7/23/02 - 8:49 p.m.

So I've got a date lined up for this week. I'm writing this because to feel like I've got an outside audience for whatever happens next...

I'm mostly just interested in this woman physically. I may even tell her that, at some point. (Charmingly, of course; we'll see how that goes...) She's several years younger than me, and the conversations aren't great -- but she doesn't seem too discriminating. She's like a blissed-out raver.

We do have the same politics, and she's a really good singer. But, honestly, I just want to calculate my way to the part where we're taking off our clothes together.

Is it even possible that she could want exactly the same thing? That I'm worrying too much about not taking advantage of her, or being naively blind about her obvious enthusiasm?

I worry I'm repeating the situation from my last major push with dating. I'd argued that I wasn't necessarily misleading her, since her social life was already a train-wreck and I couldn't possibly make it any worse. Ironically, at the end of that, she said that she might have gone for a purely physical relationship -- had I handled the emotional bullshit a little better.

Of course, maybe she was just saying that to get back at me.....

Now those old entries from March feel like they were written by a completely different person. It's funny how some things don't change. Back then, I gushed about Lady Friend, too. I'd originally started this entry by saying that Lady Friend finally sent me another email -- and then complaining that we're not seeing as much of each other as we used to. And that I really wish we could.

At work I was doing some more thinking about how I got to be the way I am today. Today's insight was that I was afraid to "put myself out there" with strange people after a while. (We moved several times when I was growing up.) So what's left, now, is the semi-personal facade which evolved on top of that.

Not really sure what I'm supposed to do next.