It's a mystery

M and I went to First Friday last night and had a blast. It was very crowded again, and there was a good mix of people. M is really friendly and outgoing, but also tall and she commented on the lack of young, tall men in Boston. This is something I never notice because I am short and therefore everyone is taller than me. But once she made the observation, I looked around and saw that she was pretty much right. There were a lot of younger people there but most of them were sub-6'. Suddenly I am glad to be short. In college, T and I had a sign in our room that proclaimed, "Short is Beautiful." Apparently, short is now also advantageous.

We caught sight of three young, attractive guys a little later in the evening, and M dug in her heels so we could stop and talk nearby in the hopes that they'd come talk to us. I am of the mind that men have to make the first move. They also have to ask for the phone number and make the call. In the past, I prided myself on doing those things and paying no attention to social norms. I wanted to show that I wasn't conventional, I guess. Maybe that's how I ended up with a string of boyfriends who let me do all the work in the relationship. Patterns get established early. So now I am mindful of that. If the guy isn't confident or interested enough to ask for the number, then I won't waste my time. There are lots of perfectly nice, shy men out there, I know, and I don't mean to exclude them, but you know what? I'm shy sometimes and I'm tired of feeling like I have to make it easy for the other person all the time. Anything worth having is worth working for.

Eventually, the three guys came over to talk. All three were cute, confident, well dressed and articulate. I was pretty convinced that all three were into M, because M is Dutch and blonde and beautiful, so I talked and laughed and kept my distance, waiting to see what happened. All three of them stuck around, even after M made a dash to the ladies room, and when the lights came down and the docents kicked everyone out for the night, the guys asked us if we wanted to meet up for drinks in the South End. We were heading in that direction anyway, and we said yes. We dished in the car on the way over. M said she was really into Monty, a stocky, Vin Diesel lookalike who's a cardiac consultant. I said I was into Ryan, an art-loving, articulate blond Irishman. The third guy was someone M could go either way on, but I wasn't into at all. So we met up with them at the Butcher Shop in the South End, and Monty had ditched and gone home, so it was Ryan and the third guy. They were hungry and it was late, so we went to the Franklin Cafe on Shawmut, where they serve food until midnight or so. We got drinks and talked and laughed. All of us were tired and I wouldn't have been surprised if the guys bowed out after a drink, but they were really into getting dinner, so we sat down and ordered food. Ryan sat next to me and the other guy sat with M. I felt like Ryan and I totally hit it off. We talked easily, which is a commodity in the dating world, and a good sign for me. We both hate skiing but love snowshoeing, we both love to travel, we both love art and museums. He quoted Thoreau about finding beauty in the world. And he was not gay. Nice shoulders, nice Brooks Brothers suit, very chivalrous. Totally up my alley.

After dinner, we walked back to Ryan's car and he offered us a ride to M's place because it had gotten chilly outside. We took him up on it--I don't get to ride in a cute Mercedes that often, and I was freezing. When we got there, we thanked them for a lovely evening. They didn't ask for numbers. They let us out and then peeled out and took off down Tremont, like the devil himself was chasing them.

I don't get it. If they weren't that into us, why did they ask us out for drinks and make the evening go longer instead of just cutting out? Totally mixed signals. Men are a mystery.