Three Dates & Some Gin Sound Mighty Good to Me…

So I’ve found a new Gin to love.  I’m no con­nois­seur of any alco­hol out­side of beer.  I know, I’m sophis­ti­cated, right?  What exactly does Gin have to do with three dates?  Well, it (or any other alco­holic bev­er­age, I sup­pose) has the abil­ity to make a mediocre date go by quickly.  It can also make a date that has the poten­tial to be  dis­as­trous pretty awe­some… Oh! Then there’s the third date.  Well, that third date has noth­ing to do with Gin, I just thought It would make for an inter­est­ing title.

So where should I begin?

I guess I feel like talk­ing about the two dates hav­ing to do with Gin.  I’d set up two dates for a ran­dom Tues­day evening, when I hap­pened to be off work early.  The dates were stag­gered apart by a cou­ple hours to allow for qual­ity time spent on each date.
One gal, “Pene­lope,” was from the UK.  Dig the accent.  The other, Alice, was born and raised in the OC, younger than me and really quite dif­fer­ent than the type of women I’d ordi­nar­ily go out with. A bit on the short side, blonde and had a thing for guys with tats and motor­cy­cles aka not this guy.  Pene­lope, by con­trast, was tall, dark hair and up to speed on her pop cul­ture was most inter­est­ing.  I should men­tion, now, that all the women I went on a date with were met on the inter­webs.  That said, I’d had a chance to talk on the phone with each of them.  Pene­lope and I talked for almost two hours the first con­ver­sa­tion we had.  I had high hopes for meet­ing her.

Alice, on the other hand, was a tough read.  The con­ver­sa­tion labored, as she talked about her and her group of friends and how they own the bar scene in Hunt­ing­ton Beach.  The most impor­tant thing to her was that her guy would fit in with her friends and received their approval.  Need­less to say, I wasn’t keenly inter­ested.  At one point I thought she’d hung up on me when I told her I don’t own or ride a motor­cy­cle.  She called back in a few min­utes and promptly sug­gested we meet up for a drink.  I agreed, which sur­prised me… But I wanted to see if there was a con­nec­tion in person.

Some­times You Just Don’t Know…

I guess it should go with­out say­ing that you can never be sure about any­thing where it con­cerns dat­ing.  That’s some­thing I am keenly aware of, which is prob­a­bly why I decided to meet up with Alice in the first place.

My first date was with Pene­lope.  We arranged to meet at this quaint, but hip, bar in an arts dis­trict near to us both.  I sat at a table as I waited for my date.  I see a woman in the dis­tance, with flow­ing fab­ric danc­ing in the wind with each step… I’m wasn’t sure what to make of it, but there was no mis­tak­ing it was Pene­lope.  I was reminded of a term by Ms. Tay­lor­cast “Mis­lead­ing angles.”  That is, Pene­lope had great pho­tos on her pro­file… But they were all head shots.  I had made a rookie mis­take and didn’t take care to ask for more pics.  Well, Pene­lope was… a lot more than I was expect­ing.  I know what I’m attracted to and she was a bit heftier than I pre­fer, her pro­file stated “aver­age.”  Well, her and I talked and I drank my Gin, Hen­dricks if you must know.  Amaz­ing stuff brewed with cucum­ber and rose ped­als.  Very feint in its fla­vor.  But it’s really good.  I was hav­ing a love affair with my Gin and glaz­ing over my con­ver­sa­tion with Pene­lope.  Our date ended cor­dially enough with a hug and a peck on the cheek for each of us and that was that.

