I had rescheduled this date twice. Initially because I had double booked myself, and the second time I had too much stuff to do in preparation for going home to Criggapalooza. Sherlock had taken all this in a stride and was super flexible about me changing our plans at the last minute. Which was most appreciated!
Just so you know, I call him Sherlock because he attempted to guess my profession. When he was waaaaay off I told him not to change his name to Sherlock. Also, my profession is stated on Match.com, so he clearly isn't as observant as Dr. Holmes. But he does ride a bike to work so he must have some redeeming qualities, right?
The restaurant he suggested for dinner was literally two blocks from my house, and one I had been meaning to go to for some time now. He gets one point for choosing a place so convenient to me, not that he knew what he was doing. He didn't know I lived so close. When I arrived, Sherlock was waiting for me outside the restaurant and greeted me with a smile and a hug. Again with the hugging? What's wrong with a good ol' handshake? Maybe people think "This could be the person I'm going to marry. We should hug!"
He smelled like smoke. Yuck. Minus two points.
His profile says nothing about his being a smoker.
There are lots of things I can come to grips with. If he is a dog person I can adapt. If he is a Baptist, I'll overlook the flaw and insist we go to the Methodist Church. If he prefers rum to bourbon, we can stock both. If he likes to sleep in, perfect that means he won't be interfering with my gym time.
But a smoker?
That just won't work.
Not in this universe. Or a parallel one where everyone finds yellow teeth and a hacking cough sexy.
I have never been one to follow a fad.
So we settle in at our table and peruse the drink menu. Being that I am still in a Kentucky state of mind I settle on Liquid Swords, which is made with sweet tea, lemon and pomegranate. All things that remind me of home. Sherlock orders a Sapporo, and brings himself up to even earning another point because I spent alot of time drinking Sapporo in Japan. However, he quickly loses it by not knowing Sapporo is a city in Japan.
Back in the negative and the appetizer hasn't even arrived.
As we settle into our drinks and appetizer he tells me about his "baby", or his dog. Which on one hand is cute and on the other hand is kinda girly. He did say my old cat Krinkles sounded like a good cat so he has managed to recouped his lost Sapporo point.
He's not wrong about Krinkles.
She. Was. Awesome.
Even.
As the evening continued he asked me about my job and then rolled his eyes as I started explaining it. He followed up the eye roll with, "I leave the lights on for my dog."
"You know dogs see four times better in the dark than humans, right? And they see best in low light." I say thinking, "Boy this is going well. He wastes energy for stupid reasons. If you left your lights on to fool burglars that's one thing... And eye rolling makes me want to punch people. And if you don't want to know about my job, don't ask!"
By now the point rankings are getting sad. The deficit just keeps growing.
He then starts to tell me about his job, which is marketing a high end health care center. And he loves his job, which is really refreshing since so many people don't seem to like what they do everyday. But he starts this conversation off by telling me that he and his friends from work got in trouble for having extravagant lunches.
Yes. Extravagant lunches. This is what people get in trouble for in Newport.
"We have a half hour meeting at 11:30 to decide what we want to order for lunch. And then we send the, I don't want to say peons, but the lower ranking guys, to go pick it up. Now they are getting mad that they aren't included."
Oh. My. Gawd. You have a meeting about what to eat for lunch? And then you order steak? Do you know it took 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat? Peons? Did you really just use that word...? And you leave people out. Now that's just not nice.
Watching the Master's does sound nice though.
It was all I could do to keep from banging my head on the table.
Eventually the talk turned to the south, Criggapalooza, which he said made him want to go to Kentucky, rightly so, and families. I told him about my small nuclear family and my massive extended family. When I dropped that my grandmother has 108 first cousins he responded with,
"So I guess it is true what they say about the South."
"Easy, buddy. Easy. We don't know each other well enough for that." I say thinking I have several redneck, Nascar loving, moonshine drinking, gun toting relatives that will be at your door if you keep up that crap...
And then I dropped the "I didn't have TV growing up."
"How did you relate to people?"
"Well, my friends didn't spend a lot of time talking about TV. We spent time playing outside. And it wasn't like I was forbidden to watch TV."
"There was a girl in my school didn't have TV. She was really weird though. And couldn't relate to people."
"That probably didn't have a lot to do with TV," I say. When has TV ever helped people relate to one another. Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil don't count.
The date ended without incident and we did, by and large, have a nice time. He isn't mean, conceited, or overly interested in telling me about himself. In fact he seemed really interested in me, my life, and who I am.
But I am fairly certain we don't see the world the same way.
