I know what my opinion was before last night, but maybe think I now should allow for exceptions? Last night, I went on a date with a guy... before I tell you what the question is for your opinion, I'll tell the story, so you can see it from my perspective.
Tuesday night, I arrived at a conference and decided to log on to a dating site and see if anyone new was there. I've decided that in my cynicism, I am super super picky about anyone online. If the guy doesn't match all my "list" [list is fluid and forever changing] then I nix or "close" the match. One of my superficial requirements is height (6'2" is my ideal).
So, Tuesday night, I log onto a site that is not LDS oriented and found that I had "3 New" matches to review. I reviewed and nixed two and kept one - meaning I told it to go to the next step. It went to the next step and 20 minutes later, I saw that this guy had answered. So step 2. He did Step 2. Step 3. and I went to bed - it was after midnight. The next morning, he had answered step 3.
Now normally, I follow the whole rules thing (keep the guy waiting and don't answer right away because that shows you're desperate) - but there were a couple of exceptions for this guy - he was only about 30 minutes from where the conference is this week. So I was kind of thinking - 'why not' - even though, I do need to point out that he is 5'11" on his profile... but oh well.... 'why not'
So he emails and I let him know that I'm not so far away and he emails me - this time we're on real emails.
Now another abnormal step for me - especially for online dating, is to give my REAL personal email address. But here's my rationale for this guy. I had his full name and looked him up on facebook. It turned up that he has 2 of my most conservative friends linked as his friends on facebook. I couldn't see his profile, but just knowing that he knew them, made me think it'd be okay to give him my real email address.
So, we ended up emailing and then gmail chatting almost the whole day yesterday. I was working a booth and there is a lot of down-time....
At the end of the day, we had a reception for the conference attendees. I was hanging out with my friends from the conference, when he IMs and asks if I want to meet him that night. he said, 'it's now or 3245679 months from now... i didn't want to say never because that's too final'.
So, BECAUSE he knows my two friends on facebook, I took the jump and said sure. I told him he had to come to me, since I was without a car on this trip.
He came. He was a little late but I knew that was a possibility.
He showed up at my hotel and we went to dinner at a Mexican restaurant. He had seen it while he drove in and it was within walking distance of my hotel.
The restaurant turned out to be almost all MOLE - I'm not the biggest fan. Luckily, they had different flavors of mole and I chose one that was less ummm, different? and it was good food. The chicken was a grilled chicken and you can't go wrong with that.
There was live music in the outside part of the restaurant, we sat right near that area. We talked for about 2 hours and then he walked me back to my hotel and I went to bed.
So, our conversation ranged all over the place. We talked about everything - because while we did technically meet online, we hadn't really talked and the profiles on this one site are very limited. So this was really a blind blind date - minus the fact that we knew we were both LDS and where we live, what we look like and our heights.
He's really interesting and is addicted to a board game (it'll stay un-named on here). So I learned a little bit behind the strategy of the game. He actually goes to contests all over the place. He was even in Portland for a tournament a few weeks ago. What is interesting is, he has family in Portland and would spend his summers there. I learned that he's the Young Men's president. To me, that equals = active LDS. WOW! That's a change. Someone who is involved in his calling.
So, in the course of the conversation, I asked a little bit more about his divorce. His profile lists "recently divorced" - so i asked how long ago recent was. He stated "the divorce will be final in 2 weeks"...... "so you're actually out with a married man, how do you feel about that"
well, my quick wit (non-existent) alluded me and so eventually I just said, "well... we're in a public place" - because in reality, my job has me going out to dinner with married men all the time. This just happened to be a date (yep, I'm justifying it).
So what do you think?
Here are my thoughts: A few years ago, I knew a girl who married a guy that she had met when he was still technically married. In fact, they say nothing happened but they were dating and engaged within about 1 week of the divorce being final. So, how do you become engaged, while someone is married, if you're not dating? I didn't like it and still don't really like that she married this guy. At the same time, she's happy and I am happy for her.
In the case of this guy, B, if I hadn't met him last night, then it would probably be months (he'll be in Portland over labor day) and by then we could have invested a lot of time with someone we've never met in person and wow can in-person make all the difference! So, I justify it. I also was completely in public with him and it was only dinner.
In retrospect, maybe I shouldn't have let him pay for dinner, but I also don't want to set a precedent that the guy doesn't have to be a gentleman and pay.
So.... I liked him.
Will we meet again? I think there's a possibility.
When I got to my hotel, I decided to IM him and thank him for dinner and just tell him how great it was to meet him. He answered back,
"It was quite fun. Actually, I wasn't expecting much because of the short notice, but I actually had quite a bit of fun with you!
Till next time...
B"so who knows. I do know that the next time I meet him, he will legitimately be divorced.
Thoughts?
UPDATE - he just IM'd "I should rephrase not expecting much"
