You never know what is going to come from an interaction on Match. I wrote to thirteen because I really liked his profile–it was well-written, funny and comprehensive. He looked a bit like Davy Jones of the Monkees (in a moppet kind of way) but I thought it was cute. We both had kids at home that were the same age, both were from the east coast and we seemed to like many of the same things–it was promising.
Since this was before I became a burned-out letter writer, I wrote him a nice e-mail and asked him to check out my profile. He answered fairly quickly and said while he liked my profile very much, I was too far away. Let me just say this–I have been contacted by multiple people that are often 2+ hours away from here–and he was prob 30-40 min tops–relatively local by the standards around here. His profile parameters were set at a 20 mile vicinity, while I figured we were probably at 23 or so–certainly reasonable or so I thought.
I usually don’t answer back after a ‘rejection’ letter–is there really that much to say? But this one was different—I thought we had enough in common that 3 miles was pretty inconsequential so I wrote to him and basically stated that from what I could tell, I was only about 3 miles out of his range and I was certainly worth it! (confidence is a plus on Match) I also added that I had done a marathon last year so I was pretty certain I could get to his house even without a car–gotta say, I loved that line! There was no response so I figured that was the end of that.
About 6 weeks later, I get a response e-mail telling me that since he liked my profile so much, he would bend his own rule and meet with me. We corresponded by e-mail about 3-4 times and he was eloquent and witty and I was looking forward to meeting him by the time we actually got together–which due to vacation time and his initial delay in getting back to me was about 2 months from our first contact–an eternity on Match! We planned to meet at a local beachside restaurant/bar for a drink at sunset.
Note to self: Beachside bars in CA don’t always have air conditioning..and we ended up meeting on one of the hottest days of the year. It was like an oven in there (probably because this particular bar had a pizza oven too) so when I say I was sweating through this date, I only mean that literally. We ordered our drinks and started talking–it was not the most comfortable I have ever been, but it wasn’t bad. When his beer came, however, he would pick it up and take a little sip and put it down and immediately pick it up and do it again–over and over like 5-6 times in rapid succession. I start looking around for the camera because I am trying to figure out if I am getting ‘punked’–it was really all I could do to not tell him to just take a real chug of your damn beer and stop because you are freaking me out! I have since been told that this may have been kind of a nervous-tic reaction–perhaps he was reacting to the rapidly-building sweat waterfall that was probably dripping down my face (only to be matched by the creeping puffiness that was building in my hair)–I don’t really know. Anyway, he seemed to calm down a bit and we chatted on for awhile. The only odd thing was he still seemed ‘fixated’ (best word I could use) on the distance between us (again, about 23 miles, give or take a mile)
Now, I have said this before–on my first date, I don’t expect to see fireworks and shooting stars–if I think we have a lot of common ground, I am not so focused on the sexual attraction piece of it because I think (maybe wrongly–I’m still not sure) that you can build towards that as you get to know a person better. That being said, if I think I could go out with this person again and have fun, I usually am open to a second date. In 13’s case, I thought we had enough in common that we could go out again and see what happens. We left the bar saying he would contact me and we would go out again.
The next morning, I get an e-mail from him stating he had researched traffic patterns between my home and his (did I forget to mention he was an engineer?) and calculated how much time he would spend on the road going to my house over a 2-year period (why 2 years? I don’t have a clue!) and as a traffic-phobe (his words, not mine) he just couldn’t do it. This time, I didn’t write back to plead my case (see, I am learning something!) So, thirteen, I guess the quote above will not be hanging on the wall at your house!
Lessons learned:
1. If someone tells you no, hear them the first time.
2. Nervous people do strange things. (or is it strange people do nervous things?)
3. Don’t date engineers (not sure I believe this but K tells me this all the time)
4. No beachside bars during heat waves.
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