There was nothing wrong

My last OKCupid date is hard to explain because it was a perfectly nice date. It was like a date on a TV sitcom where the two main characters part ways, and you see the glean in their eye, promising a full season of young love. I honestly can’t remember who sent the first message or what it was about, but Victoria and I messaged for about three months, long in depth messages about any number of mundane topics, before we set a date to have a date. The foundation was strong – same line of work, similar political lean, big on feminism, and she had lived in my home state for a few years so we shared a knowledge base of something other than our careers.  I look for two things in a woman, humor and intelligence. She was definitely intelligent, I wasn’t so sure about her sense of humor.  It’s really hard to read someone over email because you can’t see them react to your shtick.  I thought I was extremely delightful and witty. Who knows what she thought.

We had great email conversations, but she was really spotty in her response rate. She’d send a message, I’d reply a few days later, and then she’d reply two weeks later.  I’m fine with the meandering messages, but every time she’d start her message with a bundle of apologies and excuses about why she hadn’t answered sooner. OK. I didn’t really notice or care.  I recognize people are busy so her apologies didn’t sit quite right with me.  Nothing required an apology!

We finally set a date to hang out, like 6 weeks in advance.  That day came and went – we were in the middle of a heat wave and had planned to go hiking so in the interest of avoiding heat stroke, we rescheduled and planned an air conditioned museum trip instead.  The day of the date bloomed hot and sticky.  I met her outside the museum and we both looked like our profile pictures. No catfish here.  We wandered around the museum making small talk.  She didn’t quite get my jokes, or my sarcasm. I couldn’t quite tell when or if she was joking, or just talking matter-of-factly.  It was fine, but something was off.  We continued the day at the museum and at least that part was interesting.  I don’t think we ever hit a comfort zone; it was all a bit awkward and safe.  After we saw every single piece of art in the museum, she asked if I wanted to walk down the street to a Mexican joint and get lunch and a drink. NOW we are talking!  The walk turned out to be the hike we had previously cancelled.  108 degrees and we are walking like nomads in the desert, nary a tree or watering hole in sight.  I have no idea what we talked about, because all I could think about was air conditioning and a very cold cocktail.  We arrived, were seated, I promptly washed my hands, and now were faced with the inevitable – what to order?  I’ll take the opportunity now to inform the audience that besides the first-time-meeting awkwardness and that she seemingly lacked of a sense of humor, the date was fine. Temperate I’d say. 

Since this was the OKCupid Chronicles, I asked about her experience with online dating.  She had met a woman and they conversed a lot for a while.  She felt the woman was playing games with her and stringing her along.  She complained that the woman wouldn’t return text messages or answer her emails promptly.  She felt the woman was very hot and cold. (please refer to previous paragraph where this chick never answered an email inside of a week).  She was left a bit soured by the whole experience, but here she was, trying it again with me.  She took this opportunity to tell me how pleasant our date was and that she was having a nice time. I agreed. It was pleasant, much like hanging out with your great aunt. Milk and cookies pleasant.  We ate and had a drink and more pleasant conversation before walking back to our cars.  I told her to text when she got home, awkward hug, and it was done.

She did text me when she got home, it was a very nice text, telling me it was the best first date she’d ever had and that she would email me soon.  I don’t remember my response, but knew in my heart that there was no spark, no ignition, nothing to make me reach out and ask for a second date.  I guess we both knew in the following weeks when our email correspondence slowed to nil.  There was nothing wrong, with her or the date or any of it, it just wasn’t exactly right.