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" Lovelies:  (Please see a slight correction attached to the bottom of this post.)  There&amp;#039;s a lot I&amp;#039;ve been meaning to update you on, love-life-wise ...  As those of you who follow me on Twitter might have noticed, I heard from the Baby Fireman Wednesday night, after he got out of class.* And though I wondered if it was a good idea to even agree to hang out with him at all, especially so last-minute like that ... I agreed to see him. He came over to my neighborhood, and when we were sitting at my favorite local trattoria, having a glass of wine, I asked him what he&amp;#039;d meant when he&amp;#039;d emailed to say there were &amp;quot;unfortunate happenings&amp;quot; the weekend after we met. To protect his privacy a bit, I won&amp;#039;t give you the exact details of what he told me; but suffice it to say what had happened was truly unfortunate, to put it mildly. He&amp;#039;d been through something quite difficult. My heart went out to him, and I wanted to do more to comfort him. But we were in a public place, and the BF is quite macho--even while being incredibly intelligent and perceptive (which is to say, far from a bonehead)--so I didn&amp;#039;t want to embarrass him. Regardless, I wish I&amp;#039;d reached out to him--that I&amp;#039;d literally reached out my hand--rather than just trying to be a good listener. ... The conversation went on from there, and became increasingly engaging. He&amp;#039;s sui generis, the BF: quite a freethinker (which turns me on), with an amazing vocabulary (which turns me on even more); full of contrarian-yet-compelling opinions. Though there are things we have in common, he doesn&amp;#039;t seem like a kindred spirit as much as a very exotic human; and I feel lucky that I am able to observe such a unique and beautiful creature up close. Anyway, we smooched afterwards, and while I&amp;#039;m sure he could&amp;#039;ve been my casual sex guinea pig if I&amp;#039;d wanted that, I had a decent crush on him by then, so I held off.   Which raises the question: If a dude is willing to have sex with you on the second date, does he have any respect for you? I think this is tough to answer. The more my friend Kermie Ottawa likes a girl, the longer he waits to get it on with her. On the other hand, I know Jake Stein got into a fairly serious relationship with a woman after having sex with her on the first date. So ...   Of course, there are things that make me wonder if myself and the BF would have any kind of relationship beyond (maybe) a nice three-month fling (a la the Jonas Singer affair) during the course of which I&amp;#039;d get increasingly attached, even while perhaps knowing the whole thing could never last. Why not? Well, there are all sorts of reasons: Primarily, there&amp;#039;s the huge age difference between us. And he looks so much younger than his years that I do feel a bit self-conscious about it. Plus, I&amp;#039;m sure he wants kids, whereas I&amp;#039;m pretty certain I do not. I also wonder how well he&amp;#039;d fit in with my friends.  Above and beyond all that, this crush seems remarkably ill-advised because given his incredibly taxing schedule--what with fireman-ing F/T + graduate-school-ing part-time--I know he&amp;#039;s going to be very busy for, like, the next four years. And he left without making any reference to when we&amp;#039;d see each other again; I have been telling myself that&amp;#039;s because he&amp;#039;s got so much on his plate that it&amp;#039;s hard for him to make plans too far in advance. But I am just setting myself up for bad treatment, with that kind of thinking? ...  (In other news, there&amp;#039;s another man who has come into my life. For now, all I will tell you is his pseudonym: Barnaby Jepperboom.) Happy Friday! Enjoy the weekend. xxx -------------------------------------- * I posted a couple Twitter updates about all this, which I proceeded to delete immediately.  --------------------------------------- ps: commenters: ***If you&amp;#039;ll notice, on what seemed to be Thursday morning, I responded to Topaz, saying that I thought she nailed things on the head, regarding the Baby Fireman. And I really did--even though, careful readers will say to themselves: &amp;quot;Wait, Maura, you posted the Thursday post at 7:41AM ... and you&amp;#039;d just seen the Baby Fireman the night before!&amp;quot; The truth is, I&amp;#039;d written the post that Wednesday night, and finished at 741PM, and set it to post the following morning at 741AM. So it was already up before I got out of bed ... (And since I was all a-flutter the night before, I didn&amp;#039;t think to change it before I went to sleep.)*** -Scharlino: Bob! I&amp;#039;m fairly jealous--he&amp;#039;s one of my all-time favorites. -Yumm: you as Liza: hot, I am certain. -Paris: I like your assignment idea, though I have some ideas about why men don&amp;#039;t flirt as much as they used to: as they have less socioeconomic power than they used to, relative to women, their confidence has decreased. similarly, the sexual revolution upended dating conventions, and in the years since, things have become increasingly complicated, so dudes aren&amp;#039;t always sure what role to play. maybe? what do you think? ... as for flirting=being authentically nice--i think that&amp;#039;s part of it! and then you have to be playful, and a little bit sexy, too, of course. ... but still, i like your idea--keep the ideas coming, please--and will think about how i might write it up. -Amber! I want that Hot Topic belt. And I think Miss Robin in Da Hood sounds pretty awesome. -Celia: Ha ha! My sign would say &amp;quot;Will Blog for food.&amp;quot; -Edwinna ... hmm, I may just have to go as a vampire! What better flirting line than &amp;quot;I vant to suck your blood.&amp;quot; "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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