Wherein texting guy does not poof completely, AGAIN

Texting guy canceled our tentatively planned date last week -- via text -- even after this conversation took place. Ironically, I also canceled it via e-mail 15 minutes later before having seen the text. We did not speak for five days, and I thought this was poof for sure.

This evening I get, guess what? Another text, asking me if I'm going to this seder that he knew I was going to go to, and had previously said he was thinking of going to. I did not respond.

Of course, he was there. Problem: my brain has basically already nexted the guy, my instinct is to want to flirt and have fun, and I did so waaay too much tonight. Like, engaging in innuendo-y banter with him and tolerating him feeling my leg under the table. This is all bizarre to me because I think it would be a stretch to even say I've even reached first base with this guy. My eighth grade boyfriend and I had made out more by time we'd "dated" this long.

Texting guy was not the only one I flirted with at seder - I flirted with a couple of my friends pretty shamelessly too. A Practicing Rules Girl has warned me about this issue - she enjoys flirting, as do I. So when we've written a guy off (for whatever reason), we seem to mentally exclude him from the Rules and therefore allow ourselves this guilty pleasure. But if I read Rule #1 correctly, Rules girls really don't flirt at all. If you're interested in the man or may be interested, you may not flirt; if you're not interested in the man, there is not a whole lot of point to flirtation, and you could be jerking him around. I told PRG that she needs to rein in her flirting instinct to be within the spirit of the Rules, and clearly I do too.

Other than the whole under leg-under-the-table/what-do-I-get-if-I-find-the-afikomen thing, I did a good job of not clinging to texting guy. He initiated conversations, he insisted I sit next to him. At the end I sort of made a bit of an effort to leave with him (bad), but took off without lingering when I got to my car (good). On the way to the car, he joked that he counted this as our 5th date.

Texting guy is a player, I'm fairly certain. I've somehow avoided players up to this point in my life, and consider myself lucky that the Rules crossed my path before this one did.

Meanwhile, I went out on a ridiculously awkward date with eharmony guy and a wonderful date with facebook guy. I am leaving town for an extended business trip, not a moment too soon.