I emailed Blu, asked who this yenta was and whether her friend would be worth meeting. Blu raved about the yenta, “I adore her,” she’d said, and the next thing I knew, yenta had emailed a list of the top 50 reasons I should date her friend. It’s cute, I think, but also kind of weird, and also crazy because yenta doesn’t really know me from a can of paint. But she thinks I’m pretty. She digs my wild hair. She happens to have a great relationship with one of my best friends and the two of them couldn’t be happier about the potential they see here.

While outside interests seem to have a whole lot riding on a blind date that’s yet to be, I certainly realize that I haven’t got anything to lose…even if Blu and yenta…and mystery man do. As awkward as it seems, I think I’ll go for it. It’s been a while after all, and I could use a little excitement. So I’ll wait to hear. I’ll relax my inhibitions. I’ll allow myself to be a little more vulnerable than I like to be and try to enjoy flying blind.

Meantime, I can tell you that I’m still flying solo. Markus and I, if there ever was to be anything at all between us, still live in separate hemispheres. I donned a brand new, sparkly mini dress from alice + olivia for my birthday dinner earlier this month, and enjoyed a quiet night out with good friends. Another year older, I rode to my apartment from the restaurant in Beverly Hills, my best friend of more than 15 years behind the wheel. Of course, I love her, but when I blew out the candles on yet another saccharine dessert, I was next to her, wishing that someone else would want to take me home.

A bizarre series of circumstances brought me to a parking lot on the corner of Fairfax and Beverly at around 9:30 this morning. I don’t work in that neighborhood. I don’t live in that neighborhood. But I was there, endorsing checks, about to walk into Chase and make a deposit. Out of nowhere, a man’s voice called my name and I looked out the open window to see Samuel’s face smiling from the bus stop. Of course that would happen.

He told me I looked well and I smiled hesitantly, hurrying through the bank’s glass doors to deposit my checks, but I couldn’t miss a second chance to ask him what on earth he’d been thinking. I handled my transaction and glanced nervously out the door willing the bus not to come. It didn’t. I walked out of the bank, mustered all the nerve I had in me, and said to Samuel straight out: “Why did you leave those books for me?” He rambled a bit about health and fitness and “I know you like to work out…” until I cut him sharply off. “Why did you leave the other book?”

Turns out, Samuel’s a dummy. I’m pretty sure he doesn’t even know what ‘erotica’ is exactly. He said something about women liking that kind of stuff and I found myself disappointed at the senselessness of his response. I didn’t wait for him to finish talking. “Ok well, that’s fine. Whatever.” And I walked back to my car.

I decided last  week that I would relax and just go with it. I decided to have fun, to let go of my inhibitions, and enjoy whatever became of the trip. Lie by the pool, have a massage, eat at amazing restaurants, see a few shows…If I stop having fun, I know I can leave–at any time.  I have a free flight whenever I’m ready and I can make the trip from McCarran to LAX in 50 minutes flat. It’s just that suddenly I’m all worried that it wouldn’t just be uncomfortable, it would be dangerous.

This is mostly stupid, I’m sure. The rest of it is the result of a girlfriend’s foreboding recounting of the Dutch guy suspected in the Natalie Holloway case and back to back episodes of Law & Order Criminal Intent. Suddenly my wild, romantic getaway with the older European (a la Carrie Bradshaw and Baryshnikov) is a throat slasher murder mystery that involves what’s left of me being discovered in a million pieces, stuffed into a worn down attache in the middle of  the Painted Desert. I know. Seriously. I’m such a spazz.

Sometimes I worry that I’m too picky, or that I’m too quick to give up on a guy…not because I have those feelings myself, really, but more because that’s what some of my friends tell me I do. In any case, how would I know if I were being too picky? When could I determine that I’d given a guy enough of a chance?

