Wedding gig and man gossip

Last night I played a quartet gig at a wedding (prelude music, ceremony and an hour of cocktail music) at this beautiful country club on a lake. During the ceremony, when the bride's father was about to give her away, the bride and groom had to declare "i do" first. THe groom said it, and when it came time for the bride to say it she looked like she might faint. She'd been messing with her hair and trying to get the veil away from her face for several minutes... she was at first just looking fidgety but then I see her starting to sway. Her dad tightens his grip on her, and when the preacher asked for her response she takes a deep shuddering breath, rocks back on her heels a little, and finally manages to gasp out "I do." The preacher wasn't satsified and said "are you sure?" People in the audience laughed, thinking it was a joke, but he was serious. I was wondering if she was feeling faint from nerves or from having second thoughts. However, she pulled herself together and restated her intent and things carried on like usual. Made for an interesting moment.

We go inside to the clubhouse to set up for cocktail hour, get all situated and start playing. The sun is going down by this point and the room is dimly lit. We are having an incrfeasingly hard time seeing our music, and by the last 15 minutes of the show we each had our cellphones out on the music stand, angling it to throw light onto our music. We had some pretty rough going toward the end of our set!

The bride's family was kind enough to offer to let us stay for the reception. Normally I would never do that- I've been paid to provide a service and then I leave. However, we got this gig because on of the quartet members (my stand partner from symphony) is friends with the bride's family. So I decided to stay for a bit, have some food and conversation then go. I'd had a long day already what with a morning quartet rehearsal, (a little xbox break), an afternoon symphony rehearsal, and then the wedding. I ended up staying until the bride & groom left! It was so much fun!

I don't dance at weddings, I sit back and people watch. It was good fun. I met a really nice guy so we exchanged numbers (again, a tall one- 6'4") and talked practically all night. When the bride & groom left the group of people I'd been sitting with all night said let's go over to this other guy's house, so we caravaned over to Tony's (I don't know who Tony is but everyone did so I figured it's fine) and sat out by the pool til about 2:30. I haven't had this much fun in awhile! It was with an entire group of strangers, except Sunny, my stand partner, and her fiancee (whom I barely know but it counts). I can't believe how sociable I was. They said I should come hang out with them more, so I will! Bad news: they all live clear across town- a nice 40 minute drive one way. I was hurting by the time I got home (3:10). So today I am going to take it easy until the concert. (Concert is the season opener tonight.)

An odd thing happened this weekend though. I had three first dates lined up: Friday night, Saturday morning for coffee, Sunday night late.... I went on the Friday date. This guy said he's 6'7"... I know what 6'8" looks like, so this guy wasn't fooling me when he walked up looking shorter. He was maybe 6'5". I was also not impressed with the gut that obscures his vision of his own feet (keep your profile pictures current!!!). We actually had a really nice time, but I very aware of my personal space bubble. He goes for the kiss goodnight and I went for a handshake, so we laughed and hugged instead (awkwardly) and then I went home. I'm shallow enough that I will let physical appearance cancel out opportunity to get to know someone better. Despite having a nice time, I'm not interested. So the strange thing that went down is that the Saturday date cancelled, saying he's suddenly going out of town, and then the Sunday date cancels, saying he has his daughter for the weekend after all... Is it just coincidence or am I a man-repeller? (Probably karma catching up to me.) Unfortunately I was really looking forward to the Sunday night guy.

Saturday morning guy- no big loss there. (That's the guy who asked if I would ever be open to relocating to a different part of town and then expressed an interest in having me be a new mother to his kid--- this is all before we've actually met. I was totally creeped out by this and threw up some major red flags, letting him know that slow is the way to go, and let's just see how coffee goes before we put the cart before the horse.) I'm actually relieved he cancelled, come to think of it. Where do all these weirdos come from?

As brutal as I am about the people I date, I wonder what they're saying about me. I'm sure I come off as a crazy case to some of them. I'm tenacious when I see something I want- I don't give up easily at all and that might come off looking like crazy I guess. I think it's one of those ingrained habits from childhood- my parents put me in every possible sport for girls, except field hockey and horse jumping. I did figure skating, basketball, softball, soccer, swimteam, you name it. If it had a competitive nature to it, I was in it, and I found that I don't like to lose. If you're not first, you're last. (I don't really believe that anymore but sometimes it gets the better of me.)

Hope you're all having a wonderful holiday weekend!