An Egocentric Interval

*You know, it just occurred to me, that if you haven't been reading the continuing romance here, this might be confusing. Anyway, this is part four of the story of how Terence and I ended up together.*

Saturday morning I had to drag myself out of bed. (Even still, I probably woke way earlier than Terence, judging by life married to a night owl.) I had enjoyed Friday night quite a bit, and Saturday the planned activity was a beach party at Moonlight Beach.

I was looking forward to going, and Terence, I later learned, was really looking forward to seeing me there. However, I apparently was on a different schedule than everyone else. I don't remember there being a specified time for the official start of the beach party, but when I got to the beach there was no one there. I even stayed for a couple of hours, playing in the water and laying out with a book. Still no one arrived, at least no one that looked familiar. (It was the 3rd of July after all, so the beach was packed. Possibly I just didn't see them.) Anyway, I finally packed up and left, since I had yet another date planned that night.

Poor Terence. He was expecting me to be there, but he didn't show up until at least an hour or two after I left. But do you remember how I said Terence had explored some other dating options when he thought I was giving him the cold shoulder? He still was at this point in time, even though I was clearly not freezing him out, so he still had a good time without me.

My evening was a tiny bit less enjoyable. I ended going miniature golfing with my date and Camie and her then fiance, heading to a fireworks show afterward. Now, I should explain something about this particular date. Hmmm, I'll call him "Joe." Now Joe and I had been on quite a few dates at this point. He had taken me to the Valentine's dance, and I hung out at his apartment with him and his roommates every so often. However, my feelings for Joe were absolutely, utterly platonic. I enjoyed his company (well, most of the time.) But Joe had one little personality quirk that was definitely off-putting.

He was extremely conceited. Possibly this concealed one very insecure guy on the inside, but he was always talking about how good he was at things, how smart he was, how good-looking he was, how so very moral he was, so it was hard to tell. When I first met him, I thought he was saying all these things about himself but not really meaning them. Poking fun at himself, if you will, or being sarcastic. As I came to know him better, I realized that was simply not the case.

When he said, "Don't you think I'm the best-looking kid in my family?" he really expected you to give a serious yes. When he commented that he was such a good cook, and asked me if I had ever had such good asparagus, he really expected that I never had tasted such superb asparagus in my life.

(Once I remember him complaining about some girl who had tried to kiss him when they were hanging out, no doubt because she couldn't resist his sheer physical awesomeness. Then he complimented me, saying that he was very impressed on how absolutely chaste I was. Little did he know that far from having to rein in my hormones every time I saw him, he tended to have the opposite effect, the "Yuck, don't come any closer!" one.)

If you are wondering why I was still going on dates with this guy, please remember that I had yet to learn to gracefully turn down a date.

Anyway, this particular Saturday night, Joe was in his finest self-satisfied form. I think my sister and Ryan were completely taken aback by his personality. Like anyone meeting him for the first time, they didn't know whether to take his self-praise at face value. For me, it provided a much needed stark comparison. I had enjoyed myself so much the night before and felt so comfortable with Terence, that by the end of the evening, I was eagerly looking forward to my dinner with Terence on Monday, just so I could enjoy spending time with a guy.