Texting the Principal

He waited until after 5pm on Tuesday (after we had seen each other Sunday night) to text. We basically just chitchatted back and forth about mundane things over the rest of the evening, owl jokes, upcoming football games, blah blah blah. I sent the last text. Next night, about 8:30pm he texted to ask how my hair appointment went. After relieving him of the notion that I did not get scalped I discovered he had a really bad day.

I tried to be “pleasant” like Dr. Gray suggests and make him feel better by looking forward to the weekend when he could get a reprieve from his hectic workload. I thought that text over a few times, hoping he wouldn’t consider it fishing for a date, because that really was not my intention. Generally, there a few minutes in between our texts but he came right back with “Speaking of [the weekend], any plans Friday?” I slid the phone away from me, carefully, and thought this over. I hoped against all hope that he really did want to spend time with me, not feel obligated to make plans because I mentioned the upcoming lull in his busy schedule.

As I sat there pondering and biting my nails, my lovely mother called. We chatted for about a half hour and then I had a chance to return to my texts, another one from the Principal. “Hoping we could get together” he’d said after I’d failed to text him back. He said he would work on the plans tomorrow and was going to bed.

I continued to bite my nails. Why the hell does this dating crap have to be so damn hard? I get what I want, which is another date, but am left with the lingering doubts and confusion that is this new era of dating= the text interpretation. You can be straight forward or coy or flirty or mean or sarcastic…. The list is endless! But what if the person you are texting takes what you say a different way? Then there can be an unforeseen plethora of difficulties. When did human beings become so evolved that we no longer need to express ourselves verbally? Is this type of technological progress really progress at all?

The Principal never ceases to surprise me. Bright and early (for me) he texted the next morning asking if I wanted to see “100 Years of Broadway” as interpreted by his students. I asked whether or not they would be on key… Here we go again with analyzing whether he just needed a date to a function. I was having this conundrum quite frequently with the Principal.

He added that we could go to a dive bar afterward to ease the pain of the show, which was also another way of showing me that he listens because I mentioned how I prefer dives to fancy places last time we hung out. We texted all through the day, and I felt special. It takes so little to please me.

Friday night rolled around and I met him at his place. He answered the door, pulled me into a big hug and kisses and then continued getting ready. Usually when a person doesn’t mind getting ready around their date they are moving toward a relationship. They feel comfortable not being right at the top of their game, let you see a little vulnerability. Was that what this was becoming? A relationship? Am I jumping ahead of myself? Probably…

It certainly felt like a cozy scene. Us bantering in his kitchen while he waited for his sweater to dry. The Principal laughing at how we both chose to wear black, asking me to help him finish his beer… I stood there trying to enjoy and not get all stiff. Stiff won over. My back began to ache..

The show wasn’t that bad, only one massacre but that was made up by another student whose voice was so powerful it gave me goose bumps. We ended the evening with what I would most certainly not call a dive bar. It was a classy bar and grill that bordered neighborhood and upscale. The Principal sat the entire time angled toward me, laughing and occasionally grabbing my leg as he talked. It was another cozy happy scene. It was almost as if I was watching somebody else's experience. I wanted to go home so my back would stop hurting from the stress of possibly doing something wrong.

We went back to his place, where the safety of my car was awaiting me, but somehow we got to talking about Monty Python and the tension disappeared. Here is a man who can appreciate my stupid sense of humor! The Principal crawled around on the floor looking behind his entertainment center for the DVD. We sat on the couch laughing at the movie, saying the lines along with the insane characters, and the Principal even got up to do the little horse jig around the condo. We kidded one another. We kissed and play shoved… It was so disarming that began to readjust to him and feel like this was the way things were supposed to be…

Once again, after a little time in the bedroom and the Principal was falling asleep, I gathered up all my stuff and made to get out of there as fast as I could. This feeling of being caught in a room, no, a bed, after having been so intimate with a person but not quite able to be myself was becoming toxic. My head was spinning and my heart was racing. All I wanted to do was run home, put on my pajamas and get drunk while watching the complete 4th season of Bones, which is exactly what I did.

The Principal vaguely tried to get me to stay, again, but I ran. Here I was, traipsing off in the dark after a wonderful time with a very sweet and respectful man because...? There is no easily identifiable reason! I like him, want him to continue going out with me, have a progressing relationship (I think) with the Principal, yet after getting it on I want to go away.

WTF?