Carrie Bradshw is not perfect.

I've been thinking about relationships a lot lately (who hasn't) and with all of these Sex and the City episodes buzzing about on tv, I've realized a couple of things. 1) Carrie Bradshaw got some of it very wrong. 2) Whenever emotions are involved, people get hurt. 3) In my next life, I would like to be a male beta.

I'll start with number 3 and work my way backwards here.

First, I should explain that I have officially named my fish Voldemort (Voldy for short), for those of you who have been worried about him. He has this little pesky habit of swimming upside down which I'm trying to convince myself makes him amazing and not evil, what with him hanging out on the nightstand next to my head. I'll keep you posted if I should find any random animals coming to pay homage or some sort of weird wands lying about. Chances are, Harry Potter and his little friends won't be visiting but in the even they do, you can be sure that I will post pictures. Moving on to the interesting stuff, male betas (as Voldy has shown me) have incredibly little to worry about when they're not in the wild. In captivity, and in Voldy's case, he has a great bowl that is probably the equivilent to a decent sized studio apartment, plenty of plastic plants, a great gravel color combo (if I do say so myself), and, to top it all off, food arrives once a day around 7pm. This is a great life. Great apartment, great furniture, great color scheme, and no worries about food. That being said, I'm sure he'd love to have a great female beta, but one of them would probably eat the other so that is not going to happen.

On that note, emotions are crazy little things. I have yet to talk to anyone in any kind of relationship who can say, with 100% accuracy, that they were never ever hurt by the other person. Yes, in the beginning of a relationship it is easy to say that you have yet to be burned, but if someone burns you in the beginning, you're just going to break it off with them. And even in the beginning there are things to work out and discussions that must be had and emotions put out there on the cutting board, waiting to either be slaughtered or nurtured.

And finally, as much as I know there may be some backlash from the SATC fans, Carrie Bradshaw is not perfect. How can she be? Her experiences in dating in no way really resemble mine except that they both involved men. I mean, yeah she has some good points, but when it comes to my life, none of her psychosis matches up with mine. Therefore, she may be right for her own situation, not for mine at all.

I know that I am damaged, having somewhat recently ended a 4 year lightswitch relationship. Knowing this and knowing myself fairly well, I decided I would take some time to work on me before jumping into another relationship. As soon as I decided this with my entire being, I met someone.

Now, of course you would think that this is where I get all sentimental about love and relationships and how they can change your life and you never know what is coming next, but as I said, I know I'm damaged. Be prepared for a fresh breath of air in the dark haze of "new happy coupledom."

I met Mr. Fooseball through friends. He seemed nice enough; funny, mature, all of that stuff. So of course, thinking that nothing would come of anything because I was not in a place where it would go anywhere, I made out with him. This is the point at which I was prepared to say "ok, well thanks" and call it a day (night), but he insisted on getting my phone number. And then he insisted he would call me. He also insisted I was pretty and that I was amazing and he had been afraid to start talking to me. Yeah right. Me? Sure there, buddy, I'm certainly intimidating. I know this because many people have told me how much I resemble mobsters, Jack Bauer, and the women of World Wrestling. Needless to say, I am a skeptic. Also, as far as first encounters go, this was a little too good to be true. We made out and that really should have been the end of it, but instead, he was adorable and smirked and said that he would call me.

As a single woman in this century, I took that to mean either he may call me at some point or that he wasn't going to call but felt the need to call because it was the polite thing to do, after having his tongue in my mouth and all (Hallmark really does need to make a card for that occasion...). And then, just because fate likes to prove me wrong, he called. And then we went out.

Now as far as first dates go, I haven't been on many in the last couple of years, but they generally go something like this:
* Awkward meeting
* Silence, following by nervous giggling
* Getting food, eating as neatly as possible so as not to show all of your bad sides in a single evening
* More awkwardness
* Talking about common interests and things that are coincidental
* More awkwardness
* The end of meal "is this is?" phase
* "Ok, well I had a great night/do we kiss? Do we hug? What happens now?" end of date.

This date went more like this:
* Meet up, he gives me flowers
* Casual banter while bowling
* Coffee and casual banter, a lot of laughing
* Walking on the boardwalk and casual banter
* Sweet kissing, dancing under the stars, and casual banter
* Walking back to our cars, goodnight kiss, end of date.

So, while normal people would be talking about how nice and sweet this date was, I took the opportunity to freak out. He was too sweet, it was too nice and he was too intuitive about what was going on with me. Am I just not sure how to be romantic? Am I so used to settling for normalcy that anything above and beyond freaks me out?

Why was I freaked out at all? Well, this I knew the answer to. I am freaked out because beginnings are scary. He's a very intense fooseball player and an even more intense person. Mr. Fooseball does not play by any of the rules I've played before. In fact, he doesn't even play the game. If any of you have ever seen a movie starring John Cusack, you'll know what I'm talking about--the guy just puts whatever he's feeling right out there for the sake of putting it out there. For someone like me, who takes things slow and isn't easily tricked into opening up (I take months to hug well), this is a bit much.

I talked to Sputz about this. Sputz is my best friend and she has a pretty firm grip on where I am and where I'm going and all of that. She thinks I'm nuts. Then again, we recently had a conversation about finding guys that went something like this:

Sputz: There are 3 guys in my MSW program and at least 1 is gay. I'm pretty sure I can turn the gay guy, though. I think it is love.
Hesper: Right. Good luck with that. I know it's always turned out well for anyone else who ever tried it. Always. Like anyone who ever went after Mr. Piano Player. He's very much not gay now.
Sputz: Uh, what? Are you joking?
Hesper: Yes.
Sputz: I was so almost on Facebook.

Now, that conversation wasn't really necessary to the story, but it does illustrate the relationship I have with Sputz.

But I digress, back to my fears of intimacy and my fears of relationships. So, after the amazing first date, we hung out a few more times, each one really great, each one romantic, each one causing me to have an out-of-body experience where I would literally say "Really? Are you serious?" because of the level of cuteness and intensity.

Mr. Fooseball knows this and finds it funny that I would actually have that reaction. Even when I'm completely insulting and horrible he finds me amusing. In fact, he actually called me late at night a few nights ago because I told him I was super cranky and he wanted to hear what I sounded like when I was super cranky. Even as I type that, I think of how corny it is, but the truth of the matter is, it's actually really nice to have a guy find you adorable when you're cranky and whining about how your sheets aren't lining up correctly and how it's pissing you off.

So where do I go from here? Well, I asked him for spme space because it was too much too quickly and I know that where I am right now, I would not be good in a relationship. Just the idea of being responsible for someone else's emotions is causing shaking and double vision, let alone knowing that someone out there would be expecting certain things from me. And it isn't that he isn't amazing...in fact, because he's amazing, I need to take some time. If he were a schmuck, this would be easier.

But instead, he's a nice guy and while he isn't perfect, he's understanding about everything I could possibly need. In fact, I was talking to him about how I was having trouble writing recently, and he's the one who suggested a Sex and the City style blog. Which means that yes, I have his permission to completely expoit him. So, incredibly long and pointless story short, I guess you can look foward to Carrie Bradshaw-esque posts.