Same Guy, Different Vespa

Hello again after a long hiatus! I have been a few dates since my last update. Most memorably: July, Is that a sweaty bike messenger or my date? June, a neuroscientist -- no date; a few emails were enough. And then, last night, a very pleasant surprise: A second date with Mormon on a Vespa nearly six months later.

He's still tall and handsome. His Vespa was stolen but he got a new one. We talked movies and camping and travel and drank Belgian beer. He told me about his food blog and his job at an immigration law firm.

That will have to be all for now, as I'm running out the door to New York for a bachelorette party tonight. Details tk.

Mormon on a Vespa

I'm a bad blogger, I know. I haven't updated. I really overdid it there for a while and am just now beginning to recover. But I'm back on the case, and I had a lovely date yesterday.

He is 6-foot-4, with lovely blue eyes, a Vespa and a smooth deep voice that carries traces of Montana. I've been waiting to meet someone that's a walking Hall & Oates song for a while now, and he comes pretty close. Very suave. The first thing I said to him was "Gosh, you're tall." He replied: "Didn't you read my specs?" I said it always feels different in person.

If I may toot my own horn, I had the brilliant date idea of going to the Chinese New Year Parade. While the parade wasn't very organized or spectacular, it made up for it in ambiance what it lacked in spectacle. We waded through the crowd to watch dancing puppets of each lunar year-- dogs, boars, rats and crocodiles. Turns out he's a tiger and I'm a ram. Go figure.

It was freezing, so we ducked inside a Vietnamese place and had pho, tea and spring rolls and talked. That's when i found out he grew up in Utah. His brother went on a mission to France, he mentioned in passing. It was odd because I had been reading that morning about Mitt Romney doing his Mormon mission in France and was puzzled. Why would the Mormons try to convert the French? Wouldn't they go somewhere where they'd actually have a shot? But blue eyes said they go everywhere.

Turns out he was raised Mormon but stopped going to church at age 16. Now he describes himself as "comfortably agnostic." I laughed because it reminded me of that Pink Floyd song "Comfortably Numb." He told me, at the risk of sounding "new-agey" that his religion was nature. I was sold. We talked about travel and school and food -- he's a foodie to reckon with, makes incredible stuffed grape leaves and is learning French cooking. I could get used to this.

He is very intelligent, currently in law school, said he originally wanted to get into human rights law but didn't know he would find civil litigation so interesting. Interesting? Civil litigation? Oh well. And I told him about my temp gig and my various prospects and interviews and we had a good time, even when our Vietnamese waitress kicked us to the curb prematurely because the place was so busy.

Outside it had started to snow, and the Chinese parade-goers had just lit a "five-story firecracker" suspended from a crane in the middle of the street. It crackled and smoked and dragons of different shapes and sizes danced around it. The snow made the whole scene look even prettier, like home-made confetti falling on the dragons and on people's hair and eyelashes.

After a little while he had to get going before the snow got too bad, since he had the Vespa and all. He said to get in touch if I wanted to hang out again. We hugged and I descended into the metro on the escalator, watching him, but he didn't look back. I e-mailed him this morning. I don't like playing games and having rules about when it's o.k. to make contact. That, and I really would like to see him again.

Married Daters

Check out the Washington Post article about online dating. Turns out many of the men trolling the internet for ladies are married. Shocker!

Fatigue

I'm having date fatigue. I cancelled last night's date with the Colombian. I don't know for sure that he's Colombian, but my South American friend has a strong hunch.

I called him a few hours before we were supposed to meet for coffee and said something had come up. He was nice about it. "It sounds like you have a lot going on right now," he said.

I went out instead with old friends, which was nice.

But there's no rest for the weary. I have a drink this afternoon at 5 p.m. He's cute, but he's also five foot seven.

A.M. e-mail

I had two emails this morning, one from the Vegan, and the other from a guy I've yet to meet who likens himself to a cross between Adrian Brody and Bill Murray. I don't know which way to run.

But Vegan was especially cute, writing after our first date last night that he had a nice time and wanted to hang out again sometime. He made a "full disclosure" that he had some other dates next week. I wrote him back and thanked him for his candor and said I would love to hang out again and that we should keep in touch. I didn't mention that by week's end I will have had five dates. More on this later, when I can explain my "strategy".

There's actually something nice about a guy emailing to let you know he's dating other people. Especially at this stage, it shows honesty and maturity, I think. And since I'm trying to minimize the drama in my life, that sat pretty well with me.

The Vegan

The Vegan sounded nervous on the phone tonight.

But, given that it was the first time we'd spoken after multiple emails exchanged, it was only natural. I was calling tell him which exit to take at the metro, but I was really just nervous, waiting in the cold for a stranger.

Funny, but I didn't know he was a vegan. I knew he had a beard, tattoos, that he was 34 and did environmental policy. But the veganism came as a surprise. I guess the permanent renouncement of cheese will always come as a surprise to me.