Also, he looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman and that freaks me out.
Blame it on Doubt.
Just so you know, I call him Sherlock because he attempted to guess my profession. When he was waaaaay off I told him not to change his name to Sherlock. Also, my profession is stated on Match.com, so he clearly isn't as observant as Dr. Holmes. But he does ride a bike to work so he must have some redeeming qualities, right?
The restaurant he suggested for dinner was literally two blocks from my house, and one I had been meaning to go to for some time now. He gets one point for choosing a place so convenient to me, not that he knew what he was doing. He didn't know I lived so close. When I arrived, Sherlock was waiting for me outside the restaurant and greeted me with a smile and a hug. Again with the hugging? What's wrong with a good ol' handshake? Maybe people think "This could be the person I'm going to marry. We should hug!"
He smelled like smoke. Yuck. Minus two points.
His profile says nothing about his being a smoker.
There are lots of things I can come to grips with. If he is a dog person I can adapt. If he is a Baptist, I'll overlook the flaw and insist we go to the Methodist Church. If he prefers rum to bourbon, we can stock both. If he likes to sleep in, perfect that means he won't be interfering with my gym time.
But a smoker?
That just won't work.
Not in this universe. Or a parallel one where everyone finds yellow teeth and a hacking cough sexy.
I have never been one to follow a fad.
So we settle in at our table and peruse the drink menu. Being that I am still in a Kentucky state of mind I settle on Liquid Swords, which is made with sweet tea, lemon and pomegranate. All things that remind me of home. Sherlock orders a Sapporo, and brings himself up to even earning another point because I spent alot of time drinking Sapporo in Japan. However, he quickly loses it by not knowing Sapporo is a city in Japan.
Back in the negative and the appetizer hasn't even arrived.
As we settle into our drinks and appetizer he tells me about his "baby", or his dog. Which on one hand is cute and on the other hand is kinda girly. He did say my old cat Krinkles sounded like a good cat so he has managed to recouped his lost Sapporo point.
He's not wrong about Krinkles.
She. Was. Awesome.
Even.
As the evening continued he asked me about my job and then rolled his eyes as I started explaining it. He followed up the eye roll with, "I leave the lights on for my dog."
"You know dogs see four times better in the dark than humans, right? And they see best in low light." I say thinking, "Boy this is going well. He wastes energy for stupid reasons. If you left your lights on to fool burglars that's one thing... And eye rolling makes me want to punch people. And if you don't want to know about my job, don't ask!"
By now the point rankings are getting sad. The deficit just keeps growing.
He then starts to tell me about his job, which is marketing a high end health care center. And he loves his job, which is really refreshing since so many people don't seem to like what they do everyday. But he starts this conversation off by telling me that he and his friends from work got in trouble for having extravagant lunches.
Yes. Extravagant lunches. This is what people get in trouble for in Newport.
"We have a half hour meeting at 11:30 to decide what we want to order for lunch. And then we send the, I don't want to say peons, but the lower ranking guys, to go pick it up. Now they are getting mad that they aren't included."
Oh. My. Gawd. You have a meeting about what to eat for lunch? And then you order steak? Do you know it took 2,500 gallons of water to produce one pound of meat? Peons? Did you really just use that word...? And you leave people out. Now that's just not nice.
Watching the Master's does sound nice though.
It was all I could do to keep from banging my head on the table.
Eventually the talk turned to the south, Criggapalooza, which he said made him want to go to Kentucky, rightly so, and families. I told him about my small nuclear family and my massive extended family. When I dropped that my grandmother has 108 first cousins he responded with,
"So I guess it is true what they say about the South."
"Easy, buddy. Easy. We don't know each other well enough for that." I say thinking I have several redneck, Nascar loving, moonshine drinking, gun toting relatives that will be at your door if you keep up that crap...
And then I dropped the "I didn't have TV growing up."
"How did you relate to people?"
"Well, my friends didn't spend a lot of time talking about TV. We spent time playing outside. And it wasn't like I was forbidden to watch TV."
"There was a girl in my school didn't have TV. She was really weird though. And couldn't relate to people."
"That probably didn't have a lot to do with TV," I say. When has TV ever helped people relate to one another. Jerry Springer and Dr. Phil don't count.
The date ended without incident and we did, by and large, have a nice time. He isn't mean, conceited, or overly interested in telling me about himself. In fact he seemed really interested in me, my life, and who I am.
But I am fairly certain we don't see the world the same way.
Also, he looks like Philip Seymour Hoffman and that freaks me out.
Blame it on Doubt.
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