I had a first date Saturday the 10th (yesterday as I write this, 5 days ago when this post goes live) and it's worth a blog post.
I met her via an online dating service, and like most of the women I've thus far met via that, and then encountered in person, she saw my profile and sent me the first email. (I've mailed a fair number of women, but most have not replied and of most who have replied have not progressed to a face-to-face meeting.) This woman was okay, but she wasn't my ideal. I probably wouldn't have mailed her if I'd seen her profile first but she was interesting/attractive enough to reply to when she made first contact, and we had a couple of good phone chats which encouraged me.
The date was fun; we met in
Sausalito, a touristy, bougie, expensive little town on the northern SF Bay. Sausalito is about halfway between my location and hers (San Francisco) so it seemed an equitable meeting place. Saturday was a gorgeous, cloudless day, which broadened our date options. She was free in the afternoon, so we met along the boardwalk @ 2pm and strolled south and looked at the water and boats and tourists and other eye candy. Walking back we took the other side of the street and detoured a bit, walking through several art galleries and a couple of little boutiques. Interesting sights and conversation.
That ran for an hour+, and when we eventually felt some hunger pangs we picked one of the many seafront restaurants for lunch. I suggested we share an appetizer and a salad, and I'd pick one and she'd pick the other. We settled on a shrimp/crab quesadilla and a nice salad, and I then talked her into splitting a decadent apple pie ice cream walnuts caramel syrup thing for dessert. That was clearly the highlight of her meal, and she was literally moaning and sighing while eating it. (As I remarked to myself at the time, at least I would always know what she sounded like when experiencing unfeigned pleasure.)
We spent almost 3 hours together in total, and it was nice. Nothing amazing; she wasn't stupid but wasn't especially bright, she tended to babble instead of speaking more succinctly (a tendency that was quite apparent during our phone chats too), and she was a little spacey at times. Also, she looked at least 5 years older than her online photos, though she said some were from as recently as this summer. Low resolution photos erase a lot of wrinkles, I guess. *cough*
On the plus side she had a good sense of humor, more for laughing at my jokes than for making her own (which was a substantial upgrade over my last first date) and she had a pretty (though not cute or beautiful) face despite the age lines (of which I possess enough not to complain about anyone else's). Most encouraging, to me anyway, was her tall, lean, fit body. She wasn't exactly athletic, but she looked good in jeans that weren't even that tight. She wasn't uptight about physical contact either; she bumped into me and touched me frequently, initiated several hearty hugs (not those sickly, boob-avoiding, one-armed sideways hugs some women use), let me hold her hands to warm them up when she was cold in the restaurant, etc.
I wasn't smitten, and didn't think she was either, but I thought it was a pretty good first date, and was interested in seeing her again. I don't expect that much from a first date: I'm just looking for some personality traits in common, hoping we'll feel some physical attraction, checking if she's got a sense of humor, if she's uptight or distant or high maintenance, etc. This woman wasn't a 10 on any rating, but she was at least a 6 or a 7 on most, and I thought that was pretty good for a first date. I could overlook her slightly bulging eyes and wrinkles since she had a nice body, her sense of humor and vivaciousness more than made up for her lack of education or brilliance, etc.
At the end of the date we walked to her car, and she said she'd drive me to mine since I was half a mile down the boardwalk. We got there quickly and sat to chat for a moment. She first reached over and delivered a long, not-very-awkward car hug, before asking what I thought. I'd previously told her that I had free time this week with the termite tenting at my apartment, and was free for lunch or maybe dinner any day. (The faint prospect of being invited to stay the night, thus saving me one night's hotel expense, factors in there too.)
She listened, and then went into a typically (for her) rambling speech that contained a lot of elements of what a great first date it had been, but wrapped up her discourse by saying that she went on a lot of first dates, and was looking for something really special right from the start, and though she'd had a great time this afternoon, it hadn't been the magical chemistry thing she was looking for.
