As the couple took their seats Daniel knew that the ball was in his court. Over the last several days he had practiced a speech over and over, refining it as he went. Just this morning he had given it one more try, when suddenly Jason’s admonition came bouncing back to him, “For Chrissake shut up!”. The speech was too long, too wordy, too self-centered. Daniel decided to pare it down to few simple sentences.
“Teri, way back when the Thompson case was ending and I invited you to lunch at Quincy’s, I thought of that as a “date”. Daniel used his fingers to make the universal quote/unquote marks around the term “date”. Ditto for when we took our hike. I doubt that you thought of either of those events in that way, particularly because at the end of our hike you made it clear that you wanted just friendship, and maybe not even that. Since then, though, we’ve had more experiences together, including the fun dinner last weekend and your suggestion that we have dinner again this weekend. And, well, um….well…we’ve twice kissed pretty seriously. So, I’m not asking that we have any discussion now about some future that we might have, I just kind of want to know this simple thing. Teri, do you think of us as quote/unquote dating?” Before Teri could answer, he quickly added, “Oh…uh…when I say “dating”, I don’t mean that if you agree that we are dating, that that implies being in a sexual relationship, necessarily”.
Daniel breathed in and out slowly, trying to conceal his anxiety. It was now Teri’s turn to speak. He was feeling a bit guilty because once again he had been less than completely truthful about sex as a part of the relationship. Although he had no sense, per se, that it was the right time to start sex, in general he did assume that most dating couples were sexually active after some small number of dates. His guilt was, however, softened by Jason’s observation that Teri was smart enough to know that he was dancing around the sex subject some.
“Teri, way back when the Thompson case was ending and I invited you to lunch at Quincy’s, I thought of that as a “date”. Daniel used his fingers to make the universal quote/unquote marks around the term “date”. Ditto for when we took our hike. I doubt that you thought of either of those events in that way, particularly because at the end of our hike you made it clear that you wanted just friendship, and maybe not even that. Since then, though, we’ve had more experiences together, including the fun dinner last weekend and your suggestion that we have dinner again this weekend. And, well, um….well…we’ve twice kissed pretty seriously. So, I’m not asking that we have any discussion now about some future that we might have, I just kind of want to know this simple thing. Teri, do you think of us as quote/unquote dating?” Before Teri could answer, he quickly added, “Oh…uh…when I say “dating”, I don’t mean that if you agree that we are dating, that that implies being in a sexual relationship, necessarily”.
Daniel breathed in and out slowly, trying to conceal his anxiety. It was now Teri’s turn to speak. He was feeling a bit guilty because once again he had been less than completely truthful about sex as a part of the relationship. Although he had no sense, per se, that it was the right time to start sex, in general he did assume that most dating couples were sexually active after some small number of dates. His guilt was, however, softened by Jason’s observation that Teri was smart enough to know that he was dancing around the sex subject some.
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