Unexpected coffee date
Last night I was up pretty late, so I decided to look at jobs on Craigslist. While I was there, I also looked at the personal ads. I don't really like to answer CL ads, because... well just because. For some reason I haven't been successful there.
There were two that caught my eye. One was a guy with an ad titled 'hey chocolate girl'. Basically a white guy who was into interracial dating. So I sent a response and my pic, and he responded. We have a few things in common, namely we both like literature and history. The second ad was a guy who came across very self-assured... borderline arrogant. But I kinda like that (hmm, what does that say about me??) From his pics he was pretty hot - tall, fit, into outdoorsy stuff. He basically said in his ad "I have a great job, great friends, but no girlfriend". I took one look and started to click the X... said to myself "this guy wouldn't be interested in me". I mean, why would he? I'm an unemployed girl whose kinda on the chubby side, who hasn't been in the dating game for a good while. But he had a line in there that said "if you don't think I'm interested in you, then I'm not". And my inner arrogance came out, and I replied.
Guy #2 replied in like 10 minutes, and we started chatting on IM. And we had a great conversation - about law (turns out he's an attorney, go figure in this town), lit, writing, travel... lots of stuff. We decided to meet for breakfast on Friday morning, since his work hours are pretty flexible.
So at 9:30 this morning he texted me, like "good morning!" I thought it was cute but was wary... I was in some good sleep at that point. But impressed that he wasn't going through the "i don't wanna look too pressed so I'm not gonna contact her yet" thing. Turns out, he couldn't do breakfast on Friday, and suggested coffee today. I was a millimeter away from saying no, since it was last minute. Something about having to arrange things around his schedule didn't sit well with me... but I said why not?
The problem with that is -- since I've been outta the game, I don't have 'date' clothes. You know, things that are cute and flirty, but don't seem like I'm trying too hard or not hard enough. But then I thought that he'd probably be in a suit, and going to work after, so I wore slacks, a wrap top and some heels. Did my makeup and hair. And suddenly, the almost-chubby unemployed girl became the charming woman whose down in here somewhere.
We met at this coffeehouse in downtown Silver Spring (which I had no idea was there, and which I'll probably be visiting alot now). I was late (no surprise there), and he was already there. Instead of being dressed corporate, he was kinda laid back. In a linen shirt, jeans and loafers. I said "And here I thought you'd be dressed corporate" and he's like "my firm's not like that at all". Turns out, he's partner in a small IP firm. He's a couple years older so that's not surprising. What was though, was he had such an air of self-awareness. Like "I know exactly who I am, what I like, what I do and what I'm looking for". Its not all about his job, or how smart he is, etc. Conversation was effortless, and I intentionally gave flirting body language cues, like flipping my hair (humidity is the debol!), crossing my legs in his direction, etc. The big plus is that his birthday is 5 days before mine. He's from South Africa, so he has the accent thing going on too.
And I suddenly realized why I'm such at ease around men like him - he's the same 'type' that my granddad is... kinda old-school, well-dressed, laid back, not the alpha male type. The downside is my granddad was very much a womanizer. As I get older, I see that I gravitate toward that type of guy. I never really bought into the "you like a man that's like your father" kinda thing, but the more I see it in myself, the more I see that it can be true. So we'll see on that. I caught him saying stuff like "I'll have to take you to *insert name of restaurant I hadn't been to*" or "we'll have to do something for our birthdays since they're so close". Part of me is still kinda wary, cos I'm used to men being much more hesitant to show that they wanna get to know me. On the other hand, part of me is like "of course he'd be intrigued!"
So we mutually agreed that we'd go out again. Now I have to find a date outfit for real, and think of someplace interesting to go.
There were two that caught my eye. One was a guy with an ad titled 'hey chocolate girl'. Basically a white guy who was into interracial dating. So I sent a response and my pic, and he responded. We have a few things in common, namely we both like literature and history. The second ad was a guy who came across very self-assured... borderline arrogant. But I kinda like that (hmm, what does that say about me??) From his pics he was pretty hot - tall, fit, into outdoorsy stuff. He basically said in his ad "I have a great job, great friends, but no girlfriend". I took one look and started to click the X... said to myself "this guy wouldn't be interested in me". I mean, why would he? I'm an unemployed girl whose kinda on the chubby side, who hasn't been in the dating game for a good while. But he had a line in there that said "if you don't think I'm interested in you, then I'm not". And my inner arrogance came out, and I replied.
Guy #2 replied in like 10 minutes, and we started chatting on IM. And we had a great conversation - about law (turns out he's an attorney, go figure in this town), lit, writing, travel... lots of stuff. We decided to meet for breakfast on Friday morning, since his work hours are pretty flexible.
So at 9:30 this morning he texted me, like "good morning!" I thought it was cute but was wary... I was in some good sleep at that point. But impressed that he wasn't going through the "i don't wanna look too pressed so I'm not gonna contact her yet" thing. Turns out, he couldn't do breakfast on Friday, and suggested coffee today. I was a millimeter away from saying no, since it was last minute. Something about having to arrange things around his schedule didn't sit well with me... but I said why not?
The problem with that is -- since I've been outta the game, I don't have 'date' clothes. You know, things that are cute and flirty, but don't seem like I'm trying too hard or not hard enough. But then I thought that he'd probably be in a suit, and going to work after, so I wore slacks, a wrap top and some heels. Did my makeup and hair. And suddenly, the almost-chubby unemployed girl became the charming woman whose down in here somewhere.
We met at this coffeehouse in downtown Silver Spring (which I had no idea was there, and which I'll probably be visiting alot now). I was late (no surprise there), and he was already there. Instead of being dressed corporate, he was kinda laid back. In a linen shirt, jeans and loafers. I said "And here I thought you'd be dressed corporate" and he's like "my firm's not like that at all". Turns out, he's partner in a small IP firm. He's a couple years older so that's not surprising. What was though, was he had such an air of self-awareness. Like "I know exactly who I am, what I like, what I do and what I'm looking for". Its not all about his job, or how smart he is, etc. Conversation was effortless, and I intentionally gave flirting body language cues, like flipping my hair (humidity is the debol!), crossing my legs in his direction, etc. The big plus is that his birthday is 5 days before mine. He's from South Africa, so he has the accent thing going on too.
And I suddenly realized why I'm such at ease around men like him - he's the same 'type' that my granddad is... kinda old-school, well-dressed, laid back, not the alpha male type. The downside is my granddad was very much a womanizer. As I get older, I see that I gravitate toward that type of guy. I never really bought into the "you like a man that's like your father" kinda thing, but the more I see it in myself, the more I see that it can be true. So we'll see on that. I caught him saying stuff like "I'll have to take you to *insert name of restaurant I hadn't been to*" or "we'll have to do something for our birthdays since they're so close". Part of me is still kinda wary, cos I'm used to men being much more hesitant to show that they wanna get to know me. On the other hand, part of me is like "of course he'd be intrigued!"
So we mutually agreed that we'd go out again. Now I have to find a date outfit for real, and think of someplace interesting to go.