I found myself in the rather surreal situation this week of taking dating advice from my husband. S. and I were talking a bit about ‘the girl’ and about my call/don’t call/when-to-call/ask/don’t ask/when-to-ask quandary. You wanna know what he said?

Come on, admit it, I know you do.

He listened patiently to my back and forth detailing of my inner conflict, my wanna-call-and-ask-her-out-but-don’t-wanna-seem-too-eager-and-besides–I’m-shy-and-scared-of-rejection ramblings, and looked at me with amusement in his eyes and said…

“Come on Jen, don’t you know that you can’t just sit back and be the girl anymore”.

Ooooh…he was so right. That man knows me far too well.

In previous relationships I have always let others take the initiative, always waited to be chased instead of going after what I want. This is partly an ego thing – I get a real high from being pursued – and partly a confidence thing, as I’m not such a fan of being turned down.

In the traditional dynamic of male-female relationships, this can actually work fairly well. But S. is right - we’re not talking traditional dynamic anymore, and there are no males in sight.

[…well except for this lovely gay boy that I have a huge crush on, but I digress, that’s another story for another day…]

I’m not a college kid anymore, struggling with identity and self-confidence and (obvious now) issues of conflicted sexuality. I’m a confident 32 year old woman who is getting closer and closer to owning herself with every passing day. I don’t need to play games, to waste time wondering, or to sit back and wait for life to happen to me.

And so I called her.

[…and of course I got voice mail and asked her out via message, have since only corresponded through myspace, and am thinking she’s not all that interested, but that’s not really the point of this story…]

I called her. And I asked her out. And maybe it won’t ever happen – but I wanted to do it, and I did it and it felt GOOD.

And once again, something seemingly small creates an inner shift that makes everything look different. Knowing I have the ability to go after what I want (be it a coffee date with a cute girl, an unexpected kiss in a crowded bar, a new friendship or an entire future) and don’t have to wait and wonder and agonize about if/when/how it might happen makes me feel incredibly confident. And, dear readers, we all know that confidence is hot. Confidence begets hotness which begets further confidence; therefore I’m feeling pretty damn good.

Last night found me once again at ye olde lesbian country bar. This time, there was another cute girl with spiky bleached blonde hair and a gorgeous tattoo on her upper arm. She caught my eye right away, and I think I caught hers. We ended up talking and laughing and I asked her to dance. Trouble is, she’s a follow and so am I…and without a lead, there ain’t no two-steppin’ goin’ on. I really wanted to dance with this girl, and later on we did manage to stumble through a few songs with her leading, but I decided then and there that I need to learn to lead.

If you exclusively follow, you can only ever dance with a lead – which leaves out half the girls in the room. If you learn to lead AND follow – you just opened yourself up to a whole lot of potential dance partners. You can be what you need to be in the moment, depending on who you want to dance with and what role you both feel comfortable taking. And folks, from where I’m sitting, more dancing is never a bad thing.

[…yes, I realize that this little dancing analogy has much wider implications for life in general, that is exactly the point…]

And so in the next few weeks I’m going to go to the two-step lessons again, except that this time I’m going learn to lead. I’m going to learn how to dance a girl around the floor, to communicate without talking- just a gentle push/pull with arms and hands - where I want her to go, and how I want her to move. I’m going to learn to turn in place and change directions without missing a beat. I’m going to learn to spin her out, and bring her back in to me again. I’m going to take the lead.

And yes, of course I got her number.