The busy engineer

How many times you have heard the expression "think out of the box" when you're trying to solve a problem. The term implies a childlike way of looking at things, but it's difficult to put aside years of trying not to think like a child...

The lawyer thing freaked me out a little, not to the point of getting scared because honest, I was tempted to go out with the two of them, but the situation wasn't right really. First, those two guys had been probably working their thing together for some time now, and any woman was just going to be the third-level person there. So, no thanks, whatever it is, I prefer it on an equal basis.

Still, the stars are on my side. My very last "real" date was on Halloween; I had gone out with some engineer... he was very nice and polite, we had a lot of things in common... So, interesting talking to someone who understands some of my own quirks. He used to play soccer too, and loves the sport, so big big big points for that. He was a good listener, I appreciated that, nice smile too. He told me he was from Vancouver, and that he'd been in Montreal for a few months, so he was trying to make new friends. We went out for a caffè latte in Little Italy, and things ended very amicable. To tell you the truth, I was a little surprised not to hear from him since.

So, yesterday, I received an email from him apologizing for not having been in contact, blah blah blah, he says he's on the West Coast visiting his parents for the holidays, but once he's back in Montreal, he'd like to meet again. He then mentioned something quite unusual... he said that he was awfully busy most of the time, and that he couldn't possibly entertain a normal relationship (like if I knew what normal was), but that if I didn't mind that maybe we could have a semi-casual permanent relationship.

Now, this I like... It's only the second time I get this type of proposition clearly spelled out and said up front, and I don't mind it at all... better to cut the crap right away. I suppose in the Halloween date, he was sort of testing the waters to see if I could handle that. I don't know about other people, but I've reached a point where I consider having a "normal" relationship is practically impossible. By the way, the first time I wasn't ready to accept the deal, but I've done some soul searching since, and if you think about it, it's not so bad of an idea.

We're all busy, too busy in fact, and we barely have time to conduct our own affairs between work engagements that are getting so demanding to the point that your life doesn't belong to you anymore. Then, you also have to take care of all the domestic stuff like laundry, food, cleaning, etc. So whatever time is left needs to be partitioned between sports, hobbies, friends, family, dating or relationships, and not necessarily in that order of priority. Not an easy task if you consider how difficult is scheduling things if you have to travel on top of that.

Maybe it's time that we start considering relationships or multiple dates more as a business relationship rather than an emotional one. At least, I've come to that conclusion, so I can take care of all my stuff without bringing someone completely into my life. After all, we never know how things are going to turn out, so might as well, keep it simple in the start and see how things develop. To make things short, I replied back asking him to get in touch when he's back in Montreal.

Hmm, really, this is quite cool... and if he's as nice as he seems to be, it might just work.