When it's rainin' men, it pours... Part II

I met Bachelor Number Two at an oceanside cafe, and had a bit of trouble recognising him since he looked nothing like his photos. This is not, however, to say that he didn't look good. As is always the case it took us a little while to get comfortable with each other, both being too busy analysing this new person to put too much thought into sparkling conversation. But once we'd found a place to have dinner and got ourselves seated, we found we had a lot of common interests. It's not often that I meet someone who makes me feel like an unsophisticated rube, but this guy had travelled more than Henry Kissinger, read everything worth reading, followed his career through all sorts of high profile institutions and mixed with all of the most important power gays in the country. Now this may make him sound like a preening gasbag, but all of this experience just came out in the natural course of conversation, and he mentioned it as humbly and inconsequentially as if he was mentioning what kind of vacuum cleaner he owned. He was also the very antithesis of a girly man... not a leather-clad macho man, but just deeply, refreshingly ordinary. I could never imagine him flouncing, or shrieking, or getting hysterical over the announcement of a 50% sale at Dolce & Gabbana. He was just a man, and I like that.

After dinner we went for a long walk along the beach, then repaired for coffee at another cafe. We finished up around 10.30, he walked me back to my car, and I in turn gave him a lift to his car. As he gave me a quick kiss and got out of my car, he invited me to a party he was having in a couple of weeks, and added:

"But I'd really like to see you again before then."

And I thought, Cool!

"And it'd be great if you could come to the party, and if you wanted to bring someone that'd be fine."

And I thought, Er... okay.

"Or you could just come by yourself, which would be even better."

And I thought, Hee hee... nice save! And you know what? I think I respected him more for that recovery than I did for anything else he'd said all evening.