Too good to be true?

I need advice. I don’t know if this guy is too good to be true or if it’s just my crappy self esteem not letting me enjoy a good thing.

I posted a couple days ago after our first date. I was still pretty excited and happy about it at the time but then I had two days to let my thoughts fester and plant seeds of suspicion. (Thanks anxiety)

Ok so background. I’ve been single for 4 years and trying out the dating scene again for 1 year. Had a series of disaster dates and finally gave in to letting my mom and aunt set me up on one with a coworker of my aunt.

He turned out to be a surgeon at the ER my aunt works at. He’s attractive, nice, really funny, and has some really interesting (if not kinda gross) stories to tell from his job. I really enjoyed our date and we both wanted a second one.

In the back of my head though I’m just wondering how an attractive, successful man in his thirties is single. Like what crippling personality flaw is he hiding? But there wasn’t a single red flag on the first date.

I even questioned my aunt trying to figure out what his hidden damage might be. But nope, she had nothing but good things to say about him. Including that if she were 20 years younger she would be “all over that.” Not the image I wanted in my head when thinking of him, but thanks anyway auntie.

Well we went on a second date last night and it was just as great as the first one. No red flags. Just interesting conversation, good food, and good company. I really really enjoyed myself.

Also got to know more about him. He’s actually a reserve in the Army Medical Corps as a field surgeon. So he works as a surgeon at the ER but is also an Officer in the Army and he’s been to Afghanistan twice. He’s also done some humanitarian missions through the army as a doctor.

He didn’t talk to much about that, at least not the same way he does about the ER and the humanitarian stuff, but I can tell he’s really passionate about his career and genuinely wants to help people.

I did work up the courage to ask about past relationships, because I’m still confused about how a guy like this is single (thanks crippling self esteem). He has had a few serious relationships, but between med school taking up his life through his twenties and then something called a residency(sorry I do not speak doctor and I didn’t want to look stupid so I didn’t ask 😩), and then the times he’s been on active duty or traveling for humanitarian missions none of them lasted more than a couple years.

So I’m getting the gist that he doesn’t get much free time and after only two dates I can tell that free time can be sort of random. We’ve had two weekday dates for example because he’s apparently got a 30 hour shift this weekend. I didn’t even know 30 hour shifts were a thing, but apparently they just sleep when they can at the hospital and are on call for shifts like that.

It kind of sounds like dating him would feel like a long distance relationship even when he lives 10 minutes away.

So here’s my conundrum. He seems perfect (Obviously he isn’t but it feels that way to me right now), I really enjoyed both of our dates. There is no dull conversation with him and he could write a book with the stories he can tell from work and I find those kind of gory stories really fascinating(he isn’t good at sugar coating details and the stories can be shocking).

I’m just nervous after 4 years of being single that I’m about to make a mistake or something. I don’t have any bad gut feeling or anything. He gives me butterflies actually. There’s just this voice in the back of my head that keeps asking why a man like this is single and why he would be interested in me. I’m pretty average and while I support myself comfortably and I’m independent, I don’t know how I’d handle a relationship with someone as busy as he seems to be. I’ve seen him twice this week but that might be a fluke. And then what if he gets deployed again (I honestly don’t know how that works with the reserves or anything).

Is there something I might be missing here? Or am I overthinking this whole thing? I definitely like him and want another date. But then I also don’t want to possibly go into a new relationship where I have no clue what to expect and things go south. And I don’t want to scare him off by asking how things would be if we were together because it is way too soon to have that conversation. But I can’t help wondering about it. On the one hand I can’t stop thinking about him and it’s so exciting to have found someone I’m attracted too and feels the same way about me, but then on the other this is a huge unknown and that scares me a little.