The internets

You know what's weird? Doing an idle search on match.com to see who's out there, and seeing that Scientist is "online now!"

Things have been very calm with him, but he's very hard to read, and I have no idea what he's thinking. Last night he came out to dinner with me and Gen, a college friend who's a grad student here, and it was fine. When I invited him to the dinner I'd already planned with Gen, he didn't seem freaked out. He came over to hang out at the house after dinner, and when Mathgirl came home, we all played with her games in the Fun Room (the finished basement with the 57-inch TV, Wii, elliptical, DVD collection, Calvin & Hobbes library, and board games).

I drove him home at 12:30 or so, and when I came home and debriefed with Mathgirl, she remarked, "He's very reserved. I had no idea if he was bored, or having fun, or wanted to leave or what." I'm pretty sure he was enjoying himself, and told her so, but agreed that it was very hard to figure out what he was thinking. Mathgirl said, "I kind of want to see him let down his hair and get crazy!" Hm. Kind of a scary thought, actually. I can't imagine what that would look like. I wondered out loud if it was a repressed WASP thing, but we decided it was just personality at work. Whatever it is, it makes it very difficult for me to gauge how he's feeling -- which, I just realized, is a huge factor in the way I behave with people. I guess we all do that: adjust our exuberance, formality levels, volume, etc. to fit the person we're interacting with. Some people do seem to be more consistent in their behavior than others. But I definitely take my cues on how to behave from other people, which makes Scientist's relatively small range of exterior expression discomfiting.

I complained to Mathgirl that I hadn't met any of Scientist's people, while he'd met several of my friends, but she pointed out that that night was the first time I'd actually invited him to meet a friend -- Mathgirl herself met Scientist because he was helping me move. So I guess we're both hesitant. Not surprising, since it's still (argh) up in the air as to where I'll be come October.