Am I dating someone? Or am I somehow skipping ahead to the part where we've been together for 15 years?

May 7, 2011

Let me tell you how I spent my Saturday and you tell me if I'm dating someone. It strikes me that part of my struggle with learning how to date, is learning how to figure out someone wants to date me. And I'm totally confused right now.

So this morning, Pastor texts me and asks me to go look at a sofa with him. We go to this super expensive, swanky place where we sit on super expensive, swanky sofas. And then we go next door, to West Elm and we pick out a dining room table and chairs. We also look at media consoles. Let me pause for a moment and tell you that 90% of my apartment furniture and accessories are from either Target or Ikea. So I'm a little out of my comfort zone.

And it also feels like a significant other job. I realize that Pastor is down a wife and wants someone else to help him make these decisions. Which is why I say yes whenever he asks for help- it seems like the Christian thing to do. But it's also something I want to do.

I don't want him to feel alone. Whenever he talks about his life he makes it sound like there's no one there. He seems to have so few friends, so few people that he can turn to. I don't want him to feel alone. I'm telling myself that's all it is, when in reality, I want him to turn to me for help and advice. I want to pick out the furniture. It seems outside the bounds of possibility that he could ask me to sit on a sofa with him and have NO intention of making out with me on that sofa. I mean, who does that.

I know that looking at furniture was depressing, because, of course, right now he would still prefer the furniture he had and the life that he had before Cancer took all his plans away. So we went for drinks. And then he went to a church thing. He felt bad for not inviting me, but I was relieved not to go. What would people think. Here is this 40-something pastor bringing along a 20-something friend after a day of furniture shopping. That's not dating. That's like, we've been together for several years and we're going to consolidate our living situation. They'd be so confused..

I'm too confused to handle anyone else's confusion.