First Date: The Engineer

A couple of weeks ago I decided to try match.com. As you may recall in my previous post, I was talking to a nerdy, outdoorsy guy with a dog. (I’m still working on an alias for him but for now we will call him the Engineer.) After talking with the Engineer for about two weeks, we arranged to meet for dinner at a pub he suggested. While it is hard to really know what a guy will be like in person, I was optimistic going into the date based on our emails and the phone conversation the night before.

I was a little nervous at the beginning of the date but the conversation flowed smoothly and I quickly forgot to be nervous and just enjoyed the evening. I’ve been on quite a few first dates in the last year (and no second dates) and the contrast between the dates gives me a better perspective on what constitutes as a good or bad first date. In this case, I’d definitely say that it was a good date. We were at the pub for almost 3 hours and with the exception of the brief lull after an old drunk man feel backward off of his bar stool and hit his head on a table nearby (what is the proper reaction to that?), there were virtually no awkward pauses and our conversation was informal rather than a bunch of dead end questions.

At the end of the date I told the Engineer that I wasn’t sure how to get home from where we were. He called later to make sure that I’d made it OK and said he had a good time. He has emailed me twice since the date and in the last email he said “I am terrible at first dates....are we going to go out again if I ask you (eventually...)?” I’m guessing this means he wants to see me again but is a little insecure? (I will say that "eventually" seems a little too infinite for my tastes.)

A couple of things I like about the Engineer: (1) he shares my appreciation for The Office, The Daily Show, and The Colbert Report; (2) he is an Obama fan and thinks Sarah Palin is an idiot (while acknowledging that this has nothing to do with gender); (3) he loves animals; (4) he says what he thinks but admits when he is wrong; (5) I don’t feel any of my normal post date anxiety.

I’m going to keep talking to the other guys I’m communicating with on match but I probably won't meet any of them until I see how this pans out. (I admit that I’m not good at focusing on more than one guy at a time.)