My current GF has a three-year-old. That means that this child is really her whole world. I hope that because she puts every ounce of herself into her child that will yield a securely attached person who can fit into the world.

That’s also meant that I make plans for all of our dates.

I’d like that to shift completely.

We went to an interesting talk on July 9th and out to dinner. I had fun. My GF paid for the babysitter and our dinners. The talk that we went to was related to her industry and she’d heard about it via someone she works with and a person she met at a work conference. I thanked her for the date plans and she laughed and said it wasn’t really a plan.

At the end of last year (12/31/24) she partially planned a date, and it included her best friend. She bought NYE concert tickets. I paid for parking, transportation, the babysitter and wound up tacking on dinner that night which I paid for as well. Her best friend showed up at the end of our dinner so we could transport together to the venue.

I think that last Saturday was the first full date that she planned and paid for over the course of our ten-month relationship.

She picked me up, we drove to another city, we took a stained glass class, we walked around an art fair and then had dinner together. She paid for the babysitter too.

We had a pretty tough conversation over dinner too. I feel like there were seeds planted that will continue to sprout going forward. However, the whole night yielded a net positive and we will likely have some more balanced experiences going forward. I really liked the date. I thanked her for it several times and it made me feel special.

Tonight we’re going to a theatrical rerelease of a film that I wasn’t able to see in the theater. It came out when I completed my undergraduate degree and was beginning my first round of graduate school. I’m not sure what time the babysitter will get to her, so I don’t know if we can get food before. My GF doesn’t do any carbohydrates for the most part and no sugar, so movie food isn’t an option. Worse case scenario is that we grab local burgers on the way home.

I’m a great date. I’m a great planner of dates too. I don’t take any time that I have with a beautiful woman for granted. I don’t believe in falling back on default responses or not engaging in meaningful experiences.

I hope that she knows that I want her to plan some dates for us.