In the midst of the O saga, when I was trying desperately to retain some distance and not put all the eggs in the world in one O shaped basket, I decided to go out on a first date with another Bumble match. Surely it could only be a good thing?
You know those first dates when you talk about children, anal sex and sex clubs? Yeah, me neither... until I met Ukrainian Race Car Driver.
At what point in matching with someone on a dating app do you give up your right to say no? At what point when you’re chatting with someone over text do you give up your right to say no? At what point after you’ve met up with someone in real life do you give up your right to say no?
We’ve talked about it before - someone being great on paper but then it not working out in real life. But what about being great on paper AND being great in text and then there being zero spark in person? How is that possible? Do people have ghost (text) writers?!
You know when you make plans and they seem like a good idea at the time, but then when the time comes you realise you’re tired and you’d rather stay in? But you go and figure you’ll just cut the night short but then the guy you’re out with attempts to bargain with you to make you stay out and chooses to lecture you on how much you’ll regret it if you go home?
Nobody wants to be a downer on a first date and generally topics such as bad breakups or ongoing medical conditions might be left until a possible second or third date. But when does trying to keep things light and fun actually become hiding, or lying about, your current state?
When it comes to dating someone new, I’m sure most of us have been guilty of rushing a little bit ahead of ourselves at one time, at least I know I have. Hell, that’s my go to when I meet someone new! But when is it flattering and when is it too much?
After the excitement of Arms, I guess I knew the next dates would be... interesting. Physically they had a lot to hold up to. Sexually, if it got that far, they were going to have to be out of this world. And on a common connection level they’d need to be pretty spot on. Unfortunately, if not unsurprisingly, none of those marks were hit.
Over the subsequent weeks with Asian Weightlifting Firefighter we went on all sorts of dates - park dates, movie dates, symphony orchestra dates, dinner dates, watching the Olympics dates (he imparted his knowledge of Olympic weightlifting while I filled him in on Rugby 7’s), film festival dates, furniture shopping dates… wait, woah, what? Furniture shopping?
Vancouver isn’t a big place. So I guess it was just a matter of time before one of my other single girlfriends’ and my dating paths crossed. Did I think it would be with a guy whose messages and drunk calling to my girlfriend we’d ridiculed? Unlikely.
How do you know when you’re unfairly not giving someone a chance based on your own personal biases and when you’re actually making a good decision based on what you just inherently know you will/won’t like?
I never felt unsafe but there was something that made me incredibly uncomfortable almost from the get go when we arrived at his place. But what happened next also provided two of the weirdest/wtf anecdotes I have from dating. So, you know, every cloud...