I rode home around 6:30, showered, shaved my head, and changed into nice clothes. Then I rode over to Pho 84 to meet Квиг for our second date. This time I arrived before her. We ordered fish cooked in curry sauce and a noodle plate, and we both devoured it. We both seemed more relaxed, like there was less at stake, even though a second date actually raised the stakes because it was a declaration we were actually interested in each other.

"I have!" She told me about a complex training project she was working on. "But you know, there's downsides to our brains. It can be so hard sometimes to focus on stuff that doesn't have enough novelty."

"Oh I know. Sometimes it's hard to build the novelty sandwich, with all the different flavors. Your schedule has too much bread and not enough lettuce, and you end up with something too dry, and you can't make yourself eat it."

She laughed. "That's a fun way of putting it! Yeah, too much bread at work lately. I have a lot of experience covering over and faking it when I'm not functioning on all cylinders mentally, but I'm thinking about seeing a therapist who specializes in ADD, to teach me different ways to manage it. I'm kind of excited."

"Excited about what? OMG, look, a pony!!"

"Hahaha! Are you one of those bronies I've been hearing about?"

"Why yes, of course I am a brony!"

"I should have known!"

"You know, honestly, when we talk I don't actually see a lot of the ADD thing going on. Well, I guess I have to say, I don't see it relative to other people. Some people I've talked to, you can barely keep up with them because their brain is jumping all over the place like a cricket in a box."

"Well that might be the difference between ADD and ADHD. I'm not the hyperactive type."

"Ah, right."

We talked for almost four hours, about past relationships, personality quirks, life priorities, and so on. She ordered two glasses of wine and got rather tipsy, and her usually well-settled emotions began to simmer a bit, which I found intriguing.

"You know," she said, leaning forward, "I think it's kind of embarrassing to say this, but I think what I really want in a man, in a romantic life, is just to have a guy come over to my house about once a month or so and give me a pedicure, and then afterwards, maybe if I feel like it, we'll have sex. Then he'll head back home and I won't see him until next month."

I laughed at that and said, "Sounds pretty good, actually. But just for the record, I don't know how to do pedicures."

She smiled, and I quickly changed the subject to leave the ambiguity in place. Maybe I was auditioning for a role, maybe not.

We broached the subject of polyamory again, and I backed off from the preachy attitude I'd shown on our first date, telling her that it was her arena and that I had no business telling her how to talk to a boyfriend. She accepted the apology graciously.

After a pause, she said, "So, please don't take this the wrong way, because I'm not judging or anything, I'm just trying to get your perspective. Have you ever successfully been in a polyamorous relationship? It sounds like they've all been either disasters or things that you've avoided."

I thought for a bit. "Well... I don't know if I could declare what I had with my ex a categorical success or a failure. When it worked, it worked very well. ... But I know why you're asking."

I told her the story about Кэрол, and she compared that to her own relationship and made a few observations about jealousy. I could tell she was thinking over her own polyamorous situation, and how it made her uncomfortable, and how I'd recently pressed the eject button on something like it. Perhaps it would be a mistake for her to do something that pulled me into her romantic life. But, she was tipsy, and I was apparently game, and we both seemed to like each others' bodies, so...

I didn't explain it to Квиг, but I'd been thinking already about why I was willing to see her despite the prospect of more polyamory shenanigans, and the answer was not flattering: I was feeling a lot less immediate passion for her, relative to Аннет. It was an echo of something my mother had told me a few years back, when I was trying to pin down my jealousy with Кэрол: "Passionate relationships don't share." I was learning that the inverse was also true.

When the restaurant closed we started walking together, and realized she was too late for the bus. I offered to accompany her to the outside of her apartment complex, then ride my bike home. She agreed, and we took off again, arm-in-arm, chatting away, with me pushing my folding bike along with the other hand.

When we got near the waterfront we slowed down, then stopped at a park bench at her request. We snuggled close, looking at the slowly undulating waves beneath the boardwalk.

"So, are you dating anyone else right now?" she said.

"Nope," I said. For a change I had only one prospect and I wasn't in a hurry to add more.

This seemed to be the right answer. She leaned further in, and I held her head in both hands. Eventually we kissed. Her rhythm was strange -- a bit random and seeking. She would open her mouth and then stop, with her tongue tucked away, as though she was waiting for some kind of signal I wasn't sending. I was reminded of the other times I'd shared a first kiss and found a clash of patterns. I could taste the wine in her mouth. It was fun, but it didn't set off any fireworks. I was a bit surprised actually, and a little worried voice in my head asked "Is there something broken in me?"

Suddenly she got up, faced me, and sat down on my lap, with her legs split on either side of my waist. Our heights were so different that she only needed to tilt her head down a bit for me to reach her lips for another kiss. I took her bold move as a sign that I could let my hands roam around, so one went up the back of her sweater to grab the muscles on her back - toned from all that rowing on the lake - and the other went down the back of her pants to discover that she was wearing some adorable thong underwear.

We made out with an escalating intensity for a while. It could have been two minutes or half an hour, for all I knew -- my brain was off the hook. I bit her on the neck, which had an effect like pull-starting a generator: She growled deeply and all the muscles in her back tensed, then her body cycled slowly through one intense arc, pressing down onto my lap. If I kept doing that she would probably lose her composure.

She must have decided the same thing, because a minute later she abruptly stood up and declared that she really had to go to bed.

We parted tenderly, and I watched her until she was safely inside her parking garage, then I climbed aboard my bicycle and pedaled slowly home. We traded a few text messages to say we'd both had a fun time, and agreed we should meet again.

That's how it stood for a few weeks. She turned her attention to her steady boyfriend, trying to untangle her feelings and confront him about a few difficult issues, and in the meantime I focused mostly on work. I left the dating profile on, and when conversations looked promising I was happy to line up dates. Квиг and I both knew we weren't going exclusive, and according to the modern rules that meant we didn't necessarily have to share everything that went on elsewhere in our romantic lives. I had room to explore.

This felt important. I felt like I couldn't approach this period of bachelorhood the way I'd approached the last one -- hell-bent on finding the perfect match and the perfect beginning. I had never honestly tried the new-fangled adult practice of dating people on a more casual basis, and I remained deeply skeptical of it. Could I still recognize someone I could love deeply, while seeing others casually? Could I still feel with enough depth to fall in love? Could I express with enough depth to inspire that in others? For a while now I'd been a person who might feel butterflies and fireworks from the first moment I see a date in the real world. Should I wait for that? Or should I be skeptical of it, and wait for something else?