A BLIND DATE

FROM OCTOBER 2006
Yesterday I went on a blind lunch date. It was pretty pleasant overall, but for all the nervousness and excitement (my friends, not mine) that just seems to come naturally as one gears up for these kinds of things, it really was just ok.

A month or so ago, I wrote a blog entry about one of my journal/scrapbook pages that I had made/written on what I had learned about being a single person. One of the things I mentioned in that entry was that I find that married or attached people tend to be uncomfortable with the idea of others around them being single and therefore want to "fix" it. In this case, I don't think that any of my co-worker friends who set me up wanted to fix me, they were trying to fix him. He is recently divorced (his ex-wife is in my journal group and was actually the one who came up with the idea to set us up - a bit weird if you ask me), he's a bit in shock, and he's totally new to the dating world - at least in this whole new world of dating as it is today. I actually felt a bit sorry for him. Even though he really didn't go into much detail about his divorce, from what I had heard and just from reading his body language, he gave me the impression of a "whipped dog". Tired, overwhelmed (he actually did use that word to describe his life right now), and lost. With this in mind and just overall "karma or kismit", there wasn't an initial attraction or spark. However, I do see quite a bit of potential for a friend -- and I really do love having guy friends. They offer such a different perspective and they break up the monotony that I find with all the women I am surrounded by at work and in my friendships.

There are plans for a second meeting that was arranged way before yesterday's lunch date. The same friends who set us up are having a party on the 28th. This was actually supposed to be our intial meeting, but we both felt that we wanted to meet alone first - to avoid the fish bowl effect of being watched by everyone. I'm sure this will still happen, but at least we have already talked a bit.

Anyway, I think I'll just add this to all my other dating and blind date experiences. It's always good to be out of your comfort zone every now and then. AND it's definitely good to meet and have new people in your life.