He's tall and thin, scruffy in the sort of way that I like. We walked to the coffee shop and it seemed to take forever, like I was leading him further and further into the abyss. First dates are usually game to meet wherever I propose, as if they're grateful not to have to decide on an event or location. It's convenient for me not to travel, but I always feel the burden of playing neighborhood hostess.

When we arrived, the coffee shop was completely cleared of all furniture for a private event. Thwarted again! We walked to a bar nearby, grabbed a table and ordered beers.

We talked for two hours about all kinds of things and I felt relaxed and happy. A few times, I questioned myself-- is the age difference too great? Does he think I'm too young? But in the end, it didn't seem like a big deal.

He likes to play pool, and his friend who is more up to date on indie music than he is, takes him to concerts. He told me that the guy from Death Cab for Cutie is the same guy as in the Postal Service. I was shocked and then blushed at not having known. But we listened to Stars on his mp3 player and had a "moment" of sorts trying to figure out how the damn thing worked.

Late in the date, as the waiter was getting the check, he asked if I liked spicy food and seemed shocked and dismayed when I shook my head no. Hoping to recover from this, I said we should get going. We went outside and were immediately solicited for money by someone on the street. This is always an interesting experiment on a date. I get the feeling that some guys sweat this a lot. If they don't give a guy on the street a few bucks, then they fear they'll look cheap, heartless or both.

He looked at me as I was about to say sorry, we can't help you and concurred and we walked on. At the metro, we hugged and said we'd talk soon. Everyone always says that, including me. This time, I hoped it was true.

Mr. Bluegrass

Tuesday evening, Mr. Bluegrass greeted me with a kiss on the cheek.

We met at a coffee shop near my house and talked for an hour without resorting to the usual 20 questions games that strangers play. He's from Kentucky and he told me about the mountains there and his father's dog, Lance, who was hit by a car on a winding road. His parents are Baptists. They eat pinto beans and cornbread, he said. He does health policy research and wonders whether he should buy the condo he's living in near Eastern Market. He started talking about religion as a form of social control and it wasn't a place either of us wanted to be, so we changed the subject.

He talked about having friends in Hawaii that were triathletes. The kind of people that swim at dusk, sharks be damned. They left jobs as lawyers and businessmen to wait tables and work at coffee shops so that they could be athletes. Iron men.

He's lived here seven years and rather likes it. He reads Howard Zinn and goes to the Birchmere in Virginia. He is pleasant and polite and calming.

All of the sudden they are closing the coffee shop and it's barely 9 p.m. We've only been here an hour. It seems abrupt to leave now, and we trudge to a bar nearby. They're closing. It's cold out and last call was 15 minutes ago. There's another bar open a few blocks up, they tell us. We stand outside, he's visibly pining for his car, parked back at the coffee shop. He's not wearing a hat, scarf or gloves and it's late January. Your call, I tell him. He says we should call it a night and I walk him back to the car, where we talk a few minutes more, hug, and say goodbye.

Leather Jacket

It was Saturday night and he wanted to play it by ear.

First, he had asked me to a concert, Blue Oyster Cult. Then, he backpedaled, nervously emailing that maybe we'd be the only people there under 40. I didn't care what we did. He looked hot from his photo and I wanted to go out. So we played it by ear. Which meant meeting for drinks at a bar of my choosing.

Five minutes after meeting, sitting at a booth at the bar, a man selling roses approached and leather jacket asked me if I wanted one. "No!" I found myself shouting. "No thanks, that's really not necessary," I said. But part of we was wondering why he was asking in the first place. Either do it or don't do it, but surely, don't ask me. I went on to say how I didn't understand why people bought those roses. He agreed, saying I probably wouldn't have wanted to carry it around all night, missing the point entirely.

We talked about our educations and our families and our ambitions and politics. He said John Edwards was going to be the next president. I wasn't so sure. He was very smart, and sweet and not at all creepy. But nothing about the evening made my heart beat fast even once.

I couldn't get over that he seemed dorky, asking me which beers to order, ordering them, and not liking them. The whole flower-buying debacle. It all seemed to be encapsulated in the leather jacket he was wearing, which was fine in and of itself, but looked like it didn't quite fit him.

He mentioned, more than once, that his apartment was very nearby. He would have suggested that we go there, he said, but it was incredibly small. Hmmm, I thought. He said he didn't even have room for a couch, so we would have to sit on his bed and it might be intense. I agreed that, at this point, it would indeed be, intense.

We went to a bookshop and had hot cider and he asked me, again, what I wanted to do. I said something that I immediately regretted: "Maybe we should quit while we're ahead." He had spoken at the same time. "What did you say," I asked. "Nothing," he replied.

"You said you were hungry," he said. I told him I could go for a slice of pizza. We got empanadas instead and ate them outside. They were delicious, and he made me laugh, reciting an old SNL skit-- something about Dana Carvey and Gerald Ford.

Then he walked me to the metro, gave me an awkward hug and we haven't spoken since.