Last fall, after a heart-wrenching break-up, I had to come back out into the dating world. I didn’t want to, but knew I had to get back up on that horse.

I met a guy on Facebook named Rick. I thought he was attractive from his pictures, and I enjoyed chatting with him, but I really wasn’t that into him, especially considering the state of mind I was in from the recent break-up. We chatted for a few days, then he mentioned that we should go out to dinner sometime. I thought sure. But neither of us were definitive in making that happen.

I think a short time after on a Friday, Rick pushed again at the notion of going to dinner.

There was an author who was making the talk show circuits around that time for her book detailing every date that she had gone on in the past year. The interesting part was she forced herself to say yes to every date that she was asked to go on. I thought this is exactly what I need. So I said, “Sure.” Rick and I made plans to meet the following Wednesday.

That night, I went out with a few friends and ended up at a bar. I saw Rick and went up and introduced myself and talked to him briefly. A couple days later I got reintroduced through Facebook, to a guy named Tom, who I had met previously but didn’t really know well. He was very, very cute. We kept chatting and chatting, and chatting. Monday, Tuesday, and now Wednesday morning had gone on chatting. I went to his Facebook page to look at his pictures again (very cute, see?) when I saw that Rick had left a wall post. I thought to myself… oooohhhhh. Well maybe it’s just casual.

I would have thought that since Rick had asked me out, that he would have confirmed plans with me by Tuesday or at the very least Wednesday morning, but nope. I hadn’t heard from him since meeting him in person. Well, Tom asked me to dinner that Wednesday evening. Since I hadn’t heard from Rick, and Tom had a very erratic work schedule, and I already blocked out Wednesday evening for this date, I said, “Sure.”

Tom and I made plans to meet up that evening but didn’t decide on a time. He had a few errands he needed to run and would let me know when he was available.

I got home from work and waited for his call. I was beginning to think I got blown off again when Tom finally called and apologized for being tardy in calling me. He had never written my phone number down from his Facebook message and he lost internet access. He said he had to call a friend to log into his account to get the number to call me. So we met up.

Tom and I enjoyed dinner and had a nice conversation. I decided to find out what was the nature of his relationship with Rick.

He said, “Rick is a really good friend of mine. In fact, he’s the guy I called when my internet went down to get your number. Why?”

So I told him why.

He laughed and said, “Now I know why he acted so strange when he gave me your phone number!”

I thought to myself, I am a total douchebag.

And that is my welcome back into the dating world.