trying to be awesome.

The architect called me on Tuesday, after some phone tagging over a few days. He asked what I was doing that night, and I said I was going to a friend's DJ gig (though 'friend' isn't as accurate as guy-I've-been-throwing-myself-at).
He said, "Maybe we could meet up sometime later this week or on the weekend."
"Yeah."
"So yeah, hit me up later this week."
I came home and told my roommate I thought this was totally weird and overly casual and dismissive, and who says "hit me up" anyway? But she has this cool super-modern attitude of gender equality which I'm really into, and she didn't think it was weird at all, and said I should call him. Yeah, maybe. She also thought I should ask the librarian out for breakfast, I guess we'll see how that goes.
I think maybe too much advice from my mother, too much trash-talking with female friends or too much Sex and the City has made me feel like I'm supposed to be constantly outraged at male behavior when it's not that outrageous - things like not being walked to a cab stop or only getting a call a week later. I'm starting to think it's actually probably remarkably normal for the first couple of dates, but I don't have enough experience to really say. I'm not actually offended by that sort of thing, I think I just feel like I'm supposed to be. It's far more important to me to date a guy who respects me enough intellectually to have interesting conversations with than that he be a gentleman, and I'm actually starting to rightly be a little bit wary of anyone who's too smooth of a gentleman and doesn't have much else going for them. And according to some of my male friends, dating in San Francisco is a lot more 50-50 as far as what girls do, so it's probably time that I completely shake off my mother's early 70s sensibility and actually taking some subtle initiative.
So after the trainwreck of a date on Wednesday with the Craigslist Missed Connection, I started to want to hang out with the architect sooner rather than later, because we actually did click, and it would be so refreshing to go on a date with someone who's fun and actually interesting to talk to.
I called him up last night when he was out with a friend, and met up to join them for a drink. After talking for a while, the first friend got up for a game of pool and a second friend showed up. Both seemed like pretty quality people, no freaky red flag stuff, though they still didn't give me any clue as to how old this guy is, which I think is probably between 28 and 33, but it could really actually be anything and I guess it's past the point where it's going to come up in conversation without me asking. I'm still not sure if I can handle dating guys in their mid-30s, or older (!!), I know that's pretty arbitrary but it still seems crazy.
After a drink the two of us ate some seriously delicious Thai food and continued to have a pretty great time. When we left the place it was almost 11, and he asked if I was going home or what. I said I didn't know, not knowing if he was going home to rest up for work or going to invite me somewhere else. He said he was headed home and I could walk him, but I said I'd just hop on the bus. He asked if I was around on the weekend, and then said he would call me and kissed me before taking off.
I was feeling pretty awesome for pulling off this casual thing so far without obsessing about where we stand or what's going on, and I'm wondering how long I can continue to do so.