Dave is handsome, and polite, complimentary, smart, ambitious, gentlemanly…the guy has a lot going for him.  Our conversation started off  no more awkwardly than one might reasonably expect on a first date, and as the gimlets kept coming, (up, with Hendrick’s gin) the evening seemed to flow just fine.  We sat on a leather sofa in a swanky penthouse lounge overlooking the Pacific and the pier at Santa Monica, I, in a strapless red vintage dress, and he, in designer jeans and light blue buttoned shirt. We talked for hours. We laughed, we joked, we drank.  Everything was fine…nice, even, but I think that’s all it was. Nice.

I’m not saying I expected sky rockets or anything. I didn’t need to hear invisible violins, but at the end of the night, as I thanked him for the drinks and refused his offer to pay for my car at the valet, the thought occurred to me that I really wasn’t excited to see him again. And if anything special was going to come of this, don’t I need to feel excited?

I guess we could go out again, see if there’s any latent excitement just waiting to be had, but is that worth it? Is it mean? If I don’t see myself with this guy, am I just wasting his time and money by accepting another invitation? If we did go out again, is there a chance I might change my mind?

I really don’t know the answers here. And I couldn’t put into words what was missing from the night that would have made the difference. I mean, he was lovely, really. He has a slammin’ body and a Ph.D, but there was something that didn’t quite fit…no chemistry? I guess maybe that’s all it was.

Reluctantly, I had given him my email address.  I say reluctantly, because I really didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to end an amazing weekend only to mar its memory with sporadic emails dwindling in romance and frequency until the whole thing became as bland as the stale dumplings we’d shared our first night together in Czech. But he’d asked for it, and I’d said sure, wondering, even then, if there was some chance he might not use it.

I had barely touched down at JFK when I read his first message:

“Hey Longsleeper, I waited for you at breakfast, but you never came…[other stuff]…I finally arrived in Copenhagen at 4:30 am…[other stuff]…and again, the bed was empty…how are you?…[other stuff]…when will I see you again?…kiss, Markus.”

Is it weird that I already missed him? We exchanged a few more emails, talking about nothing in particular, until a few days later he said he was booking a ticket to The States. I didn’t know how to respond, so I didn’t respond at all. His next message gave the exact dates that he would fly out to visit. Alone.

“Please don’t feel awkward,” he’d said. If  you are busy, or have other plans, just let me know. Don’t feel obliged for anything…I just wanted to see you again.”

So here it stands.  I have vacillated between emotions of every extreme.  I want to see him. I’m excited to see him. But I just don’t know what to expect, and that freaks me out a little. Or maybe a lot. He’ll arrive here in just a little over two weeks. I’m at a loss.

Umm…help?

Rhianna didn’t wake me for breakfast, and I missed what would be my last chance to see the German before we checked out of our hotel. Disappointed, I called his room as I packed up the last of my things. No answer. I walked out into the warm July air.

He wanted me to come with him; to skip my flight home and drive with him back to Copenhagen. (The German I met in Czech actually lives in Denmark).  He told me we’d spend the week on his boat in the most beautiful of places to see the Summer, and it sounds crazy, but I think I would have. Were it not for a job I had to get back to in New York City, I’d have thrown caution to the wind, and gone with him.  It felt so fairytale.  But work beckoned, and I had to go. It would have been amazing, I think. And I’ve never been to Denmark, but I have a boss, and it isn’t me, so work came first.

I lugged my things onto a train, then a bus and finally, into the airport terminal and sat near the gate drinking one last Pilsner as I reminisced.  Rhi asked a few questions, but our conversation really never got too deep. The German, and everything that happened between us, remained a thrilling little secret I almost couldn’t keep.

It felt silly. And amazing.  And I almost didn’t believe it myself.  As much as I’d have liked to see him to say goodbye that morning, something felt right about the way we’d left things the night before.  He lay in bed protesting, I silently slid my boots back on.  He begged me to come with him to Copenhagen, I told him I’d like to, but can’t. Everything about the time we’d spent together seemed uncannily perfect and the idea of never seeing him again made the memory all the more special. I stared out the window as the plane’s engines began to roar, embarrassed to turn and reveal to Rhianna the ears-wide grin I couldn’t wish away. I sat perfectly still, watching polygonal fields of yellow and green and brown grow smaller as we rose toward heaven, until finally, we disappeared into a cloud.