"I love you too"

Oh man, what a night. Two events to talk about here. After the first one, I was so happy I was going to write a blog entry about how amazing this mission is, and how it's by far the most fun, interesting, exciting, satisfying thing I have ever undertaken. I took a little wind out of my sails with the second event, but anyway, lets talk about them in reverse order.

Event 2
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I attempted to make the first follow-up phone call with the girl I went out with 2 days ago. I screwed up mentally today, and thought about doing this way too much in anticipation of the evening rolling around. That just made me anxious, so I will have to be very careful not to do that again. So I finally called, and got her voice mail (which I had been dreading all day). I really hate leaving messages. I planned to leave one anyway so it wouldn't be weird if she had caller ID, but I couldn't bring myself to do it.

So I proceeded with event 2, and then called back an hour and a half later because I really wanted to get her on the phone tonight. I got the doggone voice mail again! This time I forced myself to just leave a message. Or, at least I tried.

I spoke, and omitted what I had in mind about telling her it was great meeting her the other day (she has a business message recorded on her voicemail, so that made me even a little more uncomfortable). I just said "Hey, it's My Name, I just called to see how your big day went yesterday. Talk to you later." Goodness, I really really hate leaving messages, more than I can describe...but it's one of the many social things I will have to work on. So anyway, I was obviously a little on edge, so I hung up as soon as I finished speaking, without pressing # or * or waiting for the voicemail thing to say anything. The problem is, I'm not sure whether the messages get recorded when you do that. Argh!

I really want to get some feedback on our date...see if she's still interested. I'm not sure if she got the message, but I can't risk calling again, because (1) it would be weird if my telephone number were on her caller ID 3 times and (2) it would be REALLY weird if I left two messages. I want to e-mail her or text her or something, but right now I think I will just let it be for a few days, see if anything happens. In reality, she probably will get the message. I'll try to forget about it for now.

Event 1
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So now I will backtrack to the event that took place between my two attempts at the date follow-up call. Like I said, I had been very anxious all day. Why? Well, because I was basically waiting until the evening so I could (1) call my last date and ask her on a second date, if she still seemed interested and (2) call another girl, this one from match.com. Definitely have to distract myself with other things instead of getting anxious next time.

I made a brief list of topics for the girl I'd be speaking to on the phone for the first time. (Tip: review all the messages you've exchanged, she noticed my "good memory"). She would be only the second girl I've talked to on the phone during this mission, or really even at all. It didn't look like enough, but I was quite anxious and decided to just go ahead and dial the number.

And this time, the other party picked up the phone. It's quite interesting to talk to someone live for the first time after exchanging e-mails for a couple/few weeks. You have no idea what their voice will sound like, and don't necessarily know what their personality will be like.

So I said, "Hey, is this ?" And she said something like, "umm...yeah.." and I followed up with "It's ." We then had some basic conversation like, "how's it going?" And "what have you been up to" type things.

Thankfully, this girl was TALKATIVE! Even more so than the first. She started giving extra info in her responses, which allowed me to easily ask questions. And unlike the first time I called someone, I could hear her crystal clearly. After a couple of minutes, the anxiety that I'd had all day diminished completely. I was still a little stiff rather than uninhibited, but felt good nonetheless.

Even though I knew I didn't sound completely relaxed, she responded to me as if everything were normal. And I suppose it was. This a theme I've noticed in these early interactions - once I get to talking to these people, it's as if they just treat me like.....a normal person. Odd, but that is a feeling I've often lacked, and almost never experienced before college. It's great.

So I formed questions based on things she said, and pulled a few things from my backup topics list. By virtue of having done a bit of this already, I was able to give decent answers to a few questions about myself this time. Great! It was a fun little 27-minute, 50 second conversation.
She sounded really fun, and nice, and honestly, my interest in her rose quite a bit while I was talking to her.

When she had to leave for her jog, we set up a meeting (she initiated this, I still haven't done that) at 7 p.m. on Friday at a nice restaurant. I then told her to have a good run, and she said "I love you too...I mean, goodnight!" Haha! It was a joke I guess, but it gave me an amazing feeling, since I've never heard anything close to that, even jokingly, from a girl. Plus, it put me even further at ease. Before the first date I went on this week, I had to tell myself that it would probably go well. This time, I honestly can't imagine it going any other way - especially having learned from my few mistakes on Monday - so at least for now I feel quite comfortable going into it.

Finally, having another date lined up already (this is 2 dates in 5 days; I had previously been on 1 date before in my entire life) has really put my mind at ease about the currently uncertain outcome of my first date. That was always one of the ideas behind my (brilliant?) plan to "overbook" social engagements.

And so I'm really sticking to this mission.....much more soon.