And then we had another long hug and she said bye and I got out and she drove off, and while I got into my car and started driving home, I tried to decide if I was disappointed or not. During our date I was consciously overlooking at lot of things that I wasn't real thrilled with, but that's how it goes in real life, not "perfect soul mate love at first sight" fantasy storybook dating land. Also, she had a cute butt and slender thighs, extraordinarily-desirable attributes possessed by perhaps 1/20th of the 16-35 y/o female population in America. (Though the odds improve to perhaps 1/10th or 1/8th of such women in the fitter Bay Area.)
Driving home, I thought back over events, and one stood out. During our meal she'd told me a story about a friend who had recently gotten married. I hadn't paid the story much attention at the time, but in retrospect it took on a level of prophecy. The story went that her (female) friend had met a guy on a group outing to a ski resort, or a lakehouse, or something like that. The details weren't clear (which was an element common to all of her stories), but the gist of it was that the woman, my date's best friend, had met a new guy on that trip, and after just one day of interaction, mostly in a large group, she'd told a friend that she'd just met her future husband.
Now maybe that woman thought that about every guy she met and only remembered it this time since they did in fact get married, or maybe she had vague thoughts about it that became much stronger over time as she grew to like him more. I dunno. The key point is that she remembered it that way, and her friend, my date, had heard the story and clearly taken it to heart.
So that was her goal. She was dating a lot, meeting a lot of guys, and though she'd been married a decade earlier, and had (by her description) fucked her way across Europe during a half year of travel after her divorce in 2005, and had known a variety of guys since then, over the past few months she'd decided to settle down, to stop meeting guys in bars, to try online dating, and to get serious about finding a future husband/baby daddy. And she felt like she'd know Mr. Right as soon as she met him, and was determined to keep looking until she found a glass slipper that fit. Perfectly. On the first try. She liked me, but she didn't feel any magical supernatural chemistry, and she didn't have any "he's my future husband" thoughts, and at this point in her life (34 y/o, aging in dog years, and eager for kids) her clock is ticking and there's no time to fuck around (literally or metaphorically) with guys she doesn't think are mutually-interested husband material.
It seems an unrealistic standard to put on every date, but if she goes on a first date a week for a year, I suppose she'll eventually find a guy (or three) she feels that way about. Whether they'll reciprocate, or will just pretend/string her along long enough to take their turn peeling off those jeans and working their way up those long legs, I don't know and won't speculate. In any event, I wish her well. She wasn't for me (and I obviously wasn't for her) but she deserves happiness and she was honest with me.
I found it most interesting to see precisely how different her perspective was. If I were in her situation I would be working intently to date a lot of guys, but I wouldn't expect magic on the first date. I'd want to find guys who seemed stable and open to an LTR, and then see them several times to really get to know them. I don't think you get any kind of true appreciation of another person on the first meeting. I don't know how it is meeting men, but I know most women don't show anything like their real personality/feelings/behavior until several dates in, (though long phone chats and other forms of interaction can move that timetable along; it doesn't have to be only face-to-face time).
Love at first sight? The few women I've felt utterly enchanted by upon the first meeting I always thought better about after additional encounters. Liking someone that much right off the bat is much more about lust/infatuation than something more intellectual or indicative of long term personality compatibility, and I think first impression hunger is a poor standard for judging a future husband or wife. I haven't relayed these thoughts to my first (and last?) date, and I don't have any interest in or need to try to talk her out of her current dating approach, but it's definitely not one I'd take. Then again, she's dated and fucked a lot more people than I have, and she's feeling much more pressure to settle down and start a family, with her ovaries clock tick tick ticking far more at 34 than my testicles will be at 44, or even 54. Though I do want to have kids sooner than that; those 60 y/o men pushing strollers or watching their kid skateboard always look sort of overwhelmed and rattled.
Until then, the online dating foibles will continue. I've got 2 more first dates scheduled for this weekend, and both women seem much more intelligent and mature than this past woman was. (Which is good, from my perspective.) On the down side, neither possesses this last woman's physical attributes, (from the waist down, at least) which means I'll need to be that much more strongly attracted to their personalities and faces to want to invest the time/energy that starting a new relationship requires.
At any rate, it's all blog material...
Labels: online dating
