Date #1

Early Saturday afternoon I'm at Harvey's house and watching our alma mater lose at our first conference game of the season. Needless to say, it was a frustrating game. I heard my phone chime with a text message from inside my purse in the kitchen. I was sprawled across Harvey's plush black leather chair with my legs dangling over the side. I leaned my head back until I got an upside-down view of the living room. I bit my lip. Everyone on the world who would possible send me a text message on a Saturday afternoon was in this living room. My phone chimes again.

I climb out of the chair and step over my sleeping dog. I don't recognize the number of the text messages. It's the Biologist, the guy I was supposed to meet up with last Monday. He wants to meet up that night. I already had plans that night. I told him so. He tried to get me to cancel mine. I refused. He tried to tag along with me. I declined. Instead I decided to skip going to my mother's house and drove back into the city to meet him after the game. Thank God I just happened to get up early Saturday morning and washed and styled the hair, applied some makeup and just happened to put a dress on, otherwise I'd been majorly screwed time wise. And let me assure you, that is not my normal Saturday morning routine.

Driving to a sports bar near my apartment building, I was feeling a moderate amount of anxiety. I wasn't looking forward to this date. I had absolutely no time to prepare for it. He came across as pushy over text. And something weird happened with Government Mule at the football game that I am not even close to being ready to talk about. So I called Mel, my oldest friend in the world, and chatted and made dinner plans next weekend to distract me from the impending date.

Then he texted me and told me he might be a few minutes late. I told myself that he was being kind and considerate and forced myself out of the dark clouds I'd been dazed in.

The Biologist stood up from the table to meet me. He smiled and gave me a warm hug before I could even introduce myself. Okay! I can do this! I thought. The Biologist wasn't as stocky as I gathered he was from his photo. He's actually much cuter in person. He wore a baby blue Joseph A. Banks polo with a brown leather Swiss Army watch and he smelled of cologne. His nervous energy was contagious. He immediately pulled his straw out of his bourbon and Coke and began twisting and knotting it.

He immediately began drilling me. Had I ever been on-line dating before? How long had I been on PoF? Do my friends know I'm on it? Had I met anyone on it before? I reciprocated his questions and found out I was the first person he has ever met from on-line.

I grabbed my Sweetwater Blue and took a sip. "Ah! I got your cherry!" I laughed.

He chuckled and relaxed.

He told me I looked familiar. I said I get that all the time and must just have a friendly face. He asked what movie stars do people tell me I look like. I said I got Zooey Deschanel a few weeks ago and loved it. He said I looked like Mandy Moore and that I should take it as an even greater compliment.

He pointed to the couple being seated a few booths down. "That's my biggest pet peeve."

I swallowed hard. "Interracial couples?"

"No!" he laughed, embarrassed. "People who sit on the same side of the booth. I'll do it when I'm drunk, other than that, I want to look at the person." He smiled.

He grilled me, controlling the conversation. What am I looking for. What happened in my last relationship. Whether I was close with my family. He showed me pictures of his dog and his boat. Said he couldn't be with someone who didn't love my alma mater's football team.

His eye's flicked above me to the TV playing behind me. It was a tennis match. "You like tennis?" he asked.

"No. I'll watch all the college football you need me to, but not tennis."

He looked above me again. "The U.S. Open is on right now."

I turned around and looked at the TV. "Yeah, my friend set up three TVs in her living room so we could watch all the sports that are playing today. But I didn't pay attention to the tennis TV."

Pause. Pause. Pause. He's watching the tennis game.

"Sorry. In tennis there are five sets and they each won two. They are playing the final one right now."

"Wasn't there a tennis match a couple of weeks ago that lasted 12 hours or something?" I asked.

"Yeah." Pause. Pause. Pause. More TV watching.

The conversation ground to a complete halt. I tapped my fingers on my pint glass. I read everything on the table.

"You know, if you're bored, I can leave," I finally said.

"No! Sorry! I'm just hanging out. It's just the last of the tennis game."

Complete silence. I decided if he wasn't going to talk to me, I was going to get good and drunk. I ordered another pint. About a half hour after that, The Biologist wakes up from his tennis coma and asks for the bill.

We walk out to our cars. "Okay, so I'll give you a text later," he said. "Or you can text me."

I was confused. I just spent the better part of the last hour counting things. "I felt like you didn't have a good time," I said as I looked down and shuffled my feet.

"God, no. That wasn't it. I feel like an asshole if I gave you that vibe. I was very rude. I'm sorry."

Then he turned and got into his truck.

And for the second time this summer, I'm left with Jesus Christ, what the hell was that?

As I drove away from our date, I smelled like The Biologist and I hated it. I hated how I felt, sitting there in silence.

Around midnight The Biologist texts me and asks if I enjoyed the rest of my evening. I said that I accidentally fell asleep and decided to stay in. He asks if I want company. I said no thank you.