sizing up

You’d think it would make you more nervous, but it’s a surprise and a relief when just the opposite happens.

You worry about how you look when you go out with a few girl friends; you agonize over what to wear before you head single to a party. Maybe you spend a long time in the mirror sizing up flaws, thinking trend and silhouette and extra-length mascara. Because, as animalistic as it sounds, you’re trying to see what you can hook, to get the best you can, to successfully hide those insecurities and even show off a little.

            But then when you’ve got a new guy, as early in as the second or third date, you don’t have those worries you’ve grown so accustomed to carrying around with you. For me, on my very first “real” date, it was as soon as I walked up the subway steps and saw across the sidewalk the guy I was going to meet. The nerves are all in the build-up. And what surprises you most, is you, minus the anxiety. Minus trying to get anything you don’t already have right in front of you, minus trying to be anything you aren’t already. Frankly I think this is why people like the casual stage of dating, before you’re worrying about things going wrong, when you’re sizing them up instead of yourself for once.