To put Sunday's date #38 into context, I should first say that I had a rough weekend. On Saturday, my parents were in a serious car accident, but things worked out fine and they were virtually unscathed. Still, though, I was (and still am) a little perturbed. There are only a few things I care about more than the mission, and my family is one of them.
After it looked like things were alright with the family, I eventually decided to try to do some mission work by going to a new nightclub.
I couldn't manage to get much of anything going. I had a brief conversation with a very urban girl and spoke to her lesbian friends while I waited in line outside the club, and I was smooth and uninhibited, but that was the highlight of the evening. On the inside, this club's environment wasn't like SuperBar, so I didn't see much opportunity to talk to people and make friends the way I planned. I danced with one really nice and fun girl, but didn't realize until tonight that I should have offered to buy her a drink so that we could chat. One of the interesting things about the club is that there are many different kinds of people, so there is really no way for them to know if you have anything in common unless you actually talk to them. The next time I go out, I'll be sure to use buying a drink as my secret weapon in getting people off the dance floor to somewhere I can talk to them.
Aside from that new revelation about offering to buy a drink, my time at the club was such an abysmal waste of time, money, and energy that I felt even more perturbed than when I started. On Sunday, I got organized, ingested some caffeine, and tried to mentally recover for my Starbucks date with a girl from eHarmony named Norine.
I hadn't thought much about the date beforehand. In fact, I had to be sure to review her eHarmony profile, our "Guided Communication" responses and the e-mails we'd exchanged, because she had only barely been on my radar the past several days. As usual, I made a list of conversation topics, and committed to memory the most promising few, based on what I knew about her. (The actual topics were what she did over the summer; school; Barack Obama; dancing; and the soap opera Days of Our Lives). I even had a little mnemonic. I pumped myself up, and with great enthusiasm and little anxiety, drove into the city for my date.
_____________
This time, it did not go well. For my part, the biggest problem was that The Voice Thing made a now-rare appearance. I didn't sound confident, and Norine had to ask several times for me to repeat what I'd just said. I stuck to the usual strategies, but TVT hindered me, and it went an awful lot like the dates I described all too often last March and earlier.
The other half of the story is my partner in this fiasco. She was physically attractive, but for once, that wasn't enough for me to even be interested. There wasn't a lot of laughter and kidding around, but that was in spite of my efforts because her personality wasn't one very conducive to humor. She was fairly nice, but there seemed to be a prissy quality about the way she spoke, and I found it to be a turnoff.
The difference between Norine and Autumn was an amazing case of night-and-day:
Norine talked a lot, but scarcely even asked me a question. Autumn asked me as many questions as she could. I can't remember Norine ever making a joke, while Autumn was the first person I've met who jokes as much as I do. It was obvious that Autumn was genuinely fascinated by me, while Norine, well...
When it comes to knowing whether or not a woman is interested, I'm now the world's leading expert. Interested in me, Norine was not. After about 45 minutes, she asked what time it was, and I knew at that moment I'd never speak to her after that night. I soon asked her if she was ready to head out, and she said she lived about 3 blocks away. Against my better judgment, I offered to walk her home.
It was about 14 minutes of torture. I asked her questions and made some occasional comments, but she wouldn't ask me anything. At all. I gave her a chance by being quiet for a couple minutes here and there, and still - not a word. I thought it would be interesting to see if she would break the silence if I just didn't say anything. How long could she stay silent? 5 minutes doesn't look like much on your screen, but it's an awful long time to not say a word to someone on a date. And yet, it seems like she wouldn't have said a single word, except to answer a question I asked.
When we finally reached her apartment, she gave me a perfunctory hug, thanked me for the coffee, and said it was nice meeting me.
_____________
After the declaring the death of inhibition, I knew that things would not be perfect. Instead, I expected a sort of ebb and flow, with some good days and some bad ones. In the last couple months, almost every endeavor has been fantastically successful, so date #38 was simply one of the few, necessary ebbs.
No matter how these things go, I try to learn a little something every time. Today, the moral of the story is that we aren't going to match up well with everyone we meet. I don't know who is a good match for Norine, but it certainly isn't me. Her personality isn't well-suited to making me feel comfortable being myself, and we simply had no connection.
