A Thousand Days in the MakingPart 5: Rachael Returns the Favor

In April/May I was going through one of my special alone time phases. When I'm in one of these phases, the first thing to drop off the map is my ability to respond to emails. The inbox was piling up at a steady rate, and every glance at it prompted a begrudging thought of, "Wow. I really need to reply to some of these."

Day 939(May 6th, 2009) -

I was at home avoiding the world when the little mail icon popped up on my computer. It was a Facebook friend invite from Rachael, the girl I had been meaning to write back for the past 3 weeks. I accepted the invitation and opened up the chat window to apologize.

"I thought I had scared you off with my last email" she began.

Her? Scare me off? What had that email said?

I quickly switched back to my email and began reading.
Joke about me being silly.
Work talk
Blog talk
More jokes.
Invitation for coffee

Shit

I went about cleaning up my mess as well as I could by apologizing profusely and simultaneously trying not to sound like a complete tool. It probably wasn't working, but eventually we agreed that we should meet up sometime.

Unfortunately both of our schedules were busy, and we spent the next few weeks unable to agree on a date until our schedule's aligned and we decided to meet on June 2nd.

Day 965(June 1st) -

Rachael called to let me know that work had gotten extremely busy, and she just couldn't make it. We rescheduled for the following Monday(The 8th).

Day 968(June 4th) -

Rachael called again to let me know that she had book club on Monday, and needed to reschedule for Tuesday(The 9th).

I got ditched for books?

Day 973(June 9th) -

Rachael and I had spent the past week with a flurry of emails, but the day had finally come. By this time I was really excited to meet my new virtual friend. I had gotten to know her over email and blogs, and the idea of meeting her in person was a little intimidating.

As our six o'clock meet up time grew closer, I started to get nervous. Sean was the only person at work that I had told, and he was taking this opportunity to turn my seed of doubt in to a full blown issue.

"Man. What if you fart or say something stupid? You'd better not screw this up. That girl is way out of your league."
"It's not like that. It's just friendly."
"She's too good for that too."

At 4 I got an email with a huge apology explaining that Arlene, a coworker of Rachael's had fallen and been injured. We would have to reschedule again.

Rachael and I had a few more emails, but they soon faded and I stopped hearing from her. I had assumed that something had "Red Flagged" me and that she had decided to get rid of me in a polite manner.

Day 987(June 23rd) -

I sent one last email in an attempt to make sure everything was okay. I had made a joke about being an e-stalker in my last email, and felt like a total creepo.

Had I scared her away?