The Very Nice Blind Date

So last night, I went out on a blind date. A mutual friend said that there was this guy I had to meet, she gave him my contact details, he called, and we set up a date to go out for drinks. And I have to admit, that the date was nice, and he seemed like a super-genuinely nice guy. And yet...

I read once that it generally takes women until about 20 minutes into a first date to decide if there will be a second date, whereas men decide within the first 5 seconds. I guess I must be a guy then, because it was so sudden the instant I ran into him at the bar, there was this instant discernible lack of chemistry. And it's so funny how you only ever know that with people when you meet them in person.

Still, we actually had a great time. Split a bottle of wine, shared stories and kept the conversation going. If this had been an evening designed to make a new friend, I would say it was a success, because as I said, he's a really nice guy. And yet, there were those awkward pauses in conversation, where I let it be silent for a bit to see if he would contribute anything, before getting unnerved by the silence and jumping in to ask another question.

And I suppose these pauses in conversation were even more noticeable, because of my current house-guest. When I went home to the Young Dutchman at the end of the evening, I remarked, "Those awkward silences would never happen with the two of us. We never run out of things to talk about, as with us the conversation just flows."

And we talked so much that we were in bed, yawning at 1:30 AM, admonishing each other that we needed to get to sleep, but still having one last thing to share, never running out of conversation. We ended up talking about how when we first met, and agreed that we "clicked" right away. It's funny how that first impression matters so much. And so we fell asleep with him telling me stories that made me laugh so hard I nearly peed my pants. Probably when the Young Dutchman finally leaves me, it will be better for my dating life, but you can see why the poor blind date had difficulty comparing to that.

The next morning the blind date wrote, to me, "I just wanted to say what a pleasure it was meeting you last night. It had been my intention to buy you dinner so sorry I don't know what happened to that (where did the time go) and apologies if you were starving and too polite to drop a hint and had to raid your fridge when you got back to Olympia. Perhaps if I invite you to one of my dinner parties some time soon I can make good my abysmal failings?"

Hmmm...an invitation to a dinner party and not just to dinner? Perhaps he picked up on my hesitation. Looks like it might have just been about making a new friend after all...