Today's date really underscored my connection with Autumn. I spoke to her on the phone last week, and she continued to be entertained by virtually everything I said, while I enjoyed her lighthearted humor as well. We're planning to hang out this Saturday, but I have another first date (#39) planned for Wednesday. Talk to you then.
After it looked like things were alright with the family, I eventually decided to try to do some mission work by going to a new nightclub.
I couldn't manage to get much of anything going. I had a brief conversation with a very urban girl and spoke to her lesbian friends while I waited in line outside the club, and I was smooth and uninhibited, but that was the highlight of the evening. On the inside, this club's environment wasn't like SuperBar, so I didn't see much opportunity to talk to people and make friends the way I planned. I danced with one really nice and fun girl, but didn't realize until tonight that I should have offered to buy her a drink so that we could chat. One of the interesting things about the club is that there are many different kinds of people, so there is really no way for them to know if you have anything in common unless you actually talk to them. The next time I go out, I'll be sure to use buying a drink as my secret weapon in getting people off the dance floor to somewhere I can talk to them.
Aside from that new revelation about offering to buy a drink, my time at the club was such an abysmal waste of time, money, and energy that I felt even more perturbed than when I started. On Sunday, I got organized, ingested some caffeine, and tried to mentally recover for my Starbucks date with a girl from eHarmony named Norine.
I hadn't thought much about the date beforehand. In fact, I had to be sure to review her eHarmony profile, our "Guided Communication" responses and the e-mails we'd exchanged, because she had only barely been on my radar the past several days. As usual, I made a list of conversation topics, and committed to memory the most promising few, based on what I knew about her. (The actual topics were what she did over the summer; school; Barack Obama; dancing; and the soap opera Days of Our Lives). I even had a little mnemonic. I pumped myself up, and with great enthusiasm and little anxiety, drove into the city for my date.
_____________
This time, it did not go well. For my part, the biggest problem was that The Voice Thing made a now-rare appearance. I didn't sound confident, and Norine had to ask several times for me to repeat what I'd just said. I stuck to the usual strategies, but TVT hindered me, and it went an awful lot like the dates I described all too often last March and earlier.
The other half of the story is my partner in this fiasco. She was physically attractive, but for once, that wasn't enough for me to even be interested. There wasn't a lot of laughter and kidding around, but that was in spite of my efforts because her personality wasn't one very conducive to humor. She was fairly nice, but there seemed to be a prissy quality about the way she spoke, and I found it to be a turnoff.
The difference between Norine and Autumn was an amazing case of night-and-day:
Norine talked a lot, but scarcely even asked me a question. Autumn asked me as many questions as she could. I can't remember Norine ever making a joke, while Autumn was the first person I've met who jokes as much as I do. It was obvious that Autumn was genuinely fascinated by me, while Norine, well...
When it comes to knowing whether or not a woman is interested, I'm now the world's leading expert. Interested in me, Norine was not. After about 45 minutes, she asked what time it was, and I knew at that moment I'd never speak to her after that night. I soon asked her if she was ready to head out, and she said she lived about 3 blocks away. Against my better judgment, I offered to walk her home.
It was about 14 minutes of torture. I asked her questions and made some occasional comments, but she wouldn't ask me anything. At all. I gave her a chance by being quiet for a couple minutes here and there, and still - not a word. I thought it would be interesting to see if she would break the silence if I just didn't say anything. How long could she stay silent? 5 minutes doesn't look like much on your screen, but it's an awful long time to not say a word to someone on a date. And yet, it seems like she wouldn't have said a single word, except to answer a question I asked.
When we finally reached her apartment, she gave me a perfunctory hug, thanked me for the coffee, and said it was nice meeting me.
_____________
After the declaring the death of inhibition, I knew that things would not be perfect. Instead, I expected a sort of ebb and flow, with some good days and some bad ones. In the last couple months, almost every endeavor has been fantastically successful, so date #38 was simply one of the few, necessary ebbs.
No matter how these things go, I try to learn a little something every time. Today, the moral of the story is that we aren't going to match up well with everyone we meet. I don't know who is a good match for Norine, but it certainly isn't me. Her personality isn't well-suited to making me feel comfortable being myself, and we simply had no connection.
Today's date really underscored my connection with Autumn. I spoke to her on the phone last week, and she continued to be entertained by virtually everything I said, while I enjoyed her lighthearted humor as well. We're planning to hang out this Saturday, but I have another first date (#39) planned for Wednesday. Talk to you then.
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