all of the women in the ward on this day, and not just with flowers that would die within the week. They had Church CDs or small Church books. The men on Father's Day got king sized candy bars. I never really felt alone or childless on Mother's Day in that ward. I simply felt like one of the honored mothers in Zion.

I was in a different ward last year that did absolutely nothing for the day other than a few talks. It was quite the let down for me. And it was probably compounded by the fact that I'd past the point where I was not going to be a mother in my twenties, but my baby sister was going to be a mom in just over three months. I was struggling last year with what value my life could have if I wasn't a mother.

Now I'm in yet another ward, and I've been nervous about what they would do. How they would treat this day? Would I be included or excluded in this ward?

I love my mother deeply. She's half the reason I am who I am today (my father is the other half, he gets his day next month). And I honor her on this day. Yet at the same time I find myself wondering just when my deepest desire to be a wife and a mother will happen.

Of all the names and titles I have in my life, I cannot wait till someone calls me mom.

This is big, right?

Going to a family thing that's in town and you don't have to take time off work for is one thing, right? But taking several days off work and traveling across the country for a family thing is a whole different thing, isn't it? And if it's a family wedding rather than a family picnic, that makes a difference too, doesn't it?

This is going to be a whole fun experience and I'm suddenly a lot more excited about taking this trip myself because I won't be doing it by myself.

Why, yes, I do have other plans tonight

Kissing me (once, a quick peck) after helping me take out my garbage, then not calling for 11 days and calling three times in over an hour (not leaving a message the first two times and finally getting to talk to me on the third) does not earn you points. Just FYI.

My plans tonight? Post this and then lounge around in pjs. I would much rather do that then spend an evening with someone who is that nonchalant about getting together with me.

How do you know?

There are many many things I love about this article: One date wonder. The first of which is that it is a man calling for more courtship.

But what he says makes so much sense. Two people do need time to get to know each other. People are different at different times (women especially, we change depending on what week of the month it is). Some people are different at different times of the year. If you know a person just a few weeks or a couple of months, what can you really know about them? I'm not saying you need to know someone for years and decades though either. There is a happy medium.

A friend of mine recently asked me how I knew I wanted to pursue things with the boyfriend, how I knew things would work out. It's an interesting question. And as I tried to think of an answer, I actually realized that I did it the same way I've known other things.

I loved the talk given in the April 2008 General Conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints by Elder Carlos A. Godoy of the Seventy - Testimony as a Process. In it he describes how a testimony is rarely the result of a singular event. Rather it is an accumulation of small events that build on each other until we know. That is how we gain a testimony, through a series of events.

As I thought about it, that's how I know what I know about this relationship. I can, actually, point to a few specific moments where I've had a feeling from heaven that things could very well work out, and I've kept those to myself. But it isn't because of those moments that I want things to work out. It's been a series of small events. It's the quirky names he calls me. It's the questions he asks and how he really does want to know what I think. It's putting his arm around me at church or holding my hand when we go to the temple. It's taking me for ice cream when I've had a real crappy day, or even when I've had some great news I want to celebrate. It's all of these moments, and so many more, that make me know I want it to work out. And it's all of these moments that make me know, more than signs from heaven, that it really could work out.

Lately I absolutely love this song. This is what I want, to be in love with my best friend. And that only comes with time.



Another line I love is "lucky to be coming home again." It reminds me of a line from Finding Nemo when Dory says, "I look at you, and I... and I'm home." I think that's part of love, that feeling of being home. And that too can only come with time, from building on small moments together.