Day 202: Putting on my big girl panties

I started to get nervous today when I thought about going to lunch with the Cowboy.

He's a perfectly nice guy, but I'm just not interested.

About 15 minutes before he was going to pick me up I got an alert on my computer, I had a safety committee meeting today.

Crap! The head of the committee always has a way of hunting me down and making me go to the meetings. He doesn't do it to anyone else... just me.

So I told my director what was going on and she told me I needed to bail. Great plan... but how was I going to do it?

The meeting was in a conference room very close to my desk.

I grabbed my purse and hugged the wall into I made it into the newsroom.... ahhh I was safe... but in order to get to another 'safe' part of the building I had to figure out another escape.

I walked to the opening which faced the lobby and coincidently was on the other side of the conference room. I thought I could wait it out there, but it was too obvious.

I saw the Coffee Fairy was sitting there so I sent her a text 'I'm right behind you I'm trying to avoid the safety comm mtg'

She turned around and laughed.

Like a super spy I saw another escape route. I darted through the studio past the green room and up the back way to the front entrance... whoo hoo I was safe!!!

When I got to the front entrance I waited for a while and then I realized the window to the conference room where the meeting was being held faced the front parking lot.... right where the Cowboy was going to pick me up.

From that point on, my heart skipped a beat with every movement.

One of the reporters came out the front door and I jumped back up against the wall, false alarm.

Then I heard footsteps down the hall. I thought it was the host, then I realized it was the sports producer.

He seemed a bit confused, so I filled him in that I was hiding from the safety committee meeting and he seemed to understand.

Before long the Cowboy called and I told him to pull forward to the handicapped spaces so I could escape undetected.

He obliged and we were off. Lunch was nice, but my heart wasn't in it. He's a nice guy but I'm just not feeling it.

Maybe he's too nice, maybe I'm not capable of 'playing the field' and dating more than one guy at once. It's possible he's too young... I did get that vibe.

He dropped me off and I was pretty happy he was driving a mini-van and there was a wide gap between the seats, not to mention he was late getting back to work so I said 'thank you' and jumped out of the car and headed back into work.

On my way home I thought about the call I was going to get from the setup guy and I couldn't bear it.

I started to think it would be a good idea to do a pre-emptive strike and tell him I couldn't go out with him because my heart wasn't in it.

But I didn't want to do it over the phone, I just couldn't have that conversation.

Normally I would have called and gained a consensus of my friends, but this time I just did it.

I put on my big girl panties and I typed him a quick message and laid it out there. I said it wasn't fair for me to go out with him when my heart wasn't in it... and that was that.

He was thankful I let him know and said if anything changes to let him know. Oh and he passed on a little 'good luck... but not really (just kidding)' back which made me laugh.

Now that I had given him the message all I had to do was call the BFF and let her know what happened, so she could be fully armed in case it got out of hand (which I sincerely doubted would happen).

But on the off chance the setup guy called her boyfriend and said 'what the heck?? she is dating someone? why didn't you tell me?' I wanted her to be prepared.

I was pleasantly surprised by her reaction. It could have gone 2 ways... very proud for being an adult and addressing a situation... or really by text message?? what were you thinking??

She was like a proud mother... 'I'm so proud of you! You're growing up! How old are you?' I had to laugh out loud because I know just how juvenile I can be.

All in all it was a relief to not have to think and stress about it.

Now all I have to do is let the Cowboy down easy.