Sometimes the simplest things in life are so very satisfying.

Ice Cream Boy and I were supposed to go for ice cream two weeks ago, on the Friday evening. However, by the time he was free, it was late (9:30pm) and I was already snuggling under my fuzzy covers in bed, listening to the wind storm rattling my windows and various garbage cans rolling down my street. Not exactly ice cream weather. We mutually bailed on one another and then spent the next 3 hours texting, while he puttered around his place and I wrote my blog. I enjoyed myself, but wondered if we were a living example of my generation’s dislike of intimacy and addiction to our phones. Still. I was cozy at home, enjoying the opportunity to write and my slowly played out text-convo with ICB. He wrote one thing of note: he often picked up the vibe that he shouldn’t force things with me and he was doing his best to adapt and play along. Perceptive! At 1am, as I was falling asleep, the motherfucker Ice Cream Boy FaceTimed me. He thought it would be more effective than texting. I thought, are you kidding me?! Talking unexpectedly on the phone is bad enough, but FaceTiming when I am horizontal in bed, with my hair all over the place, no makeup, and in a 15-year old stained hoodie that dates back to my pre-uni years is the opposite of acceptable. That call lasted 45 seconds, 37 of which was him laughing and apologizing because I was so mad.

ICB: Mais quoi?! Je te vois tout le temps tu sais, je sais de quoi tu as l’air/ But what’s the big deal?! I see you all the time, you know, I am aware of what you look like.

Vanilla: JE M’EN FOUS CALISSE DE TABARNAK/I DON’T GIVE A DAMN THIS IS NOT OK.

Romantic!

By Sunday morning, I was a little annoyed. He hadn’t rescheduled. And yes, I expected him to reschedule because I need all of the data to assess a guy’s MO. I’m used to various tropes:

• the player: flirting blatantly in the hopes of bedding me and then bouncing.
• the lazy player: a guy who only flirts by text, stringing a girl a long to gratify his ego, unwilling to make the effort to physically see her, even for penetrative purposes.
• the fuckboy: situationships au max. Side chicks galore, attempting to get all of the perks of a relationship with none of the commitments and obligations.
• the Kizombeiro: a certain brand of guy that is very prevalent in the dance world that seeks to bed high profile female dancers, as though somehow that increases their credibility as dancers through bragging rights. Given my affiliation with Teacher, I’m a target of such guys. It’s as though they believe that since I part of Teacher’s inner circle, I must deem Teacher’s charm, swag with the ladies as my baseline for what I expect in any guy I am interested in. So if these guys manage to capture my interest and bang me, that must imply they are on Teacher’s level of alpha maleness. They aren’t and never will be, but that doesn’t matter in their bizarre logic. It’s some sort of unacknowledged pissing contest between them and Teacher, one Teacher has warned me about and I unfortunately have witnessed often enough to believe that it is true. Men and their insecurities.
• the good guy: hahahhahaha, no not used to that at all. #unicorn.

I couldn’t place ICB into a bucket. I knew he was very attracted to me, but his laid-back approach to seeing me infrequently, his uneven texting skills, his overwhelming interest in dance all pointed to a combination of the first 4 tropes above. But that wasn’t coherent with how safe and content I feel with him when I dance, regardless of whether we are dancing seriously or goofing off. Kizomba is such an intimate dance, dancing chest to chest, my body physically reacts to signals that I cannot rationally detect. There are some guys I just cannot relax with, no matter their skill – Teacher is one of them. There are some guys who stress me out and make me anxious and uneasy. And then there is the very rare and lovely moment when I dance with a guy who makes me feel completely safe and serene. It is hard to explain, since it is an instinctive reaction, two bodies responding to each other’s energy. I’ve learned to not extrapolate all sorts of character traits based on my dancing connection with a dude, but I do take it into consideration. For ICB, that meant being way more patient and open-minded than I would normally be. #vulnerabilityisabitch

Sunday afternoon, ICB invited me out for ice cream later that evening. FINALLY! I was SO excited. I was sure it would be a good time. I revelled in the feeling of pleasurable anticipation. I passed the time by meeting – blind date style – a long time reader of my blog. That’s another wonderful post that I’ve yet to write. #behindschedule.

8pm! Ice cream time. ICB came to pick me up. Y’all. It was amazing. 3 hours of strolling about and eating ice cream. Laughing and sharing stories. No talk of dancing. Just getting to know one another. I got him to talk! He is a much better talker than texter. Time flew by.

11pm, time to go home, because #realjob and #mondays, y’all. Adulting is cramping my dating life. ICB drove me home and came the moment for him to kiss me goodnight. I was overwhelmed by virginal adolescent shyness. He stopped. Asked me what I was thinking because he could hear the gears in my head working overtime. I admitted I had trouble reading him. I asked what his goal was. He handled that question pretty well, since I basically sounded like I was ready for us to declare our monogamous fidelity and send out wedding invites. “I don’t have a goal, really. I like dancing with you. Our energy is so good. And it turns out that I really enjoy talking to you. I’m just enjoying this chemistry we have, enjoying spending time with you. I don’t really have a goal other than that, I can’t have one right now… we don’t know where this is going.” BRUH. PERFECT ANSWER. I clarified that in fact, what I was trying to assess was whether he had a goal, because most of the time having a goal when it comes to a person is synonymous with using them in some way. He agreed, but nevertheless asked me what goals I was not down for. So, without feeling ashamed, prudish or dramatic, I stated that I was absolutely not interested in the player + variants, fuckboy + variants or Kizombeiro + variants scenarios. I said my truth. He listened. I felt respected. He kissed me again. I didn’t stop him too quickly this time round.

That expression “walking on clouds“? That was me leaving his car and at work the next day.

A simple date. That ICB knocked out of the park.