One of the more clever things I ever said was that “Waiting for a guy to call for the first time is like waiting for the results of a biopsy.”



There is that same sense of dread. The restless dreams. Waking up early. Time slows down. Every time the phone rings your blood pressure skyrockets. Then you’re so breathless you can barely talk when it turns out to be your mom or, worse, a telemarketer.



Other writers have said it better than I. Dorothy Parker, for example, in “A Telephone Call:”



This is the last time I'll look at the clock. I will not look at it again. It's ten minutes past seven. He said he would telephone at five o'clock. "I'll call you at five, darling." I think that's where he said "darling." I'm almost sure he said it there. I know he called me "darling" twice, and the other time was when he said good-bye... He couldn't have minded my calling him up. I know you shouldn't keep telephoning them--I know they don't like that. When you do that they know you are thinking about them and wanting them, and that makes them hate you.



Anyway. Things with Cute Train Boy (CTB) are moving along OK after our second date except that, of course, I want to marry him. This usually poses a problem for any guy under 45, and CTB is a mere 30 years old. While this is older by several years than the average male that I’ve dated these last eight months, it is still, alas, young (never mind that my dad had a wife, two kids, two dogs, two cats, two guinea pigs, several hamsters, and mortgage by the time he was 30).



And so, while clearly interested in my fine self, CTB is exhibiting the signs of passivity that go along with being young and in no hurry to get a girlfriend, much less a wife, a mortgage, and a menagerie.



So, not wanting to f*ck things up with my future husband and father of my hamsters, I am, as Prettyplus advised, trying to play it cool. As much as it is possible for a hot-blooded 34-year old woman who has absolutely no talent for playing it cool to play it cool.



The scenario: After our last date, CTB suggests we get together this weekend. Great! Then he says he has to get back to me about exactly when he can get together. Not-so-great but fine. I wait impatiently. CTB e-mails yesterday (Friday) and says he can get together at any time, so if I want to hang out, he can hang out whenever.



This was reassuring and all, but he was lobbing HIS ball back into my court. I proposed and organized our first two dates, thank you. And I had already told him I wanted to hang out this weekend.



So, while my first instinct was to call him and make a plan, I decided, on the advice of GalPal #1, to e-mail him back (e-mail, the bane of my existence) and say, why don’t you call me tomorrow and we can figure it out?



The guy needs to do a little work if he wants to hang out with me, for crying out loud. And if he doesn’t really care about hanging out with me – if he’s happy just to do it when I chase him around but is otherwise not motivated to call me, who needs that? Not moi, because I suddenly have a whole new batch of suitors knocking at the door (more on them soon).



In any case, the biopsy results are supposed to come in today. I’ll let you know how they turn out.