Date #8 - Maury, Unemployed

How We Met

I know... I know... I know… "But he has no job girl!"... "What are you thinking?" Those are some of the things that you guys are shouting to your computers isn’t it? Well, let us all remember that not everyone is unemployed because they’re losers and just don’t want to work. There are many people out there that have reasons beyond their control- which leads us to Maury.

Just to give a bit of clarification as to why Maury is not working… he was previously employed in a very good career field with a local government agency. Due to health issues, that agency decided to let him go. In these health issues, Maury would experience very severe migraines, which sometimes lead to him having a seizure. He has been to see several specialists to find out what the cause is or why these things occur. They have all said the same thing- they aren’t sure what is causing the seizures exactly, but the problem to it all lies so deep in his brain that if they decided to operate, he might not make it through the surgery.

He also owns and operates a cleaning business where he cleans office buildings and vacant homes that are being put on the market to be sold. His health problems has caused him to put that business on hold, so he’s somewhat taking a break, as he put it.

Maury and I met through a mutual friend. My girlfriend Faith is the one who set us up. A few years ago, when she and Maury first became acquaintances, I asked her to hook us up. For some reason or other, it never happened. I had always assumed that it was because he was shy. At least that’s the story he would always tell her whenever she would broach the topic of him meeting someone- that he was too shy and didn’t like to approach women. It was almost like he had insecurities about something or other and just didn’t want to go through the heartbreak of someone finding out about whatever the issue was. Was he scared because of his health problems? Maybe he thought that the idea of being with him or someone with his condition would make a woman run off or stay away from a man such as him?

I was at work when Faith called me saying that she thought it would be a good idea for me to include Maury in on my dates. I remembered how difficult it was the first time around when she tried to get us together and it didn’t work so initially I was very apprehensive. The first time around, he supposedly didn’t want to talk to me. Sure, he thought I was a pretty lady, but I just didn’t do it for him. This time around, she asked him if he would go out on a date with me, and he agreed.

Well I’ll be damned!!!

She gave him my number around 8:30 that night, and several hours had passed from that time until she text me asking if he had called. It was around 10:30 and he still hadn’t called or text. I’m not desperate for dates… that I AM NOT! I really didn’t need this date, but me thinking that this is a man who is shy, with some insecurities and who could use a good conversation every now and then, I thought, why not?

It was around 11 o’clock that night before I took this into my own hands. I text Faith asking for his number. Bump this… I’ll text him myself. If he doesn’t respond, I’ll just go about my business.

I sent him a simple text saying, 

“Hey Maury, It’s Candy. I hope you don’t mind, but I asked Faith for your number?”

I let her know that I text him but he probably wouldn’t respond if he hadn’t even called by now. Another 40 minutes had passed and I had enough. I text her again letting her know that he was just too much work and this shit hadn’t even started yet. I told her that I was cool on this date, and that I’ll pass.

Just as I sent that text to Faith, Maury texts me back saying,

 “Hey beautiful, I’m good. How are you tonight?“

Surprise… Surprise!!!

We went back and forth for a bit with texting and he finally apologized for taking so long with responding. He informed me that it was his birthday and that he was out with his friends.

Being the uberly considerate person that I am by not being one to barge in on anyone’s party, no matter the circumstance, I text him back wishing him a happy birthday and told him that he could call me tomorrow. He responded saying thank you and asked me to send a picture. I really hate when guys do that. I do. Especially when they already know what you look like. He knew what I looked like because Faith had already shown him a picture of me. Nevertheless, it had been two years since he had seen the first picture, so I obliged, and sent him one.

“Wow!!! You are beautiful!” was his response.

“Awww… you’re a sweetie. Thank you so much for saying that! I won’t monopolize your time tonight handsome. Have fun and be safe.” Was all I said.

We text back and forth over the next few days but never actually talked. I’m not a big proponent of texting and he clearly is. It’s great for emergencies or something quick, but full fledged conversations are meant for actual talking on the phone. I called him once or twice but he would never pick up, but he would text back immediately. Men are so lazy!!! Why not just pick up the damn phone and talk if you can text?

For those few days, he let me know that his family was coming in town from Alabama for his birthday. He wanted to meet on Saturday and do lunch, but again, I didn’t want to be inconsiderate and take him away from his family who traveled to spend time with him. I lived here, they didn’t; I could always see him if I needed to.

Going against my normal weekend ritual of waking up before 11am, I agreed to a lunch date on Sunday at noon and I, again, wished him well on his birthday weekend.

The Date

As much as I like to kick back and be relaxed on my Sundays, I made sure that I was looking really cute for the first time that I met Maury. I wore a really cute red/navy/grey/black plaid long button down shirt, will my black tights and black boots. The outfit made me look like I was working with a little something in the derrière. I put on my favorite scent which comes from Avon, called “Haiku Awakenings”. It’s one of those fragrances that does as it states; it wakes up your senses and makes even other women want to tear your clothes off! Yeah… it’s that yummy!  Whenever I smell it I want to tear my own clothes off!

Initially, he asked to meet me at Red Lobster. I have never eaten there, nor do I care too. I’m not fond of seafood, even though I know they serve other things on the menu, that was not somewhere that I wanted to go for lunch. We opted instead to meet at O’Charley’s, which kind of has like a Chili’s or Applebee’s feel to it. It was my first time eating there as well, so I was looking forward to eating for the first time on someone elses dime.

I had to drop my daughter off at her friend’s house so I was a few minute late for our date. By the time I had arrived, he was already there, standing out front of the restaurant. I had only seen pictures of him previously. He was a good looking guy- chocolate brown complexion, 5'11", 190 pounds, ¼ inch haircut neatly trimmed, dressed in a burnt orange Polo sweater and jeans with chocolate and tan Sperry top-siders.

I love a man that can put together an outfit. Faith had already told me how well dressed he always was. In fact, he was so well dressed all the time, that his finances were not only hurting because he was out of work, but also because he was a bit of a shopaholic.

I parked away from the front door so that I could have a few seconds to guage his reaction as I approached. As he turned to look in my direction, I noticed the eyebrow raise and smirk on his face. It was the look of “I like what I’m seeing”. Am I surprised that he liked what he saw… not one bit. I knew he would… and most assuredly, the feeling was mutual.

As I walked up, he began to stretch and yawn as if he was bored waiting on me.

“Oh nooooooo… we’re not already bored are we?” I ask playfully as I smiled in my approach.

He laughed softly and gave me the biggest smile. As I got closer, he reached out for my hand and pulled me in for a hug. “C’mere girl,” he said as he hugged me tightly. He sniffed my neck in more than one spot as he hugged me which sent small little prickles up my spine.  

“Damn! What is that?” he asked in reference to my perfume.

“It’s called Haiku Awakenings,” I reply. “You like it?”

“Hell yeah!” he exclaims. “That smells good as hell!”

As he pulled away from me, he looked me up and down with a familiar look of lust and desire, "Let me stop before I do or say the wrong thing.”

Whoa Nelly!!!  Shy??? THIS guy??? Puuuh-leeeze!!!  

We go inside and the host/hostess (I only say it because I’m really not sure if it was a boy or a girl) seats us at a booth. As we both slide in on our respective sides of the table, he/she says to Maury, “Man, you smell good. I like that. What is it?”

I smile at him and he gives me the look of “OH MY GOD!”

“Honestly, I don’t even know.” He says. “I just sprayed something on and didn’t even pay attention to what it was.”

“Well gee!” I say as I lay my purse in the booth. “I didn’t really notice you had anything on. So what is it?” I asked.

“For real…" he laughs, "I don’t know. I have so many colognes that I never really pay attention to what I put on because I know they all smell good.”

“Ahhhh… okay. It’s cool. You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.” I say playfully feigning to be hurt.

“Here,” he scoots out of his side of the booth, comes to sit next to me and slowly brings his neck in so I can smell.

*INHAAAAAALE* I haven’t the slightest idea as to what he had on, but it smelled oh so good. I sat there breathing in the fragrance and almost became light-headed from the aroma. Now children, have we not discussed several times what my weakness is?

“You like?” he asks me.

“Damn straight!” I reply

“You ready to take me home now ain’t you?” he says looking me dead in my eyes.

“HA! I'm ready for you to get yo ass back on  the other side of this table” I say pushing him out of my side of the booth.

Our waitress comes over and I order my usual water with lemon and Maury orders a sweet tea.

“So birthday boy” I smile, “What’s going on? What kind of trouble did you get into this weekend sir?”

He laughs. “I really didn’t do too much.” He said. “I went out with some friends that night you and I first talked (text) and the rest of the time, I’ve just been chillin with my family.”

“Nothing wrong with that at all.” I say. “As long as you had fun and enjoyed yourself right?”

He lays his hands flat on the table and I notice that he’s got nails like the wicked witch.

“What in the hell?” I ask totally dumbfounded. His pinky nail was the longest. It was like that nail that you see pimps or dare I say, cocaine addicts have. The first person I thought about when I saw his nails was Money Mike. You know, Katt Williams’ character in Ice Cube’s “Friday After Next”.

“Maury? What in the world? Why are your nails so long?” I say picking his hands up for closer inspection, half jokingly and half serious because I was a bit bothered by it.

He continues to chuckle at my jest. “I need’em!” He said. “You know, short nails don’t scratch that itch like the long nails do.” He says playfully imitating scratching his back.

*Whew*… for a minute there, I didn’t know what kind of “itch” he was referring to. I was silently praying he wasn’t talking about some kind of drug habit. Lord knows… between the douchebags, liars, cheaters, and wannabe thugs I’ve encountered in the last few days, the last loser that I need to add to my list of complete derelicts is a druggy.

I’m sure our waitress was getting impatient with us. She came back three times asking if we were ready to order yet. We spend more than 30-40 minutes talking about everything under the sun before we ordered. We mostly discussed what took so long for Faith to set us up.

“So what was the problem two years ago?” I ask. “Were you not interested then?”

“What?” Clearly he’s surprised by my question. “Not interested? Yeah right! I told Faith to go ahead and hook us up. I don’t know what happened.”

Was I surprised at hearing this? Very much so. It was my understanding from Faith that yes, he thought that I was attractive, but he wasn’t interested in meeting me.

“I would ask Faith about you all the time after the first time she brought you up.” He continued. “But she never would give me your number or she would change the subject.”

His statement was a bit puzzling to me. It was a total contradiction to what I had been told previously by Faith. Had Faith wanted to keep Maury for herself? It sure sounds like it. If, in fact, that was the case, then that was fine. It didn’t bother me. But it didn’t bode well that I was lied to… IF, what Maury was saying is true.

“Really? I just thought that you weren’t at all interested in me.” I said.

He shook his head emphatically. “Noooooooo… I was VERY interested!” he stated. “But what can I do if I can’t get your number from the one person that I know that has it?”

Good point. There wasn’t much he could do if he and I didn’t know each other. I never admitted it to him, and I probably never will, but I had found him on Facebook about a year ago. I wanted to message him, but then, I thought better of it. That would look like a real creeper move wouldn’t it? I know I’d probably be a bit creeped out if someone messaged me that I knew about, but didn’t know personally.

We spend the next hour and a half enjoying our food and talking more about the last two years. In between all of that, I believe he told me at least 10 times how pretty and how sexy he thought I was.

“Your pictures do you no justice Candy.” He stated. “Not that they’re bad, they just don’t quite compare to seeing you in person.”

I blush and he could tell that I was doing so. “Awww, are you blushing pretty girl?” he asks me.

Hmph! There wasn’t a shy bone in this man’s body. That was one of the things that drew me to him. The notion that a good looking man had a hard time approaching women and was shy was a bit of a novelty these days. I was curious about him and I needed to see for myself. Despite the foretold stories about his shyness, he has been anything but. Clearly it was all a ruse of some sort. What he had to gain by that, I don't know. Maybe, just as I was drawn to him, it somewhat endeared other women to him as well. Was that his game?

“I like you.” He stated aggressively. “I like everything about you!”

Shocked is the appropriate adjective to use here. I wasn’t expecting an admission such as this, this early on. But, it could be just game.

I play it cool and respond with a simple, “You’re a cool dude too Maury.”

He laughs at my statement. “I’m a cool dude huh?” he said nodding his head in agreement.

“Yeaaaaaah.” I reply. “Do you want me to say the opposite?”

Throughout this conversation, he’s holding my hand across the table and lightly gliding his fingertips across my nail beds.

“Soft hands… I like that.” He admits, lightly grazing the top of my hand and he places his back on his side of the table.

“Thank you.” I respond. “It’s a little something I call lotion.” I say playfully.

We both laugh. The waitress brings the bill and neither of us is ready to go. This wasn’t an extra gushy date like the others. It’s was nice and simple. I like nice and simple.

I gathered no inkling of pretense about him through our conversation. He seemed very genuine and straight forward. He paid attention to all of the little things that I stated. I say that because since the date we’ve spoken and he’s mentioned several little things that I spoke about that the average guy probably wouldn’t have picked up on.

As we leave the restaurant, the waiting area was filled with a throng of women fresh from church. I noticed that as we passed, several of them had already stripped him naked by the time we hit the door.

He walks me to my car and we hug one more time. Each inhaling the others heady fragrance. I do believe that in that moment, we simultaneously exhaled.

I was first to let go of our embrace. He pulled me back into his arms and began rubbing his cheek against mine. It was nothing major, but something about it was a tad bit erotic.

“Alright!” He let out a deep sigh, “I’m going to let you go.”

As he pulled away, he bit his lower lip as we starred directly at one another. The whole while, he was still holding on to the front of my shirt.  

“Don’t you want to come to my house to help me finish unpacking?” he asked. “I’m not ready to go home, at least not by myself.”

I pat him on the chest, “You’ll be okay.” I say as I pull my keys out of my purse.

Of course I’d like to see him again but not in the same day. Besides, the whole, “help me unpack” thing was clearly just an excuse to get me over to his house.

I unlock my door and I could feel him standing behind me. I turn slowly and give him a light kiss on the lips.

“I’ll call you when I make it home.” I say as I get in my car.

He holds on to the top of the door frame and asks one more time, “You suuuuure you don’t want to help me unpack?”

I reach for my door handle, “I’m positive!” I say with a wink as I pull my door closed.

Lesson Learned: Never give up; Never surrender