I was on my way to meet Alice at a bar in the down­town area near me.  I’m about ten min­utes late and I knew I was going to be so I text her and she replies she lives close by and just text her again when I’m there.  So I do.  She says, “I’m get­ting ready and I’ll be there in a few.”  Well “In a few” turned out to be twenty min­utes after I’d got­ten to the bar.  I was miffed, but I had my Hen­dricks in hand and I was instantly in love.  No, this isn’t an adver­tise­ment, though, I wish it was and then I’d be get­ting sweet pay.  But alas, it’s not to be.  My drink and I melted the time away quickly.  Alice showed up, had a seat and instantly began talk­ing.  I noticed that she was dressed nicely, like she’d taken time to put her­self together, which I totally appre­ci­ate.  Just as an aside, my biggest pet peeve is when I go on a date and the woman I’m meet­ing is wear­ing a sweat shirt, tank top and flip flops, or some­thing just kind “blah, let me throw this on because it’s clean.”  I always take time to take care of how I look going out the door.  Meet­ing some­one new is impor­tant, but I do it more for my date than myself.  To me, it’s just a cour­tesy thing, one that irri­tates me when I do not see such cour­tesy in my date.  I’m just sayin’.  End rant. So our con­ver­sa­tion picked up quickly, lots of flirty ban­ter.  We set­tled in at a table, away from the bar and con­tin­ued talk­ing.  I felt as though I was talk­ing to a dif­fer­ent per­son.  I’d for­got­ten my love for the Hen­dricks along the way to a delight­ful and fit­ting evening with Alice, a tes­ta­ment to our chem­istry.  Now, I should state, because I pointed out Penelope’s appear­ance, that Alice wasn’t exactly a thin gal either.  I don’t pre­fer blondes, which I guess makes me no gen­tle­man, I nor­mally go out with brunettes. She was also short and my friends will tell you that I pre­fer taller women.  Though, I have these pref­er­ences, I keep myself open to oppor­tu­nity and date the gamut, if you will.

The Woman Who Decried “Smoking”

Lastly, I had been on a date recently with a girl in LA.  Again, this was a date I was hope­ful about.  “Cyn­thia” was an inter­est­ing eth­nic mix, a mix that I found to be most appeal­ing.  We met for a bite at a Brazil­ian eatery in LA and had great con­ver­sa­tion about philoso­phies, music the after­life and all that good stuff.

After din­ner we walked around some and talked some more, we found a cof­fee place and picked up a cou­ple cups for the walk. Things were going pretty well.  So, in all, I was hav­ing a great time.  Cyn­thia had asked me if I smoked, I told her “no, I didn’t.”  She said she didn’t either, to which I replied, “well, even if you did, I wouldn’t have a prob­lem with that.”  It’s not some­thing that both­ers me, hon­estly.  Our date ended shortly after that.  We had both dri­ven sep­a­rately  and were dri­ving back to the free­way to go home.  I’m behind her, when I see her click out of her win­dow a lit cig­a­rette… I’m think­ing she didn’t real­ize I was there… It struck me as odd, I mean, why lie about such a thing?  Espe­cially after I’d stated that I didn’t mind if she did smoke, I’d say I went out of my way to explain that because I know that a woman can be self con­scious on a date regard­ing that habit and I under­stand that feeling.

Ulti­mately, to me, it seemed like such a petty thing for her to lie about.  I didn’t fol­low up after our date and didn’t return a text either. Was I nit pick­ing?  I don’t think so.  In my mind if some­one is going to lie about some­thing so minute, then what about those big­ger things that come along?  What then?  I chose not to leave such things to chance.

Three fairly dif­fer­ent dates with dif­fer­ent out­comes; I guess it should go with­out say­ing you just don’t know how things are going to turn out.

For some, I’d think it might dis­cour­age one from going on a date at all.  How­ever, I find that these dis­cov­er­ies are most telling in how we roll with it.  That is, how do we choose to move for­ward with the things that we learn?  I tend not to be ter­ri­bly dis­cour­aged when  a date, in par­tic­u­lar, doesn’t go how I’d like.  My date with Pene­lope could have the poten­tial to make me not want to go on more dates… But I choose oth­er­wise.  I’m not dis­cour­aged by my date with Cyn­thia either.  I iso­late that date and what hap­pened to just that date.  I take the ‘one-​​game-​​at-​​a-​​time’ approach of Mike Scios­cia, the Ana­heim Angels Skip­per.  I think that helps keep focus and also pro­mote a pos­i­tive feel­ing about dat­ing (because, let’s face it… it can down­right suck at times), in addi­tion to being patient and open.

Related posts:

1. This is the Sound of Settling.