After my decision to end things with “The Doc,” I did my best to keep things as normal as possible.  Since I wasn’t exclusively seeing anyone, and still had a LOT of interest from Mr. Art Museum dude, I had little problem moving forward.

The weekend quickly approached me and before I knew it, Mr. Art Museum/Borderline-Stalker/”Really Knows How to use Google To Research Me” Guy had asked me out on a date for the upcoming Saturday.   Since he’s also an actor, writer and director (who has an IMDB account – booyah! The stalking works both ways, baby!) he’s big into films and invited me to see a movie with him.  I’m not a movie person, but the man owns 400+ DVDs and I like someone with a passion, so we agree to meet that Saturday evening to catch a flick.

Ok, cool.  We have plans.  I like having plans.  Even if it’s just doing nothing by myself, I like to know what the weekend plan is ahead of time.

Saturday morning arrives and I take my laptop to my favorite fancy spot to do some work and have some breakfast.

While I’m working, I end up having a text conversation with someone from my recent past.  A former colleague.  A brilliant, sweet, cool man who is….let’s say….”unavailable” for anything other than friendship, although someone who can look at me without saying anything and have an entire conversation just between our eyes.

He doesn’t live nearby at all but says he needs to buy a jacket and that I should be his fashion guru and help him out.  Strangely enough (not really) I wanted to go shopping that day, too! Yay! So I agree to help him out.  We make plans for him to travel the 60+ mins to get to where I’m at in Los Angeles later that afternoon.

Oh, wait.  I had already scheduled a date with Mr. Art Museum dude! Dang it!

Now, if you know me personally, I’m not the type of person who ever cancels after making a commitment. I’m impeccable about keeping my plans.

HOWEVER, I really wanted to spend time with my friend instead of Mr. Art Museum dude.  Like, really bad. I knew it’d be no pressure, we’d have a good time, he’d treat me like a woman, we’d laugh, talk about business and shop.  And at the end of the night, there wouldn’t be any pressure or expectation or extra R-rated stuff to deal with as if I were on a date with Mr. Art Museum dude who is not afraid of PDA.  And after the whole Doc situation, I really wanted that break.

So I asked to re-schedule, canceled on Mr. Art Museum and went out with Mr. Instead….instead.

And it was an awesome time! We shopped (found him a very sexy black jacket at Macys), I shopped for the things I needed to pick up, and then he took me to dinner and then drinks in Beverly Hills.  It was an AWESOME night, and at one point we even discussed over super fancy martinis how nice it was to have a friend of the opposite sex to hang out with every now and then.

Dating can be hard work.  It can place you all over the map, emotionally.  Spending time alone is good.  Spending time with my girlfriends is good, too.  But I’m getting really good at listening….and choosing…exactly what I want in my life.

This weekend I found a new category I’d like to explore, too.  Something else.  Instead